Today Ethiopia is classified as having over 70% severe desertification, according to the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP). While there are several reasons, one major one is thanks (or no thanks) to eucalyptus brought over from Australia. But, the folks over at the Entoto National Park project, want to see that eucalyptus is replaced with indigenous plants in an effort to restore the soil and save water, as reported in Selamta.
The Entoto National Park project is not actually a national park, so tourists coming to see the hyena and lammergeyers are often disappointed as no such park exists. But the area is a 1300 hectare spot north of the capital Addis Ababa, which was decimated thanks to poor planning almost 150 years ago. The Emperor at the time, Menelik, ordered construction of the “new” city which meant the need for a lot of fuel and fast. The solution: import eucalyptus from Australia. 120 years later: Houston, we have a problem.
What’s Wrong with Eucalyptus?
Koalas love it and we’re losing tons of it through the drought in Australia. So why would the Entoto National Park project want to out and out destroy it? Eucalyptus needs water, and a lot of it. For a plant that is taking over to also be so demanding, kind of makes it hard to justify the cost of keeping it around, particularly in developing countries where the soil could be put to better use.
Which brings us to our next problem: erosion. The eucalyptus plants are thriving but also destroying the soil, which doesn’t help in an area that already suffers from “high gradients, heavy rainfall and…clay [soil].” Thus, restoring the landscape to more native species will also reduce flooding and soil loss.
How to Replace Eucalyptus
First, workers on the project have been planting trees native to Ethiopia, such as “Juniperus excelsa, Acacia abyssinica, Olea europaea cuspidata and Hagenia abyssinica. To stop the erosion, project workers are creating terraces and check dams along the hillsides. Neighbors to the park who allow their animals to roam free (and eat the new saplings) will be fined, thus the park has hired guards to monitor and protect the park.
The eucalyptus plants themselves can be “debarked” to prevent regrowth, but this takes a large amount of time and money. The eucalyptus stalks can also be sold for use as telephone poles and fence posts. The restoration plan is estimated to cost one Birr one million per year for the next five years.
In the short time since the program began, there have already been nice results. Areas that are already undergoing reforestation are thriving and animals like dik diks and jackals are starting to return to the area, along with birds. Workers at the Entoto National Park just hope that the good work keeps up and that they can afford to keep going.
Mots clés : Getatchew Mekuria, The Ex, Musique, Pays-Bas (Hollande) (pays), Éthiopie (pays)Difficile d’imaginer une rencontre aussi singulière. The Ex, un groupe hollandais de free punk accompagnera ce soir et mercredi soir, à la Sala Rossa, le saxophoniste Getatchew Mekuria, une des icônes de l’éthio-jazz, cette formidable musique révélée depuis plus d’une décennie par la série discographique culte Éthiopiques.
Speaking fluent Hebrew with an English translator by her side, Hadar Sahalo recalled her journey from Ethiopia to Israel 25 years ago. For Ethiopian Jews, making this pilgrimage is taught at an early age and returning to the homeland is a dream waiting to be fulfilled.
At age 15, Hadar and several others, including her brother and cousin, secretly organized a group to depart for Israel. After trusting a guide to take them through the Sudan desert in the direction of Israel, the guide disappeared, stealing some of their money and leaving the group lost.
Fearing robbers who were known to attack wanderers, they sewed what money they had left into their clothes. When robbers attacked, Hadar managed to escape, leaving her cousin behind. Hadar thanked God for allowing her to make it through, but felt guilty thinking of the dreadful fate of her cousin.
Hadar eventually made it to safety; however, she had lost the group, including her brother. Arriving in Israel, she resided at an absorption center, run by the Jewish Agency for Israel (JAFI), an overseas partner of the Jewish Federation. Two years later, she reunited with her brother in Israel.
Five years after Hadar successfully was absorbed, she was asked by JAFI to serve as an ambassador to new Ethiopian Jews making aliyah. On her first day, Hadar received a list of people intending to make aliyah. On that list was her cousin’s name with the name of a son.
“My heart sank at that moment. I never thought in my mind I would absorb her. It took time to rebuild my soul again and recover from the shock,” said Hadar.
Hadar learned that her cousin also had a daughter who was left behind in Ethiopia. She informed the Jewish Agency. Israeli intelligence got involved. A year later, the girl was reunited with her family.
“It was a complete circle and gave me power to continue,” said Hadar.
Hadar is still employed by JAFI and is now a “house mother” for 350 families at the Mevasseret Zion Absorption Center outside of Jerusalem. It is the largest absorption center in the country, housing over 1,200 Ethiopian Jews. Here, adults learn Hebrew, attend enrichment workshops on topics such as hygiene, employment, childcare and Israeli society. The children attend school and become involved in after-school programs.
Ethiopian Jews come from a country where people live in huts made of sticks and straw. Hadar helps to furnish their new apartments, teaches them how to clean, how to use a washing machine, how to read a bill and leads them into the transition to their new lives.
Funds raised by the Jewish Federation of Southern New Jersey Annual Campaign play an important role in bringing Jews from throughout the world to Israel and helping them become part of the Israeli mainstream. You can help ensure that the life-enriching programs and services provided by the Jewish Agency continue to help Jews worldwide by making a contribution to the 2009 Jewish Federation Annual Campaign. Donate online at www.jewishsouthjersey.org or call 751-9500, ext. 214. .
LAS VEGAS (ReviewJournal.com) — Queen of Sheba Ethiopian Restaurant teaches you what your mother wouldn’t: How to eat with your fingers. Its place-settings feature no silverware — unless you ask.
“If you are unfamiliar with the cuisine, we’ll show you how to eat it,” says Semeneh Meshesha, who purchased the restaurant with a partner from its previous owners in May. (It opened last November in the corner of a Food 4 Less strip mall at 4001 S. Decatur Blvd.)
“For Ethiopian food, using your hand is the best way,” he says.
Queen of Sheba’s traditional dishes — meant to be shared — are evenly split between vegetarian and meat. They’re mostly butter-sauteed and spicy, and all served on 16-inch round injera, a pizzalike bread made from an ancient grain called teff.
“You will have never tasted this before, because it’s special,” promises Meshesha, who hails from the Ethiopian city of Addis Ababa. “We do it in our own traditional way, which makes the food very tasty.”
According to Meshesha, 95 percent of his American customers either have eaten Ethiopian food before or acclimate immediately. Some of them, however, “will ask for a fork.”
The restaurant — decorated, surprisingly, in a modern American style — seats 125. Hours are from 11 a.m. to 4 a.m. daily. On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights, Ethiopian music is performed live. On Fridays, it’s reggae; on Saturdays, Caribbean. Reservations are recommended but not required.
A non-Jewish Ethiopian woman, who was brought to Israel by force as a child and raped by her captor for more than a year, is being denied any formal residency status even though she has lived here for more than 16 years, The Jerusalem Post has learned.
Aregash Gudina Terfassa, whose lawyers have petitioned the Tel Aviv District Court to accept her claim, first applied for permanent residency status in 2006, when the Interior Ministry announced it would recognize children of foreign workers either born here or who had spent the vast majority of their lives here.
Even though Terfassa fit most of the criteria – she had arrived before the age of 14, grew up here and speaks fluent Hebrew – her application was denied because she had never attended an Israeli school.
She has been living here without any formal status ever since.
“It’s like being in jail,” the 28-year-old told the Post Wednesday. “I was working as a cleaner two days a week but after being arrested twice [by immigration police] and spending a month in jail, I’m too afraid to go out to work or even leave my house.”
“I would have loved to have had the opportunity to go to school,” continued Terfassa, who, ironically, spent much of her teenage years cleaning an Israeli school, but never actually learning in one. “But I had no parents to help me with that and I did not have the chance.”
Attorney Michael Decker from the Jerusalem-based Yehuda Raveh & Co. Law Offices, which is representing Terfassa, said the Interior Ministry’s decision not to grant her permanent residency was unfair.
He pointed out to the Post that under the country’s laws of compulsory education it is the responsibility of parents and/or the authorities to ensure that every child attends school. In the case of Terfassa, however, because she had no parents or official legal guardian, that criteria should not apply.
“She was cleaning schools while other kids got to study there, but never had the chance to study herself,” said Decker, adding that a court hearing was supposed to take place on Sunday but that the Interior Ministry has asked for an additional extension to further analyze the situation.
The presiding judge has not yet ruled whether next week’s hearing will be delayed.
“It’s a unique case,” commented a ministry spokeswoman. “The courts will now have to decide what should be done in this matter.”
Asked about the Interior Ministry’s approach to her case, Terfassa replied sadly: “All my life has been filled with hardships; it’s all I know. I have no parents, no family, except for my [non-Jewish] husband now. I have been here for 16 years and still have achieved nothing.”
Terfassa, who hails from rural Ethiopia, said that her parents died when she was a young child and that she was sent to live in a church. In 1993, the church’s priest was posted to the Ethiopian Orthodox Church in Jerusalem and Terfassa accompanied him, entering the country initially on a tourist visa.
“He was like a father to me,” said Terfassa of the man who first brought her here and later beat and raped her. “I was only a child then, I did not speak Hebrew and the officials in the church told me not to report it to the police.”
Terfassa recalled, however, that the priest was later deported by the Israeli authorities.
At the age of 14, Terfassa, who was left barren by her ordeal, managed to escape the church and found refuge with another Ethiopian Christian family in Jerusalem and worked for them caring for the family’s young children. She was later hired by a manpower agency and sent to work as a cleaner, which she has done ever since.
“I know that she would love to have a formal status so that she could at least improve her work situation,” said Becker. “She has expressed to me that she would love to work in a store, folding clothes. She is just devastated that next week’s hearing might be postponed.”
BAKERSFIELD, CA — Sometimes it doesn’t take much to change someone’s life.
Drussilla Rofkahr lives in Taft but says her heart is in Ethiopia, because the women there live a hard life.
“No hope. Destitute,” is how Rofkahr describes the lives of many Ethiopian women. “(The women are) afraid, because they can be raped, and their children can be taken away and sold into slavery.”
According to Rofkahr, many women will resort to prostitution and giving away their children in order to have enough money to get by.
Because of that hardship, Rofkahr and the group she works with, Joshua Campaign International, go to Ethiopia with one simple goal: “Helping women get off the streets.”
But the group does more than just give the women and children a better place to sleep.
For one to two years, the women are taught how to sew, how to cook, and they also run a café. It may not seem like much but Rofkahr says that by doing these jobs the women, “Learn how to serve and run a business. We teach them a trade where they can do it themselves.”
She adds that by helping these women become self-sufficient, “That gives them security, they feel good about themselves.”
These seemly simple tasks become the beginning of a whole new life for these women.
Rofkahr is getting ready to head back to Ethiopia to help even more women, but she says she needs help, and is hoping the public will donate.
Rofkahr says a little bit can go a long way.
“$20 to $30 a month would bring (the women and children) off the streets and give them a place to live and food in their stomachs, and that would be a great thing.”
If you would like to donate you can send it to:
Joshua Campaign International
c/o “Ethiopian Women’s Project”
PO BOX 8700
Fresno, CA 93747
Mots clés : Getatchew Mekuria, The Ex, Musique, Pays-Bas (Hollande) (pays), Éthiopie (pays)Difficile d’imaginer une rencontre aussi singulière. The Ex, un groupe hollandais de free punk accompagnera ce soir et mercredi soir, à la Sala Rossa, le saxophoniste Getatchew Mekuria, une des icônes de l’éthio-jazz, cette formidable musique révélée depuis plus d’une décennie par la série discographique culte Éthiopiques.