The Strangest Thing...

I had a most bizarre experience on Saturday. My line manager within VSO sent me a text message which read, ‘no sorry that is without my knowledge’. Having not sent him a message previously I assumed that he must have texted me by mistake so I sent him a text to ask just that. A few minutes later he rang me. After the usual polite ‘how are you?’ etc I then asked him if he had meant to send that text to me. He said ‘ it was without my knowledge’. I then said, ‘yes, that is what the text message said... but did you mean to send it?’. He then repeated that it was without his knowledge and confused me further when he told me he didn’t have my number in his phone! After a few more confused exchanges I hung up the phone none the wiser! I am so confused! How did that happen?!

It is not rocket science...

During our ‘in country training’ (ICT) the director for ‘Save the Children’ Ethiopia gave us a talk about the development status of Ethiopia. During this talk he said about development, ‘It is not rocket science... IT IS MUCH MORE COMPLICATED THAN THAT!’ The longer I stay here the more I agree. It is a mine field out there... and no one knows how to sort it out. The thing that worries me the most is that many attempts to make life better here (i.e. to help Ethiopia develop) are actually making things worse. I’m not certain I can totally exclude myself from that category either, which I don’t like. I will now proceed to describe some of the development issues which have challenged me over the last 2 months. Obviously I am only able to give you my own understanding of these issues and in many cases I would love to be corrected as I find some of the stories I’ve heard quite depressing. Please don’t take to following ramblings as fact but instead share my frustration as I find I really don’t know the truth! And I don’t think anyone does!

   Before I came to Ethiopia I often thought of those who work for charities as kind caring individuals who put other people or issues before their own personal gain. Obviously people get a lot out of working for charity (myself included) but I always felt that the aim was at least to put more in than you take out and in particular that this applied in terms of money. I think (hope) this must still be true of most charity workers in the UK at least where I am sure their salaries are significantly lower than what they may get working elsewhere. However... this concept seems to be turned on its head in Ethiopia (and I am sure in most other developing countries).  The best paid jobs are with NGOs. Even a lowly receptionist for an NGO may earn 3 or 4 times as much as a well qualified university lecturer with a PHD or staff in the Ministry of Education. Often NGOs will pay local staff western salaries which, although this may put them in line with their counterparts in the UK, actually translates into mega bucks when you consider the much lower costs of living here. A friend of mine said he did some work with an NGO whilst completing his MA and after a week had earned as much as he might earn in a year as a lecturer.  In a complete role reversal it seems that those who go after jobs in NGOs are after money and those who stay in jobs in education or government are the ones who are willing to sacrifice financial gain for the greater good. I guess it is true in every country that education or politics are not the place to go to get lots of money, but it is shocking how much less they get than those working in NGOs. I guess on the plus side it could be argued that it is a good thing to pay these NGO workers large salaries as that money will then be pumped back into the local economy as these ‘rich’ workers have a huge purchasing power. It is certainly better that, than paying large salaries to consultants from the west whose money goes straight to their home banks accounts. I’ll talk more about that later. However, don’t forget these inflated salaries are being paid out of charitable donations from well intentioned people in the west. Although it may be nice to give these workers a nice salary (and they may well deserve it) is it the best use of this money? Could the money be spent better elsewhere? Is this just creating greater inequality within an already very unequal society, where a small minority control the majority of the wealth?

    Of course NGO’s aren’t the only way that the UK and other countries are helping Ethiopia to ‘develop’. There is a lot of money being pumped into the country, through the government, via organisations such as DFID and the World Bank. As I work in Education I can only tentatively say a bit about some of the money that comes to improve Ethiopia’s Education. Often (because of worries of corruption etc) this money comes with conditions.

 One example is that money may be given, but only if it is used to pay for certain things. An example of this is paying for ‘Indian Lecturers’. Apparently this kills two birds with one stone as it solves unemployment issues in India at the same time as providing well qualified staff for Ethiopia. In theory it sounds sensible as Indians have recently gone through rapid development themselves and are therefore likely to be able to share knowledge that could help Ethiopia to develop. They also have good English in comparison to the Ethiopians and this could help improve the use of English Language at University Level. However, it seems there is a flip side to every coin. The Indian lecturers are paid about five times that of local lecturers with similar qualifications which can be very demotivating for the local staff. Many of the local staff are exceptional and if there were more financial incentives for Ethiopians to be ‘educators’ then more of the able would probably stay in education rather than running off to find jobs with NGOs. As well as receiving high salaries the Indian staff are also not always as qualified or conscientious as would be desirable. I am sure this is not the case for all Indian lecturers but I have heard some described as ‘incompetent’ and ‘lazy’. I was told that they often teach subjects for which they are not qualified as they come with the attitude that ‘if you give me the resources I’ll teach it’. This has even lead to some joking that they would even offer to teach the local language ‘Amharic’ if given the resources. In some respects this willingness to teach outside their subject should be commended however at university level it does seem a bit worrying. I thought this was all a big exaggeration until yesterday when I met an Indian lady who had done a PHD in Education and had been recruited to work in the Education Department. However, when she found there was in fact no job for her there, she has found herself teaching Physics. I know I couldn’t do that! After hearing that some staff resented the Indian staff I was worried about how I was viewed. Although I do not earn more than the local staff (my allowance is in fact less) the university does provide me with a lovely house far nicer than any of my colleagues. They assured me that they were happy with me being there but at times I do wonder how useful I really am and if I am worth even the low allowance I am given. I was at least feeling a little happier that I wasn’t costing the government anywhere near as much as the Indians (although in both cases I understand the money actually comes from the World Bank or DfID or some other source). However... I later discovered that the government is required to pay VSO 10,000 birr a month for my services (I receive just over 2000 of that). This is not true for all VSO staff, just those working under the Higher Diploma Program like myself. I really don’t feel comfortable with that! I feel like I am stealing from the country I am supposed to be helping develop. I suppose on the flip side the money isn’t really from the government but probably from some Aid Agency or the World Bank. Also the money VSO receives in this way can then be used to help lots of other projects become sustainable... but is still doesn’t feel right.

  Another condition that I heard was often tied to these donations to the government is that they are required to hire consultants to monitor and evaluate the impact of projects, such as the Higher Diploma Program. In some respects this seems a very sensible condition. If you are going to give money you want to ensure it is being spent on what it should be and that it is making a positive difference to the country. However, I guess due to worries of corruption or simply conflict of interest, they will not accept the view of Ethiopian consultants and therefore the government are forced to hire very expensive consultants from the West. In the end it seems the net gain goes to the West thus widening the development gap further! What seems really crazy is VSO volunteers working in the Ministry are often doing consultancy work. They carry out impact assessments and advice on possible changes. However, the World Bank (or whoever else is lending the money) will not accept these reports and will instead commission their own expensive consultants sometimes to do exactly the same work. A consultant might earn £70,000 for a few months work! A VSO Volunteer might do the same for £300 (although I suppose if you take into account things like training, support, flights, medical expenses etc the VSO volunteer may cost more like £3000- still way less!).

As time goes by it is hard not to get disillusioned by just about any development effort in this country. I have only touched the surface of some of the development issues I have seen and I know that I don’t have all my facts straight. I know the issues are far more complex than I am suggesting here and there is much more to it all. After all  ‘IT IS NOT ROCKET SCIENCE... IT IS MUCH MORE COMPLICATED’. However, at times it is like watching someone on a tread mill... everyone seems to be working really hard but getting nowhere. It is not that Ethiopia is not developing, it is, but the rest of the world is just developing faster and so the gap between rich and poor gets bigger and bigger.

However, one thing that is keeping me going is seeing how determined the Ethiopians I work with are to see their country improve. To see how dedicated they are to education and to see how important they feel it is to the development of their country. I find my colleagues truly inspiring. They work very hard under difficult circumstances and have resisted the temptation to get a well paid job in an NGO because they believe they can make a difference where they are. I have also been encouraged by similar stories of determined, enthusiastic and hard working Ethiopians in the Ministry of Education who are also doing everything they can to improve the quality of Education in Ethiopia.

In complete contrast to the common images of corrupt African governments I am instead finding myself questioning the values of those who claim to support development from outside the country. I hope I am wrong. I hope the NGOs and World Bank are solving more problems than they create. I hope I am not making things worse. I am sure that in terms of personal experience I will gain far more than I give, but I really hope in monetary terms at least that my being in Ethiopia will be a net gain for Ethiopia.  

The Great Ethiopian Run!

I didn’t do it. I wish I had. Most of my friends in VSO did it as did as well as about 30,000 other people! I did at least get a chance to see it and for about 2 minutes (100m) I guess I could argue I was a part of it as I had to run with the crowd in order to cross the road. It was an incredible atmosphere. Everyone who was registered for the run wore a green T-shirt and so all you could see for miles was a sea of green winding its way through Addis. At the end of the race everyone who was registered (i.e. was wearing their green t-shirt) got channelled through the finishing line and was awarded a medal. I want one of those!! Some of my friends ran. Not an easy feat as much of it is up steep hills (someone tried to suggest to me the other day that 80% of it is uphill but that seems to defy the laws of gravity as it starts and finishes in the same place), it is very hot, there are lots of people in your way and it is of course at altitude. More of my friends walked the Great Run. I felt sorry for one volunteer who had completed the race but could not be given her medal as she was not wearing her T-shirt as it was locked in the VSO Program Office. In contrast another volunteer who was late for the start decided to join it on route only to find himself funnelled through the finishing line and being awarded a medal about 500m later! Although it was possible to ‘cheat’ and join the race at any given point it was an incredibly organised event (particularly for Ethiopia) and it was lovely seeing half the city pedestrianised for a few hours to support the event.

  So having told you how amazing it was... what was my excuse for not partaking in such an event? A very poor one,  I assure you! I am ashamed to say that when the e-mails came round asking if we wanted to be registered for the event I looked up the date and saw it was on a Thursday. I didn’t feel it would be appropriate to take a day off work just to go on a run. Only when it was too late did I realise I had looked up the 22^nd of October and not the 22^nd of November. I am determined to do the next Great Run and ...as I have a year to train... to do it properly and RUN the Great Ethiopian Run rather than walk it. This will be quite a challenge for me as I really hate running but I am in the country of runners so I think it would be wrong not to. My colleagues have been trying to get me to go jogging with them since day one so this should be a good excuse to start. I think for the time being I may try and get my fitness back by doing the ‘Devina Workout Video’ (that Al kindly downloaded onto my External Hard Drive) in the privacy of my own home as my lack of fitness at the moment is too embarrassing to be displayed in public, but by this time next year I hope to be jogging with the best of them (or at least some way behind!). As I hate running so much I think am going to have to collect a lot of sponsorship money to force me to keep my word but I’ll badger you for that nearer the time!

  Finally while we are on the topic of ‘jogging’ or ‘running’ I would like to share with you a very funny conversation I had in my first week here. First I will share it from my perspective (what I thought I heard) and then from Solomon’s perspective...

 

T= Tara

S= Solomon

 

How I thought the conversation went...

 

S: Do you like to joke?

T: Yes

S: Would you like to hear [a] joke?

T: Yes, go on...

S: Why don’t you come with us tomorrow morning?

T: Huh? Is that it? I don’t get it?

S: Would you like to come with us tomorrow morning?

T: I really don’t get it? Why is that funny?

S: ?

 

From Solomon’s Perspective...

 

S: Do you like to jog?

T: Yes

S: Would you like to here jog? [i.e. would you like to jog here?]

T: Yes, go on...

S: Why don’t you come with us tomorrow morning?

T: Huh? Is that it? I don’t get it?

S: Would you like to come with us tomorrow morning?

T: I really don’t get it? Why is that funny?

S: ?

 

Hopefully by November 2010 I will like to both JOKE  and JOG!

 

 

 

cars

I was really surprised the other day when I found out it would cost half my monthly salary to hire a car for the day (not including petrol). However on further investigation I could see why it may cost so much. The government has imposed a 100% import tax on all vehicles so that a car that might cost £5,000 in the UK would cost £10,000. This explains why there are so many very old cars that look like they are about to fall apart as they try to eek every last penny out of the car. However, most of these cars are only really comfortable on tarmac roads. A report from the World Bank claims that 47% of roads in Ethiopia are paved but it feels a lot less than this. For example only the one main road that goes through Ambo is paved...the rest are dirt tracks. This lack of tarmac means there is a big demand for more heavy weight vehicles such as 4 by 4’s. Most of the 4 by 4’s in Ethiopia are Toyota Land Cruisers. I understand these cost at least £50,000 and so when you add the 100% tax you are looking at £100,000. Clearly well out of the price range of the average Ethiopian. The GNP per capita is about £450 and even the average annual wage for a well qualified and respected university lecturer is only around £1500. Another issue to consider is that the government has made a deal with a particular dealership so that all new Toyota’s come through them. If you happened to purchase a Toyota from another dealership then you could expect to pay up to £2000 for a ‘safety check’ by the government affiliated dealership. No wonder so few people in Ethiopia own cars.  Most vehicles in Ethiopia are used for public hire (either in the form of taxi’s or hire cars) or owned by Embassy staff, Government Officials and NGO’s. Most people walk and use public transport. Transport in Ethiopia is both efficient and inefficient. Efficient in the fact that most buses or minibuses will not go anywhere until they are totally full. Inefficient as most people have to rely on public transport which can take days to get from one part of the country to another as it overcomes poor roads and stops in every small town and village. You can understand why these vehicles would like to get as much business out of every journey when the original capital needed to own the vehicle is so huge. And why it costs so much to hire a vehicle for the day. You can also see why there may be difficulties in transporting goods, such as food, around the country.

Food Glorious Food!

Much to my dismay I seem to be putting on (a lot of )weight. It seems especially wrong when there are reports of an impending famine in Ethiopia. You would not believe it if you were only to consider the region I am living in. The land is fertile and there appears to be plenty of food. I haven’t met anyone who appears starving and I have found the people are in fact quite wasteful with their food. I was brought up to finish the food on my plate (often with the thought that there are people starving in Africa so I should make the most of what I have). However, it seems it is the norm here to leave food on the plate at the end of the meal. This is perhaps one of the reasons I have put on weight while those around me stay the same. It is definitely not the only reason though.

 The Ethiopians are obsessed with meat and so I have eaten much more meat than I would normally eat. On top of that the food is often swimming in grease (like a curry). It is also quite rare to find any vegetables in a meal and so in an effort to stay healthy I seem to end up eating the local food then going home and cooking myself lots of vegetables later!  I also feel that it is important to try as many of the local dishes as possible and so do my colleagues. Yesterday my colleagues insisted I try some of the local raw meat, so on top of my normal meal I had a huge hunk of raw steak. Most of the food I find very yummy however, at times I don’t enjoy it. When this happens I have got into a bad habit of treating myself to something nice afterwards to wash it down. I have developed quite an addiction to peanut butter and am ashamed to say I have worked my way through 3 jars in one month!

Another issue I have is that I have milk delivered every day from the university farm. It is the only way to get fresh milk but it comes at a price as they will only deliver a minimum of half a litre a day and it does not seem to be possible to negotiate only getting it on alternative days. 500ml of milk seems like an impossible amount to get through- especially as there is no cereal. I have got in the habit of turning half of it into yoghurt and using the rest for my porridge or pancakes (another treat I really must cut back on).

My final excuse is that I don’t get nearly as much exercise as I am used to. I’m mostly stuck in an office from 8.30-5.30 each day and when I get out of the office it is dark. The only solution to this would be to get up earlier in the morning to go for a walk or something but as of yet I haven’t managed to get force myself up any earlier (most I think because I’m so tired from the disturbed sleep due to the local church megaphone). I plan to go for a nice long walk tomorrow but I don’t think that will put much of a dent into a month of excess.  Perhaps my body still thinks it is in England and is storing up some body fat for a cold winter? Whatever the reason I need to sort it out quickly or I will return from Africa quite unrecognisable!

Time Management...

I have finished teaching my second session on time management. The first was to the majority of the HDP group (about 18 people) and the second was a catch up session for those who missed it (only 4). I felt very hypocritical leading this session as my time management skills haven’t been very good recently (I spent much of the morning playing spider solitaire). I have not been very busy this last week and I find that when I slow down I find it hard to get back into the swing of working hard again. I do have plenty that I could be doing (sorting out my flea problem in my house, finding a language teacher and dedicating a couple of hours a day to language learning, sorting out my landline and internet connection, planning my extracurricular English Language lessons etc) but as none of these ‘need’ to be done urgently I find myself idling the days away with pointless tasks. Whenever I feel like I am getting back in gear I find some new thing comes along to change my well made plans. For example yesterday I was quite content after teaching a HDP session and was planning to start doing one-to-one interviews with each of the candidates which would keep me busy... but then was informed that our next session (Thursday) would have to be cancelled due to a fieldtrip to a nearby university that most of my candidates were expected to attend. So no session and no one around for interviews. So back to ‘spider solitaire’ for me then! I have rewritten the overall year plan several times already as I keep needing to make adjustments for unexpected events.

   My first session on time management I felt went quite well. The candidates could all see ways in which they could improve their time management and were happy make plans to implement these changes. However, in retrospect I worry that they were just telling what I wanted to hear. The second group was much smaller and with some colleagues I know very well so I think they were happier to be honest and speak their mind. Whereas the first group suggested that they should not get up and go for coffee whenever they are invited but should learn to say no and prioritise their work, the second group felt this would be totally culturally inappropriate. It seems if a friend asks you to coffee you are expected to join them (whether you are in the middle of something important or not). Whereas the first group was happy enough to plan their activities fairly rigidly into a day the second group claimed it was impossible. They say that most of their time is spent ‘stamping out fires’ i.e. responding to urgent issues, that most meetings are organised ad hoc and they rarely get much warning about changes to their schedule. Although they agreed it wasn’t ideal they didn’t see any way they could change it as it is a countrywide issue and as much as they may try to plan ahead it wouldn’t work if those working above them didn’t also plan ahead.

      I could certainly sympathise as my attempts to try and have a long term plan for HDP are constantly being thwarted by university events or even by the Ministry of Education. After carefully planning the year so that I could fit in some important sessions just before the students go on semester break I was told that I am to attend a weeklong HDP Conference in Addis Ababa instead. I was going to spend tomorrow planning and organising HDP and scheduling the one-to-one interviews, but about 1 hour before the end of the day the Vice President invited me to join them on the ‘fieldtrip’ leaving at 6am tomorrow.

    Even simple things like the dates for the start and end of term cannot be put in stone. Although the second and third year students have been here for about a month the first year students only just arrived (which means they will probably finish later). The reason...the government has requested that they take on a larger number of students this year. They had the staff in place but many other things like accommodation, canteen and even classrooms had not been completed to accommodate the increased numbers. So until enough of this was in place they had to tell the first year students to wait.

    Time management is often a difficult issue but I think here it is particularly challenging. I really sympathise with my colleagues who all work very hard but struggle to accomplish as much as might be expected. Everything seems to take so much longer here naturally (often due to bureaucracy requiring purple stamps for just about anything to happen) but even more difficult if you are regularly expected to drop everything for unexpected emergencies or simply to have coffee with a friend.

Things that have made me laugh in the last week...

After a less than cheery account of a funeral I thought I’d write a few things that have made me laugh in the last week to balance it out!

 

·         Renting out a movie after being assured it was in English to find that they were technically correct but it was accompanied by a very loud Ethiopian man helpfully describing what was happening in the film in Amharic (so that it was impossible to hear the English).

·         During a game of Charades a fellow VSO volunteer, who shall remain nameless but works in the Ministry of Education working on the national English language improvement strategy, tried to tell us that 100 is a word with 2 syllables.

·         After Solomon (my colleague) had been teasing me endlessly about the fact that I couldn’t say the Ethiopian T’ and K’ sounds and boasting that Ethiopians can say every sound I asked him to say ‘that thing’ and all he could say was ‘Zat Ting’!

·         The TV Show SCRUBS which someone kindly put on my external hard drive.

·         Seeing my friends faces first thing in the morning after staying at my house and witnessing an all night church service by megaphone...they now know I wasn’t exaggerating about the noise!

·         Getting my colleagues to try and say ‘ Conjuncta –skive-alitis’

·         Richard running towards the TV in the restaurant trying to catch the football scores...but forgetting he was still wearing the ‘party hat’ that we gave him for his 60^th birthday.

·         As a young man tried to get a bit over friendly with me, seeing a friend come to my rescue armed with an umbrella!

·         A letter from Lucy!

·         The fact that a local lad who had asked Joanne for money then got a birr out of his own pocket and offered to give it to her after finding out she was a volunteer!

·         A weekend filled with giggles as I had seven friends from Addis and two from Nekemte staying.

A Funeral.

Thursday 5^th Nov,

    Today I had the opportunity to learn more about the Ethiopian culture but unfortunately under very sad circumstances. The Administrative Vice-President’s one and a half year old daughter died yesterday and so today was the funeral. (I was amazed at how quickly a funeral is arranged in this country.) It was his first and only child and she had been sick for quite a long time but more recently had seemed to be making a recovery and so the death came as quite a shock. Most lessons were cancelled in the university as most staff (and many students) wanted to attend the ceremony and show their respects. I wasn’t sure it was appropriate for me to go as I had not had the opportunity to meet the AVP yet and often funerals in the UK are quite private affairs. However, I was assured that it was different here and funerals automatically have an open invitation for anyone who would like to pay their respects and it may even be considered disrespectful not to go. As I knew we would be attending church I went home and got my ‘Nutella’ (local white scarf) to cover my head and my colleagues seemed to appreciate this gesture a lot. As we walked to the home of the deceased they pointed out how all the women were wearing their scarves upside down as a sign of mourning.

   As we reached home of the AVP we were met by hoards of people and could hear sounds of wailing coming from inside the house. The family continued to howl and bawl as they loaded the tiny coffin onto a 4 by 4. The mourning was so much less reserved than in the UK and it was painful to witness such clear distress. As the car drove slowly past I couldn’t help but think of all the children I know in the UK around the same age as this child. No one could tell me what she died from but it is hard not to wonder if she would have survived if she lived in the UK. The Vice President is obviously comparatively wealthy and I am sure provided his daughter with the best that Ethiopia had to offer. She died in a well respected hospital in the Capital. How much worse must it be for families with no money here.

  The funeral procession continued slowly to the church (about 1km away). The university had laid on some transport for those who would find the walk more difficult and as I had been feeling ill that week and it was an unusually hot day I was very grateful to be bundled into one of the buses. The transport moved along at the pace of the walking crowd and so about 1000 people arrived together at the graveyard. There was lots more wailing and weeping as the coffin was taken to its final resting place. I stayed back from the proceedings with my colleague Solomon who finds funerals very difficult and so did not see exactly what happened at the graveside. The burial itself was very short (only lasting about 5-10minutes) and then the crowd gathered on the grassy mound in front of the church while the father (AVP) said a few words. I was disappointed to see that the local church did not stop blaring its music out of its megaphone. As a result, I imagine very few people were actually able to hear the words that were said. To me it appeared so disrespectful but it seemed everyone else accepted this as the norm. After the short ceremony the crowd quickly dispersed. The father (AVP) stood at a junction in the road and as we all filed past we bowed to show our respect. In situations like that when there are no words you can offer that can be of any comfort or that seem appropriate it was quite a relief to have a simple gesture such as a bow to turn to.

And so I have attended my first (and I hope last) funeral in Ethiopia. I don’t really know what else to say or how to close this blog entry. It seems quite insensitive talking about the funeral of someone I hardly know and I struggled for a while about whether I should actually mention it on my blog. However... in the end I felt it seemed even worse to just go on and pretend it didn’t happen. So there you have it, my account of a sad but all too common an event in Ethiopia.

 

A PERFECT DAY!

Saturday 31^st October

It started off slightly earlier than I might have wished as I got up at 5.30 to make sure I had time to make breakfast before meeting the rest of the group at 7am on campus. As it was a Saturday (and I had bananas that needed eating up) I treated myself to banana pancakes with maple syrup and butter – yum! I was told to get to the car park for 6.45 so that we could leave prompt at 7am but when I arrived late at 6.55am I was the first one there. We finally set off from campus at about 8am (classic example of ‘habasha’ time). This was a trip to celebrate the completion of the 3 week intensive induction to teaching for new university staff and the atmosphere was quite festive! The bus was packed to the brim with about 40 people (30 candidates, the course organisers and few other staff from the education department that had managed to wangle their way onto the trip) plus food, drink and cooking equipment to feed us all when we got there. We were off to Wenchi Lake. It is one of the most talked about tourist destinations within a day’s drive of Addis and is only 30km from Ambo. However, most of the candidates had never taken the trip before (even those who had lived in Ambo for the last 5+ years) and so it was a real treat!

    We arrived around 10am and I was pleased to find the none of the guidebooks had done the view from the top of the crater justice. It was stunning. Especially on such a glorious sunny day (as many in Ethiopia are) the blue of the lake and the green of the rolling hills within the crater were breathtaking. It took us about an hour to walk down to the lake and as we descended into the crater if felt like we were entering another world. I think what makes this place so special is that no cars are allowed further than the top of the crater and so the area feels so untouched and peaceful. It is not necessarily the most beautiful lake or green landscape I have ever seen in my life but fact that the only mode of transport was foot or horseback made this place seem more special than any other lake I have been to. It was like a little hidden unspoilt paradise! The other thing I enjoyed on the decent down was that the local children all stopped to say 'hello' and 'good morning'. Unlike Ambo where they haven’t got past saying ‘ you you’ the local people here are obviously much more affected by tourism. And although this isn’t necessarily a good thing it was much more pleasant to be greeted by ‘Hello’ than ‘You You’ (which can often feel quite aggressive). It was also interesting to see that they greeted all the Ethiopians with ‘Hello’ just as they did me and so didn’t make any real distinction. I guess to them a tourist is a tourist (whether local or not) and it felt really nice not be singled out like normal.

   Once we reached the lake we relaxed a little while some of the candidates made a start preparing our lunch then we took a boat across to an island in the middle of the lake. Here we set up camp and continued to prepare lunch. It was an Ethiopian version of a BBQ and involved 2 very large metal circular dishes (one was about 1m diameter) being placed over a wood fire. The meat was then fried on these dishes and they added onions, chillies and the magic ingredient –red wine! It was delicious! They served it with Ingera and bread and we all ate silly amounts. The food was washed down with beer and soft drinks and then we settled down to some entertainment prepared by the social committee. Although most of it was in Amharic, so I was more than a bit lost at times, it was very entertaining. Several candidates had shared poems they had written about the training which were clearly very funny (based on the laughs rather than my understanding). I did get a bit nervous whenever I heard my name mentioned within the poems followed by laughing but from what I could tell at least as many jokes were at the other leaders expense.  They also performed a very funny play about HIV and AIDs (perhaps not a laughing matter but they did it in a very clever way that also got a point across). The entertainment concluded with some anecdotes and and finally an inspirational speech by Fekadu about their future roles as teachers. Fekadu ended it by saying ‘ if you want to plant something that will last a year plant corn, if you want to plant something that will last a decade plant a tree, if you want to plant something that will last forever educate someone.’

   At about 3.30pm we headed back to the mainland by boat. We almost capsized at one point because of a water fight that broke out between our boat and the other one and it was interesting to see how frightened some of them were. I was very relieved to find that the rest of the group were not up to walking back up to the craters edge and so instead we paid 50p each to ride a horse to the top. It was a fun experience riding the horse but it was also very entertaining watching the male candidates showing off to one another on their horses. They suddenly became quite competitive.

   We left Wenchi Crater at about 5.30 and enjoyed a lovely sunset from our bus over some spectacular scenery. Henok then led the bus in a number of Ethiopian songs. And so our happy group bumped its way down the dirt track towards Ambo and arrived in the dark. Solomon, Ali and I decided to grab a quick macchiato in a cafe and I was quite content to go home with the thought that this had been the best day in Ethiopia so far. But it was to get even better... It turned out that it was Biranu’s Birthday. He is the colleague that has been helping me put together the bid for the BandAid grant. Biranu’s house is just behind the cafe and we were invited to join the birthday celebrations. We arrived to find a candle lit picnic in the garden. His wife performed a coffee ceremony as we ate popcorn. We then sang Happy Birthday as he cut his birthday cake. This is all a clear example of Ethiopian’s adopting western traditions. A few years ago no one bothered to celebrate birthdays (even for young children), birthdays just weren’t seen as something important. So much so that Solomon doesn’t even know his birthday. When he had to put his birthday on his passport application a few years ago he asked his Mum when he was born. She could only vaguely remember the month. So Solomon decided to chose a day that he would hopefully not forget (for the sake of the passport application) and put down the 11^th September (Ethiopian New Year)! After eating the birthday cake and drinking the Buna (coffee) Biranu blasted some classic Ethiopian tunes from his laptop and we all danced. I love Ethiopian Dancing! It is hilarious... the more dramatic and ridiculous you make your moves the better it seems! I really impressed them by doing the ‘spinning head dance’ (as I like to call it) where you spin your head round and round at dangerous speeds! I really hope I don’t have whiplash tomorrow like I did the last time I got carried away with that dance! Every region of Ethiopia has particular dances that are typical of that area and all Ethiopians seem to know all the dances and enjoy working their way through the full range. There is something quite special about the way they are all so proud of their traditional dances and it is certainly much more entertaining watching them than the average disco dancing in the UK.

   I left the party at about 8.30pm. Although early by UK standards this was the latest I have been out so far in Ambo and I didn’t want to push my luck. Plus I was super tired from an extremely busy week at work (I taught about 20 hours of lessons – most of the lecturers here teach about 12- and worked on the BandAid application) and the early get up this morning. Cherinet walked me home as I was a little nervous about walking  by myself (especially with no street lights). It turns out I needn’t have worried about the lack of lights as the full moon was so bright tonight. As we reached my door we both found out that we were in fact next door neighbours but hadn’t realised before! Soon after I got in the door my parents rang for a chat which was the perfect end to a perfect day. I was able to share my happy day with them and they were able to tell me about the trick-or-treaters that were knocking at their door.

   So now... I intend to go to bed. My mind buzzing with all the events of today. I’m sure I should just be thinking about all the fun I had but instead my final thoughts are about the impacts of globalisation and cultures blending. 15 years ago Halloween was not much of an event in the UK and now it is catching up with the USA. Ethiopians never used to celebrate birthdays and now birthdays and many other celebrations (such as valentine’s day) are making their way here. Even unspoilt Wenchi Crater with no vehicles and no mobile network is seeing big changes as all the children are picking up more and more English. Thankfully not all is lost and in some ways perhaps globalisation is encouraging some identities to become stronger. Ethiopian traditional dancing is HUGE and as I write this the local Orthodox Church is marking its territory with its megaphone and getting ready for another all-nighter. I think I may just about be tired enough to sleep through this one!