Awasa

I just got back from another trip to Awasa, which is in Southern Ethiopia, about 5 hours away from Addis Ababa. I've focused some of my research there because it is a medium size city with a large University presence and is a transit point from different areas of the country as well as surrounding countries. All of these factors are common in sites where emergency contraception is common. We went there once before, in late January, to speak with pharmacists, sex workers and University students. Unfortunately the students had been in the middle of exams, so we left them some surveys to fill out (not my favorite idea) and completed our other interviews.
The interviews at that time had been really interesting. On the way to Awasa we had stopped at a town called Sheshamanye. Sheshamanye is known for one thing, it is the Rasta's capital! Rastafarian is popular here, especially in the south and Sheshamanye is the land the former emperor Haile gave the Rasta people. Driving through it feels as though a typical Ethiopian town, with donkeys and women carrying water on their heads, has been invaded by a Phish show, or backpackers on Koh Sahn road!
We interviewed some sex workers there, at one of DKT's drop in centers. The centers are really amazing places where women can relax during the day, do their laundry, watch tv, and of course, get education and free condoms! The knowledge gap between the women we spoke to in Addis and in Sheshamanye was astounding. While they all use condoms (good news!) there was much less knowledge of EC, and the process some women told us they go through when a condom broke was positively medieval! It was great to speak with the girls and share some information with them as well.
This time around we merely drove through Sheshamanye, and made it to Awasa on Monday afternoon, in time to speak to some girls at the University about Postpill. When I was first creating this study everyone in my office told me University students would never talk to me. I'm glad I tried anyway. We got some great responses (at Addis University as well). It was interesting to think how in some ways University students are so much alike everywhere in the world. What was frightening was in many ways University students are greater sexual risk takers than Commercial sex workers! All of this will be written up in my report, so you'll just have to wait to hear more.
Awasa is located on a beautiful, pristine lake, which we had the chance to spend a bit of time on during both visits. I don't yet make enough money to stay at any of the fancy resorts, but we sat and had a juice, and watched the birds, which even I had to admit were very beautiful! I have some pictures of the fisherman serenely fishing as pelicans and herons play nearby, I'll try to post them soon!
The drive back to Addis is a bit of an eye opener. Before my first trip to Awasa the only other time I had traveled over land in Ethiopia had been in the North, during the rainy season. Everything was green and lush, it was hard to imagine a famine the likes of which this country is still known for. Driving to Awasa it is much clearer. About 2 hours outside of Addis, the land turns brown and dry. We passed mud and straw huts and people grazing cattle, and I tried to imagine how anyone could eek out a living in such a place. It seems impossible to comprehend, even living in Addis, where I can almost always have a hot shower and bottled water is less than 50 cents! As you go south the land gets green again, and we even passed a few ostrich running in some protected land.
Sadly, it seems much of the viable land has been taken over for commercial interests. About an hour outside of the city is a "Chinese village" where a Chinese company runs its construction facilities. Marring the landscape is a large cement factory, spewing residue into the air, it seems endlessly. I know that such factories need to exist for smooth roads and other improved infrastructure, but it is ugly all the same! A bit further down are the flower camps, row upon row of huge greenhouses growing flowers, most to be imported to Europe. Now I love flowers as much as the next girl, but it made me think twice about where such lovely gifts come from, and at what cost.

I apologize for the fact that this blog is all over the place! I am trying to write more regularly in the next few weeks before I leave, and I wanted to get this all down.