After a two day visit as technical water advisor for and with SDC (DEZA), I visited the most beautiful place I saw until now in Ethiopia. Only about 200 km from Jijiga. In this village, there are lucky to have a permanent spring, hence, irrigated land. 10 km furhter, the misery is back again. (Fotos 8. Feb. 2011)
And because I don't like to talk about work, I talk about unusual habits. For instance the femal circumcision (Beschneidung), or in UN words: FGM (femal genital mutilation). In the province I am working (Somali-Province), according to Unicef statistics, 97 % of all women are circumcised (often the form of infibulation). I have a lot of interesting discussion all the time because of it. And the main reason for FGM the men tell me always: The sexual desire of women is so strong, you have to reduce it... (Foto Dec. 2010, Dembel)
Driving is not easy, as the road is not only for buses and UN cars, but also for every kind of vehicles, animals and mainly people. Ethiopien people are walking walking and walking (lack of other possibility by the way), dozens of km every day...
(Foto 6. Feb. 2011 on the road between Jijiga and Dire Dawa)
This week I checked the emergency water supply in Gode Town after typhoid outbreak> Gode Town: ca. 50’000 inhabitants in the heart of Somali-Region, but no water supply except the river, no asphalt road, only heat and sand. But fortunately the River Shebele. 
The river water is pumped and treated (flocculation with settlement and chlorination) and distributed to the donkey carts for free with the aim to provide thypoid free water.
The donkey carts are the mobile pipe network for the water supply... not very clean and hygienic; hence the effect of the emergency water supply might be doubtable. However, were interesting days. (All photos 24.2.2011 Gode Town at Shebelle River)
