I have been dithering
for a couple of weeks, trying to figure out how to write about monitoring and
evaluation in a not-too-boring way,
in order to lay a foundation for our much-more-interesting first trip “down
country”, to the FH/E project site at Cheha. But honestly, it’s not like I
could have connected all of these dots for myself at the time so maybe it’s a better
idea for me just to write about the trip and let the M&E thing explain
itself in the process.
So: we found out, to our
delight, that we were going to visit the Cheha project along with our coworker,
Joy, and a consultant, Walter, who came from Kenya to help train FH/E staff on
monitoring and evaluation, specifically how to create and conduct a baseline
survey. I remember only a few details about Walter – he had a strong Kenyan
accent and a verbal tic where he would add the phrase “isn’t it?” to the end of
almost every statement. And like my memories of Walter, twenty years later,
most of my memories of this trip are vague impressions.
The first order of
business was to learn the correct expat jargon to describe the trip. In those
days there were only six main roads in Ethiopia: two went north of Addis Abeba,
two went south, and one each went east and west. So if you were traveling north
– to the highlands – you were going “up country” and if you were going south
you were going “down country.” (I never went far enough in the other directions
to find out what that was called, except maybe “crazy”). We were heading three hours
south on the Jimma Road which was still only about halfway to the town of Jimma.
Our destination, Cheha, doesn’t appear on maps but it was in Gurage country,
past the village of Welkite (Well-kee-tay), just across the Omo River.
Our guide for the trip
was Salfiso Kitabo, the Cheha Project Manager. Salfiso was a good-natured and
likeable man, probably in his early thirties at the time we knew him. He was
also a very good driver so we were able to gape and marvel at the experience
without any fears for our own safety – and, by the way, we were well set up in
one of the big fancy Toyota Land Cruisers, traveling in style, a step up from
Salfiso’s usual ride.
We had observed, in our
city driving, that size matters where motor vehicles are concerned – that is to
say, larger vehicles always have more respect and the right of way over smaller
vehicles, no matter what the traffic laws might indicate. Out on the highway,
the same rule applied – except that big fancy Toyota was one of the smaller vehicles out there. The highway
was populated with overloaded buses, lopsided long-haul trucks, and beaten-up
pickups that had seen better days. The road itself was a two-lane swath of
crumbling tarmac with unreliable edges and enormous potholes. No matter which
direction they were heading, most vehicles tried to stay in the center of the
road where the surface was more consistent, moving only at the last possible
moment to accommodate oncoming traffic. Even more terrifying was the prospect
of passing a slow-moving bus or truck since you couldn’t always tell how much
room you had on the other side. I never once drove on the highway so I don’t
know for sure, but J tells me that we probably averaged 35-40 miles per hour on
the road on trips like this.
I have been looking fruitlessly
through our photographs – and I know for a fact that I don’t have all of our
pictures from this trip – for an image of one of those city-to-city passengers
buses, which were the means most people used to travel outside of Addis.
They’re hard to explain but I have to try. Imagine a well-used flat front
school bus, covered with dirt and rust and mismatched paint. There’s a roof
rack piled high with bundles and blue plastic jerry cans, ringed with a fringe
of live chickens that are tied to the rack by their feet, hanging upside down
over the shoulders of the roof. When approached from the rear, you can see not
only the back end of the vehicle but the entirety of one side as well, because
the alignment is so off-kilter that the bus is driving diagonally down the road. When it hits a bump the entire assemblage
– passengers, freight, and chickens – shifts alarmingly, like a Weeble that
hasn’t quite made up its mind.
There was a lot to look
at during our first trip out on the highway. In addition to all of the other vehicles,
there were herds of tough African cattle alongside – and often across – the
road. Groups of donkeys trundled under loads of hay, wood, or charcoal to be
sold in the nearby market town. We had to slow down through the ramshackle
villages, watching out for children and loose dogs and garis – haphazard,
two-wheeled, donkey-drawn conveyances that served as taxis in towns with few
automobiles, and inevitably drove down the main road at donkey speed. Our route
took us through several small towns – Tefki and Tulu Bolo and Waliso – and you
knew how tiny Cheha was going to be, even smaller than any of these places that
were at least large enough to make it onto the map.