Water, Gas, Electricity

In the college compound there was no running water for five days last week. Needless to say it is very difficult to do anything without water. I was going every day to collect some in a bucket for my house, because luckily there was a tap that was working not too far away from my house – but far enough! The water in the college compound comes from a well, but the tap that we collected water from has its source elsewhere which is why it worked. We were all very grateful that we had this otherwise we would have had to go further to collect water.

It was the first time that I was living without running water in my house for such a long period of time. Normally the water here is good – although we don’t have water from about 11pm to 7am during the night every day and we frequently have no water, it’s only for a few hours during the day time, so it’s okay to manage. Our well pump was broken, but luckily we now have water as the problem has been fixed.

Also, I now have gas! As you will have seen from the pictures of my house in October, I have a cooker in my kitchen. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to use it for the past four months since I’ve been here, as I haven’t had gas. Finally one of the drivers at the college took my cylinder to be filled yesterday and so I can now use my cooker! I had been using a one ring electrical stove, which was extremely time consuming and slow. Also, now whenever we have no electricity, I’ll still be able to cook!

And funnily enough I have no electricity at the moment! The problem has been on-going for the past six days. So I have water, I have gas, but no electricity. It’s frustrating to say the least. And the most annoying thing is that it’s just in my house, as there is some kind of wiring problem. I am waiting for it to be fixed, but have no idea how long it will take. But at least I can still cook on my gas cooker. And I can heat up water for bucket baths.

Lalibela

For Ethiopian Christmas, or Genna as it’s called here, which was on Saturday 7^th January, I went to Lalibela with Maeve and an Ethiopian friend of ours, Mahalnesh. Mahalnesh’s birthplace is Lalibela and so she wanted to spend Genna with her mother and sister who are still living there.  


Lalibela is a town 600km north of Addis. Although it is possible to get a flight to Lalibela from Addis, we travelled by bus. It’s cheaper and you get to see all the different places you go through. It was my first really long journey in Ethiopia. Previously I had only travelled by bus from Debre Birhan to Addis and back. It was about a two and a half hour journey which was reasonably comfortable with a few toilet breaks in fields on the way.

For Lalibela we started our journey on Thursday at lunch time. From Debre Birhan we travelled to Dessie which took about seven or eight hours. We then stopped for the night in a cheap hotel in Dessie (where I got bitten by fleas in my bed) and continued on another bus at 5am the next day to Lalibela.

The journey was extremely interesting. As you travel thought different towns and villages you see just how diverse Ethiopia is. You travel just an hour or two from Debre Birhan and everything is different -
the weather, the people’s clothes, animals, houses and crops.

Inside the minibus as many people as possible are crammed. There were at least twice as many people as there should have been on it. People are crammed in on the available seats, they even sit on tiny stools that are placed in the walkway down the vehicle, and others stand. I'm still not sure why there were so many people on the busses this time– either they do this all the time, or Genna is a busy time and they try to make as much money as they can in this period.

This does not mean that there aren’t any laws about numbers of people on vehicles, there are. And there were even traffic police on the way who inspect vehicles. So how did we get past them? Well, the driver knew where they were, so before they saw us he ordered all the extra people to get off the bus and walk past the police. We got inspected with the correct number of people and were told we could continue. Then after some distance, clear of the police, the bus stopped and waited for the people who walked and got on the bus again. Simple! 

Anyway we got to Lalibela completely exhausted. We visited Mahalnesh’s family which was lovely. Her mother and sister were so welcoming. Her mother is the sweetest old lady who was convinced I was Ethiopian and wouldn’t accept otherwise. The minute she saw me, she said (in Amharic) ‘Oh this is so-and-so’s daughter!’ Mahalnesh told her no, that I was a ‘ferenji’ and that my name is Fatuma. (All Ethiopians call me Fatuma.) So her mum said ‘Yes, Fatuma, her name is Fatuma, she lives in Dessie’. It was so funny. Anyway after some time we convinced her that I wasn’t Ethiopian, but every so often I’d catch her looking at me thinking ‘really?’.  

The town itself is really pretty with mountains, winding roads and beautiful traditional houses. I visited the famous rock hewn churches and climbed one of the mountains from which the views were amazing.

We started our journey back home on Tuesday. We had to wake up at the ungodly hour of 3.45am to get the bus on time! I arrived back home on Thursday afternoon.

Getting Things Done

We had our first Film Night which was a success. We showed a documentary about the Danakil Depression in Ethiopia. We had over forty students which was lucky because that is the maximum capacity of the ELIC. The aim of the Film Night is to show a different film, documentary or TV show every week and have a short discussion after it. We want the students to be able to improve their English speaking and listening skills in an informal environment whilst enjoying themselves, as most of the students here think they are learning English only if they are learning grammar from a textbook. We will continue this as a weekly programme and are hoping that the number of students will increase.


We also successfully held a Gender Club Welcome Ceremony last week. It was a conference to introduce the Gender Club to first year female students and to introduce some of the activities that are going to be held between now and June. The agenda at the Gender Club Welcome Ceremony included the following: an introduction from the Vice Dean, a talk from the Regional Educational Bureau on Justice in Ethiopia and people’s rights, a presentation by one of the teacher trainers on his action research on Sexual Harassment in the college, and an outline of the purpose of the Gender Club and upcoming activities.


We wanted to do this Welcome ceremony much earlier – in November or December, but for various reasons we just couldn’t.  Organising anything in Ethiopia is such a challenge! However, we had a lot of support from the staff who took part in the ceremony which was great.


Some of the other activities we are hoping to do are a skills share between males and females – so the females will teach the males how to cook a simple ‘watt’ and the males will teach females football skills. We are hoping that this will enable those who take part to break gender stereotypes and try new skills which they normally wouldn’t.  Another planned activity is a HIV/AIDS and Safe Sex workshop with speakers from the local hospital. We also have a tutorial scheme planned where third year students tutor low achieving first year students. In addition, we have a conference organised for International Women’s Day in March. Altogether there are about eight events/activities planned. It was great to organise the event from the beginning and finally carry it out.


On the downside I still haven’t started the English Language Improvement Programme classes for the trainers at the college, which is very disappointing. The college is being very slow with getting this going. Nevertheless I have decided that I will hold speaking and listening English classes for the cleaners and the administrative staff who have very little English. Fingers crossed this will be a little easier to get off the ground!


Also I have a friend who teaches at a local preparatory school who asked me to come to her English class and teach intonation. It was a lovely experience and the students were great as they always are in Ethiopia. I have been to quite a few local schools before to see classes and observe teachers. For me it’s always been such a positive experience and so I’m hoping to do more of it.