Appreciating the Cold ;-)

Well everything here is going well. Not much to report this week as I was working very hard – for a change!! We had workshops everyday ad had heart failure twice when the college car didn’t turn up on all occasions it was nobody’s fault or at least no one would admit to it. So after we gave the general manager clear printed out instructions of our schedule we thought we were on to a winner but no of course he didn’t come to work on Friday so again no car!!! Anyway this is the way things are here – you just have to go with the flow.
The amount of people dying and sick is beginning to impinge on our work, every training course we get a litany of apologies about people who can’t attend for funerals or because they are sick. It will be hard for the country to develop with everyone dying.

Today we went to Kombolcha a town just down from Dessie. It was very pleasant, it is much warmer there as it is lower so we felt what it would be like if we had to work in real tropical temperatures. It has made me appreciate the cold of Dessie!! Anyway I see from the Irish Times that it is much colder at home so I should no longer complain.
We went to Kombolcha in search of the swimming pool, I expected some kind of hole in the ground filled with dirty water, but to our surprise it is a lovely swimming pool with nice grassy areas and tables with umbrellas and a café. It was recently build by a Polish man who has a textile factory there. Unfortunately or perhaps fortunately for the future! They were cleaning it today so we could only look, but we will definitely visit it again in the future. Of course in Kombolcha people thought we were tourists and so we got ripped off by every taxi driver in town. We were ripped off in total to a tune of ninety cent nothing to us but a lot to them. In Dessie people don’t overcharge us as they see us around and no tourists ever come to Dessie so they know we live and work here. In one taxi a boy got in who had never seen white people before he was from a rural area, he stared at us with eyes as big as saucers and then told us he would like our hair on his head.

This week we will begin workshops in Maths, so that will be a change. It is heavy going always giving workshops as between travelling to the different schools and trucking all our resources with us and then delivering the workshops and listening to all their problems etc it does make you tired but at least we are busy.

In December we will be going to a Conference for VSO in Ethiopia so we are looking forward to that. It will be in a town which has thermal springs and thermal swimming pools so that should be nice. It will also be a trip to Addis Ababa where we can buy all the things we can’t get in Dessie so we will have made a long list of things we want by the time we go.

Last Sunday we went to an Evangelical Church with some missionaries here, it was hilarious only we couldn’t laugh. Everyone was singing and crying and dancing etc. We didn’t know what to do or what they were saying. I hasten to add I won’t be going again. Afterwards we went for coffee in a café close to our house which we had avoided up until then because of the name, it is called the Semen Café!!! However it turns out to be a spelling mistake it should read the Semien Café after some mountains in Ethiopia and it turned out to be ok too!

My Dad has put up some photos on my website. www.geocities.com/orlasvso/vso.html I must say that our house is not typical of Ethiopia and it stands out like a sore thumb among all the mud huts. The houses all around us look like dilapidated cattle sheds. So yes we are very lucky to have such a nice house. Everyone in town knows our house as it is so different from anything else.

Anyway take care and I hope it isn’t too cold there. I saw the snow in the Irish Times. I have to say the grey skies at home are something I don’t miss at all.

Ciao

Orla

A Better Weekend!!

Well this week went well, the trouble in Dessie appears to be calmed down now. Although we have heard they are arresting people who they suspect of being opposition supporters and there is certainly still a lot of political tension but no violence this week anyway.

This week we held workshops everyday twice a day. On Wednesday we finished the Continuous Assessment Workshops. I think the teachers have the idea of continuous assessment now but how many will actually use it is hard to know. Yesterday one teacher did show us some lovely examples of assessment she had carried out, so I suppose some people will.
This workshop now is on teaching English, mainly improving children’s spoken language, using big books and handwriting. Some of the teachers have so little English it is hard to know how they can teach English. However they enjoy this workshop more as there are loads of games and practical ideas. Yesterday one man from a far away school, this school hardly ever attend training, came along to the workshop and afterwards he asked if we could help him to make visual aids for his first grade class, so he is coming to the college on Monday morning for us to help him, so that is good that he actually came forward himself looking for the assistance.

In college this week our two colleagues were absent, one because his sister died and the other her aunt died. Death is pretty common here. The sister was particularly tragic as she has five young children and she had just given birth a few days previous. We called over to her house to pay our respects and it was very interesting. Quite like if someone died at home really, loads of relatives had come and all the women were preparing loads of food. They had an Arab tent in the garden as the house couldn’t have accommodated everyone and it has been raining here this week.

About two weeks ago we met some other white people out in a restaurant and we had said to them to call in some time and today the woman called in to our house. They are a Finnish couple. They have been in Ethiopia six years working with the Lutheran church. They work here in Dessie with Aids orphans in an after school club and home visits. It is really nice to meet other foreigners and they seem really nice. Tomorrow we are meeting them to go for a walk and have some lunch so we are extending our circle of friends! And part of our work is to increase Aids awareness so hopefully we may be able to do some work with them too.

This evening we are going in search of Hyenas. Sercalum is taking us over to a place near her house where the Hyenas come and people feed them as there is a meat factory there and the Hyenas come and if the people give them some meat, they will eat that and be full so they wont try and steal the good meat. So it should be interesting.
Here the weekends can be long so it is nice to have things to do, so with that this evening and meeting the Finnish people tomorrow this weekend will be quite interesting.

We headed into town last night Gill and I, Steve was at another funeral of someone else in college’s sister. We went for something to eat and had two beers and a coffee and got the last bus home at nine o’clock pm. So that was a wild night out in Dessie, actually it is a nice break from the routine and to eat out is as cheap to eat at home.

Anyway that is all the news at the moment, the weeks are flying by I have been here in Ethiopia nine weeks now. I don’t really want the time to rush by but it just does. This time next month we will be in Addis Ababa for the Christmas conference which will be a chance for all the VSO volunteers to meet up so I’m looking forward to that and the week after that James (a friend of mine) is coming over for ten days for a holiday so again I am really looking forward to that it will be a chance for me to be a tourist for a while.

So I hope you are all keeping well, the weather must be getting cold there now. Here it is warm mostly during the day and cold at night. Although this week we had a lot of rain which people aren’t too happy about as it will ruin their crops as it wasn’t nice soft rain but really heavy rain for a few days.

Anyway I’ll post again next Saturday, as they say here Ciao!

Life as normal

Hi,
Well this Saturday is very different from last Saturday, we have electricity and running water for one and there hasn't been any trouble since Tuesday and in typical Ethiopian style, Tuesday seems a life time ago and life here in Dessie has returned to normal.
On Tuesday a house behind ours was set on fire and there was lots of shooting but since then it has all been quiet.
We resumed the workshops yesterday afternoon and to make up for all the missed days we will be giving workshops every weekday, twice a day for the next two weeks so we will be tired but the teachers appreciate it.
My Amharic language is coming along, I can understand most of what people say now and use simple sentences back which is useful for shopping etc.
Was speaking to one of the school supervisors here during the week and it turns out he use to be in scouts when he was young, but scouting had to stop here due to the communist regime but he is very keen to get it up and running again, there is one small scout troop in Dessie now. So I offered my assistance and he is off on a mission to find the leaders so we will see what happens.
We were supposed to go to Addis this weekend but with the trouble we couldn't so we are hanging around Dessie, today we went into town and had lunch bought a few things such as a blanket for our night guard who is freezing!! and we watched "I dream of Africa .." a film on TV in a cafe.
I think we will watch a DVD tonight, in our sitting room cinema, may even make pop corn! Its a far cry from my life at home, however life here is an awful lot simpler and everyday is a joy with clear blue skies and sunshine in November and of course the work feels worthwhile so it helps.
Yesterday we went to see a new church they are building here in Dessie. It was incredible, there were stone masons working by hand to carve different pictures from the bible on every wall and pillar - it will be fantastic when finished a real tourist attraction, however it will cost one million pound to finish so it may not be done in my life time but still the people are happy to work on it bit by bit - the people here have such reverence for God it is unbelievable but I suppose if this life isn't great they must hope the next will be better.
Our housekeeper Sercalum has no English, yet if we talk to her about religion she will with mime and simple Amharic speak for ages on the subject.
So it will be a busy week here in Dessie, with workshops on continuous assessment up until Wednesday and then on English methods from Wednesday on.
So take care
Orla

A Troubled Land

Well, perhaps you have seen Ethiopia in the news this week … or perhaps not, but if it has been in the news then you will realise that about 36 people were killed by government forces in Addis Ababa during the week and about 150 or more injured. The background to this as far as we can gather from our Ethiopian friends and colleagues is this ..

In May general elections were held. Prior to the general elections the government feeling very confident in itself decided to engage in the democratic exercise of televising debates between the party leaders in the weeks prior to the elections. The Ethiopian people who had never experienced democracy in this way became very interested and very politically aware and for the first time ever they could discuss politics openly and honestly with friends and colleagues and they could openly criticise the government without fear of persecution. So in May the election took place and the EU and the USA sent observers, the USA reported that while things weren’t perfect – it was the fairest election to have taken place so far in Ethiopia. The EU – reported that the Government rigged the election. Everyone I have met whether they support the government or not says the election was rigged. Anyway the Government lost all their seats in Addis Ababa the capital and anywhere else where the ballot stations were monitored by NGOs and UN however in the country where there was no monitoring the Government won??
So naturally the Ethiopian people are annoyed because the Government who had first introduced them to democracy is now abusing it. The opposition refuse to take their seats until the Government admit what they did and the Government have declared they will take action without any regard to human rights if the opposition organise any protests.
And so in June lots of people were killed by the government. While we were in Addis there was a protest which luckily no one was killed in and now during the week there were more protests. The opposition and protesters are not using weapons just stones, the Government forces are shooting people in the head and chest. They have shot women, old men and young children, so Addis is deserted; people have stayed home afraid to go out.

In Dessie the Army arrived on Thursday and public transport ceased, we had two days which were tense but peaceful and then on Friday afternoon, trouble seemed to start with students, the army kept one school hostage overnight and killed someone in another part of the town and after they banned schools they then shot at any children who turned up for school. We could hear gun fire but it wasn’t close by and things around where we live were very quiet. On Saturday morning we were woken by gun shots right outside our house – someone had tried to set the Pepsi factory which is near our house on fire. Well for us that was as exciting as it became. We spent Saturday in the house all day – very boring and from Saturday lunch time we had no electricity or water. Just now on Sunday evening the electricity has returned but still no water. Last night we had to cook our dinner on a charcoal stove – very scout like. Today things seemed peaceful so we went to Steve – Kenyan Volunteers house for lunch and then to the hotel in the town for a drink. In the hotel the TV was on and on came the Ethiopian News and it reported about a Halloween party in Canada and someone getting a new necklace and other frivolous things and made no mention of any of the trouble!!

To add to matters the Ethiopian and Eritrean Armies are said to be advancing towards each other at the boarder … we had believed this to be a rumour but we live on the road to Eritrea and we have seen many trucks of soldiers heading north so it’s a troubled country in more ways than one. I could go on at length about all the checks and precautions, we, VSO and the college are taking to ensure we are and that we remain safe but it’s a bit boring suffice to say everyone is over cautious when it comes to our safety and I am not in the least bit worried for me.

However it does make you appreciate the things we take for granted, like freedom of speech, and safety. I mean I would certainly hope Irish Soldiers wouldn’t shoot at children if they accidentally arrived for school on a holiday!!

We began the workshops this week and we are really beginning to see that the people here have nothing … just nothing. We are running workshops for teachers, and these teachers come voluntarily in their spare time for the workshops. Many of them walk miles to attend the workshops. These teachers are teaching in mud huts, dilapidated rooms and something resembling sheds. There are not enough desks, books, paper etc. The children are orphans or sick or hungry. If they have parents the parents usually don’t care about school and so the teachers have very little support from parents, yet they are committed to improving the education system, they really believe that they are changing Ethiopian society and I hope they are.

Anyway after all that negative ranting, I can say this it is the most beautiful country in the world, with the friendliest people and the most admirable teachers. I am settling in well and constantly surprised by how many friends I have made, even walking today the postman stopped to say hello, then a taxi driver, then a teacher and then just a person we met on the bus one day, so you can’t help but feel a part of the community.

So I’ll leave it there and even if it isn’t in the news – you might spare a thought for the Ethiopians as they fight for what we take for granted – freedom.