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.

The Great Ethiopian Run

Last Sunday it was the Great Ethiopian Run. The 10km run which is organised by an NGO has been taking place in Addis every year for the past 10 years.

I went to Addis on Saturday evening to take part in the run. I woke up very early on Sunday morning to get to a place called Meskel Square where the run was to start at 9am.

There was a fantastic atmosphere in Meskel Square with so many people – about 36000 -  wearing the official red t-shirts. People were playing music, dancing, warming up, chatting to others. It was great! The serious runners started first to avoid the crowds, then the masses were allowed to start. I ran with fellow VSO volunteers. Okay, we ran and walked. Through the streets people were watching, playing music, encouraging the runners, selling drinks and sweets, dancing and some were spraying water on the runners to cool them down. It was like a big celebration, and the atmosphere was brilliant with people simply having fun.

After the run I met up with some of the other VSO volunteers who I was with in Addis for my In-Country Training when I first came to Ethiopia. (Most of them had also come to Addis for the run.) It was lovely to catch up with them and find out how they are getting on in their placements. It was also nice to know that I’m not the only one who has suffered with mice in my house.

Happy Birthday

On Monday the 14^th of November it was my 21^st birthday. Unfortunately it wasn’t a national holiday so we decided to celebrate it on the Sunday.

Sunday, like most days here, was a beautiful, sunny day without a single cloud in the sky. About fifteen of us set for a walk towards the gorge. We thought we’d find a shaded spot and have our picnic that we'd packed, however we couldn’t find any shade and we all became very tired quite quickly. The first spot of shade we saw was actually a small building site in front of the gorge. By that time we were too hungry and tired to find a more scenic spot so we just sat down and ate. We had a beautiful view of the gorge but in most of the pictures you can just see the building site.

My fellow volunteer, Maeve, and I had made a cake the day before – a fruit cake. We were going to make a chocolate cake but because it is a fasting period at the moment for Orthodox Christians and it would have required both eggs and milk, we didn’t. We don’t have an oven so we had to bake it in a special bread oven that Ethiopians use. It doesn’t have any heat settings except on/off. Consequently the cake was a little burnt around the edges and a little raw in the middle, but it tasted good. I even had candles to blow out!

It was a lovely day even though, on the way home, I stepped ankle deep in a huge puddle of mud covered with dry hay. (A mixture of hay, water and mud is used to make the walls on buildings.) I had to walk back home with a muddy leg. It was hilarious!

My Work

I will be working at Debre Birhan College of Teacher Education where they train primary school teachers. My official title is English Language Improvement Programme Coordinator (which is the longest title I've ever had). In my “centre” - which is actually just a little room - I will provide English language training and teaching methodology training. This is part of a nationwide initiative to improve English in schools and move educators away from text books and teacher-centred approaches. I will have classes for the trainees who are training to become teachers, as well as the trainers at the college.

The Ethiopian education system has 12 grades. From grades 1-6 children are taught in the local language (which differs from region to region) except the subject of English. Then after grade 6 all subjects are taught in English. The problem is that a lot of Ethiopian teachers are not confident with their English so they find it very difficult to teach in English and teach English itself.

In addition to teaching English and methodology, I also have two other roles at the college. I am going to be working to produce teaching and learning materials, especially reading materials, which will then be distributed to all the surrounding schools.

I will also be involved with the Gender Club at the college. In Ethiopia females experience severe gender inequality and so the Gender Club aims to improve the confidence of female trainees and empower them to break gender stereotypes. So far I have managed to get my proposal for the several events planned for the coming year approved by VSO, and have thereby secured some funding for them which will be great.

In my English and methodology classes I will have 40 students - which is a lot more than I'm used to. I’m looking forward to teaching the trainees, but I’m really quite nervous about teaching the trainers. However, the good thing is that they are all extremely keen to improve their English and have told me how much they are looking forward to my classes. I’m not entirely sure where to start as I don’t have any information about them except that they are all majoring in the Natural Sciences (i.e. Biology, Chemistry and Physics) so it’s going to be interesting!

The pictures, taken from my kitchen window, show some of the buildings of the college. As you can see I don’t have to travel very far in the mornings.

 

Eid Mubarak

Yesterday was Eid-ul-Adha or Eid-ul-Arafa as they say here. I knew that this would be the day that I miss my family and I was dreading spending it alone. However I needn’t have worried as I was surrounded by friends all day.

First I went to the mosque for Eid prayers with one of the teachers in my compound. It was great to see so many Muslims at the mosque as they are definitely a minority in Debre Birhan (The vast majority of people here are Orthodox Christian).

Then straight after, I was invited to a friend’s house. I wasn’t sure what to expect when I went to her house as she doesn’t speak much English and my Amharic isn’t good enough to have a conversation yet. But all was well as her husband and children’s English was very good. They were all welcoming and I really enjoyed my time at her house. But it did feel like I was being fed constantly for the six or seven hours I was at her house! It was the first time I ate meat in Ethiopia as I there aren’t any Halal butchers in Debre Birhan and I don’t fancy buying a live sheep (which is what everyone else does). I was able to try dorro wat, which is a traditional dish that Muslims and Christians make on special days, to be eaten, as always, with injera. It was very nice.

After that I went to another friend’s house for a coffee ceremony and then I visited a fellow volunteer who was also celebrating Eid. In the evening I went to another friend’s house. Overall, it was a great day even though I missed my family.

(I'm sorry that there aren’t any pictures this time. I did take my camera to the mosque but ended up being too scared to take a picture.)

Mice, Cats and Fleas

I have now been in my placement for over a month and already there have been many highs as well as lows. Last week was my lowest point so far I think. I had mice in my house! They were everywhere – in my kitchen, in my bedroom, everywhere. And what annoyed me was that they didn’t care that I could see them running around. They didn’t try to move around in the dark so I could see then running around all day and night! They just ran diagonally across the room in front of me! A couple of times one of the mice even stopped to have a look at me.

We put down different types of poison and a trap but the mice were too clever and didn’t touch them. I was getting more and more stressed and couldn’t sleep after my kind neighbour tried to comfort me by telling me that last year he was killing three mice a day – some in his bed!! I killed one mouse with a broom, but the others were just too quick.

The last resort was to bring in a cat. I was a bit uncertain about this idea as it would be a disease ridden stray cat, not a pet (as no one has pets here) and I was scared of fleas (-I have enough of those already-) plus Typhus, Rabies etc.

While I was weighing up the pros and cons of having a cat, I heard a knock on my door. It was my friend holding a cat by the scruff of its neck. Next thing I knew she threw the cat in my house and went. I was terrified! The cat frantically tried to find a way out of my house. It was equally terrified of being locked in a house as it normally roams free. It was crying to be let out and I was going to open the door, but then I thought about how nice it would be actually fall asleep at night. So the cat stayed and mostly cried at the windows or hid behind the sofa. I felt very cruel. I told my friends that I felt sorry for the cat but they said that the more the cat cries, the more scared the mice will be. Anyway the cat stayed for two days and then it escaped when the door opened.

But so far so good. I haven’t seen any mice for a few days. I just hope they don’t come back. I had to do some extreme cleaning with Dettol after that.

Needless to say, I’m sleeping much better now, but I keep getting bitten by fleas now! I can’t blame this problem solely on the cat as there are always fleas – from the grass, from farm animals, from other people’s houses and so on. They get into the seams of your clothes and then bite you several times in the same area. EVERYWHERE! Everyone here gets bitten by them frequently, but Ethiopians don’t have the same reaction as ‘ferengis’. They say they feel a mild irritation but mine swell up and itch for weeks. At least there are no malarial mosquitos though. I think the only thing I can get from the fleas is Typhus which doesn’t sound so great, but better than Malaria I’m sure.

For those of you that think I’m on holiday, I’m not. I have been working! I’ve had several meetings and am arranging a programme for the different things I will do. I’m really excited and slightly scared. I will explain what my work will be next time.

So what have I been up to?

Well I am getting to know the town more and more. I’ve been on two long, beautiful walks - to the gorge and to the river. I can see the gorge in the distance through my bedroom window, but I didn’t really know what to expect. The walk itself was wonderful as we went through lovely fields. But when we got to the gorge it was stunning, so peaceful and so perfect.

The river I went to today is also beautiful and it’s just around the corner from my house. We went along the river for some distance when we spotted a farmer waving a stick at us on the hills above. We stopped and it turned out that he was telling us to go no further. Luckily we had an Ethiopian friend with us so she was able to explain that we were just there to look at the river and nothing else. But still he was insistent that we turn back. So she asked him why and he replied that there were creatures there that would harm us. We didn’t believe him, but turned back nonetheless as we were afraid of the stick he was waving more than anything else!

A note on Ethiopian time:

Ethiopians use the ancient Coptic calendar (unlike in the UK where we use the Gregorian calendar). It includes twelve 30-day months and a 13th month of five days (six days in leap years). This means they are in the first month of the year 2004 currently. Actually the first day I arrived in Ethiopia was new years day here.

Ethiopians also use a 12-hour clock (rather than a 24 hour clock like we do) with one cycle of 1 to 12 from dawn to dusk, and the other cycle from dusk to dawn. The start of the day is 6 o’clock in the morning, rather than midnight. This means that you need to specify whether you are talking about daytime or night time as there is no am/pm.

(Are you still with me?)

Therefore, 7am would be 1 o’clock in daylight hours in local Ethiopian time. Basically you just add or subtract 6 hours to work out the time. This is called Habesha time.

When foreigners make appointments or any kind of arrangements including the time it is vital to know whether you are talking about ‘Ferengi’ (foreigner) time or ‘Habesha’ (Ethiopian) time. When I make an appointment to go for a walk with my Ethiopian friends at 9 o’clock in the daytime it means 3pm for me. I think I’m getting used to it.…