The Market (and Christmas, power and chanting)

The power finally came back after six days without. It took two days of repairing, and now it looks like someone just twisted the broken ends of wire together up on the power poles!!

Of course that doesn’t mean continuous power. It was off again on Friday night for an hour-and-a-half after dusk.

It’s coming up to Christmas, but the only sign of anything here is… absolutely nothing. No tinsel, no lights, no people going mad spending lots of money and no shops and TV showing Christmas this, Christmas that offers etc. Ethiopian Christmas (Orthodox church) is on 7^th January and other than people visiting their families and lots of food (injera of course,) things are pretty normal.

The local Orthodox Church went completely mad on Friday morning with the P.A. up to maximum, waking both me and Göran up at 6am with chanting. Apparently it’s not just a “call to prayer” but some of the service as well, so if you’re too lazy to get to church, you hear the service anyway. I prayed for peace and the ability to lie in a bit longer and was rewarded with a power cut which silenced the priest, but unfortunately his power of prayer was stronger than mine and the power (and chanting) was restored after only a few minutes!

The Market

The twice weekly market in Gilgel sells spices, vegetables, fruit (oranges and bananas), posters, clothes, old bottles, goats and chickens, eggs and more. It’s open air and very busy. Here is a selection of photos. (Remember to click on them to see them in detail.)

Note the traditional balance scales and, fascinating to me, all the bees around the shiro powder. I’m not sure why the bees like the powder so much – it’s mostly ground peas and spices, but they get covered collecting it.

Holiday or not

Last year on this day there was a new “National Ethnic Diversity” Day created. The trouble is this year is that no-one knows if it is a holiday or not. Schools are closed, but here in college people are asking if they are supposed to be here or not. That coupled with Islamic holidays that may or may not be on a particular day based on The Moon, holidays are a bit mixed up here.

There is still no power in the house.

No Power and Language understanding

Well the water is doing pretty good, but the power has been off in our side of the village for over three days now. The reason is some people were cutting trees down near the prison and one fell on the power line. As there is a public holiday today (Id el Fatr – Muslim) and a national holiday (ethic diversity or something) on Tuesday, it could be a while before it is fixed. Me and Göran are well into our kerosene stoves now. Luckily, as the college is powered from another line, we can charge things there. Yesterday I was charging batteries for my torch, my electric shaver, my phone and my laptop while I went for a walk.

It’s really funny with the language here: many of the instructors say they can understand Göran and his Swenglish (Swedish-English) better than they understand me. I said “But we invented English!!!” I realise now it is the speed I speak at. We don’t realise how much we blend words, like answering “where is it?” by saying “s’overthere” (It’s over there) and “wherey’goin’” (Where are you going) etc. Because Göran is speaking slower and pronouncing all the words (even if he does have a problem saying “ch” as there is no “ch” in Swedish)* they understand him better. When I am speaking to people with poor English I make a point of slowing and pronouncing all the words, but when I am talking to the instructors who have better English, I sometimes forget and go into fast English.

*As Göran pronounces “ch” as “sh” it would be fun for him getting something for his feet. He would Shoose Shoes.

Astronomy, VSO visit, active teaching and Recorders

On Monday night I saw a pretty cool alignment of a couple of planets and The Moon. If you enlarge the photo (that should be here soon) by clicking, you’ll see the view I got. (The photo was taken on maximum zoom on my camera.) It shows Venus on the left, then The Moon, then Jupiter. As the night went on, it was like The Moon passed through the gap between the two planets. I checked out my Astronomy software and found that from my home in the UK, The Moon would actually pass in front of Venus.
On a pretty gross note, when I closed the window after taking the photos, I heard a kind of rustling noise by the window frame. It was dark as we were in the middle of a three hour power cut, but using the torch to see, I opened the window and a lizard tail plopped on to the floor and continued wiggling for quite a long time. I must’ve accidentally shut the lizard in the window! Yuck! At least lizards can grow their tails back!

Tuesday was very busy: Our programme manager from VSO visited and had meetings with us and our line manager. Also, I had to arrange a group of teachers to attend a discussion with someone else from VSO. I also taught two English lessons (to Grade 2 and 4) showing the teacher how you can teach using games and number fans to make the lesson more active. Then, in the afternoon, I taught more recorders, including the second session with “Group 2” which included the introduction of “G”. There are two boys and two girls in the group.

On Wednesday, I had some students in making number fans. During the small-talk I asked about one of the student’s hometowns and asked if he would be visiting his family for Christmas. He said no. Then my brain ticked for a bit… “You’re a Muslim aren’t you?” “Yes”!!!

Also, on Wednesday, I taught again in the local school. This time the teacher didn’t watch as she went to collect her salary – this is not in my plan. They are supposed to be observing to see the techniques I use. Still, it’s a crazy system here where the teachers have to go by bus about 15km once a month to collect their salary leaving the class unattended! One month I remember a whole school of over 1000 children being looked after by about three teachers as the rest had gone to get their salary. As it was, after I had done the hour in the grade 2 class, and was due to teach in grade 4, I just had to leave the grade 2 class unattended for the rest of the morning with no work or anything – it wouldn’t happen in the UK!

BTW the fish tank thing in a previous entry was to check if one of Göran’s friends was reading this blog! (It’s a pain typing Göran’s name, as when I get to the “ö” I have to press “Num Lock” then hold down “Alt” and press “0 2 4 6”!)

Big problem

Göran had a big problem today: There was only 11 minutes left before he had to give his afternoon computer training session and he still had pillow lines on his face from his lunchtime nap!

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.

Virtual Gilgel Beles

I have just finished “Virtual Gilgel Beles”.

It is a website of over 400 linked photos with notes of Gilgel Beles that you can “walk” around to find out what it’s like living here. I designed it, along with a video I made with my neighbours’ children to give people a greater understanding of Ethiopia. I have posted it to the UK (it would take far too long to email the 40+ Mb) and then I hope it will be seen by lots of people, especially my old school.

Eventually, when I get back to the UK, I will publish it on the Internet.

Weather

The weather is great at the moment. Now, in my room at 20:00, it’s 21°C, and in the mornings it’s a fresh 10°C outside. There is no rain, just sunny blue skies and the humidity is reasonable as well. I remember from last year, this is the best time of the year, weather-wise. I don’t look forward to March/April when the temperature hits the upper 30’s and the water supply and electricity supply becomes very unreliable.

Little things

It’s the little things in life that please. I am currently very glad I have: my nice new pillow (instead of a second pillow case filled with clothes); my huge bowl, which I put my normal-sized one in, and it catches most of the spilled water when I have a wash in my room; a tin of orange drink powder – I found you can buy it in Gilgel; my large-digit clock radio I brought from the UK so I can see the time when I wake in the middle of the night; and I got eggs from the market on Saturday and made egg-bread (French toast) and had marmalade on it - yum! Compared to this time last year, I am really enjoying it here at the moment. Mostly because of living with Göran instead of in the house with unhygienic toilet / sink, baby running around, no privacy etc.

Fish

I’m thinking about setting up an aquarium out here and wonder if any of my readers have any experience and knowledge on this subject?

Observations + breakthrough!!!

It’s been a busy couple of days. I did an observation at the local private kindergarten (KG), taught them using number fans the following day and wrote a report with some active learning improvement suggestions.

I have also started the mini “active teaching” programme, beginning with observations of two teachers at the local primary school this morning. Next week I will do some demo lessons for them, leading to team teaching active learning lessons, then observe the “hoped for” improvement.

Of course there was the regular recorder lessons and making number fans.

A breakthrough today, was actually observing the start of the CPD programme at one of the local schools. It’s taken so long to get the course in Amharic, get it printed and once given to the teachers, a month to convince them to do the course without payment. It’ll take a while to sink in that it has actually started.

Now I have to convince eight other schools.

Also, surprisingly last night there was a moderate amount of rain. It was unexpected, but also, after just getting comfortable with lower humidity over the last week, it’s back up again with all the evaporation. What a pain.

Clean undies.

At Goran’s request, we now have a maid visiting twice a week to do our clothes. I don’t actually mind doing them, but it was the first day today and she can certainly get the shirts a lot cleaner than I can. The only thing which was odd was that our socks and underwear were left in the bag. We found out later that she won’t do those as they are “personal.” I think a couple of my boxer shorts got done, but I guess Goran’s g-strings put her off!!!! I can’t understand why she won’t do the socks though… maybe she saw the opening scene of “American Pie”!!!!

So… no clean undies!

Buna bet shocker!!! (coffee house / café)

Our college café closed for a day a couple of weeks ago in a big shock. Goran and I were wondering where on Earth we were going to get our daily supply of “sambusa” and coffee. It turned out that the reason was that the café owner had signed a contract with the college to supply drinks and food at a fixed price, and with the inflation in Ethiopia, he was now losing money. The only thing he could do, was close and force them to re-negotiate the contract. Buna (coffee) is now 1birr25cents (up from 1birr) soft drinks are now 3.50ETB up from 3ETB!

One of the instructors got a new satellite pay-TV card from Addis Ababa the other week meaning the TV in the buna bet is on all the time now with films, news and sport and they can all watch UK Premiere-league football when they want to in the evenings. This means productivity in the college has dropped somewhat!!!

The electricity is always on and off, but the other night it went off and we found out later it was just our house. Luckily, with Goran’s background in electrical work, he discovered there was a problem with the underground cable between the meter on the power pole and the fusebox in the house. He has now rigged up an external cable that runs into the house and we have power again… well, actually we don’t as it is off in Gilgel Beles at the moment, but when it goes on there, it will go on in our house.

I’m still on B, A and G with my recorder group, but they are gradually improving. They’re now attempting to play along with the CD that came with the book I am basing some of my teaching on. It’s good fun, and something that is working without lots of bureaucracy!