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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Yup. I’m heading to Ethiopia.

What does Ethiopia need with an Ad Guy? Good question.

So some years back a friend of mine named Philip Berber and his wife Donna started a foundation called A Glimmer of Hope. He’d hit it pretty well in the tech boom and decided to do something good with his windfall.

They picked Ethiopia and started building schools, clinics, wells etc. They funded it all themselves and built a really solid infrastructure to get things done. They’d go into a village and ask the locals what they really need. If they had to send the kids miles to fetch dirty water, they’d dig wells right there in the village. That allowed the kids to go to school, so they built schools. If there wasnt a health post, they’d build one. Pretty soon these villages started doing much better. The success stories kept adding up.

Then fund raising organizations saw what a great process they had, so they started giving them money.

There is a lot more to it than that and you should go to their Web site to get the whole story. Donna and Philip are two of my favorite people on this planet and everyone at Glimmer is amazing. I’m really proud and humbled to be able to go on this trip.

Basically, we land in Addas Abbada Monday, Sept 28th. Not sure what the whole schedule is going to be, but we’re going to be traveling to remote villages by Land Rover for almost ten days. We’ll be up in the Simian Mountains at one point. Beyond that, I’m not sure.

Our goal is to meet the people in the villages they’ve helped and talk to the people in new villages to see what it is that they really need. We’ll be getting a lot of footage and taking a lot of photos and asking a lot of questions.

Everyone I’ve talked to that has been says it’s a life changing experience.

I expect it will be.

More from the road

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