Abebe Haregewoin (right) and his father in Ethiopia. Courtesy: Abebe Haregewoin

The place where you grew up has a way
of staying with you for the rest of your life.



Abebe Haregewoin knows that feeling. 

He’s an oncologist in Silver Spring,
Maryland. But he grew up in Ethiopia and lived in Addis Ababa when
famine stalked the Horn of Africa nation back in the 1970s and
80s. 

He’s thinking about that a lot right
now as Ethiopia heads into the “lean season.” 
Those
are the months between planting and harvesting, when there’s not a
lot of food around. This year, grain stocks will be even more meager
than usual.


That’s because in recent years the
rains in the Horn of Africa haven’t followed their usual cycles.
Crops have withered. Haregewoin says there’s already severe hunger,
and in the coming months it will be significantly worse. 
At the
moment, some 10 million Ethiopians are not getting enough food
and 4 million children are at risk.

“But the world is now totally
focused on Syria, and this is really not obvious to most people in
the world,” he says, adding that the Ethiopian government and
groups like the World
Food Program are trying to spotlight the crisis. 


Haregewoin knows from what he saw
decades ago that hunger saps not just the body, but the spirit. 
“There are people who are totally
turned into monsters by starvation and hunger. Stealing, fighting for
food. And sort of becoming extremely pathological people,”
he says. 
At the same time, he’s witnessed how
the famine has brought out the best in some Horn of Africa
residents. 

“People share in Ethiopia, that’s
our culture,” he says. “We eat together. Sharing is part of
our make-up.” 


These days flash floods are hitting
many of the regions where hunger is most acute, making it difficult
for trucks to reach those in need.  

The drought and the floods put
Ethiopia on the precarious front lines of climate change. 

“Climate change is not a myth,
it’s a reality,” he argues. “I’ve seen it in my own
lifetime.” 

With an even more severe hunger crisis
in the offing, some Ethiopian expats have mobilized to seek donations
to help those in need. Haregewoin set up a Go
Fund Me page to support food aid. So did Ethiopian Abraham Debebe
from Minneapolis. The two men found each other and joined ranks.
It took them just a few weeks to raise more than $30,000. 

But the need is great, and for
Haregewoin the possibility of another devastating famine is always
foremost on his mind.  

“I think about Ethiopia day and
night,” he says. “I worry about Ethiopia, I am spiritually,
mentally connected to Ethiopia.” 

And that, he says, is the reality for
so many Ethiopian expats, who feel especially far from their homeland
in its moment of need.