Obituary | The long walk to learning

Asfaw Yemiru died on May 8th

The founder of Ethiopia’s best school for poor children was 78 or 79

IT WOULD TAKE a long time, Asfaw Yemiru reckoned, to walk the 75 miles from his village in Bulga to Addis Ababa. The family had last gone by donkey, so that he and his 11 brothers could be made deacons in the cathedral. That trip had taken two days. He was going barefoot now, and he was only nine.

This article appeared in the Obituary section of the print edition under the headline “The long walk”

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