So we’re on the flight to Frankfurt from Houston. We land in Frankfurt at some gawdawful hour in the morning, then we sit around and get on a flight to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

The actual hours escape me. It’s a long trek to the other side of the world. We’re on the same planet but in different universes. I keep hearing how I’ll see that once I get there. I dont doubt it.

So I’m sitting in a cramped Luftansa seat. it’s 9:30 Austin time. Who knows what time it is below us, over some cold north sea nowhere. Fish below.

So I’m sitting next to Marianne. She’s the new head of marketing for Glimmer of Hope and we spent the last couple hours talking about marketing an upcoming fundraising event for Glimmer.

A quick background on Glimmer.

The short version is an old friend started it once he got way lucky with a software company.

So we should all ask ourselves right now.

If I got rich, what would I do? Would I go nuts doing crazy shit, buying crazy things or would I save the world? Or a little piece of the world?

Quick fable. A guy walks down the beach and sees a little boy throwing starfish into the sea. There are MILLIONS ot them. He asks the boy what he’s doing.

“Throwing these starfish back into the sea so they don’t dry up and die”

“But there are millions out here… How can YOU expect to make a difference?”

The boy pick up another starfish and launches it back into the cool sea, out of the hot sun…

“Well, it makes a difference to THAT one…”

(pause as we let that sink in…)

So can any of us make a difference to the rest of us?

No. The few of us that are so grand, so special, so amazing might make a huge difference. But for the rest of us mere mortals, we have to settle for small monuments.

So here I am. Sitting in a cramped seat with a laptop trying to make sense of it all. I’m an ad guy. What can I do. Not good at digging ditches. Not good at building decks. Not good at delivering world changing oratory.

But maybe I can save a few starfish.

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Back to Glimmer. Philip and Donna started this thing to save starfish… Cept they look like us. And they have children. And friends and cousins and mothers and fathers and neighbors. They did with their own money and ended up building a pretty amazing organization. They didnt spend millions trying to raise thousands. they just did stuff. they built schools and wells and clinics yadda yadda yadda.

They’d go into a poor village and ASK what they needed. They didnt walk in like some great foreign saviour. They asked the people what they needed to live better lives. And the people told them. And they made it happen with local help.

Good idea eh? Well YEAH. Simple and good idea.

They had so much success that other organizations took notice and started giving them money to keep doing what they do.

That’s where I come in and this cramped Luftansa seat.

They decided for the first time in 8 years to do a fundraiser. We’re doing an event in Austin. $250 a pop to come to the event and all the money goes directly to real projects. Donate so much, you buy a well that’ll bring pure water to kids and parents and cousins for twenty years. Donat some more and you build a school that’ll teach the kids to read and write and sing and add and subtract etc. Donate more and you build a real clinic. Medicine. Doctors. Real cures for real diseases that you and I would be fine with, but without any sort of treatment would kill us.

Simple eh?

We talked for a couple hours about how to make this event real.

How to elevate it beyond the everyday lives we all live.

In shot, how can we make a real connection between the people of a remote, dirt poor Ethiopian village of almost 5000 people, spread out over hills and arid dales… How we connect that to the people of Austin, Texas.

There IS a real connection. We’re all connected together, and only separated by a cramped Luftansa seat.

How do we connect these people to the people I’m about to visit.

I think the answer is, again simple.

A handwritten note on a piece of bark. Or a scrap of cloth. Or a leaf. Or a stick. or a piece of broken pottery.

We’re going to ask the people of Burbax to write us notes on whatever they have handy. Write a note in their own beautiful script to thank the people an airline seat away on the other side of our little world.

We live in a time and place where nothing is real any more. Everything is made somewhere else. We’ve got social networking software that keeps us from reaching out and shaking someone’s hand. Everything we touch and see and smell and taste was created somewhere in some faceless place.

So we miss real connections. We dont get that viseral sence of place. We dont taste what they taste, or see what they see, we dont feel what they feel.. those strange people on the other side of our little planet.

Blame the ad guys.

Guilty a charged.

But once in a while we get a chance to redeem ourselves like so many coupons… Like that boy flinging starfish into the sea.

Make a real connection between someone born to abject nothing and the kid who grew up with anything and everything. We can’t bring them together in a room. They would just look at each other, unable to communicate. But let a simple handwritten thank you come across the oceans and land in the beautiful designer study, next to the expensive art… And now that piece of rough bark, with the “Thank you for helping my village” becomes a real thing, tied to a real event, tied to a real person and a real day and time and place.

That connection we all miss.

Simple eh?

A thank you note.

Our grandmothers would be proud.

Village Elders from Burbax

Just one of the hundreds of wonderful children at a mud walled school near Burbax

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Sunday the 4th.
Another long brutal drive, another village, another school, another ceremony.

This was a two hour drive from Gondar. Beautiful drive though. Just stunning. Lush, green fields. Typical dirt road.

Difference here is no matter how far out in the boonies you are, there are people walking, carrying things on their heads, walking with cattle, goats, oxen, donkeys. Seriously, it doesn’t look like life has changed here in a thousand, or ten thousand years. If you want to ride in a time machine, come to Ethiopia.

So this village was pretty typical. Dirty, dusty, ratty and just full of people walking, talking, laughing. Animals, kids, old, young… everyone and everything in the middle of the dirt road. At the end was a water point near a river. When we got there, there were 500 people singing and dancing. The local priests were there dressed in wild colored vestments, dancing and singing and banging on big drums. It was quite the scene. We danced with them, pumped water, smiled and were herded to the next one where the same thing happened. This time with a coffee ceremony.

Then we got herded to the school.

And this was overwhelming. A thousand kids, all clapping and cheering. There were long speeches, village elders in white, more speeches, clapping kids, coffee ceremonies, popcorn (yup, popcorn… its an Ethiopian thing…. Every ceremony has popcorn).

Then we were herded back into the car for a long drive back.

Then food at the hotel Doha. It’s on the top of a central hill in Gondar. Great view. Pretty cool place.

In fact, I’m typing this up on my Mac, sitting on the patio overlooking the city with a Dasher beer and a big fat cigar. It’s a pretty nice scene. Couldn’t resist coming out here after a long day.

There is a table of Germans at the next table. Only us. In the cool night air is a cacophony of dogs barking, traffic and strange voices.

My impresions of Ethiopia.

It’s easy to fall in love with this place. Sure, it’s got problems. Nothing lines up. Everything is falling apart, or was never put together in the first place. The streets are dirty and dusty and everything is a bloody mess. But the land is stunning. Really stunning.

But what really clenches the deal to me is the people.

This is the purest culture I’ve ever seen. They aren’t trying to be Americans. Or europeans. Or anything other than who they are. They LIKE their own culture. You don’t hear rock and roll or see TV’s or anything from elsewhere. If you hear music, it’s their traditional music. You see traditional dress everywhere.

It’s really impressive. To be in a country that LIKES itself enough to be itself.

And when you are here, you begin to see everything differently. You stop seeing the ratty third-worldness of everything. You see the natural beauty and rhythms and the joy of the people. They have nothing. Seriously, nothing. But they are at peace with themselves. And they don’t lust for what they don’t have, but when someone builds a school or water well or health post, they are genuinely grateful. Seriously grateful.

And the kids.

GAWD the kids. Everyone is smiling and thrilled to see you. I fell in love with a thousand of them so far. They take you hand and smile and giggle.

There were two girls yesterday up in the Simian that followed me around and every time I said Birrr (the name of their currency), they’d laugh and giggle like crazy. They hung around me all day. I taught them “high five’. They did it a hunded times, laughing every time. Soon I had 30 little kids all wanting to high five me. They had a blast playing with the big bald white guy.

I’ve come to realize I’m quite the anomaly here.

You rarely see tourists here. And almost never see white people. And I’m the only big, white, bald headed American I’ve seen.

This man was at the opening to a school outside of Addis. He was so proud of his two sons who were attending the school. They could have been the first two in his family to attend school.

Welcome group at a waterpoint outside Addis.

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