Three months in Ethiopia

I have now been in Ethiopia for three months. The time has gone so quickly! 

My classes at the college are going well (I think!) and trainers at the college are keen to work with me which is great. The classes for trainers still haven’t started yet, but I keep getting assured that they will soon.

I have been advertising the ELIC (-that's English Language Improvement Centre for those that haven't been paying attention-) at the college, as the aim is to make it a welcoming centre for everyone to use when classes aren’t taking place in it. At the moment it is not being used by anyone except for classes; however we want students and teachers to be able to come in and use the centre to improve their English. We want them to come in to read English newspapers and books, or watch English television, or listen to English language cassettes, or even just talk in English. In order to do this, we have arranged certain opening hours and are in the process of organising different clubs for the students. The first club to be up and running will be the Film Club. Every Friday evening we will show an English film or documentary after which we will have a short discussion.

Below are picture of the ELIC:

How is my Amharic? Well to be honest I am impressed with myself! I have learnt far more than I ever thought I would before I came here. I learnt French and German at secondary school and hated it. But I have been having Amharic language lessons for the past four weeks now and to my surprise I really enjoy them. The teacher is also teaching us how to read and write Amharic which is a lot of fun.
From the beginning VSO emphasise the necessity of learning the local language - not only to function for shopping and going to the doctor etc., but to engage with the society we are living in, because without engaging with all parts of society one cannot make meaningful change.

The nights are very cold now, but in the daytime it’s still hot. I have just had the grass in my garden cut, so every day I sit out in the sun and watch the birds or the cloudless sky. Bliss. At night I have started to wear my fluffy nightgown to sleep, plus three blankets which is not so blissful!

As it is difficult to get much exercise here apart from walking, Maeve (the other VSO volunteer) and I have decided to run two mornings a week. We run at 8am before classes start on Wednesdays and Saturdays in the college sports field. The only problem is that every time we go, students gather to watch the funny ‘ferengis’ running for no reason. But I'm determined to become a good runner and running at such high altitude is very good for training.

Trying to be Positive

In my blog you may have noticed that I have decided to concentrate on the positives – for the most part anyway - except maybe today. I could easily spend all my time and energy dwelling on all that is negative here but I try not to. I don’t think I’d be able to survive very long here if I did. I keep focusing on the fact that I am here to do a job and I must use all my energy on doing the best I can.

In truth, as you might expect, there is a lot to be negative about here. There is the dire poverty that most people live in – some have just enough to eat, others do not. I feel like people live completely on the edge here, one of the reasons being that there are no emergency services. So if anything happens you are on your own. Maybe those around you will help if they can. And there are no safety nets here like social services, so if you have a job and you lose it, you won’t be able to pay your rent and will therefore end up homeless very quickly.

I have seen and heard things here that are truly disturbing. For example, the number of beggars on the street – homeless women and small children, even a completely naked woman I have seen a few times in the middle of the road howling. I have no idea how they survive the freezing nights here. There are also an unusually high number of deaths I hear of around me. And the treatment of women - the fact that about 80% of girls have been genitally mutilated in Ethiopia.  The horrendous things I hear that the men have done to women here – one friend of mines husband’s niece had her eyes gouged out of her face with a knife by her husband because she wanted to leave him.

The harsh realities of life are all too obvious. People here have to work so hard for so little. Even the teachers at my college work about 10-12 hours a day including weekends – and that includes the dean of the college. There is no such thing here as free time, or leisure activities or relaxing. Most of those that can afford to, eat the same food every day for every meal. Even fruit is a complete luxury for those that can afford it. And most people do not have running water in their houses.

A seventeen year old girl I know recently said to me that it is a good thing here if a pregnant woman falls and her baby dies as it would be very lucky. When I asked her why, she said because dying would be better than living in these conditions.

It seems so unjust that there are those that are so lucky in world and those that aren’t – no matter how hard they work or how good they are.