April 4, 2011
Congressman John Garamendi and wife, ACDI/VOCA Board Member Patti Garamendi, Return to Ethiopia
In March, U.S. Representative John Garamendi and his wife Patti returned to Ethiopia where they served as Peace Corps volunteers. They were only months into their marriage in September 1966 when they ventured for two years to Metu, a small town in the southwestern part of the country.
As John wrote recently in the National Peace Corps Association’s WorldView magazine, “Thirty kilometers from the grass airstrip and an endless muddy road, we found our new home: tin roof, dirt floor, wattle walls, outhouse out back, and unlimited opportunity to serve.”
As the congressman tells the story, upon hearing President John F. Kennedy speak at the University of California, Berkeley, where they were attending college, girlfriend Patti determined to join the Peace Corps. Never mind that he, a football standout with the Golden Bears, had set his sights on the NFL. Joining Peace Corps together was her condition for marrying him.
So they came to rural Ethiopia to teach seventh and eighth grade, provide women’s family health education, give smallpox vaccinations, dig wells, build schools and help set up coffee co-ops. It was two years of, as John wrote, “helping the community, building friendships and setting the pace for a life of service.”
Continued relationship with Ethiopia
The Garamendis have remained close to Ethiopia. In 1984 they came back to help alleviate famine, working in the camps and raising money. Patti was named associate director of the Peace Corps and returned to the country in 1994 to help relaunch local Peace Corps operations, which had become dormant.
John led a peacekeeping mission composed of former Peace Corps volunteers and staff during the Ethiopian-Eritrean conflict. Because both Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and Eritrean President Isaias Afewerki had been taught by Peace Corps volunteers, the group had access to those leaders that was not granted to the U.S. government. Principles discussed in the meetings later formed the basis of the peace accords, and John and his team were invited to the signing of the agreement that ended the two-year war.
Patti went on to serve as deputy administrator for International Cooperation and Development for the USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service, which oversaw work in Ethiopia, and today serves on the board of directors of ACDI/VOCA, a Washington, D.C.-based NGO that has implemented noteworthy development projects in Ethiopia since 1994.
Back home in California Patti and John’s approach to service has taken hold. Three of their six children have also served in Peace Corps. Their daughter Ashley accompanied them on this reunion tour.
Back to Metu
On this visit, which came only weeks after the 50th anniversary of JFK’s executive order establishing Peace Corps, the Garamendis returned to Metu. They were greeted at the school where Patti taught by thousands of clapping and cheering blue-uniformed students lining the road. The Garamendis were presented with bouquets and led into in the very same classroom she had used, where they found her former students occupying their old seats. They sang part of the American folk song, "Tom Dooley," which Patti had taught them. One student warmly addressed the Garamendis, saying, “You taught us a four-letter word: H-E-L-P.”
They also visited a waterworks site, library and university currently under construction, and saw other aspects of the town that John helped plan and design 45 years ago. He recalled that he gravitated from teaching to community development because there was much that needed to be done, and he enjoyed getting about on his horse.
“Community leaders came to me with ideas,” he said, “and so we sat down and drew on paper a picture of the town we wanted to have. Now, all that is happening.”
They reported “incredible change.” “Before,” John said, “there was no running water, no electricity and the roads were mostly dust or mud. Today a four-lane highway runs through Metu.” Patti added, “Metu is a vibrant, strong, growing community. The town has changed—thankfully, the people have not.”
The mayor of Metu hosted the Garamendis at an evening dinner where there was a bonfire, music and dancing. Patti and John were interviewed on a community radio show in nearby Jimma. They strongly endorsed the need for education.
Peace Corps Legacy Continues
They were hosted by Peace Corps volunteers posted in and around the town. The volunteers cooked a feast in honor of the Garamendis. John and Patti told the volunteers how formative the experience had been. “Two years in Peace Corps gave us the path we have traveled for 45 years,” John said.
Peace Corps now has 75 volunteers serving in Ethiopia, but that number will grow to 200 next year. The volunteers teach English, combat HIV and AIDS, and work on environmental projects.
The Garamendis had dinner with the Deputy Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalyn and met with U.S. Ambassador Donald Booth. The Congressman, who helped sponsor major health care reform in the U.S. last year, is particularly interested in Ethiopian health issues as well as the status of Peace Corps and U.S. government development priorities.
They also visited the Sisters of Charity Orphanage in Addis Ababa, in which they have taken a special interest over the years.
ACDI/VOCA Experience in Ethiopia
The Garamendis also visited ACDI/VOCA project sites. Under its Feed Enhancement for Ethiopian Development (FEED) project, a USDA-funded effort to support the country’s key livestock sector, they saw feed manufacturing and fattening enterprises. They visited farm and co-op operations where they saw use of improved forage. They also visited a livestock market in Harobake assisted by ACDI/VOCA’s Pastoralist Livelihoods Initiative, which has become a hub for trade in cattle and camels. It offers veterinary services, loading ramps and the only open water source in the district. It is on the verge of being overutilized because of its valuable services to the sector.
ACDI/VOCA has promoted economic opportunities for Ethiopian livestock and farmers’ organizations, pastoralists and other rural entrepreneurs through capacity building, technical assistance and market development. Through its Agricultural Cooperatives in Ethiopia project, cooperatives became more businesslike and emerged as economic powers. Robust cooperative unions were mobilized and won the right to market coffee directly to international roasters and buyers, an arrangement that paved the way for marketing of specialty coffee, high returns for growers and worldwide recognition for such Ethiopian locales as Sidamo, Yirgacheffe, Kaffa and Oromia. The Garamendis saw the brand-new, four-story brick-and-glass headquarters of the Oromia Coffee Cooperative Union.
During their week and a half in Ethiopia, the Garamendis saw how Peace Corps volunteers continue to work person-to-person to benefit Ethiopia and build deep relationships between two nations, and how ACDI/VOCA empowers smallholders to provide food security, improve their standard of living and succeed in the global economy. They also experienced the enabling environment being provided by the government under its Ethiopian Transformation Policy, which emphasizes agriculture.
But most of all, they will enjoy renewing acquaintances with the people of this nation that is so dear to them.
For information contact Perry Letson at pletson@acdivoca.org.
Pictured at top left: ACDI/VOCA board member Patti Garamendi hugs an Ethiopian friend while her husband Congressman John Garamendi looks on.
