Soccer Dad

Cappuccinos for peace?

In Ethiopia a repairman has found a novel use for old mortar shells

In the shadows of his dingy workshop in a northern Ethiopian town, Azemeraw Zeleke stoops over a baffling array of cylinders, tubes and handles.

The 54-year-old inventor and repairman supplies Mekele, and indeed the whole of the hilly Tigray region, with coffee machines. But it is his choice of materials that makes Azemeraw's trade truly unique.

"The farmers bring me mortar shells from the old battlefield," he says, gesturing north where Ethiopia borders Eritrea and the two nations fought a 1998-2000 war.

"The empty tubes are perfect for the coffee machines. Look, the bronze does not rust. And the shape is ideal."

Using the burnt-out mortar shells as the inner barrel of his coffee makers, Azemeraw and his half dozen workers need about a week to make one sophisticated machine capable of turning out the dozen of so different types of coffee drunk in these parts.

"We take these objects of war and turn them into objects of pleasure," says his son Mehany, 22, who works proudly beside his father. "Maybe, this is a message for the world."

I don't know about a message for the world, but what about the Palestinians? Elder of Ziyon noted

OK, let's do the math: half the people live on less than $2 a day, and an M-16 is $13,000. So the money for an M-16 could have supported 100 Palestinian Arabs for two months.

So if instead of building mortars to fire shells into Israel the Palestinians were using the tubes to make coffee machines for export, they'd no longer be threatening Israel and earning some real currency to take care of their humanitarian crisis.

So if the Palestinians are not shooting at Israel and are feeding their people, there'd be no more strife in the Middle East? Right? And to think that we could have peace for the cost of a cup of coffee.

Blogdigger tags: Mortar Tubes, Coffee Machince, Peace.