Water Wars
While Americans fret about rising gas prices, many experts have argued that the major conflicts of the 21st century will be fought over water, not oil. With support from the Pulitzer Center On Crisis Reporting, multimedia journalists from The Common Language Project and AfrikaNews.org investigate the role of water scarcity in fueling conflict and stifling development in the Eastern African countries of Kenya and Ethiopia. This series was a Notable Entry in the 2008 Knight-Batten Awards for Innovations in Journalism.
Street Dinner Living on a dollar a day in Addis Ababa
Kenyan journalist Ernest Waititu traveled to Ethiopia as part of the CLP's 2008 Water Wars project. One night he investigated what it's like to live on $1 a day, joining a construction worker, along with another 10 young people, for dinner on the streets of the capital. The meal consisted of leftovers scraped from plates in various restaurants around town. Waititu describes his experience in this Reporter's Notebook.
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Categories: Kenya, Ethiopia, Listen, Poverty and Development, Global Health
First Rain
Dark clouds swarm on the horizon and the wind carries approaching rain. It is not a smell or a feeling that drifts across the land, though the nostrils are suddenly thrust free of dust and the air is lighter and cooler against the skin. It is a taste, a saturated sweetness on the tip of the tongue, a quenching of the thirst by particles unseen that blow, for the first time in over a year, across the bare earth, scarred trees and broken imaginations of northern Kenya.
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Categories: Kenya, Blogs, The Environment, Poverty and Development
Alex Stonehill on PBS's Foreign Exchange with Daljit Dhaliwal CLP Journalist discusses the World Water Forum and Pollution in New Delhi's Yamuna River
Journalist Alex Stonehill discusses the pollution of the Yamuna River in India and the World Water Forum.
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Categories: India, Watch, The Environment, Poverty and Development, Global Health
Kenyan Elephants Fenced Out Wildlife managers resort to an electric fence to stop elephants from raiding crops. At least it stops them from being shot.
An 83-kilometer-long electrified fence has been completed to keep elephants separate from humans in central Kenya. The controversial solution to the age-old problem of human-elephant conflict was initiated and managed by the Laikipia Wildlife Forum and the Kenya Wildlife Service after other methods of deterring the species from crop-raiding, such as chili fences and noise guns, had failed to resolve the issue satisfactorily.
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Categories: Kenya, Read, Listen, The Environment, Global Health, Politics and Conflict
Tasting a Slice of Street Life in Addis
We arrive at the police station — half a dozen or so iron sheet structures. We are led into one of the structures, where the officer on duty is seated on a bed in front of a table, leaning backward.
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Categories: Ethiopia, Blogs, Poverty and Development, Global Health
Troubled Waters The coming calamity on Lake Victoria
The sky is just beginning to lighten over Lake Victoria and the hacking of machetes echoes along the Kenyan coastline. Fishermen, stripped to their underwear in the already rising heat, are chasing silvery baby fish through the thick grass that chokes the lake shores, in defiance of laws against fishing in these delicate breeding grounds.
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Categories: Kenya, Uganda, Watch, Read, Listen, The Environment, Poverty and Development, Global Health, Politics and Conflict
Drought Spurs Resource Wars
DUBLUCK, Ethiopia — On a warm January afternoon in southern Ethiopia, thousands of ill-tempered livestock stand in groups with the pastoralists who have guided them for dozens of miles to drink. The animals dot an expansive field of Acacia trees, severed bits and pieces of dead grass and dust. Earlier in the day thousands of young goats, sheep and calves took turns to have their fill of water. And the show will not end with the cattle; camels are still waiting in line. For being the best able to resist drought, now they will be last.
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Categories: Ethiopia, Watch, Read, The Environment, Poverty and Development, Global Health, Politics and Conflict
The Most Dangerous Men in Kenya
They spoke of poverty and of being expected to feed and take care of themselves by their early teens. Many described turning to theft almost immediately, well aware that even the lowest-paying factories of Kisumu wouldn't hire them. They came from the wrong neighborhood, none of them had finished school — and anyway, around here any available job, no matter how menial, was filled before the help-wanted sign could even go up.
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Categories: Kenya, Read, Blogs, Education, Poverty and Development
Off the Record: World Water Crisis
Africans’ struggles for water inevitably read to American audiences as happening “over there” in a chaotic and distant world. Connecting them to a looming global trend requires a prescience that doesn’t hold up to the exacting principles of print journalism. This is especially true because developments on the ground often outpace the scientific community — in many neglected areas, for example, the only way to find out if rainfall has been declining is to ask a subsistence farmer, because the formal scientific data simply doesn’t exist.
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Categories: Kenya, Ethiopia, Read, Blogs, The Environment, Poverty and Development, Global Health
Running on Hope
Ethiopia has been a dominant force in long-distance running for decades. Despite a shortage of training infrastructure, athletes have excelled thanks to hard work, the high altitudes in their home country and the purity of the ancient sport, where whoever runs the farthest and the fastest wins. Alex Stonehill's photo slideshow offers a taste of training in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
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Categories: Ethiopia, Watch, Poverty and Development, Global Health
Kenyans Tap Sun to Make Dirty Water Sparkle
NAIROBI, Kenya — The long rainy season in Kenya has begun and sudden storms regularly burst over Nairobi. Many welcome the downpours, which signal the end of another dry summer and wash the steamy crowded capital clean each morning. In Kibera, a massive slum of rusty tin roofs and makeshift homes spreading out from the southwest of the city, the rain is turning the twisting dirt roads and alleyways into thick red mud.
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Categories: Kenya, Watch, Read, Poverty and Development, Global Health
Power Politics Trump Democracy in US-backed Ethiopia
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — Dawn in the Merkato breaks over a tangle of streets jammed with shouting hawkers and towering pyramids of ripe produce from Ethiopia’s fertile countryside. Today it is a popular destination for sunburned foreign tourists, expensive cameras poised to capture lively scenes from one of Africa’s largest open-air markets.
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Categories: Ethiopia, Read, The Media, Poverty and Development, Politics and Conflict
Being Typical
Recently a short piece I wrote about the personal conflict I felt when comparing my water-wasteful lifestyle in the United States with the stories I'd reported of water shortages in rural Ethiopia — specifically the story of one father who had lost four children to waterborne diseases — was classified by one reader as just another "guilt trip."
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Categories: Kenya, Read, Blogs, The Environment, Poverty and Development, Global Health
Quenching the Thirst Seattle brings the most precious liquid abroad
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — It's early morning and a dozen westerners, mostly Seattleites, are getting ready to leave the capital for a three-day visit to water development projects in Oromia, one of this country's largest rural states. As they set out — a caravan of five land rovers moving through the dense traffic — many of them are still quietly coming to terms with the parting words of Adane Kassa, executive director of Water Action, the Ethiopian NGO that coordinates the projects they'll be visiting.
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Categories: Ethiopia, Watch, Read, The Environment, Poverty and Development, Global Health
A Treacherous Trek to the Crater's Edge
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — "Just breathe," I comforted myself as I shuffled slowly through the dusty gravel. "One breath with each step," I repeated raggedly as 50 pounds of brackish water sloshed rhythmically against the sides of the muddy yellow jerry can strapped to my back.
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Categories: Ethiopia, Watch, Read, Listen, The Environment, Poverty and Development, Global Health
Heading South Part 1: A Night on the Road
We stood in the pre-dawn glow of the streetlamps, greeted by intoxicated heckles from the previous night’s most diligent drinkers. A battered, extended cab Toyota Hilux pickup pulled up, carrying a mound of mysterious goods under a green tarp and bearing faded Ethiopian Red Cross decals on its doors. Seeing there were already three passengers inside, I almost threw in the towel right there and sent my colleagues Ernest and Julia on without me, motivated as much by the impracticalities of fitting so many people into such a tiny space as I was by the thought of my still-warm bed waiting for me just down the block.
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Categories: Ethiopia, Blogs, The Environment, Politics and Conflict
Heading South Part 2: A Night in the Bush
When our four-wheel-drive pickup truck vroomed into the town of Negele I knew I was in for a giant adventure. Well, I must quickly clarify that I was not here for adventure; Negele is of course not one of those places you go sightseeing. I was here to work, following stories on water scarcity and how it had impacted the people of Southern Ethiopia.
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Categories: Ethiopia, Blogs, The Environment, Global Health
Heading South Part 3: A Night at the Yabello Motel
After being stranded in the middle of the elusive bush, and experiencing the morning nap in the dusty room in Arero, we were all fantasizing about a clean bed and, more importantly, a shower. Hot, warm, frozen — it wouldn't matter. At the advice of our handy Lonely Planet guide, we pulled into the Yabello Motel, a place the book described as "clean and comfortable." Although the toilet and the shower were outside, it was nice to finally find a place to unpack and unwind.
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Categories: Ethiopia, Blogs, The Environment
Heading South Part 4: A Night Under the Stars
The word travel traces back to the Middle-English word travailen, meaning to journey, labor, strive and most importantly, to torment. Much of traveling does feel a little like torment and as the strange bug-bites, desperate trips to the bathroom and embarrassing cultural misunderstandings mount (who knew that blowing raspberries was one of the rudest things you can do in traditional Ethiopian culture?), I often wonder how I’ve found myself so far away from home.
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Categories: Ethiopia, Blogs, The Environment
An American's Water Shortage
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — The water in our new house in Addis has been turned off for days and my back is so sore I’ve been squirming around on our dirty couches all evening, begging for a position that doesn’t hurt.
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Categories: Ethiopia, Blogs, The Environment, Poverty and Development, Global Health
My Romantic Reunion With Africa
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — Close to 40 hours after leaving Athens, Ohio, I arrived at my destination in Addis. My Emirates flight was not exactly that long. I had two stopovers — four hours in Hamburg and 12 in Dubai. It is the kind of thing you have to contend with when you make a decision to fly cheap.
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Categories: Ethiopia, Blogs, Poverty and Development
Back to Africa on a Water Mission
Some of my toughest times growing up in Kenya were those spent on my way to and from the village river. I call it the village river because it was the only source of water for my village. Never mind that the river was four miles away and was shared among scores of villages along its course.
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Categories: Kenya, Ethiopia, Blogs, The Environment, Poverty and Development
Ethiopian Epiphany: Timkat in Addis Ababa
According to Ethiopia's unique calendar, the year 2000 started last September; Christmas was two weeks ago, on Jan. 7; and this weekend, at the end of the 12 days of Christmas, the country's 33 million Ethiopian Orthodox Christians celebrated Timkat — or Epiphany — a commemoration of the baptism of Christ. CLP audio producer Jessica Partnow brings us this report from the nation's capital, Addis Ababa.
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Suffocated by Sacredness India's holy Yamuna River stifled by pollution
The Yamuna River, which flows through the heart of India's capital city, is one of the holiest rivers in Hindu mythology. It's also one of the most polluted rivers in the world, absorbing more than 200 million gallons of sewage from the city each day. This story takes us to the banks of the Yamuna, where some still eke out a living from a river that others are fighting to bring back to life.
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Categories: India, Watch, Read, The Environment, Poverty and Development, Global Health
In Search of an Oasis East Africa reporting retrospective
Innovations in digital technology and the global economic crisis have fueled a need for independent reporting through the use of multimedia. This video by CLP Water Wars intern Julia Marino tells the behind the scenes story of reporting on water issues from Ethiopia and Kenya on a shoestring budget.
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Categories: Kenya, Ethiopia, Watch, The Environment, The Media, Poverty and Development
Dry Land, Dry Sentiment Remembering traditional patterns in times of drought
East Africa is in transition; a drought that has lasted more than a year in many parts of the region has just broken with the onset of rains. Many say that this period without rain has the been the worst that anyone can remember, the majority of livestock dying, crops failing and refusing to sprout, perennial rivers drying up for the first time, and power and water rationing taking place in urban areas. In the rangelands of northern Kenya, and similar landscapes throughout the region, land degradation and resource scarcity has provoked conflict, political maneuvering along ethnic lines, and left at least 20 million people lacking food security. Now, with the onset of El Niño rains, the region is poised on the edge of extremes, fearful of the damage that too much water will cause in a degraded and fragile land.
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Categories: Kenya, Blogs, The Environment, Poverty and Development, Global Health, Politics and Conflict
How Has the World Water Crisis Affected You?
It is dawn and the camels move past the truck like shadows. They seem too tired to talk, their heads bent down as they plod on along the dirt track. The only sound they make is the light thud of their feet hitting the white sand. Perhaps they are embracing the morning in silence; watching the last few rebellious stars disappear as the pink sky turns the acacia trees to silhouettes. Or, and this is much more likely, they are quiet because they are walking through a graveyard and do not want to wake the dead.
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Categories: Kenya, Read, Blogs, The Environment, Poverty and Development, Global Health
Haramaya Voices from a vanished lake
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — Chala Ahmed, 26, hit the jackpot eight years ago when he won the U.S. visa lottery in the bustling eastern Ethiopian town of Haramaya. His first thought was that he would build his mother a big, beautiful house. His next thought was that the new home, painted a rosy pink behind a high white gate, should be erected on the shore of Lake Haramaya, the huge stretch of placid water that gave his hometown its name.
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Categories: Ethiopia, Watch, Read, Listen, The Environment, Poverty and Development, Global Health
Heading South Part 5: A Dawn With Dion
Part 5 of the CLP's multimedia blog series "Heading South": an audio blog by Jessica Partnow on the challenges of reporting on the impoverished southern Ethiopian community of Dillo. Especially while Celine Dion is blasting in the background.
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Categories: Ethiopia, Listen, Blogs, The Environment
Passionate Politics A behind-the-scenes look at a Kenyan presidential election rally
MERU, Kenya — Raila Odinga is brave to be holding a campaign rally here. This is PNU (Party for National Unity) territory, and Raila represents the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) — the opposition party in December’s elections. Kenyan politics are both colorful and violent, and venturing into another party or politician’s territory can be dangerous.
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Categories: Kenya, Read, Blogs, Politics and Conflict
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