The Weather is Getting Warmer in Dessie

Well last Sunday we had Pirko and Matti over for lunch we hadn’t seen them in ages so it was really nice to catch up they are Finnish missionaries who work here in Dessie with Aids orphans. They have been in Ethiopia seven years now so it is interesting to talk to them as they know European and Ethiopian culture very well. In the evening we went to a wedding reception which was great fun, there was dinner and dancing. Our Ethiopian colleagues were in stitches at our attempts to copy their traditional dancing. It was a good evening and in typical Ethiopian style we were on the bus home at 8:30pm after being some of the last to leave the wedding! But weddings here go on for days really with different sets of people going to different parts of the wedding, we were invited to the meal for his work colleagues – as we work with him, but this meant it was mainly men invited to this part except two of them brought their wives with them so they must be extremely modern Ethiopian men as mostly wives don’t get to go out at all, but they were both lovely women so it was a nice opportunity for us to get to socialise with other women.

In work this week we were training in Kombolcha on Monday and Tuesday and on Tuesday all the supervisors, directors and Woreda officials took us out for lunch – they know the way to get to the top of our training schedule in future!! Then on Wednesday we were working in college where a very large workshop is taking place on Wednesday the topic was teaching English reading so I attended one of the workshops and periodically the trainer would call on me to add something to what he had said, but he is a highly intelligent man with two masters in the subject of teaching English so there wasn’t much I could add except paraphrase what he had already said, but I was gratefully thanked by the funders for my assistance and got free soft drinks for the rest of the week from the workshop funders as every time they had a break whether I was around or not they would buy a soft drink for me and have it sent to my office and even if I went to the canteen at another time to buy a soft drink the canteen had been instructed not to take my money that it was on the workshop account so there you go they probably didn’t understand a word I said and feel I have shared some new and valuable information about teaching reading with them!

On Wednesday evening we also got a phone call from another VSO volunteer who is working as a Management Advisor in Abi Adi College of Education, his name is Alan and he was in Dessie when he phoned. He had come ahead of his college who were coming on a tour! The first we had heard of it. Anyway we met Alan for dinner and had a lovely time chatting and a good excuse to have a few beers. We ran into college the next day to inform them about the Abi Adi College coming on tour but it turns out they already knew just all the notices about it were in Amharic and they had forgotten to tell Gill, Steve and I! So on Friday they came to the college all the teachers from Abi Adi and shared experience with our teachers and had lunch it was really nice and seemingly our college will also be going on a tour where yet we don’t know.

Yesterday we were sorting millions of books again over at another school which have been donated from America and then we went for lunch with Habte and Hannah a couple we are friends with and went to see the site for their new house. Really their new house will be in the most beautiful place on Earth it is up on a mountain coming into Dessie and has views of Dessie, the mountains and even as far down as the lowlands of Kombolcha it is really incredible scenery.

Also more experience sharing has taken off with one of the Dessie clusters going on a visit to Kombolcha where they have drawn up an agreement to help each other further in the future and share resources. The cluster in Dessie is going to give some of these donated books to Kombolcha and the cluster in Kombolcha which has access to chemicals is going to share some chemicals with the Dessie cluster for teaching science, so it is really good that they are now working together themselves.

Politically here things are up and down we don’t hear much but all the teachers all over the country are now being called to big meetings by the government to be basically told to support the government and we heard this week that the children in one school broke all the windows in the school and some of them were arrested and in another school a female student was beaten to death by the police for handing out anti government leaflets. So although on a day to day basis you can pretend it isn’t happening, the human rights abuses here are appalling. Luckily we haven’t been in any school when there have been disturbances. I’ll probably be tracked down for posting about it on the website!!!!

Anyway it’s amazing how caring people here are, all this going on in their own country and still they are shocked and saddened by all the people dying in Russia from the cold. Everyone is talking about it here they are really sorry for the people in Russia, I think they also think it is near us because it is Europe so they express their sadness to us, but it is crazy that people here are so upset for the people in Russia, people here probably expect that people all over the world are upset by the human rights abuses here in Ethiopia but in reality it isn’t even in the media in Europe or USA.

Anyway life goes on here in Dessie, we may be having a semester break next week though no one is sure but they said we could go ahead and arrange our holidays if we wanted to as they don’t know yet if the college will be closed or not so I think I will take a few days down the South of the country, it will be nice to have a break again! It doesn’t seem that long since I was in Lalibella.

Anyway all take care and I hope you have a good week,

Ciao,

Orla

Holidays and Funerals

Well this week we were training in Kombolcha on Monday and Tuesday. Kombolcha is a town where the model of clustering in Education is working exactly as it was planned to work. The supervisors are really on top of things and motivate the teachers and work really well with the directors. The teachers all plan together in departments and use their own money to make resources for their teaching and the woreda education officials which are like from the town council are really supportive so it is a pleasure the work there and the teachers are really appreciative of the training.
On Wednesday we had to cancel the training due to a holiday so we went to college which should have been open and there were no teachers to be seen just loads of students so we were sitting around for a while but there was no electricity either so it was difficult to do any work. We remembered that today was the day that the man from the funding agency which funds the college was coming for a visit so we thought everyone must be at a meeting with him and forgot to tell us, but then we see a man wandering around with a folder under his arm so we ask him is he ok and it turns out he is the man from the agency and he can’t find anyone either anyway to cut a long story short it turns out the Dean of the college’s brother has died which was tragic he was killed in a bus accident near Dessie, (travelling by bus is very scary as there are many accidents) and everyone absolutely everyone had gone to the funeral as we had been in Kombolcha no one had told us about the funeral and obviously no one had thought to tell the funding man either.
So we didn’t know where the funeral was but we found a student who knew and asked him to accompany us to the funeral to show us the way. The funeral was very long and I am sure the man from the funding agency found it a great use of his time, after the funeral there as a another ceremony back in the house but we thought the funding man may have had enough of the funeral so we took him to see Kombolcha schools where he was absolutely amazed at how great they were. He also informed us that his agency would give 1000 birr for each of the 45 schools we are working with so they could make resources and we were to also organise experience sharing between the two towns and his agency will organise a National Conference of Teacher Training Colleges to see the great work going on here …. So despite the fact that almost no one from the college gave the funding man the time of day they have ended us smelling of roses, but the good thing is that the teachers on the ground will actually benefit so it was a good week and already the plans are underway for two experience sharing visits this week and a field trip for one of the Dessie Schools to Kombolcha so it finally feels like our work may be getting somewhere even though it was complete chance that we were the only people around to meet the funding man!

There was a big holiday here on Thursday and we went into Dessie to see, each church in Dessie sang and danced up the main street and into Piazza, it was really good and really colourful. The dances and songs were arranged by St. Jared in 560 something BC and haven’t changed at all since then except now they use loud speakers. The town was really crowded but the police were very calm and handled everything well including letting all the foreigners stand on the inside of the police cordon actually they allowed us to sit on the big round about in the middle we felt a bit conspicuous but then some Chinese people and Indian people were let inside too so we didn’t feel as strange but we got a good view and a seat so we weren’t complaining. In Addis Ababa the celebrations got a bit too rowdy and the police shot two people but in Dessie it was fine.

Today we sorted out about 1000 books which had been donated from schools in America and we gave them to six schools there are about another 2000 books to sort next week, the schools were so happy and the teachers gave up their free time to sort the books so these schools some of which had no books before now have an instant library they were praising God to a height and kept thanking us, we had to explain many times that we weren’t from America and we hadn’t sent the books!

It is raining today, it had looked like it would rain for about two weeks now and finally it has and in an instant Dessie has turned to mud it will rain on and off between now and April but at least it is a little warmer now than it was before. In the south of Ethiopia there is a severe drought which is causing a famine and here we have rain and plenty of food it is odd but I suppose even here it would only take one or two seasons of no rain to cause a famine too. Here no one is talking of the famine in the South of the country only I have seen it on BBC world news and CNN.

I had a very funny incident in a restaurant this week, I had drank three beers in the evening which totally shocked the waiter and I decided to use the toilet so in I went, the toilet in this restaurant is a lot better than others but is still a very smelly hole in the ground with no running water. I think the man in front of me really should have closed the door but I presumed he just didn’t care and then when it was my chance to use the toilet I realised there actually was no door, the door was totally gone disappeared so I didn’t know what to do but as I really needed to use the toilet I decided to ask the man would he just keep an eye out that no one came along, which he obligingly did although he was a little shocked and for the rest of the evening him and his friends kept winking and smiling over at me across the restaurant so he is probably some kind of legend now for having been so intimate with a white woman!

Anyway that is all the news I think, I hope you are all keeping well, Ciao,
Orla

Holiday Time

We arrived back from Addis Ababa yesterday from the VSO HIV and AIDS workshop. The workshop was very good and worth the journey. We had to travel by bus 10 long hours up and 10 long hours back, but we had hired a mini bus so it was not too bad. AIDS and HIV are really prevalent here many of the teachers we work with have AIDS some know they have others are just sick or die so you suspect it, but in a country where people don’t think of the future its hard to know how it will be prevented, it is possible to die here from many many things any day of the week and so AIDS is just another threat. On of the women who was at our Christmas party died during the week having her appendix removed and she has three young children and a young husband, but death is a regular thing here.

Last weekend was Ethiopian Christmas so on Saturday we went to one of our female colleague’s house for dinner and watched traditional dancing videos and had a coffee ceremony. Then on Sunday we went to our male colleague’s house for dinner but at 10:30 am!! I think they had a lot of guests to fit in during the day, where again we had lots of sheep to eat and lots to drink – their home brew beer and gin and the coffee ceremony. So it was all very pleasant.
This week we worked in Kombolcha on Monday training teachers, it was our first time to train there and the teachers are very good and the classrooms well organised. Then on Tuesday it was Ied Arafa a Muslim holiday so we had no work and then Wednesday we headed to Addis.

The price of eggs has risen dramatically from 50 cents to 1 birr because all the chickens or nearly all the chickens have been killed because of the two holidays last week, with another holiday this week who knows how much we shall be paying for eggs next weekend! This week the holiday is Timkart and seemingly will involve lots of singing in the streets and processions to different churches so I am looking forward to that.

So no real other news, I got a new electric stove so I have to head into town to get an adapter for it, but after all the travelling of the last few days I am very tired so I am trying to get the energy to go into town, as a trip to town involves talking to about 50 people I will know and meet along the way and also every child will shake my hand which is lovely but tiring there is no nipping out to the shops quickly around here.

I hope you are all keeping well,
Ciao,

Orla

Christmas

Hi
Wrote the blog below on Saturday last but due to internet problems wasn't able to post it. Ethiopian Christmas consisted of much meat eating and beer drinking, so was very enjoyable.
Take care
Orla



Hi, I haven’t written anything here in a while as was very busy with Christmas, much the same as everyone at home I imagine!
Today is my second Christmas this year as it is Ethiopian Christmas today. So when it was our Christmas there were no trees or decorations to be seen but now the town is looking really festive and everybody has been running around over the last few days getting ready. Getting ready here means buying a cow, goat or sheep and sharpening your knives! Its mad everyone is walking around with an animal or has one tied up outside their house and on every street corner there are knife sharpeners and every man is carrying a scarily big knife.

Today we are going to Aregash’s, one of our colleagues house for Christmas lunch and tomorrow to Shimelis’ house – another colleague. So this year I will have celebrated two Christmases.

Our own Christmas was lovely, really nice which was great as we were all a little apprehensive being so far from home, but James a friend of mine from home came over and Susan another Irish volunteer in Dilla came to Dessie to stay and Gill my colleague was here too and we had a lovely day. We managed to get rashers and sausages in Addis Ababa and take them on the ten hour bus journey back to Dessie, so we had a real fry on Christmas morning along with Ethiopian Shampagne and orange juice – very nice and a far cry from the bread and tea we usually have for breakfast. James was like Fr. Christmas with all the presents he brought from home and we decorated the house with balloons and handmade decorations.

Later in the day we had a party which our colleagues and friends attended, it was a good evening although we had bought 100 bottles of beer and we were left with 70 after the party!!

On the Tuesday after Christmas, myself, James and Susan headed for Lalibella where legend has it 11 rock hewn churches were built in 23 days. Lalibella was amazing really spectacular. It is incredible that they built it at all. The stone masonry is amazing. However Lalibella may possibly be one of the poorest places on the planet, the people were so poor even in comparison to Dessie. Usually when I say I am Irish here, people say “Roy Keane” but in Lalibella they said “Bob Geldof”. There are no banks or pharmacies or anything in Lalibella. In fact a man there asked me to bring some money from him to his brother in Dessie, I thought it was a bit odd that he would trust me a totally stranger with the money but with no banks there is no other way to transfer money but to give it to someone on the bus and well a ferenji is a good bet! So we had two lovely days in Lalibella and then headed back to Dessie

On New Years eve, we had another party this time a bit smaller where the aim was to finish the beer. It was a really good night we drank and danced Ethiopian and Irish dancing and a mixture of the two! And we learnt to play an Ethiopian Christmas game as well. By 2am there were only 7 bottles of beer left so we allowed people to go home.

So since then it has been back to work, observing teachers in preparatory and primary schools, making resources, teaching in the kindergarten and drinking many cups of coffee. Next week we will be in Kombolcha training for one day and then we are going to Addis Ababa for a workshop on HIV & AIDS. So it will be on the bus again. Travelling over here is hard going as the roads are so bumpy and the buses very old and crowded.

So Happy Ethiopian Christmas to all,

Ciao

Orla