By Andrei Neacsu in Doshing-and-Elsa
"Allah Akhbar! God you are great!"
Two voices - one hoarse, one shrill - echo against the parched mountain
that neighbours the village of Doshing-and-Elsa, in the administrative
district, or woreda, of Kutaber.
"God give us rain. God do not let us down!"
It is the holy period of Ramadan and Hussein Mohammed, who usually prays alone, has asked his 16 year-old son Abdu Maruf to join him. "Together we can help God listen to our suffering," he says.
Their suffering results from three years of bad rains, three years of poor harvest and three years of meagre meals, now reduced from three to two every day.
As her husband and son pray, 50 year-old Hawa whispers her thanks to the Red Cross for making the effort to come all the way from Dese to see her. The regional capital is only 50 km away, but it takes at least two hours to cover that distance by car, or half a day by donkey.
She explains that she gives her five children either bread or injera, a pancake made from from the local tef cereal. "Sometimes I give them milk, though not often, because I have to make butter and sell it so we can buy the wheat and barley we miss," Hawa explains as she shakes a pot of milk made out of a huge sort of pumpkin, the local way of making butter.
The prayer is over, but the earth on the hectare of land owned by the Mohammeds is still desiccated and hard as stone. Only the cactus is tall and green behind them.
Hussein sends his younger son, Worku, to fetch some water. Seated near his modest house in the shade of a few eucalyptus trees, the other tone of green in this dry land, he takes over the story-thread from his wife.
"I already sold the calf and the two sheep to buy food. I'll have to cut more of these trees if I am to put some food in my children's mouths. But," says Hussein, raising his eyes to the cloudless sky, "I thank God I still have a horse, two oxen and a cow.
For a eucalyptus, Hussein will get five bir; less than half a dollar. "If the day is good and prices are fair", he says, he will probably buy two kilogrammes of tef or four kilos of maize.
In Dese and Kutaber the Ethiopian Red Cross (ERCS) and local authorities know that with every day that passes, the situation of at least 11,000 people in the three belg-dependent villages of Kalem Derba, Alasha-and-Workaria and Doshing-and-Elsa, becomes increasingly critical.
"The belg is the equivalent of the spring rains in Europe," explains Fekadu Haile Yesus, the Red Cross programme officer in Dese.
"This year it started in February as scheduled, but ended in March, one month too early. If that was not bad enough, the rainfall was light and nowhere near enough for the crops of barley, sorghum or beans to develop well," he says. "People harvested 50 per cent less than last year."
An assessment carried out by the authorities and the Red Cross in 16 of South Wollo's 18 woredas indicated that out of a population of 2.4 million, 753,817 people were in need of assistance. Some 82,000 tonnes of food will be necessary to cover the needs in the whole zone of South Wollo.
"I plead for donors not to hesitate and to respond to the appeals of Ethiopians for solidarity with adequate aid to prevent disaster from happening," says Getachew Ta'a, ERCS Secretary General, whose national society has appealed for 16 million Swiss francs to assist 125,000 beneficiaries throughout the country.
In South Wollo, besides direct food distribution, the Red Cross plans a series of cash for work activities meant to improve the living conditions of the community. These will include preparing the land for planting, improving rural roads, planting trees to stabilize the soil and prevent land slides, small scale irrigation activities such as river diversion or building artificial water ways, terracing activities and protection of water springs.
The cash given, amounting to 38 bir, close to four US dollar per person per month, will enable families to purchase enough food to meet the minimum daily intake of 2,100 kcal as suggested by the Sphere humanitarian project and World Health Organisation.
The ERCS has plenty of experience in implementing the cash for work programme, or Employment Generation Schemes as it also known. Two years ago, 31,000 needy people benefited from such a programme.
Hussein Mohammmed of Doshign-and-Elsa was one of them, and he still has solid, tangible proof - his only sickle and plough.
With Red Cross money, the community also improved the market road, the only link between 70,000 people living in the woredas of Kutaber and Ambassel.
"And the village water source was also protected with Red Cross money", recalls Hussein, as his youngest son Worku returns with a jerrycan full of fresh water from the spring.