ETHIOPIA… OR UTOPIA?

IN THE HEART OF NORTHERN ETHIOPIA,

ONE PARTICULAR VILLAGE
5 HAS REVERSED GENDER NORMS
AND CREATED ITS OWN RULES.
IN AWRA AMBA,
WOMEN AND MEN ARE EQUAL
IN A SELF-SUSTAINING SOCIETY.

10 ORIGINALLY WRITTEN BY: ISMAEL MEREGHETTI (C.C. PICTURES ADDED FROM OTHER SOURCES) /
PUBLISHED IN M’S, A FEMINIST AMERICAN MAGAZINE

1) The thatched roof houses and brown earth make Awra Amba, in the CetteAmhara area inconnu
photo par Auteur of est soumis à la licence CC BY-
SA
northern Ethiopia, look like any African village. But this is no ordinary village.
15 2) Here, young girls go to school, and walk short distances from their homes to get to them.
Once home, they don’t have to trade their textbooks for chopping boards or babies.
Household chores don’t await them. In Ethiopia, less than half the girls don’t go to primary
school, but not so in Awra Amba – they all do.
3) Take Trissew Fente for instance. She chose not to marry before turning 19. Child
20 marriages are common in the rest of Ethiopia, but not in Awra Amba. Fente opted to marry
a man of her generation and didn’t need to ask her family’s permission for it.
4) There were no celebrations, no dowry paid. The union was desacralized. Today, 30 years
old, she is a mother of three and has opted not to get pregnant again.
5) Fente uses oral contraception. Awra Amba supports family planning methods, and
25 opposes the practice of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). The villagers are well aware of
the long-term health issues associated with it.
6) “We don’t inflict [excision] on our daughters because this creates many complications at
birth,” says Fente.
7) In Ethiopia, excision is punishable by law (since 2005). Yet, it’s believed that more than
30 70% of Ethiopian women continue to be victims of this practice – the country has one of
the worst rates in the world.
8) “The people in Ethiopia think we’re crazy. Personally, I think their customs are terrible,”
says Fente, as she works away on her wooden loom, traditionally an activity men engage
in on the continent. 
35 9) Petite she is,but performs this physically-arduous job just as skilfully as the men.
10) In Awra Amba, men and women get the same pay. The jobs are not distributed as per
gender, but according to skill-sets. Here, women can be seen ploughing the land while men
bathe the children and prepare injera, a pancake made out of a cereal grown locally.
11) “Doing a woman’s job does not change my sex, it changes my ignorance” is one of the
40mottos of this community created by Zumra Nuru, a 70-year-old illiterate peasant.
Known for his trademark green hat, Nuru founded this exclusive community at Awra Amba in
1972. Village lore has it that he decided to create his own utopia based on impressions from his
childhood, when he witnessed the gross inequalities between his mother
and father.
45 12) The beginnings were difficult, as Nuru sought to emancipate and free himself and his
community of binding religious ties. Today, the community is made up of a hundred families who
follow the unique egalitarian principles set by Numra for a self-sustaining society.
Hopefully, his model will encourage Ethiopia – and the rest of Africa – to come up with other
more unique and emancipated concepts that benefit their communities – and the women.
50GENERAL UNDERSTANDING:

This article is about a village in ________________ in which ________________ and ________________

are equal. ________________ do jobs traditionally assigned to ________________ and vice-versa.
Opportunities are the same for both ________________.

VOCABULARY

55FIND THE EQUIVALENT OF THE FOLLOWING WORDS CONTAINED IN THE TEXT:

Paragraph 1:
With a roof covered in straw:______________________________________________________________
Appear:______________________________________________________________________________________
Paragraph 2:
60Exchange:____________________________________________________________________________________
Boards for cutting food:____________________________________________________________________
Things to do around the house:____________________________________________________________
Paragraph 3:
Decided to:___________________________________________________________________________________
65Paragraph 4:
Money paid by the father of the woman to the father of the husband:__________________
Made into something not holy, but ordinary:_____________________________________________
Paragraph 5:
Know very well about:______________________________________________________________________
70Problems:____________________________________________________________________________________
Paragraph 6:
Subject to:____________________________________________________________________________________
Paragraph 7:
The most lamentable percentages:________________________________________________________
75Paragraph 8:
Traditional practices:_______________________________________________________________________
Textile machine for weaving:______________________________________________________________
Paragraph 9:
Small, not with a very strong body:________________________________________________________
80Tiring:________________________________________________________________________________________
With as much talent, just as ably:__________________________________________________________
Paragraph 10:
Set of abilities:_______________________________________________________________________________
Turn the soil:________________________________________________________________________________
85Paragraph 11:
slogan:_______________________________________________________________________________________
unschooled:__________________________________________________________________________________
which it is hard to imagine him without, with which he goes everywhere:____________
traditional folk stories:_____________________________________________________________________
90saw:__________________________________________________________________________________________
horrible:______________________________________________________________________________________
Paragraph 12:
mandatory:_________________________________________________________________
living in autarky:_____________________________________________________________

95

2
 5

DETAILED UNDERSTANDING:

RIGHT/WRONG (justify by quoting line number)

1. The village looks ordinary at first sight.

R/W line number ___
100 2. Schoolgirls do nothing but study.
R/W line number ___
3. Schools are far away from home for most girls.
R/W line number ___
4. In Awra Amba, a woman doesn’t have to marry when still young.
105 R/W line number ___
5. A woman can choose whether or not she is going to have babies.
R/W line number ___
6. Excision affects 70% of the women in the village.
R/W line number ___
110 7. In the village, women can do men’s jobs and get the same salary.
R/W line number ___
8. In the village, men cook, but don’t look after children.
R/W line number ___
9. In the village, only ignorant men look after the children.
115 R/W line number ___
10. Zumra Nuru, a 70-year-old illiterate peasant, started the village.
R/W line number ___

QUESTIONS FOR WRITING

1) Immediately after telling us the village is different, the reader is told about the
120 status of women in Awra Amba. How does that make the village different?
2) How will the generalised schooling for girls impact their lives?
3) Do you think men also benefit from the fact that a woman can’t be forced to
marry an older man?
4) Why did the founders of the village feel it was important to desacralize
125 weddings?
5) Why do you think it was necessary to invent the slogan about doing a woman’s
job?
6) What do you think is the most impressive aspect of Awre Amba?
7) Do you think that men can feel liberated by the village rules as well?
130 8) Do you think there is a reason why women are prevented from working in the
fields or as weavers in Ethiopia?
9) Do those rules exist everywhere in Africa or in your country?
10) You have travelled to Awra Amba after reading the article. Zumra welcomes you
and shows you around the village.
135 a. What can you see? Who do you meet? People mentioned in the article, or
others not mentioned?
b. Then, Zumra tells you it is customary for visitors to invent at least one
slogan for the village. What would yours be?