A Christmas Blog – Part 2: A ‘typical’ day

I know I like to make you wait for my blog entries.  Let’s pretend it has something to do with building the anticipation and leave it at that.  However, on this occasion I feel the need to share, but a short time after the previous entry.

So much happens here that it is impossible to put it all down in a blog and don’t worry I will have forgotten most of it by the time I come back and shall hopefully avoid boring you with endless tales of Ethiopia (although it has been a truly amazing experience so far – see I’m getting it out of my system now).  Note I am not making any promises!

So Christmas day, by which I mean that celebrated in the Gregorian calendar and not the Julian one… Let’s keep it simple, the day that everyone else on the planet recognises as Christmas day started (as predicted yesterday) as a normal everyday day (hmm, can I fit “day” into this sentence a couple more times?) here in Adola.  It was bright and clear and I awoke at 6.45 having planned to be well awake and ready for the arrival of my new serategna at, as I anticipated, about 7.30.  In true Ethiopian style she didn’t arrive at that time; contrary to Ethiopian style she arrived at 6.50.  I coped.

For the first time since arriving in Ethiopia, I had injera for breakfast.  Injera is the local staple – sort of like their bread although it is a more a sort of thin spongy product, which I realise I am not selling as particularly appetizing.  However, at times it can be positively delicious and at others not so much there seem to be several factors involved in this which I won’t go into now (bet you can’t wait for the Blog all about the wonders of injera).

Now, the thing about injera is it’s incredibly filling- like nothing else I have known.  And there were two of these served up for my breakfast (along with a sauce called wot – no jokes please).  I managed to get through about 1 ½ and felt quite proud of myself.

I had a busy morning observing lessons from participants on the course I am running here.  They have four sessions in the morning and someone I managed to be observing in all of them.  Lunch time came around and I wasn’t really hungry – still full from breakfast.  However, my lunch had been prepared and so I tucked in, wisely only taking one piece of injera.  I managed to eat most of it, but subsequently felt extremely full.  Suddenly I realised that inadvertently I had managed to fulfil one Christmas activity – eating until you can’t move.  Perhaps I was getting into the Christmas spirit after all.

This evening I was expressing disbelief at how anyone could eat injera twice in one day, only to be cheerily informed by my colleagues that sometimes they eat it three times.  I told them they were crazy and refuse to believe it possible until I see it with my own eyes. I haven’t had dinner this evening – I probably won’t need to eat until sometime next week now.

Back at the office (usually a two minute walk, but took about ten) I gave some feedback for the morning’s observed classes and then headed at 4.30 to the ICT classes I had agreed to give.  Probably not a wise move, but somehow I have picked up the Ethiopian habit of never saying no things (don’t worry I will relearn by the time I am back in the UK).

Within a few moments of arriving I realised that something was missing, and something that was really rather essential to the successful delivery of the lesson – namely the students.  The local, who has been assigned to work with me on the ICT project, arrived shortly after and delivered the startling news: there was a protest by the students and they were refusing to attend classes.  Now there had been some issues about spaces available for the ICT classes and several students had missed out.  At first I thought this was the problem, but it transpired that the situation was much more serious – someone had written an inappropriate message in the toilets.  The police were summoned (seriously) and the students were demanding that the college find out “who dunnit?” There are over 600 students in the college and despite some attempts to match handwriting there has been no success.

By now my curiosity was piqued – what could possibly have caused such an uproar and involved so many students.  Initially I was only able to find out that it was some comment about the Guji Zone – the best way to describe this as the local ‘county’ where Adola is situated.  Applying my finely honed investigative skills I was able to discover an approximate translation of the phrase, which I won’t repeat here; my blog is not a toilet.

In Ethiopia I have been frequently been shocked at the way they refer to each other- they are quite happy to call each other “fat”, “gap-toothed” and other such personal comments that would be totally unacceptable today in the UK and some of which would be considered racist.  It has really taken some getting used to and I suppose that my surprise at the reaction to the graffiti was increased because of this.  Clearly the students from the Guji zone were the most offended, and because of the location of the college they make up a significant number of the students.  However, the response to the incident has probably actually given the rather stupid person who wrote the comment the fuss and attention he or she wanted.  In addition it seems a bit extreme to refuse to attend classes because of this as it only damages their own education (and I am not just talking about the ICT classes here – which incidentally they do really need since almost all of them have never even used a computer before – but also all the classes for the evening sessions and that’s just today).

I don’t envy the college management having to deal with this situation.  This evening, when heading out with some colleagues to a local coffee shop a large group of students were holding a meeting in a nearby field.  They were being watched over by several police officers and a contingent of soldiers.  As we passed the meeting broke up and they started making their way back to the college.  May companion suggested we cross to the other side of the road and as we did so I told him not to worry as he was with me and the students seem to like me!  Still VSO tell us to avoid such gatherings – not sure how I am going to do this since tomorrow they will be gathering on the campus and that’s where I live.

In unrelated news Father Christmas made a delivery to the guards at the gate.  As we went out I noticed that they had acquired semi-automatic rifles.  At first I thought this was in response to the “developing situation”, but was told that they had been waiting for them since the college opened 15 months ago and it was just by coincidence they had arrived today.  It made me think of the series ‘Dad’s Army’ and how they started out with a variety of home-made weapons until their rifles arrived.  Then I realised that was unfair; these guards are much older.  Funnily enough it’s actual made the campus seem less safe – still they seemed to be quite excited to have them; maybe that’s why!

A Christmas Blog – Part 1

‘Twas the night before Christmas when all through Adola

There wasn’t a sign that Christmas was here at all!

 

One of the pleasures of being in Ethiopia is that I have not been bombarded since sometime in October with Christmas music, and shops trying to sell me all kinds of rubbish for Christmas (they have plenty of rubbish to buy without needing a special occasion!).  One of the most impressive contrasts is the lack of advertising everywhere and the complete absence of supermarkets here in this rural town.

Ethiopians don’t like much to plan too far ahead (usually no more than 10 minutes or so) when I gave a class focussing on time-management, the listed most things they had to do as important and urgent!  This is probably true because everything gets left to the last minute so it becomes urgent.  However, I quite like the spontaneity of things here and once you get used to it and expect it, it is possible to cope with it – even if it does mean frequent last minute changes.  One of the benefits that came from this was a recent trip to Negele Borena, the main town of the Guji Zone (the area of Oromia Adola is in).  Friday mid-afternoon, the vice-dean walked into my office and asked if I wanted to join him on a weekend trip there where he was giving a workshop.  Naturally I accepted (after all it is considered very impolite to say “no” here!).  His main reason was for watching the Ethiopia match on the Saturday – he seems to like my company for this.   I think I have watched more football in the last 3 months than in the rest of my life- sometimes as many as 3 matches in one afternoon.  If I’m not an expert by the end of time here, it will have been time wasted!

While it was pleasant to visit a new place Negele was not the most exciting town in the world and had little more to offer than Adola and without the comforts at home.  Still the drive was beautiful and at times nerve-racking; the rains had made the unsealed sections of road a little challenging and seeing a bus sliding towards you, sideways down a muddy mountain road is quite an experience.  Fortunately it was dry for the return trip and seemed like a different road and I had been that little bit closer to the Somali border :).

Tomorrow is Christmas day, but I will be at work.  Don’t worry, this isn’t because the college is some Victorian institution run by an Ethiopian Ebenezer, nor is it because I am being more than usually “humbug” about the whole thing.  Rather it is because Ethiopia doesn’t celebrate Christmas on 25th December.  It is for them just a normal day in the week.  Here Christmas, called Genna, occurs on the 7th January and this is not to be confused with Epiphany, because they have a separate celebration for that on the 19th January, called Timkat.  And this is why this blog is just Part 1.  For several reasons I have decided I will celebrate along with the locals; mainly because as the lone foreigner it would be a little strange to be walking around singing jingle bells, but also because I am here to experience Ethiopia and so it seems more fitting to celebrate with them.

Actually for a brief period I did have a companion here in Adola, a volunteer from the Netherlands who had come to work at the hospital.  I guess this town was only big enough for the one of us and she made her way on to pastures new in less than a week.  I feel the need to defend the town here to say that it wasn’t a fault with the wonderful local people, or the beautiful setting, rather it was a problem with the accommodation with which she was provided.  Photos have made me appreciate all the more the place I have here on the college campus.

I have no idea what to expect from the Ethiopian celebration; certainly not turkey, mince pies and Christmas pudding.  However, it will be the differences that will make Christmas, or Genna, this year something rather special.

Lost in pronunciation

There is always a lot of fuss made about errors of translation, however pronunciation mistakes can also lead to some rather awkward moments.

Now I know it has been a while since the last post, but if you are good I’ll try and put another one up this weekend!

I have had a few problems with my serategna, mostly in terms of her not turning up when she is supposed to.  This came to a stressful point where I had to actually do my own laundry.  One evening after work I trotted across to the Vice-Dean’s house to borrow their bowl for washing laundry.  I was greeted by a “get in” and finally managed to extricate myself 3, well-fed, hours later.  By this point I felt that it was too late to start doing laundry.  The following morning I was up and ready to dig in to the delights of hand-washing laundry.

  • Bowl – ready
  • Soap – ready
  • Hot water – ready

…and in I went.  It didn’t seem too bad.  There was some splashing around and a certain degree of water spillage, but all in all I felt I was doing okay.  I’d got about half-way through when a knock on the door heralded the return of my serategna.  She immediately insisted that she would do it – after all this is what I am paying her for (as well as to not turn up half the time aparently).  I indicated the pile I had already done, rather proud of my efforts.   She took one look, shook her head and threw them back in to be done again with the others.

On a second occasion of absence I had started doing laundry again, determined this time I was getting it right and again she turned up half-way through.  I’ll leave it to your imagination what her feelings about my efforts were.

However, her irregularity led to my colleague, who had also hired her, to fire her and I was coming to the same conclusion, when she came to see me and quit.  So now I am once more without a serategna and deciding whether I should do it myself.  However, given the look of disdain I got for my efforts, maybe I’d better look for someone else!

And now my second tale for this blog entry.  The Dean at the college told me about an important meeting to discuss tourism in the Guji Zone (which is the area around Adola and Negele Borena) that was going to happen at the college on the coming Friday. I thought this was good thing, and starting to rack my brains for ways that tourism could be promoted around here.  Much as I like being the town foreigner, it would provide a useful source of income and there is certainly enough amazing countryside around here.

One of the great bonuses of this was the whole college got taken out to lunch and in the afternoon I was discussing with a couple of the staff here about the meeting.  We talked about areas where it was common- in the North (Tigray and Amhara I agreed- where a number of historic sites are), in Addis Ababa and I kindly added Hawassa.  I also went on effusively about how good it would be to have more in and around Adola – I have after all become quite attached to my home here.

The conversation progressed and to my horror the words “sharia law” were mentioned.  With a growing sense of dread I realised that the meeting was not about tourism, but rather about terrorism.  I can only hope that my colleagues misunderstood what I was saying and don’t now think I am a big advocate for terror in Adola…