Bryan Dewsbury: 00:13

Welcome, everyone. Welcome to week three, knowledge unbound. Thanks for being on this journey with us. Knowledge unbound is a interview podcast brought to you by the Rios Institute for Racially Just Inclusive Open STEM Education. We are generously funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and I'm joined here by my wonderful Lifetime producer, mister Segebam Masai.

Bryan Dewsbury: 00:37

It's so good to be back. I also noticed we have someone else in here. Is she is she guest of this podcast? Is she the guest of this episode for this week? Surely wonder.

Bryan Dewsbury: 00:47

Because normally, we record like, we record the intros and outros separate, and then we record an interview, and we splice them together. But, you know, Maggie is hanging around. She's she's saying, oh, can I do the intro with you all? So it's like, fine. So, Meg Delawit, Masai Derivi, our guest today.

Bryan Dewsbury: 01:04

How are you?

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 01:05

I'm I'm very happy to be here. I'm very well. How are you guys?

Bryan Dewsbury: 01:08

Very well. What are we going to talk about today?

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 01:10

Oh, a bunch. A little bit about me and my work, my dissertation work, a little bit about The Nile and Ethiopia, and a bit about what drives my work in general a bit more personal.

Bryan Dewsbury: 01:25

I think that last bit is well, I mean, I'm excited for everything we discussed, but I'm really excited for listeners to hear about that last bit because the way in which our guest today really embeds her sense of why in her journey, choice of questions, the project she takes on, I truly hope is an inspiration to you. We had a great time. Welcome to Knowledge and Bound. Can you give us the three sentence summary of what your work is, what you're interested in and why it matters?

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 01:57

Three sentence. Okay. Makdilawit is a researcher from Ethiopia working on the Nile River Basin.

Bryan Dewsbury: 02:05

Did you just refer to yourself in the third person? Yeah. Carry on, carry on.

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 02:12

And yeah well basically how I would describe myself is a passionate researcher working on the NILE who's also interested in education curriculum development, transdisciplinary education curriculum development and social justice and advocacy.

Bryan Dewsbury: 02:32

Why denial? I mean other than obviously Ethiopia has a big stake in it, right?

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 02:38

But

Bryan Dewsbury: 02:38

there's a lot of things you could have worked on in Ethiopia. Why denial? What led you to that point in that choice?

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 02:44

Sure. And the location has a lot to do with this because honestly it's just the things coming into alignment my involvement in The Nile so I originally did civil engineering out of sort of like necessity or lack of options. I had the like given the opportunities and options I had back home when I had to choose university engineering was the most appealing or the most interesting to me given the situation.

Bryan Dewsbury: 03:15

So were there limited options?

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 03:19

In a way, yeah. I used to be very very interested in political science, international relations, diplomacy but I chose natural sciences in high schoolpreparatory school so that option was sort of out of the question and then even in natural sciences I really wanted to go into physics I liked astronomy and I wanted physics but back then at least you study physics and the trajectory or like the goal is you become a teacher or that's how it was presented to me which wasn't such an appealing future so the next best thing was engineering

Bryan Dewsbury: 03:57

I like should be against teachers.

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 03:58

I love teaching now which ironic but that wasn't really a future that people wanted like it doesn't pay well, there's no really it's not appealing and I was like this young disciplined studious person who's supposed to do this and that so teaching wasn't really the goal at least from my family side from people around me I felt that would be settling anyway so that pushed me to engineering and that was the closest thing for me to sort of do the things I'd loved so I'd love math, physics, STEM stuff, but once I got into engineering and then I discovered the water world, right? So in engineering, got to study water science, water engineering, hydraulic engineering and those courses opened my eyes and I sort of found my a little bit of my interest area during my civil engineering my bachelor's degree. So that showed me okay within civil engineering I don't have to sell that is something that I actually like studying like doing so the water bath path was, I guess, started there. But when I was in second year

Bryan Dewsbury: 05:14

If I could interrupt real quick, do do you do you know why say, of all the things that engineering opened your eyes to, why did water catch your eye your interest in that particular

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 05:26

I don't know. It's just I I think I'll just chuck that up to interest.

Bryan Dewsbury: 05:30

Okay.

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 05:31

Engineering, it made me a critical thinker like a methodological thinker but water is just interesting. It's fascinating. And the other engineering stuff, so like the good thing about my bachelor education was it gave you an intro into literally everything. We studied structural engineering, building buildings and roads and railways and water stuff and dams and all that stuff and the rest of it was really dry for me water no pun intended but water was just interesting there was something very exciting and appealing about it but then when I was a second year student this the grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam 1 of the largest projects right now in the world the biggest project in Africa was launched which was the game changer in my interest in water and further trajectory going ahead.

Bryan Dewsbury: 06:31

I I I saw on your CV that you designed an airport.

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 06:36

That was that was my bachelor thesis.

Bryan Dewsbury: 06:40

So A bachelor's thesis.

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 06:41

Yeah. Well, it was a group work. It was not just

Bryan Dewsbury: 06:43

me. Well, I know some people at LAX who might wanna talk to you because they need some help. Anyway, I'm kinda reading between or or maybe underneath the lines of what you're seeing. Right? Because you you your eyes are open to this interest in water.

Bryan Dewsbury: 06:59

You know? Okay. Fine. It was just an interest, you say. But it just so happened that this major project, Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam began around that time.

Bryan Dewsbury: 07:10

It sounds like in that you're saying now water has come to represent something else with the beginning of that project. Can you talk us through a little bit how that coincidence of your interest and that project's beginning, what activates what it activated in you and what it led to?

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 07:30

It's a nice way to frame it. So I'm a very demand driven person.

Bryan Dewsbury: 07:35

Demand driven, okay.

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 07:37

So if I can't see the value or relevance or demand for something, I can't be interested. When I was younger and in like prep school, elementary school, high school, I was just good at everything out of discipline. I did everything well because I wanted to, because I had to, not because I was particularly interested in So made I became that that meant I was a very good student but I really didn't know where my interests lie because I was good at everything so this seeing the demand and the need became my bar for judging what's important, what's necessary and what's worth my time. So there's that part of me and then when it comes to Ethiopia, it's a very big country 120 almost 120,000,000 people, lot of people in poverty still missing basic access to basic necessities human rights like food water and

Bryan Dewsbury: 08:33

when you say a lot do you know a percentage?

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 08:35

Oh yeah around half so food security is still it's better than it used to be like say twenty years back but still not a 100%. Water security at what like access to water is still at around 50%, energy access is around 50% so 4647% sanitation even worse around 30% access to education has risen tremendously but still not there so and all this not because the country is like poor in resources per se but because we couldn't capitalize on our resources and one of the biggest resources is water. Ethiopia is called the water tower of East Africa or Africa, right? There is a quite substantial amount of water around 122,000,000,000 cubic meters. But that water did literally nothing, actually just became a source of conflict and worse for Ethiopia.

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 09:32

And one of our biggest resources among this huge resource water resource in Ethiopia is the Nile. We call it Abhay in Ethiopia, the Blue Nile. So, the Nile has two major tributaries. The Blue Nile that originates from Ethiopia accounts for 86% of the Nile flow and that's

Bryan Dewsbury: 09:49

What's the other major?

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 09:51

The White Nile. So that starts from Lake Victoria, the Equatorial region, those two reverse flow like meet in Sudan and then flow as the Nile proper.

Bryan Dewsbury: 09:59

Okay, and so that's only 14%?

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 10:01

Yeah, yeah. Hydrology is a little bit complicated there yeah the parts of the White Nile just sinks in the Sud wetlands in South Sudan so a lot of water is quote unquote wasted or lost in the Sud but yeah the for for the sake of this conversation 14% So the Blue Nile that that accounts for a significant portion of the water resources in the Nile for Ethiopia and also for the Nile and there's this running discourse back home about how generally we don't use our resources but we particularly do not use that the Blue Nile right so there are songs talking angrily sorrowfully about how the Nile doesn't have a home in Ethiopia and it just flows it benefits others as in like neighbors but it actually loots its home. So I'm a kid that grew up listening to the songs, right? And so when this massive project that this hydropower project aimed at utilizing this particular resource and with the kind of impact it was supposed to have came online, it was like, woah, this is it, this is the demand, this is where the need is at and luckily that's where also I'm interested in

Bryan Dewsbury: 11:23

so it

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 11:24

was like a match made in heaven, which is why I keep saying I got lucky in a lot of ways. As far as like career trajectory was concerned, I really did get lucky. But it's things had lining in a certain way and my personality and things happening in Ethiopia sort of being streamlined that led me to the water field.

Bryan Dewsbury: 11:44

Would you say that the music you listened to and heard growing up that told those stories in that particular way, would you say that was your first awareness of the the Blue Nile being something that was looted from and that it was it was a a sore spot for the country? And to what extent was there some of awareness through the music?

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 12:11

It's something I'd like I I can't point to, like, a a time frame when I became aware of it. It's, like, something that you just know growing up in Ethiopia. It's, like, everywhere you hear it everywhere. So much so that it just you become numb to it. Thankfully I wasn't but it's just there like why weren't I guess my personality.

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 12:34

When I was in elementary school there used to be these really bad famines in Ethiopia of droughts and famines because of the cycle that happened in the Pacific Ocean. But because again, we don't use our resources well, drought translates into severe, severe famines. And like every seven years, eight years, ten years, there are these massive catastrophic droughts. And so 1977, '19 '80 '8, '19 '90 something, like there are these massive droughts. And some point the Oxford English Dictionary had Ethiopia as an example for the word famine.

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 13:15

And we used to hear that in elementary school, like our teachers used to talk about that and it used to unnerve me, it used to make me so angry. Not because it was wrong. It is true. Right. But Well,

Bryan Dewsbury: 13:26

what was the context when the teachers brought this up when you were in elementary? Were they bringing this up as a as a complaint as how Ethiopia is depicted? Because, you know, full disclosure. Right? I mean, I grew up in The Caribbean, and, you know, we did geography, and we have some awareness of the world.

Bryan Dewsbury: 13:42

But at least in terms of public images, so what you're saying is correct in that the images that you typically saw of Ethiopia was that. That was kind of the association, which is which even then I knew was really unfortunate. But so I'm wondering when your teachers said this, was it a source of a sore point that this is how you're being talked about or just a reality?

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 14:02

I mean, nobody denied then oh, like, nobody could deny that it was the reality but it just sucked to be like that poster child for famine. But the way my teachers were raising that to me was like, we can't afford to be like your country needs you because of this so that really stuck in me it still angers me to this day when people refer to Ethiopia just in that context especially given things have changed but yeah that and then like then now being part of the reason that why that happens and all the external pressure that the country has to face because of this supposedly blessed resource. Yeah it's just a whole host of things came together so when the was launched and the GERD is short for Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam it was just such a monumentally hopeful moment right like the other day I saw my Facebook post from like eleven or twelve years ago that's something I posted when the GERD was launched and the enthusiasm and the hopefulness it was so nice seeing that and it really was monumental and not just for me but for the entire country this is a massive multi billion dollar project which is not funded by organization every citizen gave from the little they had.

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 15:35

We did not get any loans or any support we made that happen we are making it happen so like the momentum of that time was just intoxicating and luckily for me again, some of my teachers were the design team for the dam, negotiating team for the dam. So I had like I felt like I had this firsthand information you know I felt very close to the system, followed it very closely and yeah with my interest in water and then like all the master's degrees that I did afterwards that opened my eyes What

Bryan Dewsbury: 16:10

are them could work with something? Yeah. Well, we've before I wanna talk a little bit about we will get into, you know, the collective energy around the dam and that because there's some really interesting things I wanna unpack there. But I wanna for the benefit of the audience, just take a couple steps back and give us a brief history as to why the the water this water resources under you specifically around the Nile. Give us a little history of of that situation.

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 16:40

Okay. So the Nile is a very complicated, a very political river. When you say the Nile, if you ask a random person on the road, what do you associate the Nile with? They would very likely say Egypt because of historic reasons. The Nile is historic so it crosses 11 countries so it started like one of the tributaries starts from Ethiopia the other from the Victorian Nile but it flows to at the end of its journey to Egypt and it has been responsible for like these massive civilizations in that region.

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 17:17

Think Egyptian civilization, Sudanese Meroi civilization, our Aksumite civilization and all the massive civilizations that came after that. Since that time, people have been in sort of low key conflict about the water because these the downstream countries Egypt and Sudan Desert areas highly, highly dependent on this water but that water came out from outside of their borders. The Nile is a transboundary river meaning it's a river that crosses political boundaries. So the hydrological limits of the river are not the limits of the water, so it spreads. That brings in politics, these days international law, connection between people to the water.

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 18:06

So historically, there has always been this effort to identify the source of the Nile and conquer it so that the water that goes down to Sudan and Egypt will never be compromised. This started during ancient, ancient times, so like ancient civilizations, Egyptian Sudan and Ethiopian civilizations used the Nile as a bargaining tool. When Christians in Egypt were being abused, Ethiopian kings would say, Hey, I'm gonna dam this river unless you start treating those people right. So it was a sort of like a bargaining tool. And successive governments or protectorates, colonial powers that came in that region.

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 18:46

So, you can talk about the Ottoman Empire, Turkish Empire who ruled Egypt for a while really wanted to have that unified Ottoman Empire starting from the source of the Nile to the mouth of the Nile. So, we had like 16 wars in the span of fifty years just because of this river between Ethiopia and The British were responsible when during the colonial time in the Nile Basin were responsible for a number of agreements which the essence of all of them is that to ensure that countries and the upstream part of the river, so that includes Ethiopia, Rwanda, Tanzania, all these other countries around Lake Victoria did not tamper with the water so much so that did not tamper with the water so the water flows uninterrupted to Sudan and Egypt. And this was fairly easy to do for them because they were in control of most of the countries in the basin with the exception of Ethiopia, the only non colonized country. But they also made agreements with other colonial powers so they wouldn't use the water within their territories, other colonial powers territory. So think Italy, the French, So there has been this history of mistrust and very lopsided agreements all to ensure that the water reached Sudan and Egypt, not even to favor Sudan and Egypt but to favor outside actors, outside interests, colonial interests.

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 20:17

So this has created a lot of tension between people in the basin, right? These are people across Ethiopia, Egypt, Sudan, all along the Nile, they're technically brothers. These are the one people, the same people but because the Nile is a very political river, very economically active river, geopolitically very active river that it has seeded a lot of fear between countries animosity, mistrust. Like I mentioned, it has been the cause of a lot of wars implicitly or directly or implicitly proxy wars. A lot of the instability in the Horn Of Africa particularly in Ethiopia is attributed to that and even in modern history, there's a documented history of external funders, Egypt blocking funds for water infrastructure projects on the Nile Basin in Ethiopia and other riparian countries.

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 21:14

So you can imagine there isn't a lot of goodwill between these basin countries and economically speaking with the exception of Egypt, Nile Basin countries are fairly poor and now it's become worse but for the most part is politically unstable so there was no way for these countries to be like a proper threat for the Egyptian hegemony on the Nile for the most part. So, the fact that a poor country which started growing rapidly for like ten plus years now wants to build a massive dam on the Nile was a huge huge game changer both in Ethiopia and abroad. So, just summarizing that history it the GERD was a game changer because of the history in the basin because of the inequality in the basin because of the mistrust and all the subterfuge and proxy wars and direct wars

Bryan Dewsbury: 22:13

And it sounds like everyone could typically count on Ethiopia not being able to pull off a good type project. Yeah. Therefore, you would you would sort of lose every, you know, fight about that. Yeah. So I know the last the last agreement, and I'm putting agreement in air quotes here, about it was an at least '9 1959 agreement.

Bryan Dewsbury: 22:38

Yeah. I know there's one currently trying to be ratified, but it hasn't yet fully. So just to bring us a little closer to modern times, can you tell us between 1959 and now, like, what was that agreement in 1959? And what are you trying to, as a country, reverse now to make it fairer, if I can

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 23:00

call it So the precursor to the 1959, there was another prior agreement in 1929 where The UK and Egypt agreed to utilize the waters between Egypt and Sudan. So in 1929 Egypt was already a free country, it was free from The UK but Sudan was still under UK rule and for the most part in the history of the basin irrigation was limited to Egypt so there was no there was really no need for an agreement as long as water reached in Egypt. But once Egypt was free, the UK wanted to expand their agricultural exploits to Sudan. So now they had to deal with Egypt so they could divert a little bit of water to their irrigation facilities, irrigation fields in Sudan. So in 1929, Egypt and the UK agreed that out of the Nile water, 48,000,000,000 cubic meters of water per year would still reach Egypt, but about 4,000,000,000 cubic meters of water would be diverted to irrigation fields.

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 23:58

It's called the Gezira irrigation scheme in Sudan. That was the precursor to the 1959 agreement. In 1956, Sudan gets its independence. Egypt is already independent and they see so the annual flow of the Nile for context is around 84,000,000,000 cubic meters. The 1929 agreement only talked about 48 plus four fifty two billion cubic meters so they come together and say hey we're not utilizing this water fully quote unquote fully.

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 24:30

So, they come to the table and they draft this agreement called quote unquote for the full utilization of the Nile water. So, because we didn't fully utilize this river between ourselves, let's draft up this agreement so we can utilize the entirety of the Nile water, which does not originate from these two countries, which crosses nine countries before it reaches them and divide it between the both of them. So essentially, what the 1959 agreement does is divide the total, the whole water. So at the time, 4,000,000,000 cubic meters of water between Sudan, Egypt and evaporation loss because these are desert countries. So out of the 84,000,000,000 cubic meters, 55,500,000,000 cubic meters goes to Egypt, Eighteen Point Five Billion cubic meters of water goes to Sudan, Ten Billion cubic meters of water is left for evaporation which essentially lives zero, nothing for these other upstream countries which are the source countries and by law which have a fair share from the river.

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 25:33

So that's the agreement that is signed by two countries so it's a bilateral agreement it's not even a basin wide agreement. So that's the agreement that these two downstream countries insist is binding on all the other countries in the basin to this day. Obviously, this is a red line for Ethiopia, which was not party to the agreement, but also these other upstream riparian countries have also rejected it. Supposedly, argument is that because they were under British rule and if British signed the agreement by proxy it applies to them. They obviously if anybody knows about the Nerari doctrine.

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 26:13

So they completely reject this premise and they don't ascribe to this principle. In essence Ethiopia and all the other upstream repairing countries for all intensive purposes this agreement does not exist for them. But the fact of the matter is the basis or the assumptions in this agreement have seeped into international law have seeped into science have seeped into scientific research because those are the numbers that are being used in simulations, in scenarios in scientific research.

Bryan Dewsbury: 26:46

Let me interrupt you there because it I mean, you may not know this. Right? But I'm just wondering if with scientific research, do you think that people who use these numbers are way of the, you know, sociohistorical context and how it might impact the accuracy of the numbers that I used?

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 27:07

Well, the seasoned professionals who have worked in the Nile for a while, I mean, if you're worth your salt for for anything related to the The Nile, you should know the context, and the seasoned professionals do know the context. Mhmm. But because there isn't an alternative set of baseline to use, they just default to that one, which is a big no no for me, like let's work towards establishing a new baseline, let's not reinforce this historical inequity, but that's what's happening. If you open the UN website that tells you about how much water resource every country has you'll find the 55,500,000,000 cubic meters of water allocated for Egypt in the UN website. I know this is a podcast I should talk, but it's just beyond imagination that such an unequitable, clearly unequitable, unfair agreement has seeped into literally the entire workings of policy, diplomacy, history, science in the basin, right?

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 28:13

So this is essentially what the other upstream repairing countries are fighting against and this new agreement that you mentioned earlier, it's called the cooperative framework agreement. For the first time in our history, all 10 countries, well Eritrea was an observer, so let's say all 11 countries came to the table, discussed equitably and wanted to come to an agreement and they spent ten years. So this negotiation started in 1997 and they came they had a framework called the CFA, the Corporate Framework Agreement in 2010 and last minute, Egypt and Sudan did not want to sign it after negotiating on it for thirteen years. So at the moment, for this framework to become into a law, it needs to be signed and ratified by six countries for it to be the law of the land. Right now it's signed by six, ratified by four, so we still need two more countries to ratify it so it becomes the law of the land.

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 29:13

But there's definitely no movement in that direction with regards to Egypt and Sudan and the other some upstream countries have also not signed or ratified it. So, yeah, that's the state of events in the basin right now.

Bryan Dewsbury: 29:27

Okay. Okay. So thanks for that summary. Let's shift to Gurud for a second because it's it's it's an interesting, you know, I've I've read a couple of of articles in it. And one of the things that I have to confess, like, when I first hear the name, alright, the entire name, Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, my first assumption is that it's done by the state government, by a large municipality or a central corporation.

Bryan Dewsbury: 30:02

And, you know, it's not. And I I just want I want you to walk us through just a little bit, its origins, you know, sort of who came together, how you decided this this this public funding structure, if I could call it that, and and how how is sort of that model is sustainable, right, moving forward, not just for the construction, but for the maintenance in the future? Yeah.

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 30:31

So I have to take you a little bit back into the history to get like an essence of the Yeah. We talked about the 1959 agreement, right? And our emperor at the time, Emperor Haile Selassie, actually sent a memo to Egypt and Sudan saying like, hey, we're not included in this agreement, it's not binding on us, heads up. It's not like we can do anything about it. But then right after he came together with the American government at the time and he had this massive study done on the Blue Nile Basin by the USBR, United States Bureau of Reclamation.

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 31:08

And so in 1964 they had this massive research outlining the potential in the Blue Nile River Basin. So 34 projects were identified and one of the projects that was identified at that time was called the border dam which ended up being GERD. That study has been in the well in the hearts and minds of people since then. The ambition to utilize the Blue Nile, the Nile has always been there in Ethiopia that this need to build a dam right so like I told you ancient king like kings and queens used to threaten saying like I'll dam this not because they had the capacity but because they knew the impact. Emperor Minidliq wanted to build a dam on Lake Anna which was the source of the Blue Nile but it was during the time of Emperor Haile Selassie that a tangible move in this direction was done.

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 32:01

But again, these are massive projects. We did not have the stability capacity to do this on our own and obviously funder organizations were not going to fund this project because it would ruin relationships with Egypt. So that study was there dormant for years. So when we talk about GERD, it's not a project that just popped out in the last 10 It's a generational dream.

Bryan Dewsbury: 32:25

So

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 32:28

what we essentially did was like pull the study, brush it up, update it and then build it, right?

Bryan Dewsbury: 32:33

Okay. So was there somebody who led that? Yeah.

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 32:36

Well, was mostly the initiative of the Prime Minister at the time from Minister Medlisin Awe. He was the one who well let the initiative started the project but again this question of funding where do we get the money was always a shackle right like and before that time I don't think this project this project would have been possible say like ten years before the time it actually got started because we were not there but the momentum that I told you about earlier in this sense of resentment and regret at not using this resource that was mobilized to publicly fund it like you said. So when it was launched it was supposed to be around it was supposed to cost around 4,000,000,000 and we said we'll do it we'll raise the money and we did somehow we did fundraisers, lotteries, people were donating We even like as young professional gave our one month salary to the dam. Everybody was so very enthusiastic, still is to this day enthusiastic about the dam. We have fundraisers still going on.

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 33:50

So this can sense this generational what's the word? Enhanced? Yeah, being capitalized for the better like being harnessed effectively to fund this project and as far as it being sustainable, we're at 92% so I would say it's very sustainable but once the dam starts well it is it has already started producing electricity part of the arrangement is that it's going to produce massive amounts of energy around 5,000 megawatts. It's like double the capacity of the country right now.

Bryan Dewsbury: 34:27

And

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 34:28

so part of that energy is going to be exported to neighboring countries which is going to bring much needed foreign currency. So as long as the dam is done and complete it's probably going to sustain itself like that's not a big issue. Getting it done was the big issue and thank God it's almost there.

Bryan Dewsbury: 34:47

Yeah. Yeah. So so let's dig in a little bit more in this sort of public funding model. Mhmm. Because it's you know, there's the economical economic complexity of it, right, pulling it off and and getting the buy in and and having that sort of collective sustained energy as you've described.

Bryan Dewsbury: 35:04

But, you know, in in reading about the development of this and not just the development, but the impact of this project on on just the national psyche, it it is very apparent to me that it's more than just that. Right? It's more than just you're sending a a monthly salary to this thing. And I would say one essay that I know you wrote that for me really captures that whole sentiment is my dam, my why, my dignity, and it's a a really beautiful piece that we'll we'll put on the website, and I encourage all of you to check it out. Tell us a little bit about about that.

Bryan Dewsbury: 35:44

How how the building of the dam intersects with your sense of why, how it how it intersects with the not just your own sense of dignity, but the national sense of dignity, and how that has helped keep the mobilization efforts sustained and powerful.

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 36:00

I find the name of the dam, Gerd, Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam very, very apt. Renaissance is the key here. Ethiopians are a very proud people, like too proud I would say to their own detriment, to our own detriment. But this sense of pride in themselves, in ourselves and in our country does not really go with like the physical reality that you see, that dissonance how we live this undignified life you know like living like the medieval time without water without lights without education access but still like having this really really strong pride in your country that dissonance is always very disruptive in the public psyche. So when you have this dam which promises to reignite Ethiopia you know like reclaim your history, reclaim your future, be the renaissance for the country that you hope to see it's so easy to see why that lands in every individual and for me I told you I'm a very demand driven person and then that felt like okay this is where I am needed this is where I could be of help and this idea of a dignified life is my purpose is to be of service, to be of service so that people, everybody can have a dignified life.

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 37:20

So, is just like seamless link. So, this idea of a renaissance, this idea of reclaiming our past, our history, but also taking a hold of your future, like being in control of your future, making Ethiopia the great country that it was and that it can become, I think that's what garners people's passion for this dam but beyond that it's very symbolic because it also changes the status quo in the basin. Things have definitely shifted after the dam like this implicit assumption that oh the basin goes as Egypt once that's not the case anymore. It's also it has the stem has also given a sense of yes we can not just for the Ethiopian people but for countries around It's an example right? Yeah.

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 38:17

It's like permission seems a bit strong but in essence it is giving these other countries as well permission to do the same for their own people, right? And that changes things. Now you have nine countries essentially along the same line of thought versus two countries who are trying to cling to the past. That's going to change the status quo. That has changed the status quo.

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 38:42

And that gives me hope because that means maybe there's a way forward towards some more equitable and sustainable use of the banal in the basin.

Bryan Dewsbury: 38:49

Right.

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 38:50

Which happens to be the title of my PhD, but yeah.

Bryan Dewsbury: 38:53

That's alright. I'll let you repeat that. Maybe you're practicing for your defense or something. So, you know, in the way you've described it, right, it almost sounds as though as you as you actualize, right, into your scientific identity, into your science identity, its application to this demand, to use your own words and to it's it's it's opportunity to serve and be part of this renaissance. There was no other way.

Bryan Dewsbury: 39:21

It seemed like there was no other way you were ever going to use your science.

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 39:26

I made my science work to the purpose I wanted to. Like I told you, I was lucky in the sense that I could do anything my grades were good given the opportunity my country could give I could have chosen anything just this is just too good so much better than anything that I could actually have chosen.

Bryan Dewsbury: 39:47

Yeah. Can I ask you something on that? Because I I mean, I know you're seeing this with with respect to your own choices. Right? And, you know, not every not every engineering student, not every environmental studies student is going to come from Ethiopia or come from a country where you have these sort of major sociopolitical things to address.

Bryan Dewsbury: 40:05

But we do have thousands and thousands of engineering students walking across stages getting diplomas. Mhmm. And and I I certainly hope that, you know, podcast listeners, as some of these podcast listeners, as students who perhaps are inspired by your story and inspired that by thinking about science and the discipline and their life and the country in a particular way can can lead them to choices. You know, by your own admission, you had good grades. You could have done a whole bunch of things, and these opportunities presented themselves and they collided in ways that obviously have worked out.

Bryan Dewsbury: 40:41

What advice would you give to students who might be, you know, end about to enter that ramp away from their undergrad degree, away from their master's degree, and thinking about how they can consider their own impact on the world. And perhaps don't have a gird right now to run to, right? But they are inspired by you and they know they can help and without really infantilizing the whole thing, but what message might you give them?

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 41:11

I would say cliche but finding your why. That helped me, that really helped me. There's this concept called Ikigai Japanese concept that says your life's purpose or like something worth living for you how you can find something worth living for or your life's purpose is when you find something you love, something you're good at, something you can actually get paid for and something that's actually beneficial to the world and it's at the intersection of these four things according to this principle that your life's purpose is the GERD and the work I do the PhD the social advocacy it's all in that intersection for me so yes I've been lucky but I've also sort of charted that intersection for myself I know my why, I know I want to be of service in service of people and I think understanding or like at least trying to understand it's a long journey it's a harrowing it's an annoying it's a frustrating journey to get to understand your what your why is but yeah understanding your why knowing why you're doing things it helps it helps I don't think we're at the age where we can and this is no this is I'm not trying to you know like disrespect people who do like pure science just or science for the sake of science but I think we're beyond that that time where we can just do science for the sake of science I think science has to be people oriented problem oriented policy oriented right because we just don't have that luxury, I think.

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 43:02

Not that we ever did, but we don't really have that luxury. Definitely know I don't have that luxury. So I think putting people at the center of everything that we do, whether it be arts, teaching, diplomacy, engineering, whatever, but putting people at the heart and for me it's trying to be of service to people but understanding why you're doing the things you're doing and having that strong why will make everything you do afterwards sort of meaningful and it doesn't have to be the girth but there will always be something within your lane, within your chair that you can do which will be monumentally important for other people and incredibly satisfying and gratifying to your life as well. And I think that's a good life, that's a life worth having, The struggles along the way those will be worth it if you know what waits for you at the end of the journey or even along the journey, right? Like so yeah, I would say take time to understand what drives you, what keeps you going.

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 44:11

Yeah, understand your why. There's a brilliant book by Simon Sinek that's called Start With Why and a couple other videos that I know you shared with us which do make the case for why we need to start from why. Right.

Bryan Dewsbury: 44:27

Yeah. Let me take you back to that elementary class when your teacher was was pointing out the association with famine and all of that stuff. And also, I think around that same age, you remember the music and what the music was saying about the dam and all of this. Right? And then fast forward to now, right, where you do have an opportunity to teach classrooms.

Bryan Dewsbury: 44:52

And even to to to bring back up the comment you just made about us not having the luxury of science not being people centered. In what ways do your personal experiences, but also your belief that you just espoused, in what ways do they inform or impact how you approach your own classrooms regardless of the subject matter?

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 45:14

Yeah, in essence I don't do anything that I can't see having an impact out there. And there are things that I want to do that are extremely interesting to me which just don't make sense on a large scale and I have reached a point where I can't get myself to prioritize time for something not worthwhile and that goes in teaching, that goes in all the projects I engage in, that goes for my PhD, that goes for the people I interact with. So when I teach my aim is not to have my students cram in whatever topic I'm teaching no it's to get them to think to learn how to think so they can be able citizens who are ready to face the kind of problems that their world is going to face, that they are going to face in their world, which is going to be extremely more complicated than the world we even have now. With my projects at least in the short term with the PhD, I ensure that there's a social element, the policy element, the diplomacy element because I want my PhD to be applicable which was a big issue in trying to get it passed because the scientific novelty is what's really stressed in academia and for good reason but this the applicability and the people oriented that's a good word how you put it at being people oriented and being usable, that's very important to me.

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 46:48

I don't think I can dedicate myself to anything that was not that anymore.

Bryan Dewsbury: 46:52

Right.

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 46:55

Yeah. I hope that answers your question.

Bryan Dewsbury: 46:58

It answers it beautifully. And, you know, and I bring it up because, you know, okay, these podcasts are gonna be prerecorded. Right? So who knows what happens when it actually launches to the public, but I can't imagine it being that different from who it is now in that we we're living in a a time in The US con context. It's it's tough sociopolitical times, tough political times when it comes to the relationship between formal education at the higher education level and civic behavior.

Bryan Dewsbury: 47:30

Right? And and without going down the whole laundry list of how everybody feels about that, I know one of these struggles in STEM in particular is understanding how do I teach a class on Python or how do I teach a intro chem class and bring in all of these values about being people oriented, being committed to social justice, being committed to citizenry and good citizenship and all these kinds of things. And and I I'll confess to you as somebody who does faculty development. I kinda I struggle a little bit, I think, trying to explain, and I think partly because we are so trained to to need it boiled down to 10 things to do. Without really sitting with a mindset of that's what it means to prepare somebody, right?

Bryan Dewsbury: 48:18

So perhaps that that debate for a different day but unless you have a comment on

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 48:23

It's a shame that you have to explain that to folks especially in academia but I agree with you. This is not something to do, it's something to be, right? Right. And that takes time, it's agonizing, it's draining.

Bryan Dewsbury: 48:43

In a good way though, right?

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 48:45

Well, because you know the output is going to be worth it, but it's not nice to sit in that space and try and you know work yourself to work something out but it's worth it especially if you believe in the power of education and if you believe what you're doing in education is not teaching but it's if it's making a generation shaping a generation of country so yeah, all the all the best. Good luck to you.

Bryan Dewsbury: 49:10

Thank you. Thanks for that. Let me shift gears a little bit to I wanna talk a little bit about a study you did which I found fascinating about how the music, the lyrics and the nature of music of certain genres shifted pre good and during good. And so to some extent you can craft a narrative of how the society was, you know, reacting psyche wise before this damn this construction began and when it was. And and and I'm I'm kinda partial to it just because of somebody who's a music lover, who's, you know, trained in music for a long time and, you know, sees music as a as a place to tell stories and a place to understand how we navigate this complex world.

Bryan Dewsbury: 50:01

And, you know, particularly from the STEM world, a lot of time even though a lot of STEM scientists are musicians. I don't know what percentage, but just as a discipline. Right? This notion of of gruel storytelling Mhmm. As another means to to to narrate how these things develop.

Bryan Dewsbury: 50:21

What what led you to that? What what made that interesting to you? What did you find from it? How has it, you know, in any way, if at all, impacted how people have understood this development?

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 50:33

Yeah. That's interesting. And I'll start I'll preface this conversation by saying

Bryan Dewsbury: 50:38

history you

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 50:39

get from here. I am not musical at all, but I am a music lover. And as I mentioned the Ethiopian narrative as much as far as music and art was concerned was pretty in my face for me, well and for every Ethiopian per se and that shift that you mentioned in narrative after the GERD was launched was very apparent but it was was an initiative by me and a good friend of mine called Maklitz who's also doing her PhD now and we were trying to present something for a conference, a hydro diplomacy conference and it was I don't even know what sparked it but we were talking about music and then I was like it's funny how the narrative shifted before and after Gurdan. One thing led to another, know, critical minds, logical thinking. We were both doing our masters at the time, so that got us thinking.

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 51:37

Do you think this trend, this shift was also apparent in Egypt and Sudan when they had their massive infrastructures there, when they had their GERDs per se? Because there's a big dam in Egypt called the Aswan High Dam which was built in the 50s around the time when the 1959 agreement was

Bryan Dewsbury: 52:01

built, which

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 52:04

literally transformed their country. And there are a couple dams in Sudan, smaller dams, but with a different impact. So that got us thinking the situation in Ethiopia and how the narrative shifted got us thinking whether this was also the case in other countries. And we started with Ethiopia, saw that shift, tried to look into Egypt and Sudan, looked into some music, saw like a slight pattern and then drove into it. So it started out like as a slideshow presentation with like snippets of music lyrics.

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 52:37

So we got a couple of our friends together, gathered the music, have them translate the Arabic into sensible English to capture the narratives and surprisingly there is sort of the same narrative and that also highlighted how the Nile is not just universally loved, right? Like so in Ethiopia that dichotomous relationship of the Nile that I talked about the love and adoration for this river, the beauty it's considered the grace of the country, the word abay also means father but it also means liar so that dichotomy of I

Bryan Dewsbury: 53:13

don't know how I feel about that. Well,

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 53:17

is a lute, it has been a lute. So that dichotomy was pretty apparent in the Ethiopian context but we sort of thought Sudan and Egypt is just like the Nile is just adored and loved. No, it's not the case. In Egypt it is, People are very attached to it. They call it father, brother.

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 53:36

That's where people go to when they're sad, when they're happy. It also crosses their capital city. So it's like in the daily lives of people. Same thing in Sudan. But after the dam in Egypt, it was sort of like how it is in Ethiopia now.

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 53:50

Like, yes, we did it. Colonizers, look what we did. You know, that sense of pride in their own country, sort of like reclaiming the future. That was a similar sentiment. But we found out in Sudan, because the building of these dams displaced a lot of people from their ancestral homes, there was a lot of resentment and a lot of songs, very sad Nubian songs that talked about how the voice of the Nile stopped for them, like how the river flowing stopped from them, how they feel disconnected because they're not living on their ancestral lands, which was really heartbreaking because these are not narratives that you hear out there.

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 54:33

So it just became that that little project became a very interesting thing which we made into a video which was very well received by people, opened a lot of doors, created a lot of networks, ended up being a book chapter but it also lands easily with people because it's music. You know, it's easy to listen to, it's easy to get the Let

Bryan Dewsbury: 54:59

me ask you about one more thing. You wrote an essay talking about the ways in which the GRID project helps women empowerment, general empowerment. But in that particular essay, you spoke specifically about women. And again, perhaps salient to the previous point, right, these things aren't just about damming water, right, they they have all of these psychosocial externalities that that impact that have generative effects. Kenneth, focusing on that one particular thing, could you tell us a little bit about, you know, what you've observed, what you've written about, what you hope for the future, what has happened and and in tangibly too.

Bryan Dewsbury: 55:49

Right? I know in general, I get the concept. Right? But what have you seen in terms of, like, have there been more more jobs for women? Have you seen more men speaking up?

Bryan Dewsbury: 55:58

I'm just picking examples here, but just giving a sense of what I'm asking.

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 56:02

So would it be fair to talk tangibly about the GERD as it concerns impact on women because it's not fully operational?

Bryan Dewsbury: 56:13

Got it.

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 56:13

Right now I think, yeah, two turbines are working, which means electricity somewhere like around 700 megawatts of for the country, but that's about it and it has only been like a year, year and a half since that happened. In order to talk about a measured tangible thing, that wouldn't be the fair timeframe. But I tend to frame the GERD in terms of the sustainable development goals because I want the GERD to have the eyes and ears of the international population.

Bryan Dewsbury: 56:44

Can you tell us a little bit about the sustainable development?

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 56:47

Oh yeah, Sure. The sustainable development goals are these initiatives by the UN, the United Nations. And there are these 17 goals that supposedly the entire world is supposed to achieve by 02/1930. And they're very ambitious lofty goals like zero poverty, zero hunger, complete 20 how much? 02/1930.

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 57:08

So

Bryan Dewsbury: 57:09

we have seven years about okay.

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 57:13

They're good goals to have. They are lofty. Yeah. And I don't think we're going to get there but it's still like it's the aim for the stars kind of situation. Right.

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 57:22

So, you have these 17 goals like zero hunger, 100% access to food, water, energy, education, gender equity, climate change, a set of things. And my approach when it came to GERD, like when it came to making GERD make sense for the international community was framing it in terms of the sustainable development goals. But for some reason, were particularly interested in GERD and what it would mean for women. And I understand that now, it just wasn't like a very dominant framing in me. So it was actually by request of people that I started thinking about that and trying to see, okay, would it really mean something more to women and girls in Ethiopia than like the general population and it turns out yes because right now women bear the brunt of the burden in the population as things stand now because of well history social structure all that right so by virtue of that, they're going to reap the most benefits from the GERD, right?

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 58:30

So the benefits are universal. It's just that because they're overburdened now, the benefits are going to be extremely more important and relevant to them. So like think access to electricity which is the main goal of the GERD but access to electricity doesn't stop at getting lights at your house that means people getting more access to getting more access to energy is going to mean people not traveling tens of kilometers to fetch water because there'll be pumps nearby to pump. That means not like burning down your ice with like candles and kerosene lights trying to study. That means being able to access more education facilities, that means being able to access more healthcare facilities because we have these clinics and hospitals like in rural areas.

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 59:19

The building is there but they're not functional because they don't have electricity. It means industries being able to work with 100% of their capacity instead of half as they are now because blackouts are not going to be a thing. That means more job opportunities which means more job opportunities for women as well. That's going to mean economic empowerment, which is going to impact gender equity. And it goes on like this.

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 59:42

Climate change, women also suffer from the brunt of issues related to climate change, not just in Ethiopia, but everywhere. So doing something, producing that much 5,000 megawatts of clean energy contributes to climate change, reduces deforestation. All that is going to have ripple effects that extend to all 17 SDG goals, but because women suffer more now, they're going to reap most of the benefits. Yeah, the multiplier effect is great for everybody and especially great for women. So, and well, gender equity is still a big issue in Ethiopia, access to education for women, access to healthcare for women.

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 01:00:28

These are still important topics in Ethiopia. So I understand the focus there, so that's how the idea of Gurdjin relation to women came to be. And so it's surprising to see part of being away from the context of Ethiopia, of the lousy parts is you miss this like the gender issue was not like at the forefront of my mind because I was not in the Ethiopian context for a So people had to point that out to me, and that has been a very interesting lens to look at the GERD and all the developments happening in Ethiopia through the gender lens.

Bryan Dewsbury: 01:01:09

Okay. So I I think people listening to this conversation might assume that you are already a diplomat or UN spokesperson, you know, just given the depth of knowledge that you shared here. But but you still have to finish your PhD, at least that's the plan. But without, I guess, getting too specific because I I imagine there are several options that might be appealing to you. You know, what would you say is next for you after after getting hooded?

Bryan Dewsbury: 01:01:39

What what where do you see you take all of this knowledge, all these skills and all of this desire and demand and make the biggest impact?

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 01:01:48

Thankfully, that has become more clear. But normally, that kind of questions give me anxiety but I have an answer for you right now.

Bryan Dewsbury: 01:01:57

I'm glad I didn't do that.

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 01:02:01

So my interest used to be in academia so the teaching aspect has always stayed constant. I love teaching and I'd like to think I'm a good teacher. So teaching still at the core of what I want to do going forward. But in addition to teaching through this work on the now, working at the intersection of science, policy, law, diplomacy, I sort of saw a gap in our education system. And I say ours as in like the Ethiopian education system, but I tend to think most other places would suffer from this too in the sense that we are not training the next generation of citizens in a holistic way.

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 01:02:40

We are still we still have this very silo way of thinking as if like problems are going to be solved by disciplinary solutions which is is which has never been true but especially now and the GERD and the situation in the GERD has made that pretty apparent for me So I'm very, very interested in transdisciplinary education curriculum in Ethiopia now. We actually did a pilot curriculum and very, very excited about that. So hopefully we can scale that up into a national initiative, you know, start the work of preparing the next generation of people now and then maybe in twenty years we'll have a good set of citizens who are able to handle whatever life throws at them and then the country will be in good hands. Hands. So that's part of the goal or the trajectory going forward and obviously given the PhD I sort of want to create a job post for myself

Bryan Dewsbury: 01:03:47

as a You know? It's a yeah. I mean it's not I'm gonna tell you what I will do for you. Take some notes.

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 01:03:57

But essentially, I want to work as a science adviser in water diplomacy. I know there are a couple people who do that but nobody I know has my credentials, my history, my opportunities. So, I feel like I sort of have to do that like I'm very very fit like because of my training I'm an engineer I have that technical mindset I know what the engineers are talking about when they say when they're spitting numbers or saying this and that like I can understand that because that is me but through my Not

Bryan Dewsbury: 01:04:32

because I cannot.

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 01:04:33

No, this is not to be braggy but it's I am very lucky because through like the my master's degree in The Netherlands that was supposed to be Masters of Science in Environmental, Masters of MSc, Masters of Science in Environmental Science, but that gave me a whole other view about the social aspects of water. Governance. And through my work with the GERD and being very close to the negotiation, following it closely, trying to advocate for equitable and reasonable use, sort of see that gap in diplomacy. So I feel like I have what two legs or all my legs in these three or four spheres so I feel like I can work in the in betweens and there's a big language barrier among people working in this field. The fact of the matter is especially when it comes to transboundary water, it's not just science or it's not just the law or it's not just the diplomats, it's people from these three or four spheres coming together sitting in a room and literally not knowing what the other person is saying because they don't have the vocabulary they don't have the context right.

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 01:05:45

I'm very lucky because I have that

Bryan Dewsbury: 01:05:48

right

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 01:05:48

and so that just feels like a place that's waiting for me to feel so science advisor something in water diplomacy definitely teaching definitely education curriculum development because I think these are the things that are going to make lasting changes in the short term, the long term, definitely for Ethiopia, but can be scaled. Why not?

Bryan Dewsbury: 01:06:12

I I am still hung up on you will create job for you. I'm with you a %. Like, I know you're not saying that, like, as a braggy thing. I I get it. Like, right?

Bryan Dewsbury: 01:06:22

And the sort of implicit message there is that some of the jobs of the future has to be defined by us, has to be defined by your why. Yeah. Whatever that job ends up being, Megdi, I I know you'll you'll thrive, and you'll bring a lot of change to the world, and I just hope I just hope you remember us whenever you get there.

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 01:06:43

Thank you. I appreciate that, and I don't forget my friend.

Bryan Dewsbury: 01:06:47

You listening to Knowledge Unbound. We had the pleasure of talking to McDolawit Masai Deribi. McDolawit, thanks for being with us today.

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 01:06:55

My pleasure. It was a lot it was lovely talking to you.

Bryan Dewsbury: 01:06:57

You sure? Yes. Take care, everyone. Knowledge on Brown is brought to you by the Rios Institute for Racially Just Inclusive Open STEM Meditation. Thanks today for the time we spent with McDelawit Masai Der Rabe.

Bryan Dewsbury: 01:07:24

Ecti, thank you.

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 01:07:25

My pleasure. Thank you for having me.

Bryan Dewsbury: 01:07:28

Thanks for giving our opening and closing. That's a that's a great treat.

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 01:07:31

My pleasure too.

Bryan Dewsbury: 01:07:33

Our closing song today was written and performed by Jessica Kisunzu, chemistry professor at Colorado College. You can find her music on Bandcamp. She's pretty awesome. I I trust you as inspired as I was by by the conversation. I trust you learned a lot about the ways in which social justice is a general concept that applies to anywhere we humans are, and we have to figure some stuff out.

Bryan Dewsbury: 01:07:59

And I trust that you you you heard the tough choices that have to be made and and maybe in hearing those tough choices being articulated, it inspires you to make your own tough choices. That's all we could offer you. That's all we can offer you in any conversation. So until the next conversation, I beg of you. Please be excellent to each other.

Mekdelawit Massay Deribe: 01:08:27

So this idea of a renaissance, this idea of reclaiming our past, our history but also taking a hold of your future like being in control of your future, making Ethiopia the great country that it was and that it can become. I think that's what garners people's passion for this dam. For me it's trying to be of service to people but understanding why you're doing the things you're doing and having that strong why will make everything you do afterwards sort of meaningful and it doesn't have to be the girth but there will always be something within your lane, within your chair that you can do which will be monumentally important for other people and incredibly satisfying and gratifying to your life as well.