2009 Nov – 2010 Jan

2009 Nov – 2010 Jan


My time back in the States

My trip back home was long awaited. There is nothing like being away from home, wife and family for a long period that makes you appreciate what you have, especially when visiting a third world country. I appreciate my wife and family in their support of my decision of going over there for the relatively short term and now making the two year commitment to join in helping this group in achieving what I would consider to be a benefit to Ethiopia at a grand level.

Soon after coming home I enjoyed a traditional Thanksgiving dinner with my wife’s family and after losing a few pounds in Ethiopia I had little reservation in partaking of the plentiful food available. Christmas was a little more special this time as well.

I had many ask of my experiences, and at times was invited to share them at large. I came to the realization of the good community of which I live and their care and interest of my family and me.

My time home was full of balancing my responsibilities between my family, family farm, Ethiopian farm, church and community. I sometimes felt I fell short in all of them.

I was given the responsibility of ordering farm equipment to be used on the Ethiopian farm. The decision was made to have mostly John Deere equipment sent over. To start we would have two new JD 8320R tractors, disks, 1895 44’ no till air drills, 9770 STS combines, etc. Ordering all this was like a dream for a farmer such as me, life will be good in Ethiopia.

Paul requested that while at home that we also acquire several U.S. made pickups and up fit them to ship to Ethiopia. He recognized the overwhelming task of everything and encouraged that I find someone to help me in this and to keep in mind that this person would travel to Ethiopia short term to help as well. I quickly had some guys in mind who are brothers that I have worked side by side with for many years and know them to be capable and experienced in much of the equipment we were to use. Paul was willing to only hire one. Bracken was the most flexible and most eager so he soon became my helper.

I would have to say it was fun shopping for five new pickups, thinking of all the things we could fit them with to endure the back roads of Ethiopia. We settled for Dodge Ram quad cab Cummins diesels. They were much cheaper and thought that the suspensions, though rougher riding than Chevy, would hold up better. Bracken seemed to be in his element. We got the big brush guards, fuel tanks, overhead racks, off road tires, fifth wheel hitches to pull trailers and tore off all the emission control stuff to handle the high sulfur diesel of Ethiopia. We consequently had to “chip” the motors to ignore the lack of the emissions and which also gives us more horsepower and fuel economy. They look and sound a little more macho now. Bracken has been invaluable in getting much of this done while I spend my time in planning and transitioning my life to go to Ethiopia.

I got disappointing news that the John Deere equipment would not be shipped before the middle of February. This meant that it would not arrive in ET until the end of March, first of April. This was quite a blow because our goal was to get our first crop planted by the end of March.

I got word from Wes who is in charge of clearing farm ground in Ethiopia that he got tire of waiting for Caterpillars to arrive and hire some 3,000 local workers to start clearing ground by hand. That was hard for me to comprehend but Wes said that we should have 2,000 hectares cleared by the first of March. If we were to stay on course of Paul’s desire to plant a crop by the end of March we would have to resort to hiring small local equipment to do the job. Consequently Paul requested that I quickly return to Ethiopia to help line this up and leaving Bracken at home to oversee the shipments of Pickups, trailers and supplies.

I made reservations for the 7th of February for my return with my wife to follow a month later.

This is a major transition in our lives to leave most of our old responsibilities and to take on new.