Bahir Dar Trip and Associated Hassles

Pre-trip Hassles:

Well it all started out in the "come to expect it" fiasco. About two weeks ago I had asked the vice dean if there was a car going to Bahir Dar that I could hitch a ride with. The eight hour bus journey is not particularly enjoyable. He said yes, on Thursday (21st) returning on the Monday – this seemed ideal, but living the life of pessimism that I do, I was expecting some problem. As usual, I was correct. When I checked on Tuesday, there wasno longer a car going to Bahir Dar, but there was one going to Addis which could drop me off at Kosober on the way. Not as good, but going from 1000m to 2600m in a 4x4 is much more comfortable and quicker than in a bus, and Kosober to Bahir Dar is on asphalt road and only takes about 1h15 in a minibus so I could cope with that.

Wednesday afternoon, I again checked the arrangements aware that last time I was told 9am collection and they arrived at 7.30am. I am now told that the car going to Addis is a single cab 4x4 and there is no room for me. I can use my CCU budget to pay for 40… no 50 litres of fuel at 350 birr and have a car take me there. Well originally I only wanted to go by car if it was going anyway and 350 birr is 10 bus tickets so I'm not particularly enamoured at this option. The vice dean said it's not a problem as I have some transport money in my proposal so I can use this and says I just have to write a letter. I did query the whole thing and say it was very expensive and it not directly related to CCU (even though I would be doing some training at Bahir Dar University) but the Vice Dean seemed to think it was ok and seemed very in favour of my using the uni car. That, and the thought of the incredibly slow bus journey persuaded me to write the letter. It was getting towards the end of the day and eventually six copies of the order went to various departments, I received 350birr (the driver is not allowed to pay for the fuel and get receipts, the academics travelling have to do that!)

So, a bit concerned about the money, but remembering it's only £20 UK money and I could cover it with my own money if things went wrong, I at least had the thought that I could go at 8am after refilling water etc (which doesn't come on until 7.30am), having a pleasant start to the day etc

That was until the driver arrived and suggested (through an interpreter) that we leave at 5am. We finally got it to 6am, but that's the same time as the bus and I thought this is getting worse and worse. Apparently he needed to be back in Chagni for a funeral.

Thursday, 21st February

So I set my alarm for 5am and got ready and packed and was outside at 6am ready. By pure co-incidence when I looked at The Moon just above the horizon in the direction across from my house, it was dark and I realised it was in eclipse. I subsequently found out there was a lunar eclipse, and totality started about 10mins before I went outside the door. I remember there was
one (that I asked the children in my class to watch) on the day I went to the very first VSO open day, round about this time last year (12 full moons ago.)

The car arrived near enough on time, including two passengers – getting the free ride that I seemed unable to get, but I am on my way. (the tenses in this blog entry seem to keep changing!)

When we got to Chagni (the nearest bigger town to Gilgel) the car suddenly went off the main road and down a side street where about 100 people were gathered – the funeral, I guessed. They parked, and without telling me anything, got out and walked off leaving me to be a ferengi in a cage to be stared at. I started listening to my MP3 player. The driver came back crying
about 20mins later followed by someone who asked where he was going, and he pointed at me and said Kosober. We set off, me being driven by a distressed driver who would rather be at a funeral than driving me. Nether could speak each other's language. Great! I think I understood that it was a friend who was also a driver who had died.

After a quite tense 1h30 we got to Kosober and after paying for the re-fuelling I was off to Bahir Dar on a speedy minibus arriving around 10am.

I may be wrong, but I think the vice dean was so keen for me to use the CCU budget to a) allow the car to have a bit of extra fuel (left over from the journey) but mainly so that the three people, including the driver, got a paid-for trip to Chagni for the funeral. Now I know a funeral is a sad thing, but I wish they were honest about it all. It would've made sense for me to pay 33birr to go by bus, but then where would they get the money for the fuel to Chagni?

Once in Bahir Dar I got a mini-three-wheel moped taxi to the university, got the key from Elsa, who I would be staying with, minibused and walked back to her luxurious government apartment and had a sleep!

In the afternoon I went to the telecenter, and thanks to a letter from the Dean of the College, got my own internet account (which I paid for, it's about 60 birr per month with 900 free minutes) It means I can surf anytime, even while colleagues in the college are using the college account. Also, if/when I get a phone line I can use it then. I also went to the post office, on the off-chance of post and there was one item – I'm not sure why it hadn't been sent on to me, it was only a
magazine. I found a nice café on a first floor with a balcony overlooking the street, where I had a coffee and a very good chocolate-iced doughnut. I went to the supermarket and got some supplies. I was distressed to find no chocolate bars! Last time there were Bounty, Mars, Snickers etc! Back at the house I had the first shower I had had for six weeks – hot as well! When Elsa and Judith returned, I had a look around Judith's apartment – opposite to Elsa's. Again it is very large, with comfy-chair lounge and hers has a balcony which overlooks the street. The only disadvantage is that there is a bar below which plays music about 18 hours a day which is beginning to drive her mad. We then went out for a meal at the next-door hotel. Lots of
different veg etc – very nice, first "proper" restaurant meal for 6 weeks.

Friday, 22nd

After breakfast I went for a walk along the lake, fending off the usual "Do you want a boat" with "hulet wer befeet" – which means two months ago (I went). Also "gobinyee Idelehum" – "I am not a tourist" came in useful. After scrambled egg and bread (and another chocolate donut) at the café, I went to the university, prepared and delivered my presentation to 10 department reps from the university who have a special interest in English. There were also some students in the session as well. It went pretty well, and I even linked number fans to the electronic voting systems that businesses use to show number fans are not just for children, they are just an inexpensive way of getting feedback and allowing assessment from anyone.

After the uni, we went back to town via another supermarket that has recently opened. It had a larger variety of sweets – but all cheap "copies" of the big brands. As Elsa had bought more heavy shopping, she asked if we could swap bags because of her back. We got a minibus back and outside the apartment we discovered she had left my bag on the bus – luckily it had only 50 birrs-worth of stuff. Amazingly, about an hour later, the minibus returned the bag and I had the first yoghurt I had had since the UK.

Me and Judith had a meal at the Ghion (hotel where I had stayed before where the dining area over-looks the lake.) We had a good egg-covered fish.

Saturday, 23rd

Lazy start, shopping in afternoon and great smoothy fruit drinks! Me and Judith had a meal at a poshish hotel (still only cost around 60 birr (£3) including drinks.)

Sunday, 24th

Went to Judith's for eggy-bread (aka French toast) but there was a power cut so we went for a long walk around the lake, I showed her the doughnut café! We had eggy-bread when we returned. In the evening we ate at the Papyrus (where I stayed the first time in Bahir Dar) by the swimming pool. I had a burger and chips – the last meal like that for a while followed by the last hot shower I would have for a while.

Monday, 25th

Getting the minibus to Kosober was relatively painless, as was the bus to Chagni. The temperature was ok and I had a seat at the front so was pretty comfortable. Then it all went downhill at Chagni. I managed to get on a very full bus, at one point an announcement was made and lots of people got off, but apparently what had happened was that as demand was so high, they had put the price up from 7 to 12 birr to get to Gigel. The next 45mins was a hot, sticky wait without knowing when we were going to leave. When we did depart, it was the usual slow, stop-start trip and by the time I got to Gilgel Beles, six hours after departing Bahir Dar, I was hot, sticky, dehydrated and unlike previous feelings of being "home", this time I was angry and felt like I was back in a watered down version of hell to continue my sentence.

I also discovered someone had been in the house and it looks like they stood on the toilet to use it. It is the only solution to explain the muddy footprints on the seat. There seems to have been a bit of cleaning done and maybe the plants watered so I guess it must be the "friend" of the family who took the key.

My can of tuna slopped on the floor when I opened it – attracting the ants very quickly, necessitating a floor wash – and the temp was 35C! Also, I discovered my bag of flour had quite a few black insects in it, meaning I had to sieve them out – all extra jobs I didn't need on my return. Oh well, life goes on…

Day 150 news round up

Financial matters

I had a letter yesterday stating that the regional education bureau had accepted my proposal for this year for the Cluster Unit. I requested, and got, over 35,000 birr for our training activities including transport and refreshment costs, materials and resources used to make displays in all the classrooms and paper and copying costs for the training materials.

In Ethiopian terms, the amount is equal to about two years of my salary. In UK terms it is roughly £2000. I have already spent some of it ordering thousands of sheets of card and other materials for our "Every Classroom should be a Model Classroom" training sessions. The problem I found when I arrived was that most schools had only one classroom ("a model classroom") with displays and the rest were bare. My plan is to get basic displays in all classrooms. The training I have planned is to take a load of resources to the schools, have a quick 30min session on why displays are "good" and what you can use them for, then the rest of the afternoon will be spent by all teachers making and displaying materials in their classes.

Building?

There has been a large bulldozer clearing a vast area in-between the college and the staff accommodation. I thought it was for new buildings, but apparently it's for football pitches!!!

Dust and climate

Well into the dry season, the roads and pathways are really dusty at the moment. Leaves metres back from the road are covered from when cars, buses and trucks go by. Just a quick walk into the village turns your shoes brown. Doing the washing, especially trousers, I have to do a pre-wash to get some of the dust out, before I leave them to soak for a while. The water goes brown very quickly. It currently goes no lower than 16C overnight, and by late afternoon the temperature is somewhere between 30C and 34C. According to my astronomy program, the sun will be directly overhead in the middle of April which is supposed to be the hottest time when temperatures get to 40C! Then it is followed shortly after by the start of the rainy season. It is currently quite dry (35-40% humidity) and, though hot, the climate is pretty bearable. When the rainy season starts it will get very humid again (like when I arrived and it was usually about 80%) and I am not looking forward to that!

It still seems odd seeing The Moon directly overhead at night, and when it is a half moon, it is on its side.

Toilet

I am really enjoying being on my own in the house. I know that when I get home, I can shut the door and have my own space. The toilet has been really clean lately. No coming home at lunchtime to find a load in there. I even managed to tweak the cistern at the weekend and now the flush works properly, even stopping filling when the water reaches the top.

Night noise

I am currently being woken by a bird which peeps like an alarm clock and the usual call to prayer. At least there are no baby noises!!

Bahir Dar

On Thursday I will be going to Bahir Dar to stay, again, with a VSO volunteer there. On Friday, I will give my number fans and count stick - teaching aids presentation to a group of academics at Bahir Dar University. I will also be able to get lots of supplies to add to the box that arrived
from Addis yesterday. Then I'll be flush with tinned meat and tuna to last me a couple of months! The good news is that there is a college car going there so it will take about 4.5 hours in relative comfort instead of 8.5 cramped on a bus!!!

Day 150

On Saturday (23 Feb) I will have been in Ethiopia for 150 days. It will also be the half-way point as I plan to come home to the UK for a couple of months during the summer.

Mid-February Update

Personal space

Just as I was heading for the pit of despair re: personal space and privacy, I now, suddenly, find myself on my own in the house.

The man of the family is in Addis Ababa for three months at the Ministry of education on some kind of long, drawn out training. Last week, the sister of his wife, a young girl who is basically used as a servant to look after the baby, make breakfast etc, and also who was always watching me and seeing what I was doing (very un-nerving) went back to her mother for the semester. That left the wife and their 10 month old baby. Then yesterday she announced they were going to Addis to visit husband/dad. I asked how long (well actually I asked “what time?” in Amharic and she said 05:30 in the morning.) Once I had communicated the length of time, she said “und wer” which means a month, Hopefully I will be on my own here for a month.

It started well this morning when the water came on and I could hear the tap in their kitchen, on full. She’d left it on the other day and I turned it off to stop the kitchen flooding. Well today, now that she was gone, she had locked all the doors so I couldn’t get into the kitchen. Luckily I remembered the stop-cock tap outside and luckily x 2, it only turned off the kitchen tap and not the toilet etc.

At lunch time I had a sudden urge to clean and got the “Vim” powder out and cleaned the outside cement bucket sink and tiles which had months of food/washing debris caked all round it. It’s a Samaritan-effect thing. When we’re all there, nobody does it, now that it’s just me and will be mine for a month…

It was so nice tonight, coming in to my own house without baby noises, people following me around etc. I can get to the sink when I want (when the water’s on of course) the toilet will be clean with only me using it (and flushing it after). Bliss!

Other news:

The water was off for two days last week – now I have two big bowls and a bucket, I was doing ok. The electricity has also been off quite a bit. I did more cooking by siddist shama (six candles)!

I have been fully immersing myself in computer programming. I love the way you have to solve problems (that all have logical reasons, however obscure it seems at first (e.g. putting a colon instead of a comma in a global variable statement at the beginning of a program and wondering why everything was defaulting to 0 later on in a function calling that variable.) I also like thinking about new features I can add. At the moment I have written a 2D and 3D liquid simulation. You can design a river, and then make water flow down it. I even added rain and erosion. I don’t program the water where to go, I just tell the computer the rules for each droplet (e.g. if you are next to another droplet, move away, move down if you can with gravity – that sort of thing) and when the computer runs the program very fast with a lot of drops (about 15,000 drops updating 30 times a second) it looks like water. I added the ability to zoom in, show cross-sections etc. I am currently working on a Gundan (ant) simulation. They collect food and return it to the queen ant who lays eggs which hatch into more ants. They also collect sand grains to build a nest. I am working on having more than one colony and having them battle for food etc. The logical “in the present” state of mind that programming puts me in, is very good at blocking any worries about the past or future and it’s got me a through some hard times in the last couple of weeks.

There is a satellite TV in college café, which is often on Nat Geo Animal channel in English which is interesting – today it was a guy dressing up as a crocodile in a protective cage to get closer to them!

There is not a lot happening at work at the moment as the schools have been on mid-semester break. We are trying to book up training sessions in the eight schools, but it’s taken a long time to get colleagues to write the letters in Amharic. I have also been making count sticks. On Friday I was doing a lot of sanding and today I painted them (with some very smelly, probably carcinogenic) paint. My English class has been cancelled for two weeks (I didn’t know there wasn’t one today) and although I knew about the primary school being closed for two weeks, I was told they would be back last week, but I turned up and “Yellum lijotch” – no children. Hopefully Friday I can continue “One two, tie my shoe” etc. I’ve been saving all my tin cans for some drums!!!

Post:

I did get a whole lot of post after the last entry, but it has dried up again. Please write me something and tell me what’s going on in your life – whoever you are and however seemingly uninteresting what you’re doing seems – it’s the regular everyday UK life news I miss. It’s really good to get letters out here, so if you’re reading this and haven’t written to me yet, now’s the time – especially if you’re someone I don’t know is reading this. Even if it’s really short. Thanks very much. I have started a photo wall in my room so if there’re pictures of you doing anything unusual, I can add it there. I have some photos sent from someone who was on the London-Brighton Vintage Car Rally and lots of my niece and nephew at Christmas so far.

My address is:

Mark Sidey

PO Box 47

Gilgel Beles

Metekel Zone

Benishangul Gumuz

Ethiopia

Fwa fwa te 2 and candle-power

Sunday, 27 January 2008

First work: I had to prepare a proposal for the regional education bureau explaining how much money we would need and what we would use it for. I seem to have managed to get up to about 35,000 birr for training, more number cards and resources! It has been back to me a couple of times now – due to incorrect prices. Even though I asked my colleagues, they obviously didn’t know how much a ream of paper was. The latest is that I forgot to include the cost of drinks when we do training. The Dean came and told me Saturday afternoon at home… And so begins another weekend of lack of privacy and personal space – I had a sleep Saturday afternoon and at one point the girl who stays in the house held the baby up to my window and it was banging on it – all I can say is it is a good job she doesn’t understand English swear words!

Also at work, we may have finally tracked down an Amharic version of a CDP (Continuing Professional Development) course for teachers in Addis. If they really have found it, it is good news. It has everything we need to improve the teaching skills of teachers already teaching and it is delivered by one of the teachers in the school so is self-operating. What we will have to do is reproduce it, introduce it, give some training to the “facilitator” teachers and then monitor it. If it works, it will run in all ten cluster schools before the summer.

Yesterday I walked a bit more of the river after actually getting some eggs at the market. Then later in the evening just before dusk, the wind got up and the sky was amazing with dark thunderclouds lit up pink in the East and a good sunset in the West. I went out for a walk and up the first hill I had climbed over here. With the wind, it was quite exhilarating. It was dark by the time I set off back home and some Gumuz people asked where I was going, what I was doing etc, so I just spun round like Maria in the Sound of Music – well I couldn’t exactly explain in Gumuz how I was feeling! As I got near home I realised the electricity was off. A guard near the prison asked me some questions and then another said “Ferengi” so they let me go without shooting me.

Back in the house, I waited for a while to see if the power would come back, but it didn’t. Without Kerosene, I couldn’t cook using my kerosene stove, but I got the frame out and improvised… with some candles. In the end I had seven candles under my saucepan and managed to boil water and cook some porridge for tea.

Today I headed off back to the place where the rivers join and the waterfall, but either I took a wrong turning, or there has been a lot of cutting down of the reed-like plants. Anyway, I came across an Ethiopian and he asked where I was going, I said “Fwa-fwa-te” and he took me in the opposite direction to the other river (which was quite close) to the North. When we got there, there was a huge expanse of rocks and clambering over them, he showed me another (smaller) waterfall and lots of rapids in a mini-canyon. It was pretty impressive. I spent a long time there and followed the river west climbing over and round the rocks at the river’s edge. About 400m from the rapids the river was very calm and I sat and ate my banana and biscuit lunch. I walked back to the rapids and the rocks. The whole area was about 200m wide, and judging by the mud and debris, in the wet season I think the river covers it all.

I haven’t had any post for about two weeks. I hope it’s all stacking up somewhere and will all arrive next week. There are a few things I know people have sent that haven’t arrived yet.

Konjo Telick Fwa-Fwa-Te

Saturday, 19 January 2008

I got up and ready quite early today and was out of the house just after 0800. There were two buses going in the direction of the ridge I wanted to climb, but they were both full with lots of additional people trying to get on as well, so I switched to plan B. I had noticed on the map that the Beles River joins with another river about 7km to the West. Programming the location into my GPS and having no idea what the conditions would be like, I set off. At first I used an access road I had spotted previously, about 1km up the road to the North. It led to small hill which gave me some good views. Then after negotiating a field, I found a path which led precisely in the direction I wanted to go. I met a few people on the way – they wanted to shake my hand. Some were carrying lots of, I guess it was teff grain, and a couple of men were carrying large wooden tree trunks for building. After I had got a certain way along, I didn't meet anyone else.

About 1km from the "target" on my GPS, the path became very difficult to follow. There were little stretches that had been trodden, and some places where people had cut down trees, and finally at around 700m to go, there was no path at all. I just had the GPS to guide me. There was a lot of slow going as I trod down stems of reed-like plants, and I came to a couple of impassable dead ends. Finally though, I came out looking out right over the place where the rivers met. It was much higher than I had expected, I think I worked out it was 30m above the river. It was a great view. The Beles River, flowing from Gilgel Beles about 7km up-stream, was flowing fast and there were rapids. The other river was much slower flowing. I sat admiring the view having my lunch of biscuits and mooz (bananas) – the same as I had had for breakfast. I just had to get down to the river level, so negotiating a rather steep slope while holding on to branches and reeds I made it down. The rapids were quite impressive (and this is the dry season) and I noticed lots of butterflies. You can tell how strong the river gets in wet season as there were some huge boulders. At the other end of the scale, showing how violent the river must get, there were little "beaches" of fine sand. There were some very interesting rock formations looking like they had flowed down and solidified. I'm not a geologist, but it was either lava (I think they were layers of quartz) or some kind of sedimentary layers put down millions of years ago and twisted by various forces. It was then that I noticed that I was the lowest altitude I had been since Beirut on the flight out. I was at around 950m, about 60m lower than my house – oh the heady rush of increased oxygen!!!

While I was clambering over the rocks I suddenly noticed a waterfall (or Fwa-Fwa-Te in Amharic – Konjo Telick (means beautiful big)) in the distance. It was a bit of an added bonus as it wasn't mentioned on the map. It was about 300m up the Beles and I walked along the banks and took lots of photos. Then I climbed above it and had another snack after nearly burning my rump on the rocks - they were very dark and with the strong sun, they were scorching!

While I was sitting there, to my surprise a man appeared carrying a stick and about 15 fish he'd caught. I said the usual greetings and buhzo asa – "lots of fish" and then he took one off and gave it to me. I gave him a birr. I wrapped it in a plastic bag I had, but didn't know what I was going to do with it really.

A short while later I found another dangerously-steep bank to climb up and using my GPS I navigated back to the road. The GPS receiver makes it so much easier - with no paths, or paths that keep petering out all the time it was great to look at the tracks screen and see where I had walked before. On the way back there were some very good views of the ridge.

All in all, a pretty good day!

Bonus material:

My factor 50 sunscreen seems to be working – despite being out in the full glare of the noon sun I got away without any burns. I did use my umbrella when it got really hot as additional protection.

I took 2.7 litres of water with me and drank all of it before I got back. When I did arrive at the college I gulped down two Marindas (orange fizzy drinks) and spent the evening re-hydrating!!

I managed to cook my fish. I've never cooked a fish before in my life - I usually just get a frozen bread-crumbed piece out of the freezer at home or a Fillet-o-fish (pronouncing the t) from McDonalds! I chopped off the head and tail and eased the guts out, cut it in half and fried it. There wasn't much fish on it, but it tasted ok, and, considering it had been heating up nicely in my bag on the way home, it didn't smell which I believe (and hope) is a good sign. I did remember that it had been swimming in the Beles which is where people wash themselves, their cars and it's where all the waste from the Shintabet goes!! Oh well, I'll see what happens tonight.

Rain!

After several months we actually had some rain this evening!

Before I get to that, the team of 13 students I had "employed" have produced 1400 number fans in about 5 days. On Wednesday I paid them out of my own pocket (about half my months wages gone!) Quite a feat getting all the change I needed when there is no bank in the town. I have already given the two local schools 200 fans each to use with the children during lessons, and we will distribute more as we do training with the other schools in the cluster. I am trying to get my money back from our unit's budget, but it could be more red tape than it's worth!

I taught again at the local primary school. I think it was the only teaching they got today as their teacher is away ill and I don't think Ethiopia does "cover teachers." A group of about ten followed me to the college gate carrying my bag of teaching aids and posters for me (singing "London's burning and one two "tie" my shoe.")

Back to the rain...

On Tuesday and this morning the sky had been overcast first thing, which was really weird as every other day I've been here, I've walked to work in bright sun with clear blue skies. Anyway, later in the day, as I walked home near sunset, I noticed some very dark clouds in the North East. A bit later, after I'd eaten tea and it was pretty much dark, there was a lot of wind outside and I could hear thunder in the distance. Then the power went off and I went outside. It was quite exciting as there were some large gusts of wind (which also blew dust unfortunately) and bright lightning flashes across the sky. I just stood there in the "road" outside our house, being blown by the wind. The guard came over shining his torch, wondering what I was doing. He laughed when he saw it was "The Ferengi". It started spitting and went on to get heavier. It was great having the cool rain on my face. I stayed out until I was quite wet. I guess the other people in the street will be gossiping about the "crazy ferengi" tomorrow!

Training, Teaching, Making, Walking and Wedding

Wed: Me and my counterpart did some more training at the second nearest school. It went well, although my counterpart’s translations seemed to be about three times longer than what I said, so I don’t know what extra he was telling them. The teachers all want to try using the count-stick and number fans which is excellent. We’ll go and observe soon.

Thu: I again taught at the local school for an hour and a quarter. It was fun. I recorded them singing “London’s burning” as they are gradually coming along. I also started to teach them “Frére Jacques” to see if French is any easier for them, and continued teaching some English.

Fri: I have trained some of the college students to make number fans for the cluster schools. Initially my target is 100 fans for each school (1000 in total.) During the day we made 300 fans! Lots of the students wanted to take materials home over the weekend to continue working, so we should have a lot more on Monday.

Sat: I went for a long walk. I was planning to get the bus to go to Kar ridge (about 16km to the South East) (those mountains you can see in the distance in some of my photos) as I have found what looks to be a fairly easy route up there on the map. As there was no bus in town, I walked towards Mandura along the road, hoping to flag down a bus if it came. In the end after about 6km (1h30) and no bus, there was a small ridge which I spent a while at sitting and looking at the view with no people! It’s very difficult finding anywhere here with no people, especially at home. On the way, I had passed a lot of people carrying stuff towards Gilgel who wondered what I was doing and why I didn’t have a car! The temperature reached 32C this afternoon. Apparently it’s only going to get hotter and drier.

Sun: I had been invited to a wedding by the director of the local primary school and at 6 (noon) I finally managed to find the place. There was lots of drumming and chanting-singing with repeats from the audience and clapping. There was loads of Tela (the local home-brew which tastes like dried twigs and mud with alcohol) I got out of it this time by saying “yellum alcohol” (no alcohol) which is actually true of me in the UK. Also I had injera, potatoes and meat. There were some speeches, but only the close family gathered around and could hear it. Then more drumming and singing and the party led out to a bus where apparently they go round the village drumming and singing and then go to the groom’s family’s house for more of the same. I found out eventually that they had actually been married yesterday. I escaped after two and three quarter hours. It was interesting, but I don’t usually like social gatherings in the UK so it wasn’t any better here. I viewed it more like a scientific investigation. I’m also a bit depressed at the moment which doesn’t help – it might be the lack of personal space and privacy – little irritations like food, missing home and the sea. Not sure, but I’m sure I’ll get over it again.

Food

One of the things I thought wouldn’t be a problem is food, but not trusting the local food, only rarely being able to get eggs from the market, my diet is somewhat limited. My restocking at Bahir Dar is dwindling already. I seem to be mostly having porridge (with milk powder and honey or sugar), Tuna and potatoes, Tuna pancakes and today, tuna and beans. Tuna was the only tinned “meat” I could get at Bahir Dar, so I’ll have to wait for Addis to get more Franks, luncheon meat and corned beef. I also am running out of Instant Noodles!

Day 100 and start of Ethiopian Choir!

4 January 2008

Today is my one hundredth day in Ethiopia!

Progress so far includes:

• Writing action plan.
• Sorting out model classroom in college and having college students visit during open hours.
• Adapting to the Ethiopian climate.
• Adapting to the Ethiopian work Ethic.
• Some teacher training, observations and training follow-up.
• Learnt how to read Fidel (Amharic) characters.
• Begun once a week teaching of English to college trainee teachers.
• Begun once a week teaching of music and English to a local class of primary
  children (see below).
• Can speak about 160 words of Amharic.
• Made a cardboard handle for my saucepan lid.
• Made curtains for my room using a bed-sheet, string and clothes pegs.
• Have stopped termite dust falling on my computer and on me at night using
  plastic on the ceiling.
• Can wash thoroughly and completely in a 50cm bowl!
• Have only had one vomiting incident.
• I have not got a cold this "winter."
• I have not got malaria.

Yesterday I observed an Ethiopian teacher using number cards very effectively in her class. This is real progress as some training I have done is in actual use in the classroom. Next week I will be training and then paying college students to make number cards so that more classes can have access and hopefully more teachers will teach using them. Then we expand to the other schools...

Also, I was really missing actually teaching children so I have arranged to go to the local school once a week and teach a grade 2 (8-10ish) music and English for an hour and a quarter. I started last Thursday, but yesterday I switched to my regular time, before lunch, and had a breakthrough with "London's Burning" - I managed to get them singing a round through one whole time before they began singing the same as each other. They're even pronouncing "P" in "pour on water." What really showed it working was that they were singing it on the way home. I also have started "one, two tie my shoe (there are no buckles here!)" which works quite well and have begun teaching them rhythm with "tat tay tar." Also this by hand gestures as I cannot speak enough Amharic.

Ethiopian Christmas

The family I live with have been away to stay with their family for Christmas which means I've had to house to myself for the last few days which has been great. Although we get on well, having total privacy has been good. For a start I gave the toilet a good clean!

Yesterday (7th January 2008), it was Ethiopian Christmas day - a national holiday. Starting at around 1130 I was invited to someone's house for coffee. For the next six hours it became a bit like that Christmas episode of "The Vicar of Dibley." I visited three houses and had tebs (meat) and injura, bread, popcorn and coffee at all of them. Just when I thought I'd got away and was nearly at my door, there was a shout from across the street and I was invited to my fourth tebs and coffee etc. I finally got away at 1700. The trouble is, the whole time I'm waiting to find out which item contains the bacteria that'll keep me up all night!!!

Some of the houses had "Happy Christmas" signs up, one had lights on a few branches of a tree. It was funny visiting the other houses as they are structurally identical to my house but with different arrangements of furniture and one was turned 90 degrees and one 180 degrees relative to my house so the sun was in a different position.

In one house, the family had children and I showed them a number of games you can play with bottle tops, including snatch the top, table football, shove halfpenny and magic tricks.

At one point I was offered raw meat (kitfo) but with the risk of getting worms very high, I gave it a miss!

Next year I said I would get some mince pies shipped over so they can try them!

Astronomy

Because of the lack of street lights, the skies are really clear here. You can really see the Milky Way which is overhead as I am near the equator. Also at the moment, Mars is a very prominent orange near Orion in the evening, and this morning I saw Venus shining very brightly in the South East (a morning star indeed!).

Temperature and weather

The overnight "lows" are still around 10 degrees C. We've passed the shortest day so I don't think it'll ever go lower than that. Apparently the weather forecast is to gradually get hotter as the days get longer and the sun gets higher in the sky at midday (up to 40 degrees C!!!) with no rain, then the rainy season begins at the end of April / beginning of May time. Two years ago some of the houses flooded as the river overflowed!! (Luckily I am in the row of houses that are the highest and furthest from the river!!)

Happy New Year

Best wishes to all my readers even if here in Ethiopia the fact that the whole world except them has just had a new year didn't seem to register. (New Year in Ethiopia is in September.)

I was at work again like Christmas last week. It was a good day. I painted a piece of wood with red and white stripes to use as a more sturdy counting stick. I observed an English lesson at the second nearest school to the college (about 10 mins walk) which was interesting, and booked in a teacher-training session for next week. Yesterday we observed maths and while I was waiting outside to see the director I heard English chanting going on. The funny thing was - I couldn't understand what they were saying and had to ask someone. Apparently they were saying "where is the cat?", but I only managed to pick up "werez cart". Some Ethiopian's laughed that I couldn't understand what was supposed to be English!!!

I also visited the local school to set up an observation - one teacher is using number fans/cards which I would like to see. A bit of a break-through after the training a while back! I have a grand plan to get number fans/cards in all the cluster schools. It's an easily trainable, quick way of getting teachers to use active teaching methods and instant assessment which hopefully will carry through to other areas. Also the cards are relatively easy to make and only use card, pens and string. I have also advertised for college students to be paid to make them. I have made about 100 sets (10 per hour) over the last few weeks but for one class set of 100 for each of the ten schools we'll need 1000. Then I want to get one set per class...

In the afternoon I was requested to fix two more computers that have gone down. I'm sure it's viruses. Virus writers don't realise how badly they are affecting the developing world where the users cannot afford anti-virus programs or technicians to sort out the problems.

Then I taught my third English lesson to the college students - did body parts with lots of VAK! My other counterpart observed and was impressed by my range of teaching methods!!!

Finally I had a pudding tonight. In one of the boxes mum sent there was a steamed syrup pudding. I was a little stumped at how I was going to steam it for 25mins, but my creative mind (which has helped me with a number of problems since I've been here) figured it out. I put some water in the bottom of a saucepan, put the sieve I have across it, put the pudding in the sieve and put the lid on. It worked. Next the mini-Christmas pud mum also sent!

Finally finally, as the bins were full (both of rubbish and the toilet one) I had another fire like last week. What I didn't have, which was good, was the "two bobs."

So, a pretty good day.