Nhigist has trouble keeping the cows and the goats together. The cows want to walk down to the river, but the goats are trying to walk back to the village. She yells and runs after the goats; now they turn around. The houses are at the top of a steep hill and the river is at the bottom. Her father is already working on the land halfway down the hill. He is preparing the land for the next season. They grow tef, mostly, to make Ethiopian bread and some beans. That is all that will grow if you do not have access to irrigation water. And Nhigist looks after their cows and goats and those

animals of her uncle, who lives next door. There are about 200 people in their village, situated just on the edge of a small dam, built for irrigation. The water for the irrigation is used downstream in the village of Godino – not far from Debre Zeit. That is why the dam and canal are called the Godino irrigation system. A few people in the village can use the water from the reservoir by taking some water out of the irrigation canal, as it leaves the reservoir, but most people in the village depend on rainfall to grow their crops.

Carrying water up to the house is probably the hardest work Nhigist and her mother Ataman have to do. They walk down with blue plastic Jeri cans to the bottom of the dam and fill them with water by dipping them on the side into the stream. That can fill them up to about two thirds. The last bit Nhigist fills with an empty can. The water looks brown, but after it has been standing in the house for a few hours the mud settles and it can be used for cooking and washing. But the full plastic bottle is so heavy that Nhigist can barely
carry it back up to the house. Even her mother is bending

down deep under the weight. No wonder her mother gets so angry with her brothers when they spill water. When you have to carry every drop up the hill you think twice before you wash yourself. Water is really scarce.

Ataman’s father always says that if they only could get water out of the reservoir, like their cousins who live in Godino, to irrigate their crops then they could also grow wheat, vegetables even. But the small dawn at the bottom of the hill has been built a long time ago, before Nhigist was born, by engineers from far, far away; from Cuba.

Nhigist’s father will go visit her older brother today. Nhigist is excited, she has asked whether she can come, but it is a long walk down the mountain and her father said no. One time she had a ride on a truck and then the ride back up the mountains took only half an hour, but for Nhigist’s family, walking down with the donkeys and back up is a trip that takes more than a day.

Her brother, Regassa, left their village a few months ago. He is now working on a huge farm that grows flowers at

the bottom of the Godino irrigation system. The farm is all new, the flowers are grown in green houses, the temperature and the water are controlled by computers. The one time that Nhigist visited Regassa she could not believe her eyes – this was another world, so close to her village but also so far away. In her village, it seems that nothing important has changed since even her grandmother can remember. But Regassa is cutting flowers that go into a truck straight to the airport. Her father says that Regassa is going to be rich. Last time he came home he brought almost all the clothes her family is now wearing. Regassa says that his boss at the farm predicts that soon there will be farms like his on all land between there and Godino.

Nighist would like to go to school, but her father says she is needed to herd the animals. All the girls need to work on the farm and around the house. Her two brothers do go to school. Her cousins who live in Godino do go to school and she has asked her father why she cannot go. Her father says that all family members have to help to grow tef and look after the animals, or they will all go hungry. The land is steep and not very fertile and gives them only just enough to survive. Her father says only water for irrigation can help
him grow more and let her go to school; he is often angry

that he cannot get the water that sits in the reservoir, so close to his land.

On the other side of the hill, in the neigbouring village people also do not have irrigation, but they have built terraces – rainwater harvesting they call it – and they are growing wheat without irrigation. Nighist wonders how that is done. She would love to learn how to grow other things than tef on their farm and she wonders if you can learn that in school. Her mother is growing some vegetables next to the house, but if the rain stops these often die. There must be ways to get water to the house that are less difficult than carrying it on your back.

Nighist’s uncle has visited the village on the other side of the hill. During lunch he is explaining what he has seen. He claims that the people in the other village can get twice as much tef as they do – and without irrigation. Soil and water conservation he calls it. Terracing the land, stopping the erosion with stone bunds and leaving the stubble on the field – conservation tillage, they call that. By capturing more of the rainfall and keeping it in the soil the plants grow better.

Nhigist is excited when she hears her uncle tell it. It can be done because people do it so close to her own house, with nothing but their own hands. She does wonder what her animals would eat, though, because the stubble is a large part of what they eat. Her father is more skeptical. He believes the government should build another dam and give them irrigation – just like their cousins in Godino have. He believes that will allow them to grow a second crop and grow vegetables, just as in Godino.

Nighist’s father still remembers when the Cubans were building the dam next to his land, almost 30 years ago, when he was a boy. Everybody in the village was excited; they believed that there would be another dam that would give them access to water as well. But for almost 30 years now, no other dam has been built anywhere in the area that he knows. He has family members in many parts of Ethiopia but it is the same for almost all people living in the rural areas. They have to rely on rainfall, which is good in some
years, bad in others and sometimes stops for several

weeks in the middle of the rainy season, killing their crop. Hunger is always just around the corner. He knows of people who have built small dams themselves, or with the help of some foreign groups, and people who have built their own wells. But you need a good place for a dam, or groundwater close to the surface – and some money as well. And he has neither. All his adult life he has waited for the government to build another dam – and now his oldest son has left the village to work in the greenhouses built by Israeli investors. He is not sure what is better, to have access to irrigation, like in Godino, or to have a steady job for a good salary like his son. But he knows that both of these would be a great improvement over the farming he is doing – that will never produce enough to send all of his kids to school.

Another duty of Nighist and her sisters is to find enough firewood for her mother’s kitchen fires. They also dry cow dung and use it as fuel, but there never seems to be enough of that, and if they find some good firewood, her mother is happy and the fire stays on to warm them at night. There are few trees left within walking distance, however, except some that were planted, it is said, by Emperor Haile Selasi. And walking back up the hill with a big bundle of branches is almost as heavy as carrying the water – and
much further. Her uncle says that cutting the trees is bad

for the land. Too many animals and not enough trees. Without trees to hold the soil, the rain will wash it down the hill, where it fills up the reservoir. But where else can they find fire wood?

The only thing Nighist enjoys on her long walks to get firewood is to see the birds. There are so many birds everywhere. Huge clouds of birds passing through their village as they migrate North and South with the season. Nighist knows all the birds that live in their area and most of the visitors. Some days she plays a little game with her sisters on who sees the most types of birds on every trip to get firewood. Last time she won – she saw seventeen types of birds. And she is always on the look-out for a bird she has never seen before – some visitor from far away. She wishes she could fly with them and visit their summer and winter homes, far, far away from here.

That evening as her family shares the food that is remaining from lunch, Nighist asks her uncle to tell them more about his visit to the village on the other side of the hill. What can they do here to harvest rainwater? Do the girls go to school there? Is her uncle going to try as well? Her uncle tells her to shush, this is serious business and not for girls. But her mother disagrees. She thinks that if she can grow enough onions she could sell them in the market. They could certainly use some extra money. She is willing to try.

She asks her brother to take both herself and Nighist on a visit to the other village, next time. She and her daughters are strong; they can prepare the land, they can make bunds. Maybe she can ask Regassa to bring her one of those “drip kits” instead of clothes on his next visit. In her heart she has decided that her baby daughter will go to school. Whether it is on this land, or down below on Regassa’s farm, she is determined to see that her daughters will lead a better life.