how it started
Excerpt from the Book …In 2018, after the new government took power, my family cofounded a professional non-profit organization called Teach and Serve for Africa (TASFA), a platform dedicated to the exchange of knowledge between professionals in the US and Europe and their African counterparts. At the beginning, TASFA focused its work through its branch, the Ethiopian Diaspora Service Initiative (EDSI), and worked on capacity building, training, and knowledge exchange conferences. Over the course of several months, I traveled to Ethiopia with my Ethiopian Diaspora volunteer colleagues and taught courses on the Foundations of Project Management and Leadership to over 3000 Ethiopian federal, state, and local government professionals. In these classes we provided case studies of failed and successful mega projects from the U.S and around the world.
On a couple of occasions, I was asked by participants if we could include Ethiopian projects as examples. During a coffee break a participant asked me why we were not using the GERD project as an example. I was surprised to hear this question for the second time, now from a stranger. At that time, however, the government was transitioning, and the program was in turmoil. Knowing that the GERD was a spotlight for political consumption, and that the stalled program was going through evaluation to assess the next steps, I did not want to get involved. I shrugged off the question and continued to use the Boston Big Dig, the Denver Airport, and similar projects as examples.
A few months later, COVID-19 changed the world we live in. Even countries that prided themselves on their might succumbed to the seemingly invincible virus and normalized burying hundreds of their citizens every day. Working from home, seeing your doctor via Zoom, wiping your grocery items with disinfectant, and even saying goodbye to loved ones for good over the phone became the new normal. Millions lost their jobs and 1.2 billion school children around the world stayed home, some with distance learning options but most with a complete shutdown of educational opportunities.
My wife, Beza, and I were some of the luckiest people during this time, as we were able to continue our work from home. Our two sons, Dagmawi and Bereket, came home from college and Redet, our daughter in high school, also transitioned to remote learning, so the five of us started to live the new normal together. I am a social animal and like to stay busy, so having no commute, no physical classes to teach, no travel, no church, and no social commitments made me antsy. Even after working on a lot of the things I previously did not have time for, I felt that I still had extra time on my hands. For me, the new normal consisted of waking up in the morning, coming down to the home office in relaxed wear, working there all day, running, cooking, watching movies, spending quality time with my family, and going to bed. We tried to keep up our social interactions through Zoom, but, even with all this, I found myself far less busy than I had ever been…. Puchase the book and read more.