But now Gambella is also home to large-scale agricultural investments. A Saudi billionaire has leased 25,000 acres from the Ethiopian government to grow rice. His company, Saudi Star, plans to expand that to nearly 500,000 acres within 10 years. This past summer the company planted its first commercial crop.

Saudi Star plans to add hundreds of miles of irrigation canals and pipes to bring water from the Alwero Dam to its thirsty rice crop. Ethiopians don’t typically grow or eat rice. Most of the crop will be exported to the Middle East. But Muhammad Manzoor Khan, a Pakistani consultant for Saudi Star, said the rice will help Ethiopia feed its people.

(Photos: Dallas McNamara)

“This kind of project can really bring a revolution in food production as well as uplifting the social conditions of the people around,” Khan said, standing in front of rice paddies.

Ethiopia is a fast-developing nation, but it’s struggling with severe drought, and skyrocketing food prices. The Ethiopian government now estimates that 4-and-a-half million people in the country need emergency food aid.

Over the past few years, Ethiopia has developed a comprehensive agricultural plan that depends heavily on foreign investment, and its ability to bring in much needed foreign currency.

Saudi Star predicts its massive rice project will generate a billion dollars in revenue for Ethiopia and tens of thousands of jobs. Esayas Kebede, of the Ministry of Agriculture, said that means increased food security for Ethiopia – if people have jobs they can buy food, even if there is a drought.

“If you increase the purchasing power of the people, the people can easily get their own food by their own cash,” Kebede said.

But many of the local Anuak tribe say the rice farm is not providing jobs for their communities. They worry the rice will dry up the water they rely on for their own farming and fishing. And they say, after years of hostility from the government, they are now being forced off their land to make way for investors.

One local woman from the Anuak tribe said the government told them they’re moving them to a better place where they can get government assistance. But she said, “There are no farms here and no food. Now we’re living like refugees in our own country.”

The Ethiopian government said it did move people, from rural settlements to villages, but not because of the Saudi Star project. Kebede of the Agriculture Ministry said that it was done to provide them with better services and aid.

But according to Human Rights Watch, many of the Anuak are being relocated to parts of Gambella that already don’t have enough food to feed the local population.

“This large scale investment program has nothing to do with food security concerns in the country,” said Desalegn Rahmeto, a senior research fellow at the Forum for Social Studies in Addis Ababa.

“If you export all the food items and earn foreign currency, but people in the communities don’t have access to food, that is counter productive. And this is happening, this is not hypothetical situation, this is actually happening,” Rahmeto said.

Rastafarian artist Bandi Payne leads visitors through the jungle-like garden that surrounds his house in Shashamane, pointing out the many trees he’s planted in his two decades here.

“That’s guava, my guava tree. Tangerine, banana trees and… that is cassava,” Payne said pointing to the shrubby plant.

Payne was born on the Caribbean island of Saint Vincent, but long wanted to make Ethiopia his home.

Rastafarians – whose religion follows an afro-centric reading of the bible – believe that Ethiopia’s last emperor, who died in 1975, was the Messiah, fulfilling the Biblical prophecy that kings would come out of Africa.

That belief that Africa is the Promised Land makes moving here a life goal for many Rastafarians.

“Rich is not the right word for it – it’s more than rich, it’s sweeter than honey, more valuable than pearls the culture, very strong,” Payne said.

But while Rastafarians consider their arrival in Africa a homecoming, Payne said local Ethiopians don’t look at it quite the same way.

“They need to give us a special welcome here, man. People who were taken away from Africa, now they come back home, they should welcome us back. Don’t think they have to have us as foreigners. So we’re working up on that, but it’s an uphill struggle,” he said.

Relations between the Rastafarians and their Ethiopian neighbors have never been great. Rastafarians moved to Ethiopia to create their perfect religious community, not necessarily to fit into the culture.

Different languages and beliefs keep the two groups apart. Most Ethiopians are Orthodox Christians, without much interest in Rastafarian beliefs.

The Twelve Tribes of Israel

On Friday nights, members of a Rasta organization called the Twelve Tribes of Israel host parties at their headquarters. Reggae plays as people gather to drink beer and catch up. The smell of marijuana, a sacrament for Rastas but illegal for Ethiopians, hangs in the air.

“The rest of the Ethiopian people know them about this hashish, ganja. That’s not good too. Even they spoil our kids there,” said Wihibe, a former schoolteacher who goes by just one name.

Sitting at a local café, he said the Rastafarians generally keep to themselves, coming into town only to shop. Wihibe used to work at a Rastafarian school but said he left because of the attitude.

“They feel like they are superior then us. They assume themselves as [more] educated and literate than the original Black people here,” Wihibe said.

Rastafarians are starting to take complaints like this seriously and making more of an effort to be involved in the cultural life of their adopted home. Priest Paul Phang is the Rastafarians elected leader.

“If it is our home then we have to fight, eh? Not literally, taking arms or whatever. But make sacrifice to bridge gaps,” he said.

Colonialism

Rastafarians consider themselves the victims and opponents of colonialism in the Americas, so they say it hurts to be seen as colonizers themselves. Phang said he’s been sending representatives to community meetings and holiday celebrations.

“These are part of the things that the people wanted maybe to see us really within, to show ourselves,” Phang said. “Because if we say we’re African, we’re not really, we’re selfish, we’ve just been by ourselves, not knowing the next side of the culture or whatever.”

But not all Rastafarians are interested in assimilating. Increasingly, they’re heading to other African countries, like Ghana and South Africa, where the culture and government have proved an easier fit for Rastafarians seeking Zion.

This story was produced in collaboration with the International Reporting Project.

"The Garden of Eden" by Lucas Cranach der Ältere

For the Ariekei, who live on a distant planet in China Miéville’s latest novel Embassytown, speech is thought: “Without language for things that didn’t exist, they could hardly think them.”

In Miéville’s Ariekei language, there is no room for metaphor, no space between the thing – or the idea – and the word. As a result, the Ariekei have no concept of lying. Language is truth, rather than merely standing in for it. Quite the opposite of any human language.

The Ariekei’s form of communication is meant to echo the pre-language of the Garden of Eden, before Adam and Eve eat from the Tree of Knowledge. Miéville plays on the idea that language itself– human language — represents the Fall. As Miéville says, maybe the adoption of language is “rather a good fall.” It’s a nice irony that the Ariekei have two mouths (as well as hooves and wings).

China Miéville

Miéville is – and I’m just learning this — one of the leading lights of the so-called New Weird generation of fantasy writers. Some say it’s only a matter of time until he busts out of his genre and wins some general fiction prizes.

Also in the pod this week: A short discussion of the word blagging, popularized by the News International scandal; why governments and aid agencies avoid using the word famine (more here). And, if you sing in French, don’t expect airtime in the Brussels metro (more here).

Photos: Stuart Caie/Flickr, Wikipedia

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This region is home to an ethnic people who speak the Amharic language.

And it’s home to Lake Tana, a source of the Blue Nile.

The answer is Amhara, where some world leaders, along with Archbishop Desmond Tutu, are gathered to raise awareness about the issue of child marriage. The answer is Amhara. Anchor Marco Werman gets the story from the BBC’s Will Ross.

Marsaxlokk, Malta

Dusk is falling on the fishing village of Marsaxlokk on Malta. On one of the fishing boats, members of the mostly foreign crew all nod when asked if they have spotted or rescued African migrants on these waters.

“Yes, yes, yes,” said a man from Egypt.

Another fisherman, named Teela, from Indonesia, who declines to give a surname, joins the conversation.

“African people yes, yes, on the water. I see one person dead already. Yes, dead. So just looking and then we go.”

The fishermen then ask me to turn off my recorder. One of them said that he smuggled a boatload of Africans from Malta to Sicily — about 66 miles away — to make some extra money during the EU imposed fishing ban period.

Pozzallo, Sicily

And the port city of Pozzallo is where many undocumented migrants first land in Sicily.

“We have almost every week boat people landing here,” said Otillio Falcone, a humanities teacher and a tour guide here.

“Pozzallo is one of the places, closest places and there are lots of people arriving,” he said. “In the past, much more. Now a bit less, but still. This story has been going on for years. Now, let’s just say, its normal now.”

Malta’s strict detention policy is one reason why the numbers have dropped. The pacts to limit immigration signed by Italy and Libya have also greatly affected immigration flow. Even so, the stream of illegal migration to Sicily continues.

In the ancient Sicilian, seaside village of Taormina the theme from the Godfather greets the crowds of tourists. But on a Medieval backstreet, Samuel, a migrant from Senegal, stuffs unsold tourist trinkets into a bag. He vents his frustration after being chased off the main road by police “Bruto Italia. Ill scifo. No buono qua. Milo pesa.”

Samuel, as he calls himself, said Italy is ugly and he makes little money here. A few months ago, he was in a jail cell in Malta. After his release he fled to Italy, illegally, he said, but this is not what he had hoped for. What he has found in Sicily is what other Africans say they too are discovering: Italy is no longer the ideal place they once imagined: In Rosanna, Italy ,last winter, clashes between Africans and local residents demonstrated enormous tensions over migration, skin color and race.

The Rainbow House

Back on Malta, Herta Troponi, who runs a residence for African families that is translated as the Rainbow House, said migrants lately have their sights on other countries that they believe to be more hospitable to people with dark skin.

“Northern Europe, Sweden, Norway; all those countries in the north. They know there are problems even in Italy. So the further they can go north the better.”

One 24-year old Somali resident, who first arrived in Malta in 2004, is ready to leave again. She first slipped out of Malta illegally one year after she arrived here, after being denied European Union asylum. She settled in Switzerland and one of her three children was born there.

However, in 2008, after being fingerprinted, her illegal status was discovered and she was deported back to Malta. Now she wants to return to Switzerland, and seems unaware that the country today is led by a vehemently anti-immigrant party. What matters to her is the life she led in that West European nation.

“When I stayed In Switzerland they gave good house, and good life, good money and good education. Malta is small, they can’t.”

Unrealistic expectations are common to migrants everywhere. For a 15-year-old Ethiopian named Faisa, the desire to reach Norway is based on something quite simple and less elaborate.

“Because I like the name, Norway,” she said.

Denver

More than three thousand miles away, a Somali immigrant is struggling to establish himself in a new home. On this day, Daoud Ali Muhammad, whom we met at the beginning of this series, is learning his way around wintry Denver on the tram.

Daoud’s long journey to Denver also took him through Malta, where he applied for and received humanitarian asylum in the US.

“I attempted twice to leave Malta. I went to Germany and was caught and sent back and then I went to Italy and then they caught me and sent me back to Malta too. And I went to a priest and I told him my life story and my family died in Somalia and he told me to go and register with the UNHCR.”

Though less popular than Europe, according to migrant surveys and the United Nation’s agency responsible for refugees, the UNHCR, the US is also a much-desired destination for the accidental tourists in Malta.

“The idea is to recognize that Malta is doing a humanitarian service for the world,” said Doug Kmiec, US ambassador to Malta. “I was with a government official and he said ‘we can’t accommodate them all because we’re a small country, so we’re very grateful to the United States for taking a good portion of those that they can. The United States provided resettlement opportunities for about 200, and we have taken that most recently to 340.”

Most of those brought from Malta to the United States are Sudanese, Eritreans and Somalis. This is why Daoud Ali Muhammad is now in Denver, where he is also receiving help from Omar Nour, who helps run the Somali Community Center of Colorado. Nour traces Daoud’s long route from Africa to Denver by running his index finger across a world map; from Somalia to Libya, to Malta, to Germany to Italy, back to Malta and then across the Atlantic to the US Nour expects many more Somalis will follow and laments that his native land has become a growing source of homeless nomads.

“One of the tragedies about this migration is it used to be the men who used to migrate and now we’re seeing woman, old people, just trying to get out of Somalia,” Nour said. “And a lot of them are wasted in the Sahara, in Libya, in Central Africa. Everyday when you look on the news or Somali websites you’ll hear very horrific stories about people dying. It’s very tragic. A whole nation uprooted and everybody wants to get out.”

The US is the eighth country that Daoud has lived in since 1992 and suggests this may not be his last.

“I really don’t know how long it’s going to take for me to settle in one place and say this is the place, this is home,” Daoud said. “My life story seems to say that I keep moving and that never leaves me alone. I would like to settle one day and have a home. But God knows how long it’s going to take.”

Sadly, Daoud Ali Mohammed’s long journey may not be over. He recently lost his job driving a cab, he’s behind on the rent, his heater is broken and he’s barely eking out an existence in wintry Denver. Now, he said he’s thinking about moving on.
Download MP3

Our series on Nomadic Migration and Skin color was edited by Anthony Brooks. The Color Initiative is made possible by funding from the Ford Foundation.

• The Color Initiative

'The conditions in our detention centers really leave much to be desired,' says Father Joseph Cassar, Malta Director of Jesuit Relief Services, JRS

Day after day, Daniel sits on a wooden crate on a busy corner in the oldest piazza in Malta’s capital, Valletta. After leaving his native Ghana and trekking through desert and seven African countries, Daniel arrived in Malta eighteen months later, only to spend another 18 months in mandatory detention:

“After I came out I could not get any proper documents,” he said. “So I’m in Malta here for nothing.”

I ask him how long has he been looking for work.

“I’ve been here so many times. Since I’ve started to come to this corner, I haven’t received what I like. So I’m still waiting. We are just sitting here for nothing, no work to do. So we don’t know what to do here. Even though you can see many, many blacks, and many immigrants here, they are just roaming about, doing nothing.”

At the outdoor bus terminal, dozens of dark-skinned men tell similar stories:

“The situation in Malta is critical.”

Salif came from Nigeria, and like many migrants stuck her in Malta, he had hoped to get to mainland Europe.

“The immigrant here is suffering.”

I ask him: “why Malta? why did you come here?”

“Well we were going to Italy but along the line we get to Malta.”

“If you can’t stay in Malta, where would you like to go,” I ask:

“I would like to go to Italy, Spain, but they cannot give me passport. “

“So you have no passport, so you are basically stuck here in Malta?”

“Yes, I do not have passport to leave. That’s why I’m here.”

Malta’s Justice Minister, Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici, is sympathetic, but only to a point.

“And so this Nigerian fellow feels that he has got the wrong deal because had he come to Italy the situation would have been completely different. Because he would have been an asylum applicant there and that would have allowed him to move along. I have only one solution. To send them back to their countries of origin, which is difficult.”
Difficult because Malta doesn’t have repatriation agreements with most of Africa.

“How to repatriate persons who are economic migrants, who are not in any way involved in the labor market , is an issue.”
That means it can’t send these migrants home; and it can’t send them on to third countries, SO many languish here in Malta. And for many white Maltese, that’s a problem: Yuriken Borsch, A 16-year-old student, fears the migrants are overwhelming his tiny island nation.

“We’re a small country and we have many illegal immigrants for a small country that we are. Every immigrant someday will have to buy a home in Malta and there’s no place for them.”

That is why most Africans in Malta end up in the Hal Far open centre.

“It was an airplane hanger here,” a Somali man said, who asked to be identified as “Ahmed.”

Ahmed took me on tour of the restricted Maltese facility. It is an old airplane hanger, lined with bunk beds and home to African men and women released from detention. The men and women live in separate facilities. Despite the rank odor of porta-potties and overflowing kitchen waste, no one appears to be malnourished or abused. But Ahmed said Hal Far is unfit for human habitation:

“I can’t live in this situation. I told them, the government, I would prefer to go to my home country to living here. I have no place to sleep; Nothing to eat. I don’t have anything, so I prefer to go to Somalia, and they told me you can’t go to Somalia because Somalia is a dangerous place.”

“These large numbers of people who are new comers to our society need to be housed somewhere,” said Alexander Tortell, the director of the Agency for the Welfare of Asylum Seekers.

“We cannot house them on ships. We cannot house them in the countryside, which we do not have. And, therefore, these people are placed either in open centers or else when they leave the open centers, they themselves make their own arrangements to live in the community.

Some also live IN the Rainbow House outside of the capital city. True to its name, a spectrum of bright colors decorates the front door. This is one of several government-run homes for migrant women, children and families, most of them from Somalia. Herta Tropinai, a social worker who runs this facility, said the neighbors aren’t happy.
“To say the truth we have had a lot of complaints—about the noise, about the fact that we’ve got a lot of rubbish outside. They are petty things, but they sometimes have a good reason for it. But they wouldn’t cause these problems if they were Maltese people.”

Alexander Tortell does not disagree:

“Well I think it (skin color) is a factor, and I would add sadly that a persons appearance determines the success or otherwise of integration. The difference between the Bosnian, and I would add, Albanian arrivals, is that it was more silent in the sense that, let’s just take 2008 arrivals, for example, 2775 persons arriving all at once practically in the space of a few months.”

Until recently, Rainbow House resident Abdul Aziz and his family lived in the open camps.

“This house is better. Before I lived in Hal far. But this house is better for me. It’s near my job.”

“What is your job?” I ask.

“Paint.”

“You’re a painter. Is it full-time?”

“Not full time. Maybe six hours, five hours, always.”

“Was it difficult to find a job?”

“Yes.”

The Maltese government gives each asylum seeker a stipend of about one hundred Euros per month. But even that meager amount has stirred resentment among some Maltese who believe that Europe is being overwhelmed by African asylum seekers. In some instances, that has led to violence against migrants AND their supporters:
“On two instances, someone came on the grounds of two of our communities and cars were set alight,” said Father Joseph Cassar of Jesuit Refugee Service of Malta – OR JRS.

“And then just one month later. It was the car on the front door of our human rights lawyer while the family was inside at night. Although no one has been caught or indicted or anything of this sort, we can very much say that this has to do with the position which JRS has been taken advocating the rights of asylum seekers and refugees.”

Justice Minister Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici accuses the right wing media and others of stirring up racist anti-immigrant opposition.

“Unfortunately we had a rise of political speeches from different parties saying you should get these persons as soon as they come here and get them another boat and send them back from where they came. These arte all the roots of an alarmist approach, because in point of fact we have in this country less than 5000 persons resident here, so we are speaking of one person who is a colored skin to a thousand.”

But with more than 5,000 migrants stuck in this tiny country, government officials like Alex Tortell fear a greater backlash if the migrants cannot be integrated into society.

“The experience of integration all over Europe is that integration cannot start—in the strict sense of the word—before a person has a full time legal job. Unfortunately, because of Malta’s limitations, we have thousands of people who haven’t gotten to that point and we have to admit, they won’t get to that point because we can not get to that point because the limitations, the limitations are real.”

Some illegal migrants qualify for what’s known as subsidiary status, which allows them to go to another European Union country. But thousands remain stuck in Malta, jobless and living in difficult conditions – eager but unable to leave this tiny island nation. Download MP3

• The color initiative

Father Joseph Cassar, Malta Director of Jesuit Relief Services, JRS. 'The conditions in our detention centers really leave much to be desired.'

Not far off the coast of Malta, the coast guard has intercepted a leaky boat carrying dozens of Africans, and it’s sinking fast. Donning gloves, burly Maltese sailors pull men and women from their flooded dinghy to a hanging ladder.

Thousands of other dark-skinned immigrants have made similar attempts to reach continental Europe through Maltese waters, said Major Wallace Camilleri of Malta’s Maritime Squadron:

“It’s not relevant for me how many do cross over,” he said. “How many do make it. Sometimes I ask myself ‘how many do not make it?’”

These illegal migrants are among the lucky ones. A short time later the coast guard enters the port of Valletta — Malta’s capital – carrying the latest group of accidental tourists to come to this island nation.

“We wanted to reach Italy but they told us you cannot go in Italy,” said Ahmed from Somalia, one of the men among them. “You have to come to Malta.”

And once here, illegal African migrants like Ahmed often languish in detention for up to 18 months. That’s how long it can take to determine their status, and whether they’ll be permitted to go on to continental Europe, sent home or remain here.

Dr. Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici is Malta’s Justice Minister. He said his nation of 400,000 –the smallest of the European Union’s 27 countries — is trying to balance humanitarian obligations while protecting Malta from a tidal wave of economic migrants.

Bonnici said African migrants understand all too well the advantages of reaching continental Europe.

“Those advantages are naturally abused by those who are not entitled to that status,” Bonnici said. “So these persons realize that coming to Malta means that they will be put into these detention centers and they’ll have to wait. And if they are not entitled they will remain in detention for 18 months.”

And Ta’ Kandja is where many of the illegal immigrants find themselves within hours of setting foot in Malta: a detention center surrounded by barbed-wire.

“We are at the solidarity block within the Ta’ Kandja detention center,” Bonnici said. 96 people can be accommodated in each detention center.”

Lt. Brian Gatt, a six-foot seven army officer, supervises this prison. We enter a holding area with dozens of bunk beds. Among the detainees here is Obaswan Osagakenney, who said he was fleeing Muslim-Christian fighting in Central Nigeria:

I ask him: “Would you have come if you knew you were going to be here for 18 months?”

He first looks at the floor and then calmly says: “For me I believe it would be better for me because I was running for my life and if I had a place where my life would be secure for the next 18-months, I think it is better”

But because of its strict immigration rules, the European Union rarely grants humanitarian refugee status to Nigerians. So just what will happen to Osagakenny — and when – is unclear.

The same uncertain fate awaits an asylum seeker from Eritrea, who — in spite of the EU’s view of his country as a major violator of human rights — was surprised to learn that he could be held at Ta’ Kandja for as long as a year and a half.

“Eight months or 18 months? We came to get freedom,” he said. “I surprised if they say 18 months, what can we do. We can’t do anything.”

Maltese officials hope that the country’s strict detention policy will discourage other African migrants from making the hazardous journey from Libya across the Mediterranean.

But critics, like Father Joseph Cassar of Jesuit Refugee Service of Malta, call the policy unfair.

“The conditions in our detention centers really leave much to be desired, and as far as I’m concerned do not meet the minimal standards established by the European Union,” Cassar said. “And we’re talking here about administrative detention, so it’s not the result of a judicial process, but administrative detention for illegal entry into Malta’s territory, which last for as long as the refugee procedure determination takes. In other words, if it takes eight months for your application to be examined and determined than you’re going to be eight months in detention.”

What’s worse, Father Cassar says the policy is racist. He argues that in the 1990s, thousands of Bosnian Muslims, Serbs and Croats fled the Balkan Wars and found safe haven In Malta – a benefit that he says is often denied dark-skinned Africans.

“I would say skin color in this particular circumstance has a lot to do with it,” Cassar said. “Because it makes people in a homogenous society, as the Maltese one would be or would have been until quite recently, that makes people more visible. There are many more foreigners living on Malta who come from countries that are not members of the European Union. In other words third country nationals from other European countries. These people would be far less visible because they are of the same racial background.”

For his part, Ta’ Kandja prison superintendent Brian Gatt scoffs at the notion that race has anything to do with Malta’s detention policy. He said the guidelines are needed to send a firm message to illegal migrants that life in Europe is not all its cracked up to be:

“Because in many places in Africa they receive a lot of satellite TV stations which picture Europe as being paved with gold,” Gatt said. “And that is a reason why so many people cross from Africa to Europe. They think that they will make money, become rich, which is not the case. Because in Europe, everyone can see with his own eyes where many of these people end up. Underneath card board boxes on the fringes of cities with nothing to do, begging, etc. etc.”

And Mike Cassar, a supervisor at the Detention facility, and no relation to Father Cassar, says Malta treats all of its detainees well.

“They are safe, and they know they have a person here, a team of people here, who care about them,” Cassar said. “Because if you don’t care about them, you’re no good for this job. We don’t get trouble here. We don’t get trouble here.”

But in 2009, there was trouble. According to Maltese officials, Somali detainees rioted to protest their detention, and it took dozens of police to restore order.

And several months ago, residents of an open center protested a government ban on the use of a loudspeaker system to announce the Muslim call to prayer. Meanwhile, migrants continue to arrive in Malta, in search of new lives and opportunities.

What many of them don’t know is that in many places the doors to entry into Europe are slamming shut. Download MP3

• The color initiative

African migrants rescued at sea by the Armed Forces of Malta (AFM). The AFM has come to the aid of hundreds of illegal migrants in an area at sea the size of Texas

Inside a classroom at the Emily Griffith school in downtown Denver, Twenty-Seven year old Daoud Ali Muhammad is trying to improve his English. The class gives Daoud a chance to talk about the challenges he is facing in the US:

“Daoud Is your apartment hot or cold?” asks the ESL instructor. “Cold,” said Daoud. “I don’t have it (heat). I don’t have it. Today I wake up and report it. I tell them. I tell my apartment manager…I have no heat. I was freezing. It doesn’t work.”

In spite of day-to-day hardships in chilly Denver, this city has welcomed Somali refugees for decades. Many came directly from that failed state; the poorest and most unstable in Africa. Others were airlifted to the US from refugee camps in neighboring countries. But Daoud represents a new kind of refugee; one who’s route to the US was much more complicated, said Barbara Eiswerth of Iskash*taa Refugee Harvesting Network, a non-profit based in Tucson, which assisted Daoud along the way.

“With Daoud, we’re seeing a different Somali population coming in, in that their paths were longer and more convoluted,” Eiswerth said. “So that is different, in that they have been struggling and adapting and readjusting and resettling in various countries.”

Toward the end of the night, Daoud throws on a thick coat as his English class comes to an end. It’s 15 degrees outside and he said the cold weather and unemployment makes life in Denver difficult. But it’s nothing compared to the journey he took to get here: Before landing in the US, Daoud had lived in seven different countries—most recently on the small island nation of Malta. He first fled on foot across Somalia’s border in 1992 at the age of nine.

“My family was killed,” he said through a translator. “And that was the tipping point for me to leave Somalia. I fled to Kenya and lived there until 2003. Then from Kenya, I went to Ethiopia. I couldn’t live there and then left Ethiopia. And from Ethiopia, I moved to Sudan and lived there for a while and then I moved to Egypt. And from Egypt I went to Libya.”

Libya is where tens of thousands of desperately poor Sub-Saharan migrants, like Daoud, end up. They attempt the often-deadly trip in spite of red-hot deserts, hungry hyenas and rampant banditry. Some of those who make it find work in Libya, but most become stranded there with little to do. And most set their sights on Europe. Daoud tried to make the trip north aboard a smuggling vessel, but he was arrested as he tried to board, and sent to a prison in Tripoli, where he became seriously ill.

“I believe it used to be a chemical plant because all of us had skin rashes and the Libyan prison guards used to beat us at least twice a day,” Daoud said. “And that’s what created and forced us to break out of jail. My intention was just to get out of Libya and head to the seas and to see where my luck takes me.”

Daoud alleges that his dark skin color had a lot to do with how he was treated in Libya: “They directly called me a slave. So, it was horrible. They will tell you in your face.”

Jean-Philippe Chauzy is director of communications for the International Organization for Migration in Geneva. He’s traveled frequently to Libya, and said, Daoud’s story is shared by many migrants there.

“They came in clandestinely or their passports have been confiscated or lost,” Chauzy said. “They’ve got no money. They’re not getting any proper jobs. They cannot go forward because they realize the risk and do not have the money to pay smugglers. They can’t go back because they do not have the documentation. The smuggling routes only work in one direction. South, North.”

And North was where Daoud Ali Muhammad was determined to go when he boarded a second smuggling boat with the goal of reaching Italy.

“Some of our friends had relatives overseas so we received money from them and paid a middle man and he put us on a boat that wasn’t working well, and when we left Libya and were just a couple of miles the engine died. So we had to swim back to shore. Look around to make sure the Libyan Coast Guard didn’t catch us again.”

A 2009 treaty between Italy and Libya has substantially reduced the number of African migrants that actually make it to Europe. But poverty, war and instability in their home countries compel many to keep trying. So after nearly 24 months in and out of Libyan jails, Daoud again headed to sea. He boarded a dinghy with dozens of other Africans in yet another effort to reach Europe.

“The 3rd time we successfully landed in Malta.”

The Maltese Navy rescued Daoud and his fellow travelers after their boat began to sink. When Daoud finally stepped foot in Europe several years ago, it was not the Europe of his dreams.

“We were immediately detained, and we were in prison for almost five months,” Daoud said.

Eventually, with the help of both the US and the United Nations refugee agency, the UNHCR, Daoud finally got out of Malta and made it to Denver, where’s he’s now trying to start a new life. But thousands of other African migrants trying to reach mainland Europe remain stuck in Malta, the European Union’s smallest member state.

With a population of just 400,000, the tiny island nation is trying to discourage illegal migration to its shores. Most black asylum seekers who arrive there are jailed like Daoud, some of them for as long as 18 months. Maltese officials say they have little choice in the matter because they simply do not have room or resources to cope with this wave of illegal migrants.

The number of migrants has slowed dramatically in recent months from a high of nearly 3,000 in 2009 to just several hundred this year. So officials in that nation have had some success in getting the word out that “these tired, poor and huddled masses” are not welcome in Malta. Download MP3

• The Color Initiative

Imagine you’re in London and trying to get home to some other continent for the holidays. Suddenly there’s an unprecedented dump of snow, below zero temperatures (and we’re talking Fahrenheit!),  and  Heathrow grinds to a halt.  Well, that’s what’s happened to thousands of passengers now stranded at the airport, in hotels, on some friend’s floor.

In this episode of Talking Travel, Lonely Planet’s London editor Tom Hall talks about why Heathrow and other European airports can’t seem to get their  snow management together — compared to other northern European airports. And David Allan from the BBC Travel Website loves the snow. All year long he fantasizes about winter.. He previews a full week of stories on BBC Travel about all winter, all the time. And he tells us about his favorite Christmas memory away from home. Hint: it was in a European country where they recreated the “I am Sixteen, Going on Seventeen” scene from “The Sound of Music”.

We’ll also hear about weird Christmas traditions, like the Christmas day swim in Dublin, the odd fact that in Australia, Christmas and New Years fall in the middle of the southern hemisphere’s summer (‘get out the barbie, it’s Christmas!’, and how far do you have to go to get away from Christmas? Tom and David will also give their sneak peaks into what’s likely to happen in travel in the new year. One startling fact: As of the middle of 2011, Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport will connect to more global destinations than London’s Heathrow airport. And those long haul flights from the US and Europe to places like Australia and New Zealand? Well starting in 2011, expect the stopover point to be in the Middle East, not Asia.

[photo credits: Christmas Swim Dublin/Stunned, Street under snow England/Anthony Appleyard]

• Download this episode (19:00)
• Lonely Planet website
• BBC Travel Website
• Subscribe to Talking Travel via iTunes
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Watch as the newly crowned Top Chef Master cooks up a healthy meal for kids at the Harlem YMCA

• Red Rooster Harlem
• Marcus Samuelsson online

Read the Transcript
This text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

LISA MULLINS: I’m Lisa Mullins and this is The World. Marcus Samuelsson is one of America’s top chefs. That’s official. He recently won the TV cooking competition, Top Chef Masters. Samuelsson’s prowess in the kitchen has earned him great reviews from the New York Times and accolades nationwide. Marcus Samuelsson’s journey began in Ethiopia, where he was born. His mother died when he was three years old and he was adopted by a couple from Sweden. And that’s where he grew up. Samuelsson’s food reflects influences from the places he’s been. Sweden, Ethiopia and Harlem, in New York City, where he now lives. Today we’re going to hear about Marcus Samuelsson’s taste, not in food, but in music. We asked him to share some of his favorite music tracks with us.

MARCUS SAMUELSSON:  This is [INDISCERNIBLE] by Gigi. She’s an Ethiopian artist, lives here in New York, but from Ethiopia, my home country. And like most Ethiopians I feel very connected, like all Ethiopians I feel very connected. And I think what Gigi’s done here, she’s really found this perfect balance between keeping the singing [INDISCERNIBLE] and the Ethiopian sound. But also with a very contemporary sound. It’s very complex. It’s layered, right. You have [SOUNDS LIKE] depth in her voice and it is strong. Very powerful. And then you have this very poppy sound that underneath all that you can tell its Ethiopian music underneath all of that. It’s mystique. Makes you want to go to Ethiopia. A contemporary version of Ethiopian. I was raised around music at home. We had – we didn’t have a particular very expensive home, but we had a Bang Olofsson stereo that was like as a kid you were not even allowed to go up to it, but when you were there with my mom, she was very specific about the music that we listened to. We listened to Miriam Makeba, we listened to Bob Marley. I remember the first album she ever gave me was Uprising with Bob Marley. She said our family listens to Bob Marley, that’s what she said to me specifically. Okay, mom. This is a fun track by Nas and Damian Marley, As We Enter. This is such a good cut. It’s such a fun cut because also its two different worlds together, right? It puts Jamaica and Ethiopia together. But then you have Queens, Nas, New York. In the background you have this incredible tune from Ethiopique, which was really music that was [INDISCERNIBLE] and made in the ‘60s and ‘70s in Ethiopia and I just think it’s just fun to have it as a backdrop to Damian and Nas. Just fills you up. Fills you up and makes you excited. Where I live in Harlem it’s called Little West Africa and if you are in Harlem, come up on a Saturday or Sunday on the West Side. You’ll see big, tall Senegalese West African men. Mali, Ghana, and they come from the mosque or they’ll just come and eat, talk and converse. And out of their cars you hear [SOUNDS LIKE] Yossour, [INDISCERNIBLE]. You hear West African music. You can buy West African films, DVDs. You can buy [SOUNDS LIKE] ginger juice. It’s truly a whole subculture. This is [INDISCERNIBLE] tomorrow. The music part is the first palate into West Africa for a lot of non-West Africans. If you’re not going to Dakkar, if you don’t have the opportunity to do that, go and get some [INDISCERNIBLE] or go and get some Yossour and listen to that first. And your aesthetics will change and you will hear something new. Then come up town and eat some of the food. And I think then you will understand the food better and you will understand a culture a little bit better. The language becomes an instrument. It could be very free not to understand the language. Cooking is like that too. Many places where I started working in France and Germany, I didn’t understand the language but I had to cook. And a cook can hang. You can do fine without the language and you have to pick up other things. Rhythm, dance, maybe [INDISCERNIBLE] concert and in the kitchen you have to pick up some smell, taste. You have to flow with that. I remember one of the first times I learned English words was actually sort of not necessarily through world music, but I was running up to my best friend’s house and we just looked at this cover of I think it’s called Detroit City with Kiss. And these guys had makeup on. We didn’t know if they were like… I’ve never seen anything like this. So I just remember one of the first words ever learned playing this air guitar. It was like, first I drink, then I smoke. That was the line and we were about six or seven. If I want to think about a person that brings Sweden together from a social level and from a music level, of course, it’s this guy. I don’t care if you’re nine or ninety you have his songs in your iPod. This is my buddy, Timbuktu. [INDISCERNIBLE] which really means everyone wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die. He is half-American, half-Swedish. His father was born here in Harlem and he does his accent in Swedish, which is not just Swedish. He comes from a small place called [PH] Squana. And when he raps, when he spits, he spits in this dialect which if you’re from Sweden you can’t do anything but just to love him for that. He doesn’t try to do a – upgrade his Stockholm version or anything like that. No, he sticks to his accent which is brilliant.

MULLINS:  That’s Swedish rapper Timbuktu, a favorite of New York-based top chef Marcus Samuelsson. Our story was produced by The World’s Alex Gallafent. By the way, Marcus Samuelsson’s new restaurant called Red Rooster Harlem, opens in New York next month. You can see a video of Samuelsson cooking for kids in Harlem at TheWorld.org. From the Nan and Bill Harris Studios at WGBH, I’m Lisa Mullins. Thanks for listening.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

Lucy Ethiopian Cafe (Photo: Ann Lopez)

The ceremony starts with coffee beans popping as they’re roasted. Mmm. I can smell it now. Once the coffee is brewed and poured, the ceremony involves sitting down with friends and family to enjoy the brew. You can’t rush this event. It takes about an hour and you have to drink three full cups. The tradition is to take it black with lots of sugar. So, we want you to name the region in the eastern highlands of Ethiopia where the beans for Ethiopian New Year’s coffee come from.

The region takes its name from a famous city there — known for the ancient wall that surrounds it. Think fast, the coffee is brewing and we don’t want to let it get cold.

Ready? The answer is the coffee growing region around the Ethiopian city of Harar. The World’s Ann Lopez visited an Ethiopian cafe in Boston to find out about an Ethiopian coffee tradition. Download MP3

Netsanet Woldesenbet and her husband run the Lucy Ethiopian Cafe in Boston (Photo: Ann Lopez)

It could eventually split the African continent in two – though that could take about 10-million years.

The theory is that — as the crack widens, the sea would flood in — and over time — a lot of time — create a new ocean.

Parts of Ethiopia and Somalia would drift off, creating a new island in the Indian Ocean.

That’s a long way off.

So for now, we just want you to name the region of Ethiopia…where scientists say Africa is gradually breaking in two. T-minus 10 seconds and counting … till we go to the answer:

Afar is the answer to our Geo Quiz. Researchers now say it will eventually split the African continent in two – though it will take about ten million years. Anchor Marco Werman gets details from Cynthia Ebinger, a geophysicist at the University of Rochester in New York.

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• Bridges to Prosperity

Guards toting AK-47s keep an eye on the activity. Joining them are a couple dozen volunteers from around Ethiopia and the United States.

Man holding AK-47 rifle

Their ambitious goal: in less than one week, to complete a new footbridge across the Blue Nile.

“The biggest challenge is getting the materials here.”

Zoe Pacciani is program director for an American non-profit called Bridges to Prosperity. The group builds footbridges in poor rural areas around the world. She supervised the complex task of getting a bridge’s worth of construction materials down a steep footpath to the river’s edge:

“I mean imagine you’ve got to use a hundred and fifty bags of cement and every single bag of cement has to get down here by donkey.”

They also had to bring down twenty five hundred feet of steel rebar. A giant cable winch that took four men to carry Torque wrenches. Box wrenches. And six gigantic steel cables.

“One single cable weighs over a ton.”

It took 23 men to carry each cable down the rocky canyon trail. Bridges to Prosperity marshalled all this effort because the 370-year-old arched stone footbridge here is damaged beyond repair.

And that’s cut a critical connection between villages on opposite sides of the river, in the regions of Gojjam and Gondor. Yirgelem Ambachew of the Rotary Club International in Ethiopia says a functioning bridge here allows people on one side of the river to go to the other for health care, schooling, and trade.

“It’s really a bridge of their lives. If it is broken, their life is broken.”

The bridge has broken many times in its long history.

“It’s really quite an amazing story.”

Ken Frantz is the founder of Bridges to Prosperity. He’s become something of a historian of this bridge.

Ken Frantz

“It was built in 1640, approximately, by a very famous emperor, Fasil. And he was just a building maniac.”

Emperor Fasil’s bridge spurred a flourishing trade route. But as people chopped down trees in this area, erosion increased – and so did flooding. Increased flooding undermined the bridge.

“So it was constantly being washed out. Until it got the name the Sebara Dildiy. Sebara Dildiy in Amharic means broken bridge.“

In 1936, Ethiopian nationalists destroyed the Sebara Dildiy on purpose, to slow Mussolini’s invasion during World War II. Makeshift repairs using logs held the bridge together until the mid-1950s.

After that, travelers and their livestock could only cross the river on a tattered rope, pulled by ten men on either side of the river.

Nine years ago, Ken Frantz saw a photograph of this precarious scene in National Geographic and decided to fix the broken bridge. He assembled a team to repair Sebara Dildiy in 2002 using steel beams that were painstakingly carried down and assembled on site. But THAT bridge didn’t last. A flood destroyed it in 2006. That’s why Frantz and his team have returned to Ethiopia – to try again.

This time, they’ve taken on a more ambitious project: A new, cable suspension bridge, much longer and higher off the river. But not everything would go as planned.

“All right, tell everyone, higher one is coming from the inside…”

Bridges to Prosperity’s director of operations Avery Bang supervised final preparations. She found a few surprises. Her group had trained a young Ethiopian engineer to oversee construction of steel and concrete anchors on opposite walls of the canyon.

Avery Bang

These would secure the cables. But the location of the anchors was different from what the plans had called for.

“The excavation was supposed to be further back and deeper. What are you going to do? You have to redesign.”

So the team revamped the way the cables would be cemented into the anchors. The pace of work picked up after all six cables had been hauled into place. On one side of the river, workers began winching the cables tight.

The cables slowly rose in a gently drooping arch between the canyon walls. On the other side, workers sawed wooden planks for the walkway. Ken Frantz and two of his brothers nailed the planks in place.

They were halfway across the span, 80 feet above the river, when calamity struck. A stone pillar that anchored one of the handrails rocked, then tipped, then tumbled down the steep hillside. Ken Frantz’s brother Forrest later recalled the tense moment.

“We looked up, looked out across the river, and it’s pretty far away – it’s hard to see the details, what’s going across the river – but you could see the tower collapse. The cable dropped, hit the ground, and a cloud of dust came up. The next thing we heard was horrifying. And that was the sound of things dropping into the river. We could not see through the dust. We didn’t know what was falling into the river. We did not know if it was rocks or if it was people.”

Thankfully, it wasn’t people. Nobody was hurt, and the bridge’s main cables held tight. But the crew would have to start again with the handrails. They began combing through the rubble for clues to what went wrong.

Workers

“Are all the others the same?” “I put rebar in that one.”

Program director Zoe Pacciani discovered that the stone tower hadn’t been anchored properly with steel rebar.

“I think we’ve got a little trust-building to do after today. We can build this thing up again, that’s not a big deal. It’ll take us a week. Take us a lot longer to rebuild the trust of these people with what we’re doing. That annoys me more than anything.”

Pacciani and her team began cleaning up the mess. They redesigned the towers to make them straighter and stronger. They ordered more concrete and rebar carried down the steep canyon trail. A week later, the bridge was ready to be reassembled. Again, planks were nailed. Cables tightened. This time, everything held.

Ken Frantz – who first fixed this bridge eight years ago and has built some 50 others around the world since then – gazed across the span suspended high above the Blue Nile.

Today’s the day. There it is! Glorious. It is done. For now at least, the Sebara Dildiy – the broken bridge – will have to be renamed.

For The World, I’m Daniel Glick, Gojam, Ethiopia
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