on my way home from ethiopia - a report

just in case yall are waking up this morning and a bit confused - everything is fine here, my flight to addis is tomorrow morning, and my flight back to JFK (on KLM) is wednesday.  i was planning on leaving early (today) but we had a little bit of delays with the field visits to the villages, and being the weekend the travel agent in new york wasn't at his desk to make the change to my itinerary.

the crashed ethiopian airlines plane was going to addis from lebanon - 90 people died.  it happened this morning about 2am.  when i told my colleagues about it here this morning they were pretty saddened - but somewhat removed, just as we would be when a plane crash happens in the US.  tragic - but we're all ok here.

we got so much work done on this trip, and i think we're going to be in a good position to offer coverage for 5 crops, in 5 villages, in both rainy seasons this year (last year was 1 crop, in 1 village, in 1 rainy season).  they're shooting for 700 households to be covered this year (last year was 200HH), and i'm sure we'll easily reach that goal, and probably break 1000HH.  (there are about 5-6 ppl in one household on average).  the insurance is designed to preferentially target the poorest farmers in the community - those with the least amount of fallback options during drought.  in 2 of the 4 new villages, we discovered the poverty rate is greater than 60% (those living on less than $2/day) - so we're expecting at least 300HH to sign up from each of those two communities alone.  the village last year (Adi Ha) has a poverty rate of "only" 40% - considered more or less a wealthy village in the region, because they have access to irrigation which helps them better cope with droughts.  

starting with this trip, we're already brainstorming plans to expand to 50 villages next year (2011) - and potentially 10,000HH.  still not HUGE numbers, but all the partners here (banks, insurance company, local aid agency, weather service, oxfam, and all the farmers groups we've talked to) are very excited about expanding as quickly as possible.  (in case any reporters are reading this... PLEASE don't quote me on this!  everything in this post is VERY tentative and nothing has been decided.  all specifics are my personal opinion only.  i already got in trouble from my boss once for blogging! =) )  for those of you not on facebook (mom/dad......... you're missing out!!) - oxfam's website is: http://oxfamamerica.org/ donations for haiti relief are now tax deductible for the 2009 tax year. (in case you were interested!)

also- the website for our project is http://www.oxfamamerica.org/regions/horn-of-africa - there are a couple of feature stories halfway down the page on specific farmers in adi ha with a cool audio slideshow that i contributed some pictures to.  there's also a place to donate directly online (where funds are most needed) - or if you want to donate specifically to our project, there's an address to mail in a check (put HARITA in the memo line).  HARITA stands for "Horn of Africa RIsk Transfer for climate Adaptation".

thanks so much for your love and support guys!
eric