AWRA Amba, April 14
The community of AWRA Amba
Back in Bahar Dar, I climb into a minibus to the town of Gonder. Shortly after departure, someone tells me of AWRA Amba, a community village atheist practicing gender equality, which would be installed in the campaign to a dozen miles of my route. In the deeply religious and patriarchal context of Ethiopia, a project like this is a miracle and I have to see it with my eyes. So I go down back home next stop takes a correspondence in the sticks, the driver telling me a muddy path at which I would find community. I walk in the rain for two miles, passing through beautiful landscapes hills and plowed before reaching AWRA Amba. At first glance, the site is nothing special. Perched on a hillside, is a collection of mud houses roofed with thatch for older sheet for the most recent, organized around a large tree.
I am kindly greeted by a young English speaking couple who showed me around the village, his weaving, his machine to grind the grain, its infirmary, its hospice and a home with his oven and his art weaving. The next day I met the founder, Zumra, I interviewed at length.
Gender
The project is actually amazing, a modern office to rival many Western democrats and feminists. Men and women are exactly equal, which means that tasks are not assigned by gender, but the capacities and desires of each. Some women participate in building houses or dug into the ground while driving the horse, under the appalled eyes of neighboring farmers who come to grind their millet in the machine of the village. Conversely, men do not mind spinning cotton, turning machines weaving, cooking and caring for children when they are old enough to suckle their mothers. The work carried out in teams and at the end of the year, profits are divided equally among the 104 families. But this is not a full communism, because everyone is free to work for their benefit outside of the six days of nine hours per week due to the community.
community derives most of its revenue from the garment. After buying the cotton, it queue. A traditionally feminine activity.
(this one is for laughs)
After spinning, you must wrap the wire around a frame.
(she is beautiful, eh?)
Finally, it goes to weaving. There looms in every home, plus a series of more efficient machines in two large workshops.
A trip through field work ...
Here is the machine to grind the village, which also serves people from nearby villages.
Here, a man cooking injera, scene unimaginable elsewhere in Ethiopia.
the fountain ...
Contrary to custom in the country, women here are not the only ones to carry the wood.
And finally a quick wash. This photo is when I show it to the Ethiopians, they have difficulty believing.
An impeccable
school education, a hut built against a small library, is open to all. Children of course, but also to adults wishing to acquire additional knowledge.
Teachers are villagers who have knowledge to share. They give courses in Amharic, English, geography, mathematics and, most importantly, morality. There are no flights to AWRA Amba and inconceivable in this country where begging is rampant, a child does not ask me anything my whole stay. The rules of life are indeed quite strict: it is illegal to drink alcohol, smoke and even drink coffee, which is considered an addictive substance.
Confraternity
Another universal principle governing the life of AWRA Amba is the universal brotherhood. White or black, we are all equal. That is why foreign visitors pay for once the same rates as their Ethiopian counterparts. This represents a quarter of the usual price, be it nights, meals and clothes made there. In the same vein, the community takes care of its elders. Unlike African traditions, they do not live with their families, but in a hospice where they are free housed, fed and cared for. A beautiful old lady explains that her turbaned comrades and themselves have preferred this solution to the accommodation in their family, where they spent the day alone while everyone worked. At the hospital they are friends of the same generation, their children and grandchildren from seeing them as neighbors.
Neither Christian nor Muslim
As regards religion, we can not actually speak of pure atheism, members of the community considering that there is a creator in which they do not give name because "it divides people." But they do not follow any ritual, called "preferred the work to prayer," and does not believe in life after death. Paradise, they say build it here, by their labor and the solidarity they manifest themselves to each other. They do not follow religious holidays not worked normally in the country and not take vacation the first year of the Ethiopian calendar, Sept. 11. Funerals are dispatched without ceremony, because "if you have something to say to someone is his lifetime he must do." Even marriage does not interrupt the work. Men and women can equally ask the hand of a loved one or, if they are shy, send an emissary. The couple informed his friends and returns to work "without even boil the tea. " The procedure is simply an HIV test. The disease is thought to affect 15% of the Ethiopian people, I am told that ever a positive case was reported. Number of youth in the community attend nearby universities yet.
A democratic functioning
There remains the question of the direction of the community, a point so delicate a priori the influence of the founder appears to be important. The thing is impossible to verify in a short period of time, but it tells me that the issues of education, nutrition, development etc etc are respectively set by thirteen committees are elected every three years and Zurmi is only part of the development committee. As for the most important decisions, they are put to the vote of all residents aged at least eighteen years. In case of dispute, recourse to the complaints committee, the police being notified as a last resort. In
messianic mission to forge the principles of his community, did Zurmi inspired person. He is barely able to write his name, has never read history books or philosophy and thus fed his reflections of his own observations of youth. From the age of thirteen, he has sought to convince people to ride with him this new type of society and succeeded to thirty years, in 1972. But in the early eighties, the villagers neighbors shocked by the denial of traditional religious and patriarchal foundations drove his community of land. She spent several years wandering in misery, hunger and disease carrying about twenty members. To convince authorities to allow him to move back to AWRA Amba, she had become known in the local media. In 1988 she won the case. The mastery of communication gained on this occasion he continues to serve and is now known throughout Ethiopia, where it enjoys an excellent reputation, as I will report later. Convicted of being an example, it receives each year tens of thousands of Ethiopian visitors, mostly students and college students.
It is this willingness to serve as an example to the outside world that the people of AWRA Ameba are so open and I can so easily be captured.
From principles to reality
Throughout the week I spend AWRA Amba, I see all these fine principles are actually applied. People are nice to me, polite but not really nice. I can walk alone, but if I want there is always someone to accompany me and be my translator. One day when I go to the river wash my clothes, I joined a boy running to help me because, he said, recovering his breath, everyone is obliged to help his neighbor. One afternoon, the children invited me to play football with them. I never had to deal with opponents fair play to the point applaud the beautiful gestures of the adversary. In addition, I dispute the match of my life, scoring six of the ten goals of my team, and it annoys me but as you insist I tell you, I earn the nickname Mr. Goal. But fame does not avoid me horrible cramps the next morning. I'm sorry for laughing at the nurse and, later in the day, she knock on the door of my room to offer me a massage! His gesture is pure generosity, she disappears after an hour without asking, refusing to coca that I proposed. Finally there, I spent a week in this great community supernatural assistant last night to even the passage of an NGO in Addis Ababa came to an award of "Ambassador of Peace".
This causes the outset officials, party-based improvised song, dance and dinghies.
The next day I'm going to Gonder, the former capital of Ethiopia known for its castle and its churches.
0 comments:
Post a Comment