A Great Holiday

Hi
Well it has been a busy few months here. Time is flying by since I came back after Christmas.
We have continued training in rural areas and training Kindergarten teachers this means delivering five sessions of training a week and with preparations this really fills up the week.
The college where we work very kindly gave the three volunteers a gift of a holiday for one week in Northern Ethiopia to thank us for all our work. They gave us a car, driver, fuel and expenses and sent us off for a week to enjoy ourselves, which we did. This was really generous of the college.
We went to Mekelle first, this is usually an eight hour journey and we were set to leave in the morning at 9 a.m. but we didn't actually leave until 2 p.m. as the usual college disorganisation ruled and as this was a gift we couldn't really get too annoyed. We arrived in Mekelle at 9:30pm at night, in Ethiopia it is not permitted to drive after dark but the driver was determined to reach Mekelle and the police allowed him to keep going.
In Mekelle we met with other volunteers. I stayed with Susan another Irish volunteer. Steve was fixing a computer so this meant we had to stay in Mekelle for a few days we saw the market, the war museum and a rather unknown waterfall, which was impressive. We ate in nice restaurants and generally relaxed and enjoyed ourselves.
From Mekelle we drove to Axum, we decided to cross the Tembien which is a spectacular mountainous desert of Ethiopia not realising that we would have to cross it again on our return so this made the holiday a very bumpy holiday. We arrived in Axum at about 8 p.m. or so and hit the sites early the next day. Axum in the ancient capital of the axumite empire which stretched from Egypt to Somalia and Sudan and down to Madagascar (according to the museum!!) It is a very nice place, full of ancient palaces which are just like stone walls, burial chambers and its most famous site the stellae field which has these huge pillars of decorated stone marking graves. Seemingly they lifted them with Elephants but there is one that was stolen to Italy in three parts and has now returned but they are having difficulty figuring out how to stand it up again but these ancient guys had no such problems, amazing! It is quite amazing when you see the quality of the stone masonship and the measuring tools they used.
We saw Axum in record time and departed before lunchtime, the things to see are quite amazing but don't take very long to actually see. We then headed to Adwa where we ate lunch with Rebecca another Canadian volunteer. After lunch we moved on back the way we came across the Tembien because Steve hadn't finished fixing the computer so we had to return to Mekelle again! We stopped off en route in Abi Adi a really small town with three volunteers. Abi Adi makes me appreciate life in Dessie. There was no mobile network and they had just got 24-hour electricity a few weeks before. We hadn't intended to stay but the volunteers there were so happy to see us they insisted we stayed, and we were glad we did. We all went out to dinner, at the invitation of their college, then we had another dinner back in the volunteer's house as they had taken pork out of the freezer for us (the first time I ate pork in Ethiopia!). Two of the volunteers in Abi Adi are from the Philippines and the Filipinos love pork.
We were back in Mekelle again, the computer was fixed and so we had a good dinner with the other volunteers and the next day headed to Lalibella, which the driver thought would be 5 hours away, 9 hours later we made it to Lalibella!!
I hadn't really been too pushed about visiting Lalibella for the second time but actually it was good. We bumped into an ex-student of ours on the first night and he insisted on being our guide and he refused any payment.
It was interesting as although I knew him from the college I didn't know much about him. He had been born in the rural area but his parents died. He had five older brothers and sisters and they stayed in the rural area but when he was young, his aunt took him to Lalibella where he went to school. He then became a guide, after a while he decided to pursue his education further and went to the college to become a teacher. He was one of the highest scoring students last year. He then was deployed to the rural area where there was no electricity, shops, proper houses etc. He was just about to leave teaching when he was called to teach in the high school in Lalibella town as there was a shortage of secondary teachers so he now is teaching there. This summer he will start studying for a degree in law which will take him five summers to complete and then he hopes to get a job in the regional capital. Meanwhile his brothers and sisters are going around in skins and just living a boring life
Anyway he was an excellent guide and added much to my knowledge of Lalibella. We saw all the town churches in one day getting to the last one at 4:57 p.m. they close at 5 p.m. The next day we headed back to Dessie stopping on the way at one more church which was really good, full of treasures (old illuminated bibles, gold crowns, crosses etc). These treasures aren't kept in a museum as you might expect, no just in an old cupboard and you are allowed to touch them, hold them, photograph them with flash etc. In this church there was some magical holy water which we all drank as it cures illnesses everyone else was fine but I was sick for three days afterwards so not sure what message God was sending me! The priest who showed us around here was wearing an Irish Celtic cross on his jacket!
We headed back to Dessie this was by far the bumpiest part of the journey and we were glad just to get out of the car by the end of the trip. It was a really good holiday though apart from the bumpiness.
Now we are getting ready for our next adventure tomorrow a television crew will arrive from Teachers TV to make a documentary about Education in Ethiopia in which we and our work will feature. So that should be fun, they are here for one day and are quite ambitious about what they will achieve so we will see. They broadcast on satellite and on the Internet so I will inform you when it will be showing and you can try and watch it.
After that I am heading to Addis Ababa for St. Patrick's day. Last year the Irish Embassy threw a big party in the Sheraton. This year however, it is simply a lunch time reception in the ambassadors house but we are going anyway and I am going to drink and eat as much as I can. I may just refuse to leave at 14:30, then he will wish it was in the Sheraton and not in his house. On the Saturday there is a big ball as well for St. Patrick's Day and just about everybody is going so I am really looking forward to that too. So hopefully it will be a good weekend.

Our day guard Serkalem is pregnant the baby is due in 24 days very exciting so we are trying to persuade her to take maternity leave but I think she probably gets more rest in our house than at home. From today she has a young cousin from the rural area helping her. It may have been the cousin's first time to see white people and she just stared at us most of the time but I am sure she will get use to us.

Anyway for now I think that is all the news I will keep you posted on the TV programme schedule.

Ciao
Orla

Back to Ethiopia after Christmas

Sorry I haven’t posted in a long time. I must have loads of news by now.
Well the conference in Sodere was successful and the weather was fabulous.
Following that I headed home to Ireland for Christmas.
The day before we were due to travel a freezing fog attacked London Heathrow which we were due to travel through. All other airlines made other arrangements for their passengers but not Ethiopian Airlines who decided to just hope for the best. We were of course as luck would have it flying with Ethiopian Airlines.
On the morning we were due to fly. CNN and Sky news were showing pictures of people huddling in blankets in tents outside Heathrow, the reality of this didn’t really hit home at the time as wearing a blanket is the fashion in Ethiopia.
So much for high security at Addis Ababa, both Susan and I managed to take bottles of wine in our hand luggage.
So we flew pleasantly to Rome almost forgetting about the whole Heathrow thing until the Pilot announced that we would be spending the night in Rome and flying tomorrow. We decided to see if we could avoid Heathrow and fly direct to Dublin but Ethiopian Airlines said no. Then they served us up a nice tasty dinner of European chicken and just as people were enjoying this they announced that we had 15 mins to get on another plane to Heathrow. So everyone ran through the airport following the Ethiopian Airlines man but of course hours went by and we still weren’t on the other plane. We asked Alitalia as they were the only staff around if they thought we could fly to Dublin tomorrow, they said “sure no problem two flights to Dublin tomorrow just get your ticket endorsed by your airline”. Well Ethiopian Airlines weren’t having any of it. They accused us of causing a security risk and threatened to call the police as we would be travelling without our luggage, however if the airline loses your luggage I don’t think you can call the police on them.
Anyway in the heal of the hunt they eventually gave us back our luggage but made us pay for the new tickets to Dublin and promptly disappeared leaving us with no where to stay and nothing to eat. We felt like Tom Hanks in the film Airport as we just stayed in the Airport all night and most of the next day. Trying to actually lodge a complaint against Ethiopian Airlines has so far proved impossible and even though they claim to have a customer charter they actually don’t.
Anyway finally got home safe and sound and had a wonderful Christmas at home, seeing friends, family and new babies. Eating all the food I had missed in the last fourteen months. In general having a very good time, it was definitely worth the hassle of coming home.
On return to Ethiopia, I felt less depressed then I had expected. I think the blue skies and warm weather of Addis Ababa contributed to that as well as getting to spend a few days with Francis. After a few days of rest and banking business, I headed back to Dessie.

Nothing much had changed here. Everyone was delighted with their presents and seeing as I had missed Ethiopian Christmas, my colleagues made Christmas dinner for me again which was very nice. We have been training in rural areas and training Kindergarten teachers and generally keeping busy. Our manager was here from VSO and we may be appearing in a TV documentary … watch this space! We will also be hosting a large conference in April and organising a symposium in August at which point I had to break the news that I did actually intend on leaving Ethiopia at some point!

Last weekend we decided to cook a chicken. Now it has become clear to me why our maid never cooks chickens. It took from 8:30 am – 2pm for all the preparation and cooking, which involved killing the chicken, plucking it, and cutting it up and washing it many many many times. It is much easier to buy one in the shop ( although they don’t sell them here) I can tell you.

Tomorrow I will head to Addis Ababa for meetings next week, it is nice to get out of Dessie but there is always the knowledge that you have to return and it always seems much more boring each time. Not on week days but at weekends there really is very little to do. Luckily I have a lift to Addis tomorrow so no bus thank God.

Thank you very much to everybody who gave me money for the work here in Ethiopia at Christmas. We are now going to buy library books for 70 schools in rural areas and are giving a grant to each school to help HIV AIDS orphans so thank you very very much for your help and assistance.

Anyway I will try and be better at keeping in touch.

Ciao
Orla

Well it is Mid-November already now

Well it is mid- November already now, time is flying by. Schools in Ireland must be on mid term break now and we here haven't even begun the term yet! Last year I thought it was because of all the political trouble that the college took so long to get going but now I see it isjust the way things are.
We had three other volunteers come to visit the week before last. Julian is an IT volunteer in Debre Birhan (about 6 hours south of Dessie) and Liza who works in the Ministry of Education in Addis on Non formal education and Nigel who works in the programme office in VSO and is doing advocacy research into Valuing Teachers. VSO has a global research project into valuing teachers which it hopes will raise the status and improve the conditions of teachers across the developing world.
It was really interesting to see our project through their eyes. They have only been in the country five weeks and I think it was quite inspiring for them to come and see a project which is in its sixth year and see that over a long period of time - VSO does work and make adifference. So they had a good time and we enjoyed their company for a few days.
On the Thursday night of their visit another volunteer Emma who is working in Asossa as a Democratization Advisor was passing through Dessie with her mother and friend on a tour of northern Ethiopia so weall went out for dinner, which was really nice.
On Saturday Steve and I headed back with the visitors to Addis. Steve and I are on the organising committee for the Annual Volunteer Conference which will take place in December. The meetings were Monday and Tuesday but we were able to fit in a weekend in Addis so that was an added bonus. On Saturday night two of the volunteers hosted a Halloween party in their house and everyone brought food and drink and there was an amazing array for food from all over the world and quite a lot of drink too! The party was really good fun and a good chance to meet loads of volunteers. One volunteer I was speaking with was sympathising with me for living in such an isolated place as Dessie and then I found out she had just spent six months volunteering on Kiribati an island in the south pacific which kind of made me appreciate Dessie! On Sunday I met with other volunteers for a very long lunch and then on Monday it was work time.
The meetings went really well and we have the conference almost organised. It will be in Sodere which is a thermal spring resort in theSouth of Ethiopia. In December Dessie is freezing so I will be living to reach Sodere where it will be roasting and I will hopefully be able toget a nice tan before I head back to Skerries for Christmas. We are having a quiz at the conference so if anyone has quiz questions(Dad has already sent me a lot but more are welcome) they can email themto me at mccarthyorla@eircom.net they will be much appreciated.
On Wedneday we made the horrible 8 hour trip back to Dessie in a minibus. The worst part of the journey is that you begin at 4 am and it is freezing and bumpy for the first four hours and then roasting for the next three hours. This time we met some other Aid workers who were coming to Dessie to work with the leprosy sufferers. One of them was a Christian missionary and had made double the amount of sandwiches he needed just in case he met anyone else hungry on the journey so Steve and I happily took a few off his hands.
Last Saturday we went to Steve's house for a Kenyan lunch he cooked for us. There are five or six Ethiopian women coming to lunch too who nearly died of shock to see a man cooking. On Tuesday Lukuli from the World Food Programme called in with a newmember of staff a Gambian lady who had just come from working in Darfur and was rather distressed at being in Dessie which doesn't say much for Dessie, but I suppose in Darfur there is probably a huge community of international aid workers and in Dessie well there are now five of us -including her. It was really really cold in Dessie this week.
One day it was cold and misty with a light rain and it felt just like Ireland. Only in Ireland there is central heating and here there isn't. If you can imagine working in a building made of concrete blocks with a corrugated ironroof and the weather being maybe 13 degress or so and there are noheaters - it becomes very difficult to type. Thankfully it has become warmer this weekend. Dessie is in a small valley at the top of some very high mountains so if there is no cloud cover it is really cold then if there is cloud cover it is somewhat bearable. So while I am suffering in the cold at this end of the continent, I am presuming my Aunt Gay is now basking in the heat at the other end of the continent.
On Tuesday we will begin training teachers in rural areas. I am lookingforward to it despite the fact that we will have to get up at 5 am toreach these areas and probably bounce along mud tracks to actually find the schools. It will be a total contrast from having worked in the town schools, where things are not so bad. The areas where we will be working suffer from chronic food shortages so I imagine the problems facing the teachers will be many. In some ways I feel like I will be adding to their problems coming along and telling them that they have to do continuous professional development and change their teaching methods to include active learning, group work, problem solving etc and there theywill be with their 100 odd students all sitting on pieces of wood or on the floor in a mud hut, but I suppose unless the children are educated to think creatively and to problem solve the community will not develop and it has been achieved in other places and can be achieved here, but I envisage an uphill struggle persuading them to change, but we will see.Sometimes I also wonder in the future will the trace the emergence of ADHD and other modern day problems back to the time when they reformed their teaching methods and introduced active learning into the classroom!
Next weekend I will be heading to Addis Ababa for some meetings so looking forward to having a normal weekend. Weekends in Dessie are incredibly tedious and boring. Last night the electricity went so I litsome candles but there wasn't enough light to read by and there was no electricity so I couldn't use my lap top and I couldn't plug in the heater, so I just sat on the chair under my sleeping bag thinking what away to spend a Saturday night! Luckily the electricity came back eventually.
They are building a five storey shopping centre in Dessie in the main square with a cinema - this is very exciting however I may have left Dessie by the time it opens, but still for the people that will still be here it must be exciting. I was just telling Addis and she has never been in a cinema so is very excited now even if it may be a year till it actually opens.
Anyway I think that is all the news for now,
Take care,
Orla

Solomon our driver died, RIP

Solomon one of the college drivers died today, that brings the death toll of our colleagues for this year (since September) up to two. He had been sick on and off for some time, but nobody knows with what.

We developed an English workbook for the kindergarten and a big Alphabet book to accompany it, drawing the pictures for this book has been the bane of my life this week and I still have four or five more to do!

We now have the internet in our office which has made our office very popular with members of our colleagues' families. One of our colleague's sons has just graduated with a degree in Applied Maths and Computer Science, however he couldn't figure out how to switch the computer on or how to turn on the printer and without realising that he had disconnected the switch for the server, it makes you wonder did he actually ever get within ten feet of a computer during his degree.

This week on Wednesday we have three other volunteers coming to visit; Nigel who is doing research into valuing teachers, Liza who is trying to database Non-Formal Education and Julian who is an IT volunteer in Debra Birhan so it will be full house and they will stay till Saturday. Then as well as them Emma another volunteer from Asossa who is a democratization advisor is coming with her friend and her mother on
Thursday so there will be loads of us around. I wish visitors could spread themselves out so we would have something to look forward to each week rather than all coming together but Murphy's Law!

At the moment we are trying to figure out when Ied will be. Ied is the end of Ramadan and is a Muslim festival and a public holiday here. The Muslims only know it is Ied when the full moon appears in Mecca or something like that. So it could be Monday or it could be Tuesday we have to wait for the sound of singing from the mosque which will be hard to differentiate from the regular singing which comes every evening from the churches and mosques. We have workshops this week in the college so we don't want to think it is Ied and not turn up and leave all the participants sitting there waiting.

Today we had Steve, Addis and Addis' sister for lunch. We cooked a feast of roasted vegetables, Moroccan beef, garlic bread, crème caramel, and chocolate cake. It all went well even though our oven threatened to blow up in the middle of it all, but we caught it just as the plug started to melt. It is a far cry from when we use to have to just cook on the kerosene stove and the very damaged electric ring!

I bought a new pillow yesterday a foreign pillow as I am sick of my Ethiopian foam one which no matter what I do ends up like a big ridge and my head is about 20 cm off the bed when I sleep. I bargained the new pillow down to 50 birr (€ 4.50); Jill had seen them in Addis for 130 birr so I really thought I got a bargain. It is like a pillow at home, when I told Addis she had to see it and bring her sister to see it, as she
couldn't imagine a pillow costing so much.

Addis has a new mobile now and although she is still fighting with telecommunications for a sim card. One of the lecturers in college has given here a long-term loan of a sim card he had so for the moment she is happy.

So that is all the news from here, I hope you all have a good week.

Ciao Orla

Hey, We have Two New Cars

On Monday the ten day meeting which all the college teachers had been attending finally came to an end and we all had a big dinner in one of the restaurants in town to celebrate the start of the new college term, as usually we had to sit at the top table and not at the table in the corner with all the other women!

The college now has two new cars, these cars can fit twelve people each, that are like huge land rovers with benches in the back. So we and a lot of other people got a lift home in one of these. This means that the college now has five cars and will shortly have a bus, but only three drivers and one of them is sick so really only two drivers so hopefully soon they will employ some more drivers to go with the new fleet. Having more vehicles should also mean that we can work in rural areas more, which is the plan for this year.

The week after next one of the other volunteers; Nigel is coming to visit. He is carrying out a research project for VSO. VSO have a global campaign to have teachers valued more and the research is part of it. We had a very good example of how teaching is the career to go into if there is nothing else this week. Our old Amharic teacher called to the house to tell us his son had pretty much failed his leaving cert so the only hope now was that he would get into the teacher training college, which he successfully did. The son doesn't want to be a teacher at all in fact wasn't even bothered to register himself so his father went and registered for him. When you think of all the 6th year students in Ireland studying all day and night to get enough points to get into a teacher training college!

Today we went to Addis' (a young colleague's) house for lunch she had been preparing it since yesterday. She made Doro wot which is a very complicated and delicious chicken stew which you have for special occasions. Her sister has come to live with her and to study in Dessie. Addis lives in one room about the size of a small car and now will share this with her sister, it must be odd as they have never lived together before as one of them lived at home and the other lived with her granny.

Then we went into to town to see if Addis had been successful in getting a sim card, in Ethiopia the only mobile phone service is run by the government. Each town has a different number and it costs more to ring outside the town that your number is from. So I have an Addis Ababa sim card and I can call anyone else with an Addis Ababa sim card for 20 cent a minute but it is 50 cent a minute if I call someone with a sim card from another town. There is no text messaging allowed for the last year as people were texting to organise political demonstrations so the government banned text messaging and there is no voice mail so all the mobile can do is make calls and even that is with difficulty as the network is nearly always busy.
So Addis registered for a mobile sim card in Dessie about three months ago and today was the big day where they were going to put up the names of the lucky people allowed to buy a sim card today. So outside Telecommunications on a board they had stuck up 500 names in no order and you had to try and find your name and then you could go in and buy a sim card if your name was there. Unfortunately for Addis her name wasn't there and as today was for buying only she would have to return on Monday to find out why. She spent the rest of the day complaining about the man who she had registered with the funniest threat she made towards him was that when she had her own car, if she sees him and even if he looks really tired she won't give him a lift! So he better watch out!
The rainy season seems to be coming to an end (I hope I am not speaking too soon) it is only raining a little bit on the odd night here and there. I swapped my DVD collection with Susan (another Irish volunteer) so I am working my way through her DVD collection now. I have watched three series of Sex in the City and feel like I have had a vacation in New York and feel pretty lucky to be living a simple life in Africa instead!

Francis moved from Dessie to Gambella a few months ago and left a rug and picture for me, which I received from his friend this week. The rug takes up about half my sitting room and the picture is very large too and they look really nice in the sitting room and make the place much more cosy and home like, this combined with fridge, water heater, oven and electric heaters makes my life much improved on what it was last year.

It is hard to get used to the routine of life here again after travelling and being in Addis for so long. Here I get up about 7am have a shower and breakfast go to work come home for lunch go back to work, then come home from work around 5:30pm or so. Then I have a cup of tea and read a book, after a while make some dinner and then watch a DVD and go to bed about 9:30pm. So it is a very quiet life. I am trying to savour the calmness and quietness of life here as I suspect I will never experience it again, even if it does have some very boring moments particularly in the evenings.

Time flies by though and sometimes I am scared by how little time I have left. I know from last year that from about Easter onwards it is very difficult to get work done so the next 6 months are really it for getting projects completed and ensuring that the cluster work will be sustainable after we go. I think it will be, as long as our colleagues stay but Aragesh told me the other day that when she gets her degree she would like to work for an NGO, and I can't blame her, the pay would be better and the status and she would be very capable, so we need to make a long term plan so the work will continue. All schools have been ordered to model themselves on Dessie and Kombolcha now, which is all very good but the schools in Dessie took a lot of work for many years to reach where they are so I am not sure the ministry are prepared to support all schools in reaching the standards here, but then at least it has been shown to be possible to reach the standard here and at least the government won't have the excuse that it can't be done.

Well I think that is all the news for this week, I will post again soon.

Ciao,

Orla

Back in Dessie again

Hi
Well I am back in Dessie now ready to start the new academic year but there are not many other people ready to start with me! All the staff are at a ten day meeting about continuous professional development. Four of our supervisors were selected to give this lecture region wide in all the colleges of education – this is a big thing for our supervisors who use to be regular primary school teachers and they are now giving training to the college lecturers!

My shower has now been fitted with a water heater so I now have hot water in my part of the house at last; it is a great luxury to be able to have a shower whenever I want.

I was in Addis for the last few weeks helping with the orientation of the new volunteers. They all seem very nice for the first few days they asked me endless questions about everything in Ethiopia which was very tiring but after that they all settled down and turned out to be a really great bunch.

Gillian my house mate had a bus accident a few weeks ago and broke her collar bone so as a result we got a lift back to Dessie in the VSO car which was very nice instead of the bus. I also had a terribly long bus journey up to Addis it took 12 hours as opposed to the regular 8 hours and during the journey we got a puncture and the radiator over heated and to top it all off if the bus was in third gear it stopped moving so we had to drive in second gear apart from down hills where he could quickly shift into fourth gear, but at least I got there in one piece. Gillian is fine now thank God.

We are now planning how to spend the funds raised. Last year we got a donation of 11,000 books from the British council, they were all the same book – The Magic Stick and we found because schools got about 70 of the same book they were actually willing to put them in the classrooms and let the children read them as opposed to when they get one or two copies of a book and they just put it away in the library never to be touched again! So we are now planning to produce a book for all the schools here so we are hoping in the next few weeks to run a story competition with the schools to select stories to go in the book. So thank you to people who raised money this is one of a few projects we hope to be able to complete with these funds.

The Dean of our college has been appointed the Vice President of the new University which is to open next October in Dessie (it isn’t yet built!) so we will be getting a new boss, hopefully one of the Vice Deans will be promoted.

So hopefully I will be able to write more regularly now that I am back in Dessie.
Take care
Ciao
Orla

Kidnapping in South Ethiopia

Hi to everyone who has phoned, texted and Emailed enquiring about Orla’s safety in Ethiopia. We telephoned Orla and she is safe and well. Ethiopia is such a big country that anything happening in the South of the country might as well be happening on another planet. Obviously our thoughts are with Donal O'Suilleabháin and his family at this time. Many thanks for your concern.
Ray