So this week we were able to test our data collection instruments. We went to a place called Asebe Teferi which is also the place that Haille Selassie was born. The town was a semi-urban area. It was nice to get away from Addis for a bit. The rapid assessment team consisted of Gina, Diana and myself. We drove about 5-6 hours east to reach Asebe Teferi in a pickup truck with our fellow teammate Kasa and a driver named Yosef. Along the way, we saw many different terrains as well as many different animals. We saw camels, baboons, donkeys, wild dogs and a lot of people on the rural roads. I found it interesting that people were so willing to hitchhike to the next town on the side of the road. 
The actual work we did was very cool. We worked with 3 Cluster Level Associations(CLA) and 1 Self Help Group(SHG) during our time there. The CLA’s are the next step for the SHG’s after proving success as members of the SHG system. We gathered a lot of data on how these women were responding to the drought and we were able to better gauge levels of resiliency among these women. We have a much longer field visit next week as we will be moving into Southern Ethiopia to two different towns. That will be fun, but the drive will probably be horrible!
