Tuesday 11 November 2008

Recorders and Counterpart II (and Guy Fawkes)

I took the third recorder lesson today – they now know B, A & G. It’s fascinating how different they all are. There are a couple who are picking it all up very quickly, reading the musical notation etc, one who I believe might be dyspraxic – he is very bright, but has trouble with which hands to use etc. Then there is one girl who really isn’t getting it at all. When I get some more recorders from the UK I can start new groups and maybe ability-mix them a bit.

If you would like to purchase, or have a good condition second-hand recorder (descant) and you would like a child to have it here in Ethiopia so I can expand the lessons, then please send it to me at:

Mark Sidey, PO Box 47, Gilgel Beles, Metekel Zone, Benishangul Gumuz, Ethiopia.


Thanks very much.

(I guess a decent new recorder will be anything from £6 to £15 and the postage will be around £5.)

In return you will be giving a child here in Ethiopia a chance to learn a musical instrument and musical notation and you will receive a photo (or email picture) of the child you have given a recorder to. (Don’t forget to include your email address.)

No fireworks though!

I told my “sort of” current counterpart about Bonfire / Guy Fawkes’ night on Wednesday (5th November) and we had a small fire and he drew a little guy… English culture in Ethiopia!

Counterpart

Getting my new counterpart is still proving to be a problem, partly because one of the unsuccessful candidates has a husband who works in the woreda (small region) education offices and is causing problems saying that his wife should’ve got the job. They are making any excuse they can, like the one who got the job was observed teaching a class that was not his normal class (he was showing he could teach a younger class that we will be focusing on, instead of his regular older class) also, and this is petty, that he was born 300km away and may not be committed to stay here! Watch this space! In the meantime, I have been told that another instructor in the college will work with me until the fulltime counterpart has hacked through the bureaucracy!!!!

Weather

The days are getting a little shorter (not compared to you) - the sun sets at its earliest in about a week at 18:08 and it's currently rising around 06:25.

Last night was the coldest yet - it went down to +13°C !!!!

US Elections

The instructors here are all fascinated by Obama winning the US elections and keep asking me about what I think. I pointed out that although they keep quoting Martin Luther King:

"Judge a man by the content of his character and not by the colour of his skin." (paraphrased)

The main thing that is being mentioned on the news is the colour of his skin and not the content of his character.

Additional added 9 Nov (couldn’t get a connection on Friday)

On Saturday I did a 14km round-trip walk to the rapids on one of the rivers. It’s an amazing place, about 100m wide across the river “valley” with lots of rocks, some smoothed by the water. Last time I visited this place was back in March and although the rainy season finished a couple of weeks ago, there was still much more water going through the system at this time, with many more little water falls. I saw a little crocodile (I think) zip through the water and up rocks away from me, and later I heard rustling in the bushes and thought a person was coming. Then I saw a large lizard head. The whole thing must’ve been around 2m long with tail. Luckily it ran off when it heard me!

The electricity was off from 2030 last night until 1730 today.

Each Sunday I teach English to my neighbour’s son and in return they give me coffee and a meal (injera and tagabino (sort of a paste made with pea-powder and spices).) Today was tenses, especially with “to go” (partly because he started the conversation with “yesterday going of Chagni.”)

Additional additional added 10 Nov

Still can’t get through on the net. Today we held a meeting with the teachers who are supposed to be doing the CPD programme but are refusing because they want “an incentive” (for that, read money!) I started by telling them that if we gave them all 20ETB for each session, for all the teachers in the cluster that would cost us 60,000ETB which is impossible. I also told them about how good the course is and they will personally benefit and their teaching will improve. Eventually they agreed that, providing they got a certificate signed by the zonal officials, they would do the course. Watch this space.



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