Few residents of Boto, a farming village in the high-

lands of southwestern Ethiopia, have traveled farther

than their feet can carry them. But their coffee circles

the globe.

For more than a thousand years, coffee has grown wild

in this lush corner of Ethiopia, under a thick forest

canopy of acacia and other indigenous trees. Coffee is

Ethiopia’s biggest export and, for Boto, a lifeblood. In

a village where kerosene lanterns still light the night

and children walk dirt paths to fetch water each day,

the annual coffee harvest spells ballast or bounty.

In this inspiring book, the youth of Boto bring us

inside their village, with photographs and stories they

gathered themselves. They have much to say, about the

importance of family, community, education, and faith.

They have much to teach, about resilience and dreams

in the face of breathtaking hardship.

next generation press

In Our VillageBoto, Ethiopia Through the Eyes of Its Youth

Edited by Barbara Cervone

stories and photos from a coffee-growing village

Edited by Barbara Cervone

In Our VillageBoto, Ethiopia Through the Eyes of Its Youth

stories and photos from a coffee-growing village

This book is dedicated

to the youth of Boto,

whose words and images

fill these pages

abduselam abamechaalfia abadirhawi bedru

jemila abajihadmuhidin ahmed

seid kemerseifu teib

zelika abamecha

Preface 1

The boto tree 7

Wild and settled 11

Counting hard assets 15

Family necessities 19

Hastening to prayer 23

Ballast or bounty 27

One with livestock 31

Duromina 35

Wattle and daub 39

Injera and wat 43

Satisfaction, conversation, and blessing 47

Market day 51

Head to toe 55

Child’s work, child’s play 59

Storytelling 63

In sickness and health 67

Education, poverty, and wealth 71

Hope in the unseen 75

Map 78

Fast facts 79

More about Ethiopia 82

Acknowledgments 88

Copyright © 2011 by What Kids Can Do, Inc.

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, in any form,

without written permission from the publisher.

Printed in Hong Kong by Great Wall Printing, Ltd.

Distributed by Next Generation Press

ISBN: 978-0-9815595-6-8

CIP data available.

Design assistance by Sandra Delany.

Next Generation Press, a not-for-profit book publisher, brings forward the

voices and vision of adolescents on their own lives, learning, and work.

With a particular focus on youth without economic privilege, Next Generation

Press raises awareness of young people as a powerful force for social justice.

Next Generation Press, P.O. Box 603252, Providence, Rhode Island 02906 U.S.A.

www.nextgenerationpress.org

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Contents

Before there was a village here – before there was even the idea of a village –

there was a clearing in the forest, and in that clearing stood a single boto

tree. The tree was tall and straight. Its branches lifted the sky and its roots

anchored the soil.

Two brothers, Aba Garo and Aba Labu, squatted one day to rest in the shade

of the boto. It was Meyazya 1926 (April 1933, by the Ethiopian calendar)

and the long rains were weeks away. Still, enough pasture remained for the

brothers’ two black mares to graze, and a nearby river carried cool water

down from the mountains.

A week later, the two brothers returned to the tree. This time, they brought

with them twenty sheep, six oxen, four cows, and eighteen sacks of grain.

The children of Aba Garo and Aba Labu had already carried the message

off in every direction: next Saturday, a market would take place where the

boto stood.

When that day came, farmers arrived early in the morning, their mules

laden with gourds of honey, woven baskets, cotton garbs, and bags of barley,

teff, maize, and coffee. Traders pushed their small carts from the town of

Agaro, bringing cooking pans, lanterns, and other goods to sell. Women

carried baskets of vegetables on their heads and infants on their backs as they

walked to the market. Many wore three layers on the journey, to sell the

extra clothes.

7

The boto tree

98

People spread their wares on the ground below the boto tree and hung their

extra garments on its limbs to announce the start of the market. All morning,

the buyers and sellers haggled with each other.

By noontime, smoke and aromas filled the air. Those who had made a prof-

itable sale celebrated over grilled meat. Women burned incense and roasted

and boiled coffee. Their customers sat on wooden stools, sipping the hot

black liquid from clay cups.

When the sky turned orange above the boto tree, men, women, and children

loaded their belongings onto their mules, their backs, and their heads for the

journey home. Aba Garo and Aba Labu counted their coins and livestock.

They had done well that day.

From then on, every fortnight, the market under the boto drew followers

seeking profit or trade or communion – or all three. A textile weaver and a

hide trader joined Aba Garo and Aba Labu as the leaders of the market.

Families started building houses and planting crops on the land stretching

outward from the tree. In time, an officer visited from the district govern-

ment and agreed to register the growing settlement as a kebele. The officer

entered the new village’s name into the records: “B-o-t-o.”

As you can see from how brightly it shines from space at night, Japan is one of

the most urbanized countries in the world.

1110

Green, fertile, alive. In southwestern Ethiopia, hills and valleys roll into each

other. Wild forests compete with cultivated fields; the red ochre soil turns

hard when arid, sticky when soaked. The land drops to the grasslands of

Sudan in the west and to the deserts of Afar in the east. Lakes carve into the

landscape in the south; in the north, the Simien Mountains rise more than

4,000 meters high. Here in Boto, however, the environment feels intimate.

We grow up learning the names of trees, as if they were members of our

family. Give us a minute and we can list two dozen trees (in Afan Oromo,

our language): reji, cheledema, togo, wallago, ebicha, bekenisa, qobo, kerero, kiltu,

wadesa, hambesa, harbu, botoro, badessa, abayi, sombo, birbisa, ejera, cheka,

qorasuma, ulumayi, walenso, hadami, baya.

We wash our clothes on smooth stones, in the tea-brown streams where

we swim and bathe. We know the names of every stream, too: Gema, Naso,

Yembero, Alaltu, Mesa, Dogaja, Dumo, Chami.

With over 150 types of butterflies, our task of naming them gets harder.

Still, we have memorized many, like the “flying handkerchief” with its lacy,

sculpted wings of pale yellow, tan, and silver. The birds we know by their

calls: “haa-haa-haa-haa,” “a di-dii,” “wreeeee-creeuw-wreeeee-creeliw.”

Wild and settled

12

Mischievous baboons try to steal

our food, and the stoic black and

white Colobus monkeys perch in

our trees above our coffee farms.

Leopards grow fewer in number

every year, but every now and then

one will take a sheep. We have

more success guarding our crops

from wild pigs, but they are quick

to anger and challenge us back.

This wildness has formed us. Yet

now we push against the wildness,

as we expand our settlements and

our planting fields. Decades ago,

wild coffee trees shaded by tall

tropical forests covered our region.

Now, cultivated crops are taking their place, and it is up to humans, not na-

ture, to replenish the soil. Streams have dropped that once ran high except

in the driest months; our need for water has increased but the rains have

not. The butterflies are falling, both in number and color.

To name our land we use a new word now: “sustainable.”

14

Suleman Abamilki, Boto’s agricultural development agent, checks the vil-

lage register for the latest census figures. The annual head count includes

humans, livestock, and hectares. In a village with homesteads spread over

five kilometers, collecting these numbers takes days of walking.

Here is what Suleman and the other census takers found in 2010. Humans:

10,109 men, women, and children in 1,657 households. Livestock: 2,179

cows, 1,945 sheep, 1,952 chickens, 468 horses, 337 goats, 116 mules, and 12

donkeys. Hectares: 772.5 for crops, 728 for coffee, 387 for housing and

gardens, 210 for forest, 164.5 for cattle grazing, and 34 for growing the plant

called chat.

The dirt road leading in and out of Boto, forty-five minutes from the nearest

paved road, carries mostly foot traffic (people and animals) and rarely motor

vehicles. Enter Boto by four-wheel drive and you could miss the town center

if you closed your eyes, counted to one hundred, and kept going.

Stop and get out and you may find the village restaurant, which seats eight,

packed with men sipping their second cup of buna (Ethiopian coffee) and

wrapping injera (Ethiopian bread) around a spicy wat (stew) of lentils. The

infirmary across from the restaurant will likely be closed; with little equip-

ment or medicine, it draws few patients. If you are a ferengi (foreigner) and

look back from the infirmary’s locked door, you may find it difficult to sort

Counting hard assets

15

16 17

the shops from the houses,

all with tin roofs and strung

together in facing rows.

Up the road, several mer-

chants look out from their

stalls. Kedija specializes in

bottled orange drink and

matches, scissors and razors,

socks and flashlights.

Abdurahiman stocks the ne-

cessities – exercise books for

taking notes at school, soap

and razor blades, cooking in-

gredients, water jugs – along

with the extras, like radios.

Tahir sells kerosene for our lanterns, since Boto has no electricity.

For much of his life the tailor, Taha, has been making clothes on a 1952

foot-powered sewing machine in a shop two meters wide. Many mornings,

his three-year-old great grandson traces patterns with a stick on the shop’s

dirt floor.

Always the busiest spot in

town, the chat market draws

buyers, sellers, and on-the-

spot users who chew the fresh

leaves of this shrub – stimu-

lating but addictive – and pass

the afternoon. Goats, sheep,

and dogs join in. The chat

leaves give them a kick, too,

and no one seems to mind if

they snatch a share.

As the sun descends, a dozen

women, ages fifteen to sixty-

three, occupy a patch of

ground just as the road leaves

Boto. Each displays and sells

the excess from her family’s

garden: perhaps a dozen

tomatoes, mangoes piled in

a basket, coffee beans spread

on a small cloth.

Satisfaction, conversation, and blessing

The mother pours her coffee, dips a finger in the warm liquid, and puts it in

her toddler’s mouth to suck. We grow up sipping coffee, several times a day,

for company as much as pleasure.

You may have heard about the Ethiopian coffee ceremony, a tradition hun-

dreds of years old. Buna zigijit joins families and neighbors in stories, gossip,

debates, and friendship. This is how it looks.

Liya, the oldest daughter of Fatuma and Mohammed, spreads fresh long

grasses across the floor and lights the nearby incense burner. She fills a jebena

(a round-bottomed, black clay coffeepot) with water and places it over hot

coals. Today it is her turn to prepare the hour-long coffee ceremony for her

family and neighbors.

She tosses a handful of green coffee beans into a heated, long-handled pan,

then shakes the beans over a fire until they are clean. With the same pan, she

roasts the beans, stirring them constantly. Unlike her mother, who removes

the beans from the heat when they turn medium brown, Liya roasts them

until they are blackened and shimmering with oils. She walks the pan around

the room, sending wafts of roasted coffee in every direction and letting each

guest breathe in its sweet aroma.

4746

49

Liya then reaches for a small, heavy wooden bowl, called a mukecha, and

a wooden pestle, a zenezena. She transfers the beans to the mukecha and

grinds them until they are a fine powder. Soon, the water in the jebena is

ready. She removes the jebena’s straw lid and adds the fresh coffee. She

brings the mixture to a boil again, then removes it from the heat.

On the floor next to a kerosene lamp lies a tray with ten small, porcelain

handle-less cups, arranged so that each cup touches the next. Liya bends over

the tray and pours the coffee in a single stream from about twelve centimeters

above, one cup to the next. Liya is good at this and she rarely breaks the stream.

She also knows when to stop pouring, so that the grounds at the bottom of

the jebena do not end up in the cup. She picks up the tray and carries it from

one person to the next, handing each a cup of hot buna.

Fatuma praises Liya’s coffee and skill, as do the others. Tradition requires

this exchange, but in Liya’s case, the compliments go beyond the customary.

Mohammed adds salt to his coffee. Aysha adds niter kebbeh, our spicy butter.

When Jemal had stomach pains a week ago, he added the herb talatam,

known to ease indigestion. Liya’s younger brothers and sister ask for sugar.

Stories and gossip flow freely between sips.

After the first round of coffee, Liya prepares two more—three in all. The

first is abol, for satisfaction, the second is, tona, for good conversation, and

the third is baraka, a blessing. Each serving is weaker than the one before,

but each cup is said to transform the spirit.

48

Until 2006, education in Boto ended at grade four. That year, the primary

school added another grade, and one more each year since. We now have

eight full grades, a complete primary school in the Ethiopian education

system. Across the country, the number of students enrolled in school has

risen like a bumper harvest, five hundred percent in twenty years, they say.

More children attending more school – we should be glad. We are. But it’s

a mixed blessing, to tell the truth. Having grades four through eight creates

an opportunity for us to go on to secondary education: two years of level

one and perhaps two years of level two. But to do so, we must leave our village

and pay fees that few of our families can afford. After grade ten, we could

teach primary school. After grade twelve, we have the chance – small, to be

sure – to go on to university. More education means more possibilities, this

we know. But poverty still gets in the way.

The conditions in our village school, never good, have grown worse. Bulcha

Albamilki, whose parents never attended school, teaches grades one

through six. He has this to say:

With 1,000 students and thirteen teachers, the classrooms are too full. It is better now

that the younger students come in the morning and the older in the afternoon, but that

reduces the education by half for each group. There are not enough tables, not enough

chairs, and no desks. Students who live near the school sometimes bring their own

Education, poverty, and wealth

7170

73

chairs. In the dry season, we spread

outdoors, with the teacher and students

grouped around a blackboard that

leans against a tree or classroom wall.

Seid picks up where Bulcha

leaves off:

We lack books, we lack laboratory

materials, we lack community support.

The roof leaks and, without proper

fencing, the animals come in. We

speak Oromiffa, the language of our region, but the few books we have are in Amharic

or English. We get discouraged. The 150 students who enter the first grade drop to

48 in the eighth.

Despite these challenges, many of us study as hard as we can, borrowing

time from daily chores to do “maths” and answer our teachers’ questions,

copied down from worn blackboards. “What countries border Ethiopia?”

“What planets revolve around the sun?” “How many meters are there in

twenty kilometers?” “What gases cause global warming?”

A sign in our school, handwritten on a piece of fabric, reads, “Education is

wealth.” May we be wealthier than our parents, we say as one, and may our

children be wealthier still.

72

Location: The Horn of Africa, bordered on the north and northeast by

Eritrea, on the east by Djibouti and Somalia, on the south by Kenya, and

on the west and southwest by Sudan

Area: 1.12 million square kilometers (437,794 square miles)

Population: 82,000,000 (2010 estimate); 13th in the world*

Population growth rate: 3.19 percent (2011 estimate); 8th in the world*

Capital: Addis Ababa

Climate: Tropical monsoon; wide variations induced by topographic factors

Terrain: High plateau with a central mountain range divided by the Great

Rift Valley. Lowest point: Danakil Depression at minus 125 meters (minus

400 feet). Highest point: Ras Dashen at 4,533 meters (14,872 feet)

Major languages: Amharic (official), 33 percent; Afan Oromo (official

regional), 32 percent; English (official language taught in secondary and

higher education), 15 percent

Major religions: Orthodox, 43 percent; Muslim, 34 percent; Protestant,

19 percent

Fast Facts on Ethiopia

7978

Ethiopiacourtesy of mapsof.net

Literacy: 62 percent of males age 15 and over can read and write; 39 percent

of females (2008)

Education expenditures: 5.5 percent of GDP (2007); 42nd in the world*

Drinking water source: Improved, 38 percent of population; unimproved,

62 percent

Sanitation facility access: Improved, 12 percent of population; unimproved,

88 percent

Roads: 36,469 km (22,600 mi); 24 percent paved, 76 percent unpaved

Mobile phone users: 5 per 100 persons (2010)

Internet users: 0.4 per 100 people (2008)

Sources: CIA World Factbook, United Nations Human Development Report, World Bank

* These (approximate) rankings are from the CIA World Factbook.

Note: According to the United Nation’s Human Development Index (HDI), Ethiopia ranks 157th out of the 169 countries that were part of the 2010 HDI. The index measures a country’s averageachievements in three basic aspects of human development: health, knowledge, and income. Intro-duced in 1990, the HDI is an alternative to conventional measures of national development, such as level of income and the rate of economic growth. It emphasizes that people and their capabilitiesshould be the ultimate criteria for assessing the development of a country, not economic growthalone. In the case of Ethiopia, the HDI underscores how much more needs to occur in Ethiopia with respect to reducing poverty, improving health, and increasing literacy.

81

Government: Federal republic

Monetary unit: Birr (approximately 17 birr = 1 USD)

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth: 8 percent (2010 estimate); 19th in

the world*

GDP per capita: 1,009 USD (2010); 160th out of 172 countries

Main exports: Coffee, hides, oilseeds, beeswax, chat, and sugarcane; the

largest domestic livestock population in Africa; poised to become one of

the top flower exporters in the world

Natural resources: Small reserves of gold, platinum, copper, potash,

natural gas (unexploited), hydropower

Work force: Agriculture 80 percent; industry and commerce 20 percent

Urbanization: 17 percent of population (2010)

Arable land: 10 percent

Median age: 16.8 years

Total fertility rate: 6.02 children born per woman (2011 estimate); 7th in

the world*

Life expectancy at birth: 56.1 years (2010)

Infant mortality rate: 109 deaths per 1,000 live births (2008)

80