  
 Having the opportunity to travel to Ethiopia and experience the Belo community first hand was a once in a lifetime experience. Darren, Corrie, Amanda, Kimberly and Vanessa teamed up with Food for the Hungry Canada and spent November 7th - 18th getting to know the local community there. Belo is one of nine different kebele's (communities) that are in the project area of FH Canada and to whom our Belo contribution benefits go.
 We flew into Addis Ababa, Ethiopia's capital and home to the UN office in Africa as well as the African Union, so there are a lot of dignitaries and ambassadors who live there. It was quite bizarre to see fancy limousines with flags driving around some of the crazy dirt roads with donkeys and goats running along beside them! It took us ten hours by car to reach the compound we stayed at in Belo. Some of the road was paved but much of it was dirt and mud. We passed through sections of jungle (where we saw baboons!) hills (they call them mountains) and flat plains. It was breathtakingly beautiful and looked somewhat similar to driving through the Okanagan Valley. The air smelled like a wonderful combination of spices and goats, something none of us had encountered before! The people were amazingly gracious and friendly. They all wanted to shake our hands and were very emphatic in expressing their thanks for all that our funding was allowing them to do.
 Each day consisted of waking up, enjoying some tasty injera and dips (fermented bread dough that looks like a pancake and various dips made out of hummus, veggies, goat, etc.!) while planning for the day. Mornings and afternoons were spent traveling to different villages within the kebele system. Visiting different schools, hospitals, agriculture nurseries and animal care centres provided great insight about the everyday lives of this community. Visits to several schools were phenomenal experiences as hundreds of children would come swarming out of the schoolyard, singing at the top of their lungs, presenting the team with flowers, drawings, and even some painted vegetables! They would then put on a presentation of gymnastics, soccer, running, poem reading and drama, all of which were very moving to see.
  The communities were incredibly receptive to the work that is being done by FH Canada. Some of the most incredible visits were to different water well sites. There, individuals from the community would rave with great enthusiasm about how, by simply having access to clean water, infant death rates had dropped, life spans had lengthened, and the overall health of the community had improved greatly. Farming practices were being rejuvenated as new products were introduced to provide for diversification and soil renewal. On the last day in the community, the Fifth Avenue Club team along with the FH Canada staff hosted a "Run for Belo" in Belo! This was presented as an opportunity for the residents to understand a little bit more about the cross-cultural relationship that Fifth Avenue Club has been seeking to establish with them. Over two hundred residents ran a 3km run with the staff, putting everyone to shame as they raced past in their sandals and bare feet. It culminated in over a thousand people assembling and expressing their thanks through speeches and presentations.
Future goals for the community are to build their very first high school and provide each of their elementary schools with a fully stocked library. This will enable the kids to have the opportunity to better their academic standing in the country and open up the possibility of university level education. We are ready to help out wherever and however we can. Fifth Avenue Club is very proud of the residents of Belo, Ethiopia and is very excited to see what the future will hold.
  
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