A visit to Awramba

The leader of Awramba - a village of about 400 - sat with us in a tiny room built for just such a thing, meeting with visitors and telling them the story of the place.
All his clothes were handmade from cloth woven in the village. And as I looked around at all the women sitting with us, I saw that their plaid button up shirts were made of the same thick cloth.
Awramba is about two very painful, rocky miles off the highway between Bahir Dar and Gonder. It's an intentional community - very different from other Ethiopian towns.
Begging is not allowed. No children mob you; no hands stick out from the side of the road.
The founder of the place believes that education is the way out of poverty - not begging.
In the center of town, there is a huge library full of books in Amharic and English. If visitors want to give something, they are encouraged to donate a book.
Ethiopians - who are a deeply religious people - are skeptical of the place because they have no church or mosque. The founder said, because of the conflict religion can cause, if you live in Awramba, you are not allowed to say if you are Christian or Muslim - only that you believe in the one Creator.
In 2001, Awramba got its first media attention and people started making the trip to see it.
I can't imagine they get that many visitors because the road was hell and as we got about a half mile out, children started running out of the hills and the fields, throwing both hands up int he air to wave. They ran next to the minibus the entire way into the village (we couldn't go very fast on that road).
After we toured the village, we sat and ate injera with lentils and said goodbye with lots of hugging and smiling.
Some boys chased our van down the road and tossed a peanut branch into the window. It was heavy with peanuts still hanging from the roots, covered in dirt. I've never seen a peanut straight out of the ground before. They grow underground like little shelled potatoes.
We divided the peanuts and tore open the soft dirty shells and ate them. Fresh like that they had a red skin and had the taste and texture of peas eaten straight from the garden.