Sugar Sugar

This past month I was able to experience the EC101 concepts that I used to tutor on a daily basis. While it was kind of boring on paper (especially after teaching it for 4 years), it was fascinating to witness. A while back the birr (Ethiopian currency) was devalued by 22% by the government to attract foreign investors. This will probably prove to be a good move for the country, but for individuals it was devastating. Since then I've seen hotel and bus prices sky rocket (but not my allowance!) and the price of goods and services increase. This is bad news for people who already live in poverty. Recently the government imposed price ceilings on certain commodities to keep necessities affordable (sugar, oil, soap etc…). But, as all of my tutees should know, a decrease in price leads to an increase in demand and a decrease in supply and therefore shortages occur. If I had the internet power to upload graphics I'd really geek out and demonstrate on a graph. So when this happens in America it's not really noticeable to consumers, in the land of excess we don't run out of things very often and with more disposable income we tend to be less effected by a slight increase in price. However, in Ethiopia, it's a different story.  Because of the price decrease, shops have stopped selling these items and, in Masha at least, the government has become the only seller of sugar, oil and soap. I realized something was up when I had a really hard time finding oil one day…Ethiopian food is about 50% oil, not being able to find it was strange. The next day as I was walking to my office I noticed a mob of people and thought to myself "hmm, wonder what's going on. Glad it's not me". After I left my office there was still a crowd so I asked someone what was going on….the government was selling rations of said goods. Turns out it was me. Of course none of my English speaking friends were in line (most of my friends that know English are male, and of course they wouldn't be subjected to waiting in a "bread line"). It took me a while to figure out the system (lines do not exist in Ethiopia…everything's a free-for-all). I had to form a group of 25 people and then sign up with the government workers. Once we had our group established we were given a 100kg sack of sugar to split (4kg each) and a box of soap to share (4 bars each). By the time I got there they had already run out of oil. It took me three visits (once to figure out what it was, then I had to go home to get more money, then they took a lunch break) but I finally got my sugar and soap. It was quite the experience having to wait in the mob and secure my goods for the month. In the lush southwestern highlands there are rarely food shortages so it was a new thing for me. I have to say though, I was impressed with how things were run. It was a bit disorganized because of the lack of lines, but everyone worked together and cooperated with the government. When they ran out of oil the guy got up and apologized and nobody got upset. It was actually pretty neat.

                So after the whole ordeal I gave Peace Corps a call. They like to know what's going on in the small towns so they can monitor the situation and warn others what may be coming. Apparently they told HQ about it, too. It's funny to think about this situation in little Masha being discussed in DC. The PC staff assured me that this is relatively common here, and happened a few years ago. They suspect in a few months everything will be back to normal and the shops will start selling again.

                And now for the good news! I haven't spoken about the Youth Center project in quite a while, mostly because my hopes had been diminished. I hadn't heard from the embassy in a long time and I assumed the worst. To make me even more upset I heard from a PC volunteer in another region that he had gotten a call about it, but I hadn't. Yesterday I walked to the compound donated by the town for the Center to kind of say goodbye. This morning, however, I got the call. The embassy called to say that our proposal was a finalist and they thought the project looked solid. In a few weeks they will schedule a visit to Masha to assess our capacity to carry out the project! I was thrilled that it's not over. I immediately shot out of bed (it was an early phone call!) and went to tell all my guys in town the good news. Their positive reactions were amazing. It was so awesome to see them so happy and excited. I loved that I had something good to tell them, finally. Now we just need to prove to the US government that we can do this project. I have faith.