Synopsis
This collection of true short stories tied together with 80 old photographs and the facsimile of 12 original letters) is set in a very remote almost inaccessible part of Ethiopia back in the 1960s when the Emperor, Haile Selassie, was still alive and in power. Partly for the adventure, but also just to escape being drafted into the Vietnam War, a young American couple volunteer to spend two years in a tiny village of grass huts helping several dozen very poor Amhara farmers establish a new town in the lowland jungle of the Rift Valley, The land had recently given to them by the sometimes loved, sometimes loathed Emperor, also an Amhara. The stories are not just about the couple’s struggle with fire, disease and death in a totally unfamiliar culture, language and environment, however. They are also gentle stories about how life choices are never black and white and even selfless good intentions can sometime have a serious downside. This book is a “prequel” to Ted Wells’ book: “Power, Chaos or Consensus?”
About the Author
Ted Wells is an Urban Designer and Planning Specialist. He was born, raised and educated as an Architect in the United States. After completing his degree in the sixties, he and his wife chose the Peace Corps rather than the Vietnam War. For three years he planned new towns in remote parts of the Ethiopian Rift Valley while his wife treated sick people and cattle there. They then spent a year traveling the back roads of Europe in a VW van exploring their new towns to see what he should have done in Africa. Eventually they returned to the States where Ted worked for five years as a planner for a small city in Colorado. In the mid 1970s, he and his wife became disillusioned with American politics so they moved their young family to New Zealand in search of an alternative approach to society, humanity and government, They found a comfortable place by the Tasman Sea and decided to saty. Apart from the three years he spent back in the States researching his book on consensus decision-making and undertaking planning work in Philadelphia, Ted spent the next 35 years working for various governments in New Zealand and around the Pacific helping local people plan their own futures. This book and its more conceptual companion work; "Power, Chaos & Consensus" finally came together following two years in Samoa helping local residents prepare coastal management plans using their traditional methods of consensus decision-making.
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