{"id":113,"date":"2014-01-01T16:52:31","date_gmt":"2014-01-01T16:52:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mjsilver.co.uk\/blog\/?p=113"},"modified":"2014-01-01T16:52:31","modified_gmt":"2014-01-01T16:52:31","slug":"a-christmas-blog-part-3-all-is-quiet-on-new-years-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mjsilver.co.uk\/blog\/2014\/01\/a-christmas-blog-part-3-all-is-quiet-on-new-years-day\/","title":{"rendered":"A Christmas Blog Part 3 – All is quiet on New Year’s Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

New Year, like Christmas, is celebrated at a different time here in Ethiopia.\u00a0 Unlike Christmas, the wait for the New Year revelries is longer than two weeks.\u00a0 New Year won\u2019t be celebrated until 11th<\/sup> September making me, by Ethiopian terms, almost a New Year\u2019s Day baby!<\/p>\n

So for me today was just another normal day at work, except, like Christmas busier than most and without the excitement of a student uproar.\u00a0 In fact today I may have been even busier than at Christmas with three ICT classes thrust upon me in addition to the observations, feedbacks and preparation for the HDP course, which I found out today probably won\u2019t happen tomorrow because some of the trainees are out observing lessons in schools and the teachers from my programme need to be with them at the same time.<\/p>\n

Now personally I don\u2019t mind when the HDP classes happen, but with Genna (Ethiopian Christmas) approaching it is likely that several staff will be off to see families for next week, and will probably have left by Friday afternoon- the most likely time to have the HDP course.\u00a0 This then has a knock on effect down the line as to when we finish.\u00a0 Again this doesn\u2019t bother me \u2013 I am happy to roll through with the programme until the end of July, but I know that most of the staff would like to go and see their families from early to mid-June.\u00a0 What I would appreciate is some help from the course participants in making sure that they get to do this.<\/p>\n

However, as we sit down for an hour long chat or an evening coffee at the local buna-bet (coffee house) they frequently tell me how busy they are and how they don\u2019t have time to do the HDP.\u00a0 I sigh as I consider how nice it would have been to only have to teach 12-15, fifty minute lessons a week rather than the 25 or 26 I had back in the UK.\u00a0 But of course I am forgetting all the other things they have to do here \u2013 (irony alert) thank goodness that isn\u2019t the case in the UK.\u00a0 In their defence, however, they do have to attend a lot of meetings here at the college- several a week and often on Saturdays and Sundays.\u00a0 I would love to hear the reaction of some of my UK colleagues to that!\u00a0 Sometimes I am expected to attend.\u00a0 This is probably the greatest challenge I have faced here.\u00a0 I always struggled to look interested at meetings when they were in English and lasted an hour, imagine what I am going through here where the meetings are in Afan Oromo (the local language) and can last the whole day.\u00a0 If I deserve a medal for anything, it\u2019s this!<\/p>\n

An update on the \u201cstudent situation\u201d it turns out that the guns were connected to this event after all and they haven\u2019t been seen since.\u00a0 Boxing Day, was another normal, but not normal, day at work, with a meeting lasting most of the morning and featuring pretty much all of the students.\u00a0 Some of the clever ones turned up about half-way through.\u00a0 All manner of officials from the local and zonal (county) education offices were in attendance.\u00a0 Even in a foreign language the politicians stood out a mile \u2013 oozing smarm.<\/p>\n

Friday afternoon is club day at the college.\u00a0 The week before last I attended the English club \u2013 about a third of the students seem to be members.\u00a0 It\u2019s quite a crowd.\u00a0 Last Friday, however they all seemed to be out tending the grounds sharing a limited number of tools.\u00a0 I mused on the fact that two days after the college had felt the need to have the gate guards armed with assault rifles they were handing out machetes to the students!\u00a0 Watching them in action it was amazing that nobody got hurt (by accident) and they seemed to be enjoying themselves for the most part.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think it was planned this way, but it might just have been what the college needed to calm the tension of earlier in the week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New Year, like Christmas, is celebrated at a different time here in Ethiopia.\u00a0 Unlike Christmas, the wait for the New Year revelries is longer than two weeks.\u00a0 New Year won\u2019t be celebrated until 11th September making me, by Ethiopian terms, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[9,11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mjsilver.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mjsilver.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mjsilver.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mjsilver.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mjsilver.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.mjsilver.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":114,"href":"https:\/\/www.mjsilver.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113\/revisions\/114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mjsilver.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mjsilver.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mjsilver.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}