The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.

Crunchy numbers

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 6,000 times in 2010. That’s about 14 full 747s.

In 2010, there were 38 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 52 posts. There were 84 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 51mb. That’s about 2 pictures per week.

The busiest day of the year was May 13th with 103 views. The most popular post that day was Our Trip South; A Recap.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were networkedblogs.com, mail.yahoo.com, drawnfromwater.org, mail.live.com, and meetthescotches.blogspot.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for 5family.wordpress.com, www.5family.wordpress.com, five family blog baginski, lale labuko, and jinka.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

Our Trip South; A Recap May 2010
6 comments

Just can’t win! July 2010
12 comments

Preparing to Move June 2010
8 comments

We are back! May 2010
6 comments

Strawberry Rhubarb Cobbler, Flatbread, Hummus, and Something-like-the-DMV April 2010
6 comments

We "re-celebrated" Kai's birthday with family in California

All I can say is, God is so in the details.  Micah is usually the one to write our blog posts but I just had to share all the goodness that has been poured out on us since we’ve been home—or should I say, the home we’ve been staying in since we got back to the US.

If any of you are ever on Facebook (I hardly ever am), you may have seen my recent status update that I think it may be time to change the name of our family blog.  Baby Baginski #4 is due June 21^st 2011.  We are very excited to have the large family we have dreamed of having.  I think four kids officially qualifies as “big.”

By the time we were in Germany and planning our “re-entry”, Micah started fine-tuning and updating his resume, and I started giving thought to the kinds of things I tend to worry about, like getting health insurance and having the kids checked for parasites.  Knowing that we were coming back with one more person, I was truly concerned that I would not qualify for coverage.  Even though I am not one who believes that pregnancy is an illness, health insurance companies would see this as a “pre-existing condition.”

The night we landed in San Francisco, my dear friend Sarah encouraged me to look into Healthy Families—a health insurance program for low-income families in California.  I got started on it the very next day and guess what I discovered?  Although this program doesn’t generally cover parents—only children of low-income families—it does cover pregnant mothers and their unborn children!  Hallelujah!  Exactly what I feared would disqualify me, is the only reason I can get health care coverage through this program.

Within a week of being back in the States, Noah came down with an “unexplained” fever.  We have been notified that any “unexplained” fever we are to have over the next year should be presumed malaria until proven otherwise.  So Noah  and I spent the next couple hours of the evening at the ER for a malaria test.  Last week, we received the bill from the hospital for the ER visit—OUCH!!  (Not the $1.50 it cost for us to get Kai tested and treated in Ethiopia two months ago!)

So this brings me to today. . . I received two letters from “Healthy Families” health insurance.  The first one stated that Isabella is covered, effective December 10^th for a minimum monthly premium.  The second letter stated that Noah and Kai (because they are age 5 and under) qualified for another “no-cost” health care program and get this: effective NOVEMBER 1^st!!  This means we can submit Noah’s ER visit and it will be COMPLETELY covered through this program.

I am thankful that I live in the wonderful (otherwise bankrupt) State of California, but even more very THANKFUL that we serve a very Mighty God, our Father in Heaven, who loves and cares for us so deeply and is very much in the details.

This is from a good friend of mine that imports coffee from Ethiopia through his business Just Coffee. I just thought it sounded like a great project and I am always impressed by people who think of innovative ways to help others. Enjoy.

I have an exciting request to help build a school where we buy coffee! If you purchase green coffee in Yirgacheffe, you are purchasing from growers that do not have an adequate school (100 kids per classroom, many can’t attend), where children must go to the bathroom in the woods, and eat sugar cane to stave off hunger and thirst throughout the day. Please read and strongly consider supporting this project. It will make an immediate difference in the lives of over a thousand families!

I’m writing this while driving back from Yirgacheffe as our car weaves between goat herds and donkey carts. We’ve left the Sidama huts behind and are careening down into the Great Rift Valley – on my way home after a week in Ethiopia. We’ve been working on Run Across Ethiopia, taking place in January to raise funds to build schools in the communities where we purchase coffee. Timothy (our run coordinator), Surafael (translator and logistics support in Ethiopia), Ayele (Representative from Oromia Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union), Belay (our driver), and I have just finished up an amazing three day adventure along the expedition route.

The rest of the trip has been working on overall logistics in getting 10 american runners, 4-6 ethiopian runners, 2 musicians, videographer, journalist, support crew, family, and 15 coffee roasters from Addis Ababa to Yrgacheffe over a 10 day period.

Of all the adventures this week the most important is the reason I am emailing you – Mose Greola School whose children are members of the cooperative Kalaltu Hase Gola – where we buy some of our Yrgacheffe Coffee. The school has 960 students sharing just 7 small classrooms, with literally, as many children who can fit crammed into each classroom. This amounts to over 100 kids in a small room. The school serves 5 neighboring villages with over 800 families living in each village. With an average of 7 people in each household – that comes to a small 7 classroom 1st – 8th grade school serving a population of 28,000! Without added classrooms, many children can’t even attend school.

While classrooms are the most important issue – it is not the only. There is no bathroom – children must go in the woods. There is no water – the closest well is a 10 minute walk. There is no food –they find sugar cane in the fields to stave off hunger and thirst during the day. There is no housing for the teachers– they must walk 2 hours each day to school. There are very few school supplies and furnishings – the tiny first graders sit on branches of a tree propped into benches in their dirt floor classroom. When the rainy season starts, the floor of the school floods, and the rain falls through the holes in the ceiling and walls.

The Run Across Ethiopia is bearing much fruit – all from runners raising 15 grand each to participate and local support via Higher Grounds and community members.

To date we have funded a kindergarten lunch program for 40 children in one of the worst neighborhoods of Addis Ababa, we’ve funded a street children program as part of the Tesfa Foundation, and we are beginning the work on 2 schools to be built in coffee growing communities.

However, I can not help but think that member roasters from Cooperative Coffees would love to participate! Many of you have already offered to pitch in and I am so excited that if we all can give something we can make this school a reality.

As I know almost all of you reading this, I know you agree that the concept of “fair trade” goes WAY beyond a price paid to a coffee grower. When a community does not have the basic access to education, health care, and water – we must, as ethical businesses, step up and step in to share our relative wealth to make the communities we rely on become more sustainable.

For that reason I am asking each of you to consider giving what you can relative to your size – if all of us were to give an average of $2000 to this project we can say that the roasters that make up Cooperative Coffees was able to build a school in Ethiopia where we purchase our coffee. On the school would be the name of each of your companies. Knowing that our power, collectively, reaches way beyond just paying a high price for coffee to farmers who even with that high price can not break free from the chains of poverty.

If we do not raise the total amount via CC members, On the Ground (our non-profit) will supplement what Cooperative Coffees members can give to make the project a reality. Please see attached the budget for the project, and the photo below of the kids in their classroom on friday and please feel free to call my cell (231.218.0014) if you have any questions this week. As well, when we are in Ethiopia for the Coop Sol AGM you will have the opportunity to visit the community and see the beginnings of the construction. (If you are on the fence of whether to come or not you should definitely make it happen!)

You can donate via our website – http://www.onthegroundglobal.com or mail to the address below (tax deductible). Please also respond to this email right away if you can give something and if I do not hear from you our Executive Director at On the Ground, Bill Paladino, will give you a call to discuss the project in case you did not read this.

Thanks for reading.

Thanks for your generosity!
Chris Treter
Higher Grounds Trading Co

Checks payable to On the Ground (501c3)
806 Red Drive
Traverse City, Michigan
49684

We have had so many experiences in Ethiopia that I just didn’t have the ability to relate to you all. I wish we would have been able to be more connected to our friends and family during the past 7 months and at the same time realize that we wouldn’t have had the experience we did if we were. I am beginning to reflect on things as we have our last macchiato, last look at piece of scenery, goodbyes to people we may not see again, and I know we will miss this place. Ethiopia is a place of immense beauty, striking contrasts, and is a desired place in the world among developing nations. We are leaving very dear friends here and will continue to support what they are doing once we are gone. I have worn my “I Love Ethiopia” T-shirt with pride and I don’t like slogan tee’s, but we are excited to come home and see you all! We will be there soon. Love the Baginskis.

Kids at Entoto

So I thought I would just do a post of the last month in pictures and maybe a few words.  We started at Entoto when my mom and Margaret came over to spend a few weeks with us.  Entoto overlooks Addis and is a great way to get out of the smog.

Don't feed the baboons.

I traveled to Duss to install a solar system on the church and Margaret did some first aid and healthcare.

From the roof of the Landcruiser after just driving into Duss.

Hand carved canoe on the shore of the Omo River.

Kara women carrying water from the Omo River.

Lights and power for a TV/DVD, with no generator!

 

Hi

Gulo and the second wife.

A caring heart.

Roasting a goat in Duss.

We are in Africa!

The Savannah

An Ibex or is it an Antelope?

Happy New Year at the Addis Children’s Home

It was 5 A.M. and the Landcruiser was fully loaded from the night before.  50 kilos of Maize, 50 kilos of sorghum, pots and pans, solar panel, very heavy battery, and a whole lot more.  We made the rounds through Jinka picking up all of our passengers, which included Lale Simi, his wife Gulo, and their child Dera, (Yosef’s Family), Lale American, (Friend of Lale Labuko), Lale Labuko, Tyler, (Lale’s Friend from Georgia), Margaret and myself.  We were loaded!  This was to be Gulo’s first trip back home to the tribe since she had left 5 months before to give birth to her son Yosef.

We rambled down the dirt road towards Key Afer, then on to Turmi where we stopped for coffee.  Turmi is a true African bush-town with little more than a veterinary clinic and a couple shops that didn’t appear to be open yet on this sunny morning.  We had some coffee and headed out into the real bush.  The road to Duss is really a riverbed and a wandering path through brush and termite mounds.  It was a really bumpy three or so hours and we were there. We first drove into Lale and Gulo’s compound where I was able to jump up on the top of the Landcruiser and unload all of the supplies.  This is where I captured my first panoramic of the place I had envisioned for so long. Duss sits on a dusty plain overlooking the Omo River.  There is very little vegetation and a couple of trees, not much to shelter you from the 115 degree midday sun.  The village is comprised of 20 or so Gojo’s or grass huts.  The government has built a school and an NGO has built a clinic, sadly neither of which are suitably staffed or supplied.

I was overpowered by emotion as a gazed out over the Omo River and this setting.  I couldn’t understand the source of this at the time. Now I know it marked for me a conclusion of one story but also the ragged unfinished edges of another.  Gulo was home.  We met her when she first came to Jinka to have her baby.  We lived with her in Addis where we had brought her for medical care.  We were neighbors in Jinka where we shared Sunday afternoons and coffee on our front porch learning about her culture, her needs, and her heart. We cared for her baby when he was first brought into the world. Now I was blessed to see her gleaming back in her home where I knew she belonged.  As for the unfinished edges, there is where the hope lies.  My heart is torn for these people as I see the place where many children have been cast for fear of a curse that only One can remove.