HPL Kololo

Before leaving Kembata we used our last day in the region to make another visit to last years’ build in Kololo, as well as next year’s build locations in Mudula.  It was a productive day.  We had meetings with the school director and community members in Kololo, a meeting with the Mudula Worader head (kind of like the town’s mayor), site visits for 2013-2014 school and library builds, and a visit to the Kololo HPL Horse Powered Library program.  Along the way there was the usual coffee and local fare ceremonies, the wealth of avocados, mangos, banana, bakolo and coffee powered us along through our 13 hour day.   

Each portion of the trip merits its own blog.  I’ll put together a pithy write up on each over the coming days.  This entry will focus on another very positive visit to Kololo’s HPL. 

The Kololo community is seated comfortably on the SW side of the southern Ambakuna hill. Kololo is 13 kilometers from Mudula and around 17 from Tunto.  The region is as disconnected as any other from basic resources, governmental and most NGO support mechanisms.  Never-the-less, the hills and dense green-scapes our full of people, especially young children.  Kololo is the one institution located outside Tembaro’s city centers that provides KG education.  Children enter school without the proper preparation, and due to a maelstrom of surrounding difficulties, failure often follows. Kololo is a beacon of hope for the region, a wonderfully realized dream that provides quality early childhood education to better enable the community to flourish. 

However the schools reach is limited by the structures capacity.  There are only enough slots for a few hundred children, not nearly enough for the surrounding thousands.  More KG’s are desperately needed in the Kembata Tembaro zone as well as the rest of Ethiopias southern regions.  Presently, we here at Ethiopia Reads can only physically build two schools a year.  With adequate funding that number could jump to as high as 5 in a single year, but even that will only make a small dent into what is needed.  For the time being, we are thinking outside of the box. 

Ethiopia Reads’ HPL program brings teachers and materials to very rural and difficult to reach communities.  Currently the program has two hubs.  One in Ekodaga, and the other in Kololo.  The facilitators travel via horse or donkey upwards of 12 miles to small villages with little to no access to educational materials.  The facilitator reads Amharic children books to the participants and leads the kids through alphabet and basic number exercises.  After just a few weeks, once illiterate children are beginning to sound out words, and soon after reading along with the HPL facilitator.  The programing successfully introduces reading culture to education barren communities.  More importantly, the HPL shares the power of literacy, which soon begets an overwhelming thirst for learning.

Last Monday, Ejigu, Kahlyn, Ashu, Tamesgin and I made the trek to Tupa, Northern Ambakuna to witness the HPL session of the day.  Lagessa, the facilitator has been leading these classes now for almost three months.  He visits three different communities twice a week spending up to 3 hours with the students.  Each of the visited communities is located within very challenging terrain, yet that doesn't keep the plethora of students in each area from attending.  Lagessa is averaging around 280 students per session.  Yes, 280 students ranging from the age of 3 to teenagers.  Amazing.

Here is a collection of photos taken from my time in Tupa.   

2 weeks

The time I think it will take until we finish Azedebo's KG and library.  

We are almost finished with the plaster (gesso/melted blackplastic stuff), cement work will be done by Friday, after that we will be taking care of the bathroom, exterior plumbing, painting and cleaning the space.  I am very proud of Kololo and Ekodaga, but Azedebo is positioned to be the most aetheticlly pleasing structure to date.  A big thanks to Troy Gallas, yet again, for offering up the superb design

2 weeks from now, the entire ER field management team will be able to invest ourselves fully in Fundame.  As you can see, in just two and a half weeks we have moved along solidly, though with Temsgin, Sallmnesh and an array of familiar Azedebo workers on site, we will have no problem finishing Fundame by April.  The facts that this build does not include a library (Fundame 1-8 already has one that ER is now sponsoring), and the entire structure is positioned on a single level really streamlines the build process.  Azedebo has gone by in a flash, be sure to check in from time to time, because you may just miss an entire phase of the Fundame build project. 

The cob mix starts Monday.   

Fundame taking shape

Window cavities 

Tertiary framing begun

Saturday night lottery: 15 people have to go so 15 new folks can work

The covered walkways framing is almost complete.  Were waiting on the plastering  and painting before finishing completely 

First exterior coat 

Ejigu Temesgin and I taking shop with an almost completed Azedebo in the background

Back and forth

Over the last two days I have had the rare opportunity to spend some concentrated time with Dana Roskey.  The very busy head of Ethiopia Reads.  He, Jim Mitchum (a friend of ER), and some of the ER office crew came down to visit the Azedebo build, and check in with Kololo.  I was able to take nearly a full day away from Azedebo (Temesgin took the reins) to catch up on ER programming, work with kololo staff, and talk through potential future projects.  We made sure to take some time for football chatter and a  beer or two, but almost the entirety of my latest time away was spent in productive conversation.  

Kololo was Kololo. Beautiful and full of smiles. 

The Azedebo worksite moved along just fine.  Take a look.  Yesterday and today's effort combined to finish up the roofs perpendicular supports, and nearly complete the felt in a majority of rooms.  As long as the roofing material is delivered in the  next 5 days, the corrugated will be going up next week.

Always good to be back in Kololo 

Degefe and Genut working together to fill some gaps in the felt.

Temesgin measuring for the tashagare (perpendicular roof supports).

Back end of the storage/office space.  Dont worry theres 2 windows for the office that are not pictured.

Where we are.

Time away spent well

For the past few days Lolo (the pup’s new name, I’ll explain later) and I have been traveling around Kembata-Tembaro with the incredible folks from Mudula Water and Clinic at a Time.  During my two and half days away from the jobsite, Ejigu and Temesgin worked together to guide the 20 person work crew through digging nearly 200 post holes.  Their and the communities effort was a success, and my trip with Liz McGovern and co. was an amazing one. All the landscaping was well executed, and my time away was inspiring, to say the very least.

Liz worked with an amazing group of very invested donors to coordinate an amazing two week visit of numerous current, and potential Ethiopian projects.  During my couple days with the group we delivered critical materials to four separate health centers (one of which is the relocated clinic that I journeyed to to have my arm relocated), visited new and old build sites (Kololo, and Azedebo) and spent time touring potential referal  health care facilities in Kembata-Tembaro for Mudula Waters Mid-wife program.  The group was great, everyone was incredibly positive, and always so very happy to see and often hold Lolo.  Its funny how she deflects nearly all of the attention from the 8-14 ferengies where ever we are. Seriously its pretty crazy. 

The following is a few shots of our time in Ambakuna, Mudula, and Kololo.  There is a lot more Id like to share, but tonight's uploads were averaging 35 minutes a photo :-/.  Hey but at least I have internet out here ... right?

The Ambakuna community eagerly assisting us in unloading much needed and appreciated materials

A shadowy shot of Liz and co, and the Ambakuna staff

Spotted this hot rad little number a day or two after the vote

A nice show of bright eyes and big smiles from a few Kololo kids

Two Kololo students posing infront of the school on their way home for lunch

We just scheduled the next build...

Two weeks ago, I traveled to four separate prospective Ethiopia Reads' project sites in Kembate-Tembaro.  We were there  to finish the last round of community and build land assessments.  A wealth of community information was gathered, important contacts were made, and land was even officially donated to Ethiopia Reads on behalf of the community. These experiences and information were combined with that previously gathered by Ethiopia Reads project officers.  Over the last week, the Ethiopia Reads office staff and myself spent days calling and recalling various officials, and finishing the creation of thorough financial processes to assist in purchasing and recording build material procurement.  We have all worked very hard to get to where we are this evening: we are beginning the next school build in Kembata-Temabaro on November 9^th.

We are currently planning on building two schools in the region over the next 7 months.  The first will be most likely in the mountains north of Shinshicho in a town called Washo, the second will most likely be within the foothills AzeDabo.  The reason why I say most likely is because the order may not be completely set. The severity of incline and quality of the “road” leading to Washo was not welcoming to motorist of any kind.  The motorcycles we took to get to Washo were even unable to make it all the way there.  When we visited the site we explained to the community that for us to build there, at least 3 kilometers of beat up mountain donkey roads must be widened and flattened so that a literal dump truck could make its way up to the school site.  The community instantly volunteered their time, and the following day began the 2 week long process of fixing the road.  

Yesterday, a local dump truck driver visited the road on foot and gave it a big thumbs up.  What a hard working community huh?  On Tuesday of next week the road will be tested with a dump truck full of boulders.  If there are no problems, the driver will head back down and prepare to make nearly 50 more trips toting 10's of thousands of pounds of wood, rock, cement, and aggregate.  However if the truck is unable to make it, we will delay the Washo build until later this build season and begin work in the very accessible town od AzeDabo.  We all are incredibly anxious for the upcoming test. But remember, if it doesn’t go well, the community will have the next two months to ready the road so building can commence in early January.

The following photos are few more from our last visit, as well as a couple from Kololo.  Proof that a big ol dump trucks, albeit very very old, has a tough time negotiating the twist and turns of mountain roads.

The school land

What a portion of the road now looks like. 

The Ethiopia Reads's management crew's housing and material storage... its an old sunday school. 

Our luxurious bathroom.  It might need some work.

What the road looked like before.  Its the rocky section to the right

Small trucks and big trucks alike have issues with Ethiopian off road driving

3/4 of the Kololo crew had to help push and pull this guy out.

A couple jobs for some familiar faces

The Future of Kembata-Tembaro Ethiopia Reads construction management rest largely in the hands of three proven Kololo community members.  Through visiting this blog you have most likely become acquainted with many of the 2011-2012 Kololo work-crew.  Although we hired over 60 different community members during the course of the build there was a small percentage that stood out due to their astounding work ethic, positive attitudes, and their natural abilities to lead.  Each of these individuals participated in my Skilled Labor certificate program, and in one case, earned the position of construction assistant manager during the Kololo school build.  I am elated to share that Temesgin Alamu and Salamnesh Lagessa will be hired to assist Ijigu and I with the implementation of the next two schools in Kembata-Tembaro.  

In the next week I will be posting bios on the two, as well as providing you with a little background on what exactly Tamesgin and Sallamanesh will be assisting us with. Here is a couple shots of them back on the Kololo build.

Tamesgin helping out with the roof supports

And modeling with Ijigu's famous war time canteen

Salamnesh and a few of the guys proud of their fresh cement work (Sallamnesh is the young lady in the back).

Sallamnesh making one of thousands of trips down the hill with the dirt that would become the schools walls.

Kololo Re-cap

A foggy day in mid-May

On April 20th the Kololo community and Ethiopia Reads celebrated the completion of the Kololo school. After nearly six months of swinging, lifting, mixing and slathering mud, painting and cleaning, the school's construction was finished. The school's furniture for each the structure's eight rooms was delivered by the end of June. Teacher and librarian training began this summer, and with full support from the local government, so school could begin this fall.

For the last week of March and the first of April we lacked sufficient funding to pay workers their weekly salary. This was not an issue. The community trusted Ijigu and me at this point, and had no problem continuing work under an I.O.U. program. Hours were carefully noted, and when the final installment arrived we paid all of the workers in a lump sum. A really beautiful moment occurred when five of the workers told Ijigu and me that they were working as volunteers, because they cared about their community's future, not in hopes of being paid. Five workers felt so strong that they declined payment for their hard work. (It took some doing, but we found a way to get each of the five to accept.)

On April 20th the school was complete. There were a few unfinished projects (the bridges needed to dry and be hoisted into position, window putty was not fully complete, and the bathroom needed a small bit of work. The same five workers told Ijigu and I that they would relish the opportunity to finish the build in the next couple days on their own). That evening we held a sizable party to celebrate the community's hard work. Approximately 150 or so people showed up and we had a wonderful time. Community members shared funny stories and told jokes of their new ferenji family. The evening finished with a gift giving ceremony for the five standout workers, and drinks of local brew with village elders. The night's activities made for very pleasant last sleep over in Kololo.

The last month of work was an excellent showing on the part of project management, particularly regarding personnel management. Salamnesh, Gazan, and Temesgin assisted Ijigu and me in managing the workers as they put the finishing touches on the school. The final pours went well, the doors and window glass fit perfectly in all but 2 of the 43pieces (those have since been re-sized and installed), the last pit of touch up paint went well, as well as a variety of other tasks. The school came together beautifully, the community is very proud of themselves, as they should be for completing such a monumental task.

I will be visiting Kololo in the two weeks.  I will be able to take up-to-date photos of the school, learning in action, and of course many shots of the schools beneficiaries.  Should be posted in the next 2 weeks.