Sept. 15, Addis Ababa
Back in the capital. Returning from the country to a big city is the same experience everywhere. You go from wide-open spaces, relaxed and intimate atmospheres to the fast-paced, smoggy, traffic-choked center, where poverty always seems more oppressive. The dust particles in Addis settle in your nose and throat.
But the city offers a more rapid pulse, excitement and variety of every kind. A universal trade-off.
We visited the Ethiopian minister of health for a briefing, and the U.S. Agency for International Development office for a meeting with U.S. officials that was at first billed as off-the-record, then afterward as on-the-record, and then in a subsequent letter, off-the-record again. So I'm afraid I can't share what was said. But it involved U.S. policy toward aid for Africa and the initiatives and conditions attached.
In the afternoon, got a fascinating briefing on how the government's attempts to liberalize Ethiopia's restrictive abortion law were scuttled by anti-choice activists (see abortion column).
An evening reception at a restaurant featured key players in health and women's rights. So as a popular band belted out lively tunes, and dancers took to the floor in a blaze of rhythm and color, I talked to a woman who tries to help prostitutes out of the profession, and a man working to fight harmful traditional practices. Most of those have their worst impact on women, says Abebe Kebede, who's with the National Committee on Harmful Traditional Practices of Ethiopia. He says people ask him why, as a man, he cares about these issues, and he says it's because of his mother, who struggled a lot and whom he loved very much. "My father was not a good person," he said.
He believes being a change agent begins in your own household. So in his family, he does the major cooking and shopping and child care while his wife runs a business. He also gives his staff three months of paid leave both before and after the birth of a child. He sees it not as a favor but as a right.
"You can't be superficial about this issue," he said. "You have to try to be an exemplary person so that other people follow you." Amen.
