Living in a welfare society you don’t perceive instinct of survival that often.
Everything necessary for living is at hand, supermarkets are full of goods, if there is nothing what your heart desires on the shelves, your face tends to go whimpering. If at least the money for food and living place is paid to your bank account, it all seems all right because all we crave for is not really that necessary.
Being on the black continent for the first time, namely in the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, a new level in the area of being a human has opened up. Yes, I am a human if I have almost all necessary for living, I have my dignity, I don’t harm my neighbor, I even help him by giving some donations over the phone etc. I am a white person and deserve everything good and best – a hot shower, electricity, steady internet connection (all three are very chaotic phenomenon in Ethiopia). If I don’t have the latter I stomp my feet and raise my voice. With the first inconvenience I lose my temper and thus my nobility.
Visiting homes in Southern Ethiopia I found myself facing a question of what it means to be a human being. Reputedly the Ethiopian people have suffered from famine for years. Extreme conditions have left a heavy imprint into peoples subconscious, robbing their nobility. Of course there are very noble citizens among these people – in nice houses with couches with rose embedded sofa covers in the living rooms.
Still a very big amount of the people live like cavemen thousand or even more years ago though. It is not possible to perceive Schpengler nor Goethe in his eyes let alone literacy. He might not have eaten for three days or more, soap nor water have neither touched his skin for a long while, sitting in his spongy hut, his only yearn is to have something to eat. He has many children and more keep coming.
Often he sends his kids to the streets to shout – one birr, one birr. Everywhere you go somebody is still shouting – hey faranji, give me money! Suddenly I realized I cannot judge him because it is the natural emergence of the survival instinct which is a inseparable part of the people here. Even after life gets better the latter will remain in the subconscious – one birr, one birr – maybe I’ll be lucky.
LIANE ROHTMÄE
Home that was fixed up with 50 euros. Walls, mattresses, blankets and necessary dishes for cooking food. Below the walls of the home photographed from left and right. Children of this house and most below Amanuel in front of his home.



