Praying for the rains to come in Ethiopia

Ethiopia is experiencing its worst drought in 30 years thanks to El Nino, writes Michael Clifford

The man with the Kalashnikov is telling us to go back and eat the dinner. He is highly excited, talking to the driver with chopping hands and wild eyes and an urgency that might engender fear if one hadn’t been told that it was all about the dinner.

He tells the driver to cut the engine until the matter is sorted. For a few minutes we sit there, in the heat, in this settlement of a few buildings, literally in the middle of nowhere near the border between Ethiopia and Eritrea, and wonder whether an international incident is brewing.