Water is Life

That water is the key to get out of poverty and famine couldn’t better be shown than by the journey I made through the breathtaking scenery of hills and mountains, plateaus and gorges of Ethiopia. During the rainy season the water would wash the soil down the mountains and leave the bare rocks, if people weren’t struggling with erosion and soil conservation. Stone by stone are they terracing the hills to keep water and soil, building check-dams in the valleys to recover fertile land and plant trees, bushes, cactuses, crops, vegetables and food for goats and cattle. Irrigation systems, constructed by the village people in years of work, help provide arid areas with water.

The better supply of water is most important for the women. It decreases their work load enormously, because it’s traditionally women’s work to get water from the water points. It makes a big difference whether you walk 6 to 10 kilometres to get water or you can go to the water point half a kilometre from your village… Clean water reduces the infant mortality, hygiene awareness improves health generally.

When water can save your livelihood, you can hope for a (better) future. Education is essential. Schools have to be in walking distance to the villages (what means up to 2 hours one way!), so that girls and boys regularly can go to their classes. The pupils are hopeful and have dreams of becoming pilots, doctors or artists.

I met many dedicated people, determined to improve the development of their country. They have already reached great success by comparison with the previous state, but there is still so much to do and there are so many “ifs” like impacts of politic and religious peace or effects of change in climate. These people are aware how delicate the balance of the system is and they try carefully to achieve their aims step by step.