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