On The Ground

RAE Celebration in Traverse City

February 24th, 2011

Several hundred people crowded the Dome Conference Room in the Park Place Hotel on Thursday to witness the final event of the Run Across Ethiopia project. On The Ground organizers created a varied program with an emphasis on informal conversations between supporters and the RAE Team members present.

Seth Bernard & May Erlewine played a couple short sets highlighted by songs penned from thier experiences while in Ethiopia. These songs and others will be showing up on a new CD that will be available to the public in the fall of 2011.

Other guest speakers for the night included OTG founder Chris Treter, MLUI E.D. Hans Voss, Food for Thought CEO Timothy Young, and journalist Anne Stanton.

The event capped off a year’s worth of planning, fundraising, and execution for the Run Across Ethiopia project which is being hailed as a great success. The funds raised by the RAE team topped $208,000 and will allow the organization to build the three schools in some of the most impoverished areas of Ethiopia.

http://www.onthegroundglobal.org http://ow.ly/i/8ETJ

POST BY CHRIS TRETER – VIA Higher Grounds Blog

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Reflecting back on an effort that had the support of 9 other runners, a board of directors and volunteers at On the Ground, a dozen drivers, translators, organizers in Ethiopia and over 800 individuals, corporations, foundations, organizations, schools, and churches which all worked together to reach all of our fundraising and running goals, I can’t help but be astonished! In addition to funding the construction of three schools, funds were used to support a school lunch program in one of the most impoverished areas of the capital city, Addis Ababa. Street children will also get informal education thanks to the funding of the Gorumsa Project – which is supporting runners from Team Tesfa to educate homeless children in the capital city of Addis Ababa.  Just as important, On the Ground has made long term relationships to continue work in various communities throughout Ethiopia. 

Reflecting back on the run, it is hard to verbalize my favorite memories. Thanks to the runners, media team (many videos brought to you by Jacob Wheeler and his immersion journalism and James and Jamaica Weston Lynn from Weston Films) and Bill Paladino (OTG ED), many of them are documented in blogs andvideo! Here are some of those memories with direct links to the experience.

Celebrating Ethiopian Christmas with a concert by Seth and May at Mother Theresa’s Home for the Dying and Destitute was the first of many moving moments of the expedition. We wanted to ensure that before the run started that runners, support crew, and media team would be cognizant of the level of poverty and its effects on the population. Like any country, an excellent gauge of the level of poverty and lack of a country’s health care resources is by examining what takes place to the forgotten in the capital city. There is no better place to look to and support then the Missionaries of Charity, Home for the Dying and Destitute, which help those on the street with serious illness.

Before the run, we visited the Tesfa funded kindergarten, the Oromia Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union headquarters and we took the runners up to the Entoto Mountains, by far my favorite place in the world to go for a jog. We took a quick hour jog through the forests and pastures of the famed locale where some of Ethiopia’s best runners, including Derartu Tulu, the first black African woman to win an Olympic gold medal and Haile Gebrselassie, the marathon world record holder train regularly. About midway through the run we spotted about a dozen baboons who we joined, err… chased… through a eucalyptus forest. Later that night, Derartu joined us at our Opening Celebration hosted by Oromia Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union, our partners in purchasing ourEthiopian coffee beans.

When the run was set to begin, it felt nothing short of a dream. After a rather tedious process of getting all runners, support team, drivers, and equipment in place and out to the starting point, we were met by a couple dozen of our Ethiopian counterparts, including Olympic gold medal 5000 meter winner, Million Wolde. Seth Bernard got the dozens of people together in a circle to say an opening prayer then Timothy Young set us on our way to Yrgacheffe.

Each mornings began with a simple breakfast at the break of dawn and a word from one of the runners. After a quick word, we started right at dawn to avoid the packs of heinas that roamed in the night and to try to get done running before the midday sun. Throughout the expedition, young ethiopian children would join us from town to town. Eventually, some of the runners led them in their favorite chants or taught simple school lessons. The end of each days’ run was usually accompanied by dozens of locals bewildered by the spectacle of a bunch of foreigners running through their village. The children would inevidently join the high fives that accompanied the end of a run and the runners did their best to entertain the children as they stretched.

Running, (sometimes up to 30 miles a day) brought to runners what Hans Voss coined, a “pain party,” in their bodies. But, having our families and friends join us for part of the run and the music of Seth and May at the beginning of a days’ run and at food breaks (check 2:45 of the video for a beautiful interaction with the help of the Beatles) helped us forget all the pain. Coming across interesting and amusing moments, such as stopping by the headquarters of the 12 Tribes of Israel (the rastafarian colony) or watching Nigel lip sync on the bus also helped. But key to keeping the runners going was  Coach Dan Zemper,Bizuayehu, and the work of the crew to bring nutrition and medical support to the runners while helping us avoid injury. However, from time to time, some runners had to take a break from the running to prevent serious injury.

After 9 days of running we had entered the coffee growing region of Sidama. The team saw first hand why they had dedicated so much time to training, fundraising and participating in the run when we visited the community of Hase Gola a day later. The coffee growing community greeted us with a huge celebration of song, dance, and speeches to commemorate the run and construction of a secondary school funded by the Run Across Ethiopia. One of my favorite moments of the whole expedition was to watch Bizuayehu dancing with the Hase Gola choir as the crowd quickly joined the dancing and singing.

The final day saw us entering the community of Afursa Waro, a community of a couple thousand and home to the Negele Gorbitu coffee cooperative where we purchase the beans for our Ethiopian Yrgacheffe Light Roast. After our ritual ofopening words and music we headed out for our final 6 miles. With four teachers from the school in Afursa Waro, other roasters from Cooperative Coffees, family, friends, and local villagers, we traversed down a dirt road through villages dotted with coffee trees until we reached the school at Afursa Waro.

As we approached there were thousands awaiting our arrival. They ushered us in around a stage where we finished the run and took in the gravity of the moment. The community of Afursa Waro and the Oromia Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union held a ceremony in which they honored runners with the clothing of the regional elders.Local musicians also performed traditional music for everyone.

Much thanks to all who made this happen. Without the support of the hundreds who made this possible we would never have been able to reach our goals! TheTesfa Foundation and Oromia Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union who helped organize the expedition, all of the volunteers at On the Ground, and the nearly thousand people who donated to the cause (including events at Food for Thought, Pangea’s Pizza, Crema, Little Bo’s, Global Village Collective, and many more organizations!)  showed that international solidarity is not only possible but a viable way to make real social change!

www.onthegroundglobal.org

POST BY JAMES WESTON LYNNE

Saturday January 22nd, 2011  -  On his way home from Africa

We have finished our principle photography!  The drive from back from Yerga Cheffe to Addis was humbling.  Everyone was in a state of jaw-dropping disbelief that the ten runners had slogged all that way just days before.  Seeing the expansive landscape and many village scenes condensed down into one long travel day cemented in me the true grandeur of the expedition and cause.

What an incredible journey!  I am so excited about our dozens of hours of HD video capturing the event’s drama, love, and sincere passion for taking a stand towards helping out our global community in need.  This film will help the cause live on forever.  We are so excited to come home and edit!

…..

James and Jamaica are our filmmakers for the Run Across Ethiopia.  They volunteered for this expedition, leaving behind their lives in Michigan to drag their own equipment half way around the world to record this event. They are seeking funding to help produce the documentary once back home in Traverse City. Click the image below or this link to find out how you can assist them. http://kck.st/eu9TUc

www.runacrossethiopia.org

POST BY NORM PLUMSTEAD

Tuesday January 11, 2011

Today, we ran 30 miles from Koke to Meki. The team enjoyed a breakfast of PB&J sandwiches, fresh pineapple and coffee. Nigel gave the pre-run pep talk and we were running by 7:00 a.m. We entered deeper into the Great Rift Valley and almost immediately were running past lakes and mountains. Now that we’re in the countryside, we’re able to run on the paths alongside the road. We all appreciate the softer surface as it’s easier on the body.

The team ran through two major towns. While they can be congested, they are exciting because almost everyone on the streets takes note of us. Ethiopians love their runners and they give us love and energy as we pass through. Six and a half hours later, we reached our destination. Handshakes and hi-fives abounded. Tomorrow, we run another 30 to 32 miles to Ziway. That’s all for now. Gotta run!

Norm

If you’d like to return to our website click here, www.runacrossethiopia.org

POST BY ANNE STANTON

Monday January 10, 2011

I’m skipping dinner to write this, only because there is so MUCH to write, and I don’t want to wait another day. I remember when Bob Downes would write these incredibly long emails when he was taking his trip around the world, and now I know how he feels. So first off, I had this realization today that I spend so many days of my life writing about the trips and goals (like Ethiopia) and staying home and, yup, feeling jealous and yearning, as in when will it will be my turn? And it IS my turn, and I just feel so grateful and happy to be here. WHAT an experience. I met this woman who volunteers/works for this wonderful group called *TEFSA (builds preschools) in Ethiopia, the wife of a very wealthy pediatric surgeon in Grand Rapids and she talked about “priorities” that you make in life. And, although she probably doesn’t have to make a lot of difficult choices (I’m guessing), she is right. Life is a set of priorities, and I never again want to make travel so low on my list again. It’s just too amazing, too profound not to see the world.

Okay, corrections to my earlier posts. Matt Desmond really didn’t bite his finger. He was just joking that a baboon had bit his finger (they came across baboons in the Entoto Mountain), and I caught the tail end of the joking comment. He just hurt in the normal traditional way of, I don’t know, brushing it against something. Secondly, the folks don’t eat the very same meal of enjarta in Ethiopian every day. In fact, there’s great pasta, veggies, etc. I think I’m gaining weight because I’m eating like a marathon runner, when, um, I’m not. Which is why I’m skipping dinner to write this.

So yesterday, while the runners ran 33K from Addis Ababa to Debra Zeit I went and visited a school with the singers, Seth Bernard and May Erlewine (perhaps the two most perfectly matched couple, singer wise and *marriage wise I’ve ever met). But getting the run started was kind of hilarious.

Click the image above to download a PDF document that you can view and print.

The runners set off and the “media” van was to follow and meet up with them. But we were delayed, in part, because we had to fire the driver at the hotel. The driver, not only with a bad attitude, but maybe even worse, with a really bad sense of direction. Even I noticed that (didn’t we already pass this place, like 15 minutes ago??). So we are driving, driving, and *Tedesse Meskela, one of Chris Treter’s key coffee guys who is a VERY busy guy, but really wants to see the race off, is calling Timothy Young every 2 minutes, I kid you not, to ask where we are. And finally, Timothy, exasperated, says, “Tedesse, we are about 1 kilometer from the point where you originally called!” We FINALLY make it, and I jump into the run, because that’s where the story is, right? And I CAN’T breathe. The altitude is about 8,000 feet. We are running along a major city road, people looking at us with great curiosity. Some of the women, wrapped up in their dresses and scarves, give us this real stony look, and then you flash them a smile and they give you back this warm, tentative smile. Hard as heck to run. No sidewalk, but this bumpy dirt trail and lots of pedestrians to weave around. Plus diesel exhaust and honks (the drivers have this unique honking language.) Timothy sees me sucking air and advises me to stop before I want to puke, because if I get to that point, I’ll be sick the whole day. So I take his advice and jump in the van that’s crawling behind us after running, maybe a mile and a half.

Then we go to a preschool that this nonprofit called *TEFSA founded. We get there maybe 5 hours later than we ‘re supposed to. Finding the place was quite hilarious. Stephanie, who I mentioned before, remembers that it was a right turn on a street. But the street is like a small driveway. God knows how she spotted it. So we get finally to the school, called New Hope Academy, and we find 75 little ones (and their older brothers and sisters show up too). The idea, as Stephanie tried to explain to the kids, is that Seth and May will sing and the kids would color and then paint an abstract, flowing type drawing to reflect how they feel about the music. As you can imagine, the preschoolers didn’t exactly get that and drew what preschoolers love to draw. Flowers, ducks, and a particularly nice drawing of a school with a cross on it. Guess how many drew monsters or super heroes. Zero. Just thought I’d say that.

*EDITOR’S NOTES:

1.The Tesfa Foundation is one of our school partners in Ethiopia.  On The Ground is sponsoring several ongoing programs through Tesfa including Team Tesfa’s Gorumsa Project, The Mercato School Lunch Program, and the Wolega School.

2. Just so the families back home don’t panic Seth Bernard & May Erlewine are indeed engaged, but not as yet married. Whew!

3. Tedesse Meskela is the director of the Oromia Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union (OCFCU). They are another school partner for our schools in the Yirgacheffe region.  Tedesse is an internationally known figure in the fair trade coffee world.  He was featured in the documentary Black Gold.

To return to our website click this link.  www.runacrossethiopia.org

POST BY BILL PALLADINO

Sunday January 9th, 2011

As the runners begin their journey, I wanted to share this story from a little book of Ethiopian folktales.  It was found by my friend Jen who’s a teacher at Traverse City’s Montessori Children’s House, where they’re studying Ethiopia this year.  The book is titled The Rich Man and the Singer as told by Mesfin Habte-Mariam.  The story is called The Wise Father.  It reminds me of our team and the challenges they are about to endure.

Interestingly the library checkout card still inside the front cover has only two records of the book being checked out, Aug 31, 1978 and Feb 05, 1997.

THE WISE FATHER

“Once there was a man who had many sons.  When he was old and death was near, he called his sons together.  He told them each to bring two sticks. They did as he said.

Then he told each one of them to break one of the sticks. Each son took a stick in his hands and snapped it in two.  When they had done this, the father told them to tie their others sticks together in one bundle.  “now,” he said, “break the bundle of sticks.”

The eldest son took the bundle and tried to break it on his knee. He failed.  “All of you try to break it, “ said the father.  They all tried, but they could not break the bundle of sticks.

“Now listen, my children,” said the father. “you have learned a good lesson. Each one of you alone is as weak as a single stick. But if you are together, you are strong. Always remember that when slender threads are wound together, they will have a rope to bind a lion.”

To go back to the Run Across Ethiopia website click this link.  www.runacrossethiopia.org

From Friday January 7th

POST BY ANNE STANTON

FRIDAY – So far, nobody sick. Matt Desmond accidentally bit himself on the finger falling down, Mary Moore got a blister from her new Tevas, and May Erleweine was actually feeling queasy during yesterday’s performance (unbeknownst to anyone). But no one violently ill. Last night we went to an Ethiopian restaurant that is famous for its food and dancers. A very nice place. So the tradition is that you wash up before the meal. The waiter brings you liquid soap, a pitcher of hot water and a bowl, and everybody scrubs up for the meal. Which is the same every time. This weird bread, injera, that has the texture of those round things that you use when you can’t open a lid (kind of stickyish), beige, with lots of holes.

 
It sort of reminds me of coral reef, only, as I said, it’s beige. And in Ehtiopia, this is the meal EVERY TIME. So the enjara is rolled up like a roll of medical tape, and served on a tray of a different variety of foods to eat it with–spinach, green beans, hummus, etc. But it’s the same variety every time. So how happy I was to go to a restaurant today where they served PASTA. Yeah.

Anyway, back to the night, these dancers dance with mostly the top of their bodies (as opopsed to most of the action being in the bootie area), doing very cool isolated moves with their shoulders. I never knew shoulder shaking could be so suggestive. They were AMAZING. But sometimes it got loud and repetitive. We asked for the bill at about 9 o’clock, and I think we finally received it an hour later, during which much beer was consumed. I got to know our cutie-pie translator, in the meantime, who told me he is an astrophysicist. Honest to God!

We drove up to the Entoto Mountain where the 10 runners and maybe six Ethiopians ran together for the first time. I stayed back and hung out with the 10-year-old goat herder and other little kids. The altittude was 10,500 feet, and, okay, I did not think I could do it. But Jacob Wheeler, another reporter, did and kept up. He said he was thankful for a gang of baboons showing up, giving them a rest as they watched them (they ran away, didn’t attack).

Then we went to afair trade coffee processor who supplies Higher Grounds with coffee (there’s fair trade and then there’s “real fair trade.”). Chris Treter gave me the full story on “real fair trade” coffee on the bus ride back to town. Basic gist is the extra premium paid per pound goes both to a coffee co-op and coffee union, which decide how the money gets spent. The coffee union has used the $$ in the last few years to build 50 schools, put in water lines, and build health care clinics. Chris’s big idea for this run came when he saw a school in Asagola, which was basically a very large shack with a dirt floor, 100 kids in a classroom, no chalbkborad, no lights, no bathroom, no cafeteria or food, and no water. Some of the kids have to walk 2 hours to gets to school. (900 kids go the shack, but there are many more who are left out). So $40K of the money raised will build a four-room addition.

Chris said that when you see the reality, you cannot help but want to help.

To go back to the Run Across Ethiopia website click this link.  www.runacrosssethiopia.org