By David Carroll | WRCB

TENNESSEE – Desta Bume’s 11th grade classmates at Signal Mountain High School listen when he speaks. Occasionally he helps teach them Pre Calculus. The 17-year-old Ethiopian exchange student is attending the school thanks to host parents Jock and Megan Dunbar, who found Desta through the Cherokee Gives Back student exchange program.

Desta says, “Day to day, I help students in class, if there’s something they don’t understand, I try to help them.”

Desta’s help is much appreciated by junior classmates. He has earned their respect with his knowledge, his kindess and his work ethic. In addition to excelling in the classroom, he has emerged as the star of the school’s cross-country team. He says the classroom facilities are similar in Ethiopia, but while his largest class at Signal Mountain is 28 students, his smallest in his home country is about 150…in the same size classroom. His high school in Ethiopia has about seven thousand students.

Wouter Dewet, a fellow junior says, “You can’t help but be inspired, because he has so little, and has managed to do so much.”

What Desta has done is rise to the top of his class in Ethiopia, at a school with 7,000 students, far removed from the luxurious surroundings of Signal Mountain. He had to work hard to support his family, walking several miles each day with no shoes until he was 14.

Classmate Tim Hatch said, When i heard his story, I felt like a complete jerk. I take everything for granted, and the things he went through, i can’t even imagine.”

His host family says Desta is enjoying the U.S. but it’s their lives that are enriched. They smile when remembering his first visit to a pizza restaurant (his favorite food), a drive-through car wash, the beach, Atlanta, Nashville and the top of the Empire State Building in New York. Megan Dunbar says the family didn’t expect to learn so much from an Ethiopian exchange student.

She says, “When you get into the program, you think about how much we can give this Third World student. But it’s the exact opposite. It’s how much we have learned from him.

Desta is completing his junior year at Signal Mountain, and must return to Ethiopia for his senior year. What happens after that?

Classmate Aaron Pierce says, “Well actually, I’d like to see him to go a really good college and become a surgeon.”

Desta may do just that, hoping to earn a scholarship in the US, and then returning to Ethiopia, where medical care is almost non-existent. But during his remaining days in the US, there’s still some work to do.

Desta says, “I want them to learn something from me here. I made something from nothing, and here you have everything.”

For more information on the student exchange program, go to www.cherokeegivesback.org

Here is Desta’s life story in his own words. To hear him tell it in person, go to Signal Mountain Middle High School Theater on Monday April 6 at 7:00 pm. Donations will be accepted for the Water for Wotera project, to dig a well in Desta’s home village.

My name is Desta Bume. I am 17 years old. I was born in 1991 in a small village called Wotera that is located in southern Ethiopia. I have 2 sisters and one brother. I am the oldest. I came to the United States as an exchange student and I am attending classes at Signal Mountain High School. I want to thank you for giving me this opportunity to tell my story.

First, I would like to tell you a little bit about my country, Ethiopia

Ethiopia is one of the oldest countries with 2,100 years of history. It has 77 different ethnic groups, each having their own language, culture and way of life. Amharic is the official language of Ethiopia that connects us all. The Amharic language has its own alphabet and number system. Amharic letters and numbers are not the same as the letters and numbers you use here.

Most Ethiopians live in rural areas and are totally dependent on agriculture for their livelihood, but the farming there is not advanced. There are no man-made irrigation systems; farmers depend totally on rainwater for their crops. Many farmers farm just to save their family from starvation. Families have 5-8 children on average to support the work required by their farms. Many do not have enough food to eat, clean water to drink, or clean water for hygiene, access to education, health care or adequate clothes to wear. In Ethiopia, nearly 80% of the total population lives below the poverty line. This is equivalent to $2 dollars per a day or $730 a year. Included in this 80% are the 3-4 million people who have nothing to eat at all. There are many people who live on the street begging for food. Correspondingly, the death rate is very high. Each year, thousands of children die due to poor sanitation, lack of a balanced diet, exposure to polluted food and lack of clean drinking water. Additionally, HIV/AIDS is killing tens of thousands of people each year and leaving many orphans.

Now let me put a face on the place I have just described to you. I was born on a farm and lived there until I was 14. My dad is a subsistence farmer and my mom helps my dad with the farm and takes care of my siblings. We have three small areas that we farm in order to support the family. To have enough grass for our cattle, we move from one farm to another four to five times a year. The distance between the farms is between 2 – 6 miles. The Town of Wotera is nearby. I grew up in round shaped house which made of rattan and juniper plant. It is nearly 32ft in diameter and has about 803 square feet. My family with 5 cows and 4 sheep live in this house. It is divided in half, 1/2 for the animals and the other 112 for ourselves. We bring our cows and sheep into the house at night because we fear the hyenas who roam in packs will eat them if we leave them outside. My village does not have electricity or running water. To get water, we use buckets and go down to a valley which is 0.6 miles away. Because there is no running water to bathe ourselves, we also use this same creek. Most people in the rural areas take a bath once every two weeks. But still there are some people who may take a bath once or twice a year. To brush our teeth, we use small sticks made which we get from tree branches. In rural area, many Ethiopians do not have restrooms. They go outside on the farm to use the restroom. The result of this practice is that when it rains, the rain water takes the waste directly into the streams we depend on for water and for bathing.

I started my education in 1997 in first grade with 130 kids in the one class room. When I started school, my dad didn’t want me to go school because of the work that needed to be done on the farm. This caused tension between my father and me as I continued to go to school. Once, when I was in 3rd grade, my father was so upset with me because I was still going to school, he took an axe and cut my books into pieces. I never stopped going to school because my mom always encouraged me to complete my education. Along with my mom, I was also getting advice from my teachers, which helped me to stay motivated and not drop out the school.

When I was 12, my father’s health started to fail due to an eye disease. At this point, while I was in 6th grade, I started helping out with the family farm and going to school at the same time. The burden of my family situation began to put its weight on me. Also at this time, I began to sell sugarcane in the local market to earn money to buy clothes and school supplies. The way I started to sell sugarcane is pretty amazing. Would any of you consider doing this? As a young entrepreneur, I gathered up some wood around my farm and sold it to a neighbor for 2 1/2 cents. Along with my first sale and another 2 1/2 cents from my mom, I bought one piece of sugar cane for 5 cents that I sold to a neighbor. From that sale, my profit was 2 cents. My goal was to buy one bundle of sugarcane which included 11-12 sticks. This amount I could sell for 50 cents. Slowly over time, I earned my first 50 cents and I started to buy the full bundles of sugarcane which I used to buy school books, clothes, pens, kerosene, and soap for myself all during my 6th and 7th grade years. Oh, by the way, to get the sugar cane, I had to walk 3 and a half miles twice a week. I was also walking to school 5-6 miles each way depending upon which of our three farms I was staying in at the time. At the time, I had only one pair of pants, one sweater and NO shoes. I was walking to do all of these things on my bare feet. I didn’t end up getting my first pair of my shoes until 7th grade.

Let’s talk about when it rains. I didn’t have an umbrella. Like other rural Ethiopian students, I had to use the leaf of the Inset plant to cover myself on my way to and from school. The Inset plant looks like a banana plant and it is a major crop that southern Ethiopians use to feed their families. Even though times were tough, I never gave up because my teachers always supported me.

In my home village of Wotera, the school only goes up to the 8th grade. This presented a problem because to continue my education, I had to go to the nearest high school. This High school is in the town Hawassa. Even though the high school is just 26 miles away from Wotera, it takes 2 hours to get there by car because the road is gravel and washed out. Knowing I was going to this high school in one year, I had to start preparing for my future. Because my parents didn’t have money to send me there, I needed to start earning money in order to rent an apartment, to buy school books and supplies and food. However, my family needed me in Wotera to help work on the farm. They could not help me with my school expenses. I then was moved up from selling sugarcane to selling kerosene in local market while also working on the farm and attending school. To get the kerosene, I needed to go a town called Guguma, 7 miles away from Wotera. The only time in my schedule that allowed me to do this was a 2 hour window during lunch. I had to go 7 miles to Guguma, purchase a 12 liter container of kerosene that weighed 25 pounds, and return the 7 miles while carrying the kerosene on my shoulder, all of this before classes resumed. I did this twice a week. While juggling school, the family farm and selling kerosene in the market, I still managed to pass the 8th grade National exam with a 99.6%.

Even with making it all the way through the eighth grade and doing very well on the national exam my father still did not want me to further my education. He needed me to stay home and help my family on the farm. Remember, this is what is expected of most Ethiopians. For example, when I started school my first grade year there were 130 children in my class. By the time I took the national exam after 8th grade there were only 4 kids from my village who took it with me. I had a tough decision to make. Being only 14 years old I truly wanted to go on to high school but I also wanted the blessings of my father to do this. So I went to some older people in my village to tell them my wishes. It was these people that spoke with him to convince him that he should let me leave Wotera for Hawassa for my high school education.

The high school that I attend is dominated by the students who come from the rural areas. 7000 students attend my school. When I went to Hawassa, there was no student housing so I had to rent an apartment with three other students. The four of us shared one small room which was 12ft by 14ft with one mattress that was had on the floor. The mattress was 7 feet long by 6 feet wide, we all shared this mattress every night. The apartment had one 40 watt light in the ceiling. The four of us lived in this apartment and took care of ourselves without the help of adults. We cooked our own food and had our own rules. In order to pass we had to work hard and there was little time to sleep. We imposed rules on ourselves so that we would do well in school. For example, if anyone slept more than __ hours, we would make that person pay the equivalent of $1 ( a lot of money).

I used the money that I had earned from selling kerosene to pay the rent as well as to buy my food. Soon I didn’t have enough money to buy all my basic needs such as clothes, school materials, and other personal items. During this time I also had to learn to speak the Ethiopian national language known as Amharic because my first language is Sidamgma. During my 9th grade year I had to share text books from the school with about 7 students. We would pass the book from person to person. I would have the book one night, and then pass it on to the next person. With all of these distractions and hardships I worked very hard my first year and got first place out of 2000 students in the 9th grade. All of this without any snow days do get some extra work done! After passing on my grades to my parents they were finally excited for me and encouraged me to focus on my education, but still they didn’t have enough money to help me. After passing 10th grade I started earning money by tutoring some kids in my apartment. I used the money from tutoring to support me with some of my basic needs.

After my 10th grade year it was time for the second of three national exams. Me and one other student from Wotera out of the original 130 that started first grade with me took the national exam. In Ethiopia, we take three national exams one after our 8th grade year, one after 10th, and finally one after our 12th grade year. The eighth grade exam is not that difficult and many students pass that exam. It is the exam after our l0th Grade year that is a big obstacle for many of the Ethiopian students. Most of the time, only 50% percent of the students pass the l0th grade national exam to move on to 11th and 12th grade. Most of them are just not smart enough to pass this exam. It is at this point many of them loose their hope and return back to their families just to become another burden for them. These high percentages of drop outs really concerned me and some friends of mine and we started talking about what we could do to help. We decided to help these kids who are in trouble by tutoring them. We asked the director of the school if we could use the classrooms, chalk, and duster after hours to tutor some kids that needed” help. Eventually, the school director said yes and me and my friend began to teach 420 students in two classrooms at night. Besides teaching them we wanted to fire them up to study harder and focus more on their education. There were almost 210 in each classroom. Many students had to stand up or sit on the floor. The hard work paid off because nearly 400 of the 420 we had been tutoring passed the national exam. That was a great satisfaction for me and my friend.

Last year, before I came to the United States, we asked another eight of the smartest students at the high school and two from a local college in Hawassa to come together to form a nonprofit organization. ‘Affini Development Initiative Forum’ or (ADIF) to help students who are in need by offering tutorial classes to further them in their education; to initiate and encourage people to overcome poverty and to make people more aware of HIV/AIDS. We received a license from the state government to become a legal entity. We now started tutoring over 1000 high school students in the city Monday through Friday 6:00PM-8:00 PM and another 1000 students on Saturday and Sunday. Last summer, we encouraged many university students to help other students from 7th through 10th grade at different locations both in the towns and the rural community.

Last year people from a program called Cherokee Gives Back Education came to our school to bring some Ethiopian students to the United States for a cultural and an educational exchange. After a long process of testing and interviewing, me and one other student from Hawassa were selected to make the trip abroad. It was a fascinating and unexpected chance to come to the USA.

Your country is a miracle, a country of freedom and opportunity, a country full of hope, a place where happiness and success surrounds people; it is the most unique country in the world. After arriving here in September, my eyes have been opened to see all of your countries gorgeous things. My way of thinking is changing each and every second that I am here. I am familiarizing my self with technology. I am learning how to use a computer. Now I know the meaning of “GOOGLE”! I have become quite handy with the dish-washer, I need one of these things back in Hawassa. And there is nothing like Game Day on a 46″ plasma! All of these things you are around every day were foreign to me. Before I came here, technology was just something I had read about, now I am living it. Since September I have had a chance to see a few places in the US: Disney World, Washington D.C, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Knoxville, Nashville, Memphis, Atlanta and of course my favorite. New York. There was nothing like standing on top of the Empire State building, especially when the tallest building in Hawassa is 10 stories. These places totally have changed my way of thinking. Day to day I am learning countless new things as my mind is ready to accept and interpret them for tomorrow’s change in Ethiopia. I am sharing my culture, thought, and way of life with blessed and open minded people of the United States. I am so overjoyed to be with you because my blind eye is opening to see these incredible things here in the US. Because of this experience, Cherokee wants to bring more students to the US to live and learn your culture, and then to return to Ethiopia and start the implementation of change.