The Stories of the Storytellers

I am sitting in the Frankfurt airport right now waiting to board my flight to Boston. There is certainly a lot to say as my time in Ethiopia ends, but I won’t be saying much of it right now since I have about ten minutes until my flight boards.

I do have time to say this: being a Peacebuilder Fellow in Ethiopia has been the most rewarding work I have ever done. I was endlessly frustrated by many things while living and traveling in Ethiopia, but the work itself was nothing short of inspiring. Almost every organization and individual we contacted went out of their way to help us and led us to amazing stories of the struggles and progress surrounding water in Ethiopia. I would typically feel an incredible sense of exhaustion before our meetings, primarily stemming from the dread of dealing with the transportation system in Addis and elsewhere. But I would leave each meeting with a smile on my face. We spoke to aid workers, academics, government officials, teachers, engineers, farmers, community leaders, and generally concerned citizens, and all of them had something important to say. Even after meeting dozens of individuals over two months, we were still learning many new things at our meetings towards the end. There was simply no shortage of new issues and new perspectives on old issues, all of which were incredibly valuable.

Now I’m going home. I can’t pretend to be sad about that fact in general, but I am sad that my time collecting stories has ended. Fortunately, over the coming weeks I will get to reflect on the many stories we did gather as Katie and I work on creating our final products.