There is electricity and a shower. Our dollar a night rooms there are more like cells, with a bed, a chair and a dangling lightbulb. When Scott threw his pillow across the room at a cockroach the size of a rock, ten more scurried out of the pillowcase. Life in Ethiopia and the quest for water in Ethiopia, are one and the same. It is not a seasonal quest but daily.
Women walk ten hours a day to bring home their family's water needs.
Not just on market days, or rainy days, but every day, day after day, week after week, for months, years, decades. At one stop I talk with the village elder, who has been elected Chief of Water. He receives no compensation, but his proud friends are quick to add that he is honored in other villages with free food and a place to sleep when he visits. I ask the secret to his electoral success. Share Our Strength supports.