Numbers

Today (27^th November) I hit day 366 in Ethiopia so have completed a whole year here. On Saturday I also hit another landmark, Day 300 in Gilgel Beles.

Yesterday, while being watched by the class teachers, I taught Maths (or Hesab) to a grade 2 class (8&9ish years old + older ones) and a grade 4 class (10&11ish + more older ones who didn’t get schooling the first time round.) I used number fans a lot to easily assess the level the children were at, which, on the whole, seemed to be at a much lower level than the work they usually copy off the board. Luckily I managed to get by without an interpreter (they were both busy) and when doing units, tens, hundreds etc, I luckily knew that in Amharic the columns are called “und-bet”, “asir-bet”, “meto-bet” etc (or one house, ten house and hundred house etc.)

On Tuesday I visited the Catholic Mission School (for about 150 under 7s) which is really strange compared to the national schools as it is well funded, has brick built buildings, little mats to sit on, posters on the walls etc. It was really nice. The teachers are all Ethiopian and don’t have to be Catholic. I think they are Orthodox Christians. The children were really cute, and as the priest and brothers at the mission are European and white, the children didn’t really react that much to having me there as well.