Children From My Village Are Hungry To Learn Digital Skills

My village’s children and the women are very much eager to learn anything new. As I saw them last Friday, they are also fast learner.

In Cholea village, you’ll never see any child, woman or men who has got big body. They are all slim. There is no gym in their area, may be they don’t heard about it either. Everybody walks faster and can run the same way. They are farmers. They harvested wheat, teff, lentils, peas, chickpea and black eyed peas. They have cows, and they made homemade cheese, yoghurt and butter. They prepare the butter and cheese in a clay pot which they wash in some leaves and kept it on a smoke which gives the food different aroma and flavor. Their generosity is indescribable. Since you stepped at their get until you leave their house, they keep feeding you.

First- you’ll be served Kinchea( boiled split wheat or barley) with that butter which you can’t stop eating. The drink will be the yoghurt which any city dweller can’t find it once in a year.

Next-Coffee ceremony will be followed just after you stop eating. All the women come and beg you to eat more and more. They over feed you, because they think you are not yet full. One girl or woman sit in front of the visitors, fry coffee beans, puts her coffee pot made of clay on the charcoal stove. There is a wooden tray filled with the unique Ethiopian coffee cups. The coffee will be grinded in front of us and will be brewed. They serve the coffee with a whole wheat bread. The bread is home baked.

Third - boiled chickpea and wheat is served while you are sitting and chatting the family. They also give us fried barley. We call the boiled grain Nifro and the fried ones Kolo.

Fourth- they serve enjera (Ethiopian traditional bread) with the yammy homemade cheese and chili powder. Fried green vegetables also served with enjera.

All their food is organic and it is from their farm. Every faces around smiling at us sweetly.

This village is covered with Aloe Vera plant. There are also eucalyptus trees everywhere. If we support them to process that and pack it, that can bring a lot of income to the villagers. The view is breath taking. To see a very tiny boy herding cattle is usual everywhere we walk. Horses, cows, sheep, donkeys and chicken owned by the farmers.

They transport the grain using the donkey. Horses are used when there is a funeral or when they have long journeys and to attend a wedding.

The wheat farm is white, part of it you can see it behind me and the children on the attached video clip. The wind is strong, I just recorded it with a webcam.

This village is forty kilo meters far from the capital city of Ethiopia. Some people have the oldest versions of Nokia mobile phones. They use it to call their relatives from different cities. Digital empowerment is essential here.

The children walk to school more than ten kilo meters. They don’t have computer class in the school. I sat with them outside their huts and show them how to open- type their names, save files, and log out, then shut down the computer. They were very happy to spend time with us. My niece Ruhama, 9 years old, was busy taking pictures with my phone when I was teaching my students.

I asked my uncle to make for me a new hut, so that I can stay there and keep my computers, sewing machines train the whole village.

My team, Peace and Green is planning to cover the hills with trees. And we’ll make it happen.