Well loads of news here from Ethiopia, it has been a busy two weeks. I was sick for much of last week so was at home as the toilet in college is disgusting so when sick it is better to be at home. Then Abdu who was Steve’s guard and a good friend of mine was called to University in Mekelle, the poor guy was supposed to begin last October but due to construction works in Mekelle he couldn’t start till this week, so last Wednesday night we had a party for him and gave him some money to help him get books and things and he was so pleased it was amazing and humbling just to see how happy he was and how big a thing it was for him when it was really only a small gesture on our part.
So Thursday saw me loaded up on tablets making my way to Addis Ababa. I had contemplated not going but it was St. Patrick’s day and the Irish Embassy had organised a huge party in the Sheraton hotel. So good old Kieros our guard got me a front seat on a mini-bus, I got on the bus at 4:30am it then drove around Dessie till 6am picking up passengers!! So by the time we hit the road I fell asleep by Kombolcha, but the man beside me woke me up as I was going to cause an accident if I banged against the driver so he kindly offered that I could sleep on his shoulder so there I was like the dying AIDS sufferers we see on buses all the time, being held by this strange man as I slept for most of the journey, turns out that the strange man was actually the assistant manager of the Hilton hotel in Addis and a World Bank Consultant so good person to fall asleep on, I think he was quite worried about how sick I was and minded me the whole journey and has just rang me a few minutes ago to check I am ok and to invite me for dinner next time I am in Addis so being sick has its advantages!
Finally arrived in Addis by 2pm (which was fast!) so I headed for lunch and hung around VSO until Susan eventually turned up after her bus breaking down and all at 5:30pm. We quickly got ready feeling the most glamorous that we had since we got to Ethiopia and headed for the Sheraton where we strolled up the red carpet and into the ball room. The party was amazing there were about 900 people there and about 30 Irish people, there was loads of food and deserts and they were pouring Baileys like milk and of course it was all free! So we had a great night after the Sheraton we headed to some Ethiopian club where they let the Irish Trad band play for a song or two and then we organised all the Irish to come outside the club where the trad band played and we danced and sang and I played the spoons and generally we all acted like a big bunch of drunk Irish people at a party which was very familiar and home like and then the Ambassador dropped us all home. I was staying with Iseult who works in the Embassy and has a fabulous house. I stayed in a real bed again with a duvet it was fantastic, I slept till about lunch time when poor Iseult returned from work she had had to go to a meeting. She cooked – and this may be the most memorable part of the whole trip – sausages which she had bought in Dublin Airport!!!! Amazing! She also has a car (the life of a diplomat is a nice one) so she dropped me over to VSO as after dancing on the stones outside the club the night before in bare feet I don’t think I could have walked.
At VSO I met up with Frank another volunteer who I was staying with for the weekend. We headed to Sally’s house yet another volunteer for dinner which was lovely and just had a good old chat and catch up on everyone’s news. Then Saturday I met up with Iseult and some other young Irish women for lunch which was really nice, it is great to meet people in the same boat, so we all had a good old Irish conversation about “do you know so and so etc” which freaked the one American who was there out as yes we did all know some of the same people as you do when you are Irish! Then headed back to Frank’s house but got caught in the rain so ended up soaked to the skin and a rat ran up my leg so then I ran back to Frank’s house. We ventured out in rain coats and umbrellas etc to get something to eat later and a bottle of Ouzo, then we were supposed to go meet some other people but the rain was so bad we just stayed in and talked and drank and had one of those nights where you solve all the world’s problems theoretically! Next day Frank and I worked on our research papers we are both doing and then headed to a really nice Indian restaurant for dinner – in Addis normal life exists! Then I took some photos of the life size picture of Jesus which Frank’s land lord insists he keeps on his bedroom wall!
The next day I headed to the British clinic, where I got advice on anti-malarials, got checked to see the amoeba is gone and got told that the ulcer is just going to take weeks to heal (weekends in Addis don’t help!). Noticed I had lost another half stone in the last few weeks still huge in comparison to Ethiopians but there are some benefits to being sick! Then headed to St. Gabriels hospital where somehow managed to skip the queue and get a hep A and Hep B booster vaccination. Then I went shopping in Shola market and bought some clay pots, coffee pots and pictures for ridiculously low prices. Then I decided to treat myself and headed to the Hilton for a hair cut my first since I arrived and for the equivalent of 7 euro I got a head massage and a hair cut – a very nice hair cut too.
That night we headed out to dinner with a load of volunteers.
The next day we flew to Gondar, for the Cluster workshop. We stayed with Karen and Jan two volunteers who are lovely and we had a really nice time with them. Karen had been sick too so she looked amazingly thin, she is a physiotherapist and her work is really interesting but very difficult, she is training Ethiopia’s first physiotherapists and also supervising community physio practice so she had really great photos of her work, but it is very stressful and she gets all kinds of illnesses from working with such sick and poor people. Also she has to try and change their whole attitude to rehabilitation as many people over here wouldn’t be disabled if they got enough physio at the right time but instead they might get just one session and then be sent home with perfectly curable disabilities.
The workshop was really great we got loads of work done and we got to share a lot of experiences, it really reminds you what a difference our work is actually making and enthuses you for it all over again, by far I think it is the best project VSO is involved in as the results are so visible and are actually benefiting the local communities so it was really good and we will have another workshop in May to keep the good work going. So again loads of socialising with other volunteers while in Gondar.
We also got to see the castle which is betam conjure or very beautiful. I will try and stick a photo with this.
So we flew back to Addis again went out with other volunteers and then got the bus back to Dessie yesterday and here we are back in Dessie today with no electricity and no water and back to reality! The college tour starts on Tuesday so we aren’t back for long just enough to get the clothes washed if the water ever comes back!
Life in Addis is so different to here, there you can get anything you want, go anywhere you want there are pubs and clubs and proper shops, but I suppose here we get the authentic Ethiopian experience and it is nice to have Addis as somewhere you can go to for a break and a bit of normal living. When I arrived I thought Addis was a dump but now it really is like New York to us country folk!
Anyway so on Tuesday health permitting I will head off on the college tour which as Steve put it is a once in a life opportunity! When else will I get the chance to spend ten days on a bus with all my colleagues bumping around one of the largest countries in Africa, but looking forward to seeing the sights and I will just take it one day at a time if it gets too much for my stomach I will bail out and go stay in a hotel!
When I get back from the tour my friend Daithi and his friend Eoin will be here for two weeks, so it is go go go here. Eoin and Daithi have done some amazing fundraising for the schools here so it will be brilliant to see how happy everyone will be and to see how we can really back up their work as we are encouraging the teachers to address the problems in the schools at present but with these funds we will also be able to financially support some of their solutions so it will be good.
So by the time they are gone it will be the end of April and we will just have two months left on the programme and then the Summer will be here and my parents will be here for four weeks which I am really looking forward to and we will provide English language courses for teachers over the Summer as well. So it is amazing how the time is just sailing by, but despite the lows and the hard times the good times far out weigh the bad, it is an amazing country with amazing people and what use to just look like the third world pictures on a trocaire box now looks like home to me and those people are my friends and neighbours and really it is a privilege to be here and work here.
