Chatterbox 1211 - Rotary Club of Belper

Meeting – 7th November
Ethiopia
by Tony House
President Martin opened the meeting by thanking the Duty Officers and welcoming
two visitors, Tony House who was the guest speaker and John Marshall,
brother in law of our Activity Organiser for the evening, Peter James. We enjoyed a
very well prepared and presented meal and PP Sheilagh spoiled us all by passing
round After Eight mints to accompany the coffee.
Club Almoner Vernon was the bearer of sad news; after the loss of Honorary
Member Eric Naylor only four months ago, he now reported the death of Eric’s
wife Margaret. Some of the members were to attend the funeral on the 8th.
Peter James then introduced his speaker who was to talk about his work
in Ethiopia. Tony was a civil engineer and he had decided upon retirement to use
his skills with a charity called Habitat for Humanity which was involved in building
housing in deprived areas of the world. Ethiopia was one of the countries benefiting
from this work and Tony gave us a brief account of the country. While it was large
in area, it was sparsely populated and most of the people worked and lived off the
land; some areas were quite productive whilst others were almost barren. It had a
history of occupation by invading countries and the population was mixed both
culturally and by religions.
Tony described his visit with the use of slides. It started with their arrival at
Addis Ababa and the welcome party at their hotel with a typical coffee ceremony
and a display of dancing. The party then travelled a few hundred kilometres up
country to Dessie where they were to help with the construction of houses. These
are quite crude; a stone foundation is built up and the walls are based on eucalyptus
poles which are then covered with a mixture of mud and teff straw (teff is the
local cereal crop). The outer face is covered with chicken wire and a mixture of sand
and cement to give a weatherproof exterior and the roof is corrugated iron sheeting.
The expected life is about 50 years.
After spending some time building houses, Tony went north of Dessie to
visit Karagutu Elementary School. Although it was in a poor district, all the pupils
attended in smart clothes and there was so much demand for schooling that it
operated two shifts daily. He also had the opportunity to visit leprosy colonies at
Dessie and see the progress being made with drugs and improved living conditions.
Alan Widdowson thanked Tony for a very interesting presentation and
invited questions from members. Finally, the Raffle Organiser (David Henson) won
the Raffle!!
John Scotney
Photograph of a house under construction on page 2.
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