I give all of my bee hives a quick check to make
sure that they are healthy, queenright, and stacked with enough honey supers to
accommodate the end of the summer’s nectar flow. I will leave Proctor for a few
weeks. A request to train beekeeping trainers sends me back on another
volunteer assignment to Ethiopia on a USAID-funded trip to this land where
almost every farm includes bee hives. Two days of flying from Memphis to
Detroit to Amsterdam to Khartoum, and then to Addis Ababa brings me to the
Winrock International field office. Here, in Ethiopia’s capital city, I meet my
host, Guta Abdi, the founder and managing director of the Non-Governmental
Organization, Education For Development Association (EFDA). An early morning
start takes Guta, me, and our trusted driver, Jotte, through volcano-laced
Ethiopian highlands of the Oromia Region to the mountain-top town of Shambu.
Travelling by truck in Africa’s rainy season is completely different from my
travels during the dry season. In February, I experienced brown fields and blinding
dust; in August, I face lush green fields and muddy, sometimes washed-out roads.
At one point a broad, shallow rain-swollen river rushes over our dirt road.
From Shambu, I visit farms and educational projects
of the EFDA. I train leaders of seven beekeeping self-help groups. Those individuals
attending my training sessions are all seasoned beekeepers selected to spread
their skills among farmers in their home areas. Having a varied terrain, Ethiopia
is considered a semi-tropical land. Ethiopia’s honey bees exhibit different
behaviors from by bees in America’s Mid-South due to seasonal differences in
climate and the flowering of plants. I come to Ethiopia hoping to offer these
seasoned beekeepers some outside ideas to consider adding to their endemic beekeeping
knowledge handed down from generation to generation over thousands of years. I
know that I will learn much from them. Today’s picture is a view from Winrock
International’s field office in Addis Ababa where taxis share wet streets with
cattle.
--Richard
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