Bekelech - One of many backbones in Ethiopia
Lea Pickel. Addis Ababa is home to the Entoto Natural Park, where visitors can enjoy indoor and outdoor activities. Outdoor activities entail horseback riding, Go Carts, hiking, and mountain biking. Furthermore, there are multiple restaurants and café’s, both traditional and non-traditional. Visitors can also tent in a luxury resort and experience a relaxing spa treatment. The resort is well known for utilising the surrounding nature in its SPA especially the Eucalyptus branches used in the procedure are collected by the women of the surrounding communities.
One of these women is Bekelech, a mother of three and together with her husband, they try to provide for their children as much as they can, to secure them a better future.
Her husband is a laborer who doesn’t earn more than 1$ to 3$ a day, therefore Bekelech hikes up the mountain Entoto, in Addis Abeba, to collect firewood and Eucalyptus branches to sell them on the market.
She hikes up almost 15 kilometers a day and does heavy labor, by collecting almost 10 to 15 kilograms of firewood and branches. Once she reaches the top, Bekelech makes her way back into the city, to sell all the wood on the market. Even then she doesn’t earn more than 3$ a day. This is the money that she uses to pay off her rent and put food on the table for her children.
With the hike and the heavy work come physical problems. Her bones hurt and her muscles ache. However, her work doesn’t stop at the market because as soon as she gets home, she has to feed her children and take care of the household, until her husband comes back from work. Even after that, Bekelech is probably still up at night cleaning up after her family and goes to bed far later.
Bekelech represents many women who created the backbone for the Ethiopian community by providing everyone with firewood. The Entoto Park was initiated by many stories as such and it was created to help women like them out by creating more job opportunities. During the construction and after, these women got the chance to work on the mountain and make a steady living. They can now supply their families with a steady income and more opportunities.
Entoto Natural Park, April 2021
