Happy Halloween

Well, thank you all for all the messages it is lovely to hear from everyone.
Life here in Dessie is still good, picking up pace now in work. This week in work we made Big Books of Ethiopian versions of The Boy Who Cried Wolf and Goldilocks, everyone was so impressed the college are going to organise a workshop for all the schools to come and learn how to make big books – it’s the simple things over here that seem to please them most.
Then we made maths equipment and visited the model Kindergarten which is very far removed from what a model Kindergarten should be but not for the lack of trying. The two teachers are lovely and really want to teach well but don’t know how and the college has spent loads of money on equipment which some of which is too advanced for the children and the others they just don’t know how to use. On our visit the children sang many songs again and again for us. This seems to be the main activity in the Kindergarten!
So we made some simple maths equipment – Play dough, counters and sorting boards, number cards and picture bingo and taught a demonstration lesson, but the really sad thing is the children didn’t know what to do with the equipment and couldn’t use their own initiative. We put the play dough out for example and gave each child a piece and they just sat there and then we showed them how to make things with it but it took ages for them to even try, so a lot of work will be needed but the college and the Kindergarten teachers were delighted with the help and seemed to realise that the children need to be active to learn, but it explained a lot about Ethiopian culture.
Here people don’t really work … I know most of you are thinking well sure loads of people at home skive off too, but here people don’t even know how to work they just learn in school to sit quietly and repeat what the teacher says so later they just sit quietly, everywhere there are people sitting doing nothing and if one person is working there will be five others looking at him, so they are going to have to change their entire culture to progress. Luckily teachers seem quite motivated and willing to change they just don’t know how so I suppose that is our job.
Even in our office, our Ethiopian colleagues are really motivate and dedicated and talk all the time about the future they hope for Ethiopia and the changes they wish to see etc. but take all day to do a small task and can’t figure things out like how to use a binder or stapler but when you see how the children are taught in schools you can see why, and up until a year or so ago there was no freedom of thought or that so I suppose it will take a while for things to change
But after that negative griping the good thing is there is a real feeling of optimism here, in Dessie particularly and if you take our housekeeper for example:
Sercalum is 22yr old and she left school when she was ten because her family couldn’t afford to send her anymore. But now because she is working for us (well for VSO) she will be able to afford to go back to school at night. So she will work here from 8 – 5pm and then go to school from 5:30pm till 8:30pm five nights a week and she hopes in three years to go to university. There are loads of young people like her who are getting an education and who have ambitions for the future so hopefully things will be better.
Well I have started Amharic lessons and have found a local teacher Mr. Gilletay who worked on submarines so learnt loads of languages travelling the world, he is a pretty old man now but he seems a good teacher. Its amazing how much Amharic I have learnt as it is all anyone speaks here really, well young people have some English and try it out on me all the time I can’t walk down the road but for ten or so people stopping me to say what is your name, where are you from, what age are you, where are you going etc etc all very friendly though.
No Halloween here and no bank holiday weekend, we will start giving workshops on Monday – the first one is on Continuous Assessment. We will give the same workshop twice a day for seven days so we will be well sick of it!
I will be heading down to Addis for a workshop on HIV and AIDS on the 15th November it is a Tuesday so we hope to take some time off and go for the weekend.
Tomorrow we are planning to go to a near by town called Hayak which has a lake and a church, Religion here is really big. There is a mixture of Muslims and Christians in the town and luckily they all get on well together, but at almost all times during the night you can hear either wailing from the Mosque or wailing from the Church. Sercalum was telling us that she goes to mass twice a day every day and during the night she gets up at 12am, 3am and 6am to pray – Every Night!! People here believe they are poor because God is punishing them so they do everything to please God which means there is no crime and you can get rid of beggars by saying God will bless you!!
So all is well, I have well over 30 insect bites now luckily I brought half a pharmacy with me so I am treating them all. Here pharmacies are called Drug Vendors so up on the road there is a big sign for the Rural Drug Vendor!! I must take a photo of it. Also saw a sign today for weeding cakes!!
Well take care and enjoy your Halloween 

Climb Every Mountain (or at least one anyway)

Hi All,
Thanks for all the messages and emails. Things are great here in Dessie, the rainy season now seems to be behind us and it is now warm during the day and cold at night it is about 22 degrees during the day and i don't know at night but once the sun goes behind the mountain it is very cold. Dessie is at 2600m above sea level so it is high up in the Valley between many Mountains. Yesterday we climbed the highest of these Mount Tossa, it was fabulous, the sun was shining and the views are spectacular. We were really close up to monkeys and a huge variety of hawks it was amazing, and when we got to the top of Tossa there are villages of people who live up in the mountains and farms and all and these people climb up and down the mountain everyday to go to school and to go to the market even though the mountain is so steep, we met many people some very old carrying huge loads of wood on their backs going up and down. Three little children joined us for the walk probably with nothing better to do and they were great singing songs for us and telling us the names of all the animals in amharic so we shared sweets and lemonade with them and I don't think they had probably ever had sweets or lemonade before so it made their day!! When we got back the best surpirse of all awaited - our landlord had got a boiler fitted so we could have hot showers - joy!! So I had my first proper hot shower in three weeks just when I had mentally adjusted to cold showers - However just after my shower they cut off the water in Dessie for maintenance on the pipes so Gill - the other volunteer is still waiting for a shower. This week we visited Schools in the Dessie area some of them are so badly off with hundereds of orphans and a great lack of resources but the good news is the teachers are really trying hard to make their own resources and teach good lessons. We will begin our training courses on monday week the first workshop is continuous assessment with 40 to 60 children in every class I can see the teachers difficulty in carrying out continuous assesment!!
At the moment we are making maths resources from locally available resources to put in the model classroom and advising on the model Kindergarten. We had a visit from another college during the week to see our cluster office and it was hilarious to see how competitive the colleges are with each other, however the staff at our college felt they came out best from the visit and so spirits are high!!
So today we are having some ethiopian friends for dinner going to cook bruschetta, spagetti bolegnese and fruit salad- which will all seem very exotic and european to Ethiopian people and also only invovles one pot as two of our stoves are broken though a man has just arrived to fix them, broken things don't get thrown out in Ethiopia a new stove would cost €4.80 so I wanted to just buy a new one but our housekeeper insisted in finding someone who will fix it for 60c. So we will see how he does at the fixing probably it will be better than a new stove as people here are very good at making and fixing - they have to be!
So take care and I look forward to all your messages,
Slán
Orla

And the Sun is shining

Well the weather has taken a change for the better here in Dessie, In fact on Sunday I got sun burnt!! We had a good weekend on Friday we treated ourselves to a meal out and a beer!! On Saturday I fumagated my mattresses after allowing many insects to gorge on my body on Friday night. Then I enjoyed a few hours reading in the Garden enjoying the fabulous scenary and burning my arms. Then headed in shopping where I tried out being Ethiopian and carrying my shopping on my head but I think it may take years of strenghtening my neck muscles before I can really carry it off. On Sunday we went in search of vegetables and with what we could find we decided to prepare, a salad, Irish Stew and banannas and chocolate for the Dessie Social event of the week - our first Dinner party. The first surprise was an added guest with no warning at all VSO dropped off Steve another VSO volunteer who will be working in Dessie. Steve is from Kenya and it will be good to have three vols in town for the social company. The dinner party went well, food was enjoyed by all and it was a nice chance for Steve to meet some of the lecturers. One of the lecturers brought his baby who is five months old and adorable. Today once again in work there was another reason why we couldn't visit schools so we busied ourselves making name badges for the teachers we will train. In the afternoon I thought one of the guys how to send an email, it was quite amazing for him as he had no understanding of the internet what so ever so it was also quite funny for me, given his questions and broken English but at least today I feel I helped someone. So life is good here in Dessie, and thanks for all the emails, and messages,
take care
Orla

Dessie

Well Dessie is a mud bath!! well only temporarily it is raining at present, but it is a very nice town very lively and high up in the mountains. It is cold though today I am wearing a jumper and two cardigans!!
People are so friendly here and our social life is begining to take off, we were invited to dinner last weekend by an Ethiopian couple it was lovely - their house was like a shed though a nicely decorated shed, our house in comparision is a mansion in Ethiopian terms.
Work is good hasnt really taken off yet but I think it will be good, the people are lovely so kind and friendly.
Met two other foreigners at the post office today - the place to hang out!! the pst office should open at two pm but it was more like 2:30pm but as we were "guests" we were allowed sit inside to wait. Anyway will post again soon, I have the internet at home now so should be much easier,
Slán
Orla

Moving on ....

Hi Everyone,
Thanks for all the posts and emails it is so nice to hear from everyone. Well the big day has almost arrived tomorrow I will be heading for Dessie - my placement, I am very excited. There is some political trouble here and up until yesterday morning we thought we would be stuck in Addis all week but thankfully for the first time in Ethiopia's history they managed to slove the problems peacefully so hopefully that will bode well for the future people here are very relieved.
So we can go to our placements so tonight will be our last night together as a group - the group is really great so while it is sad to split up it is still great to be going and we will be all back to gether for a HIV seminar in November and Christmas conference in December, to be honest I am glad to get away from Addis and all the smoke and smells. We met the Physics lecturer from our college last week and he seems really nice, the college seem to be doing great work so I hope we can keep it going.
I have to admit I went to the Sheraton Hotel for dinner on Saturday it would be luxurious by any standards but here it is like disney world but it was nice to be back in semi normality for a few hours - we wont have such comforts in Dessie but hey...

Anyway take care and I will post when I have news of Dessie and my job.

Slan

Orla