bad timing...

I think I mentioned several months ago that I was applying for a grant from the bandaid charity to build a library in a local primary school? We got the go ahead and the money in January and since then I have been working with a colleague called Birhanu to project manage the build. We employed a local builder and things seem to have been running fairly smoothly (apart from the price in cement going up since the builder quoted the cost) until last week when I was sent an e-mail reminding me that the final reporting needs to be done by the end of March. Oops! Somehow time has flown by very quickly and although the building itself should be completed on time we still haven’t worked out how we are going to furnish or resource it! Instead I am going to have to compile an interim report and apologise profusely about the lack of progress. Hopefully we will get the chairs, tables and bookshelves built in record time because I am planning to go to Addis Easter weekend to buy the books.

Tomorrow the guy I am supposed to give the final report to is coming to Ambo to visit. I therefore wanted to have some concrete evidence of progress to show him so that he is not too disappointed by the fact we haven’t managed to complete the project yet. I therefore took a trip up to the school this afternoon to take a photo of the library in its current state. Normally I wait for Birhanu whenever I want to visit the school as he can easily discuss progress with the builders in Afan Oromo and he also serves as a good deterrent for all the nosey children who are really excited to see a Ferenge! However, Birhanu was in a meeting all afternoon. I remembered that last time we went we timed it really badly as it was the end of the school day and we had more than the usual attention (although the caretaker had been very good at shooing the children away) . I was therefore determined to try and get their earlier to avoid this (especially as I would be visiting without Birhanu). I arrived at about 4.30 and thought I had a good 30 mins before school finished but I couldn’t have been more mistaken. Seconds after taking the photos of the library the school bell rang. Several thousand students piled out of their classrooms and lined up outside waiting to be dismissed. I thought if I walked fast enough I might just get away without them noticing but it was no use. About 500 were dismissed in the first batch and as I walked away they came running after me. Almost immediately I had about 100 students within about 10ft of me, hooting, screaming, whistling! They were so excited to see me! Some were pushing each other to get closer and so at one stage I had quite a few bodies bumping into me. It was quite funny and scary in equal measure. I spotted the caretaker and tried to take refuge by his side for a while. However... there were too many of them and his usual scare tactics were only serving to keep them at a safe distance (about 1m) and were doing nothing to get them to move on their way. As I stood by him I noticed another 500 students had just been dismissed and were also heading my way. It was no use... if I wanted a quiet walk home I’d probably have to wait by the caretakers side for over an hour! I therefore took the bullet and walked on. It was crazy... the kids were crazy...they had hyped themselves up into a frenzy and there was nothing I could do to calm them down. Normally it is about a half a kilometre walk from the school to the nearest taxi but my luck changed when I saw a taxi only 150m from the school gate. It was such a relief to get into the vehicle. I felt like someone famous as we tried to move away in the taxi surrounded by students on all sides banging on the windows, hooting and cheering! Phew... I escaped! I think next time I’ll wait for Birhanu and make sure I arrive even earlier!

power on? power off?

Recently we have been having a lot of power cuts. Last week it was pretty much every other day for 12 hours at a time and some nights. This week they seem to be alternating mornings or afternoons off. Most of the electricity in Ethiopia comes from Hydro-electric power, however now we are now well into the dry season the water supply seems to be running low and with it the electricity supply. Apparently a new dam was opened this year which was supposed to fix the demand supply problem. However, two weeks after opening, it broke. There are rumours that it will be fixed shortly but no one holds too much hope for this and most people are preparing themselves for a similar situation to last year, where power was off at least every other day and sometimes for several days at a time.

The power cuts are apparently predetermined by the electricity board so it should be possible to plan ahead but no one I speak too seems to be able to provide me with information about the schedule. There are a number of generators serving the main offices in the university but not our office. So it seems most days at the moment we sit in a dark office with no printer and no internet. Thankfully we have a long battery life on our laptops so we can still get on with things. I’ve also made friends with guys in the IT office so in an emergency I can hang out in their office which is served by a generator.

We are also very fortunate that the University supplied us with a gas cooker so our cooking is not reliant on electricity. Most of our VSO friends have to resort to their Kerosene stoves when their one ring electric hob can’t be used. Either that or eat out. When our shower was working no electricity would also mean cold showers but we haven’t had a working shower for the last month so are getting very used to bucket showers! It is amazing how quickly you get used to just boiling up some water in a pan and using that to wash. My friend Nancy’s boiler broke 2 months ago and now she is not even missing it.

The Treatment Room

Tonight, some friends took us somewhere new to have a drink. It was like a little secret hideaway... you’d never know it was there unless someone took you. We had to walk through the entrance medical clinic to get to it. We wandered down a path to the side of the clinic, past the most beautiful horse that was tethered to a post there, then through a corrugated iron gate with no sign and like magic we were transported to a gorgeous little beer garden. The garden itself was full of lots of pretty plants and totally hidden from the main road. To add to the wonder, in one corner, were four very impressive throne like chairs which we made ourselves comfortable in. Strung up next to these chair was an electric bell so we could ring for service. The bar tender also seemed to have telepathic powers as he would manage to bring exact drink people wanted without even being asked (or perhaps it is that my friends had just been there a few too many times!)

The boys refer to this place as ‘the treatment room’. As we drank our beers Biranu told us that they had fooled at least 3 of their friends by saying that another friend of theirs was sick and getting treatment so they would have to visit. The friend would dutifully come into the clinic and be surprised to find the ‘treatment room’ was in fact a beer garden and the sick friend was already there being ‘treated’ with beer!

If loving you is wrong... I don't wanna be a rock!

This and many other delightful lyrics entertained us on Friday night as we went to hear a live band play in Addis. They were advertised as playing ‘Motown Hits’ but their repertoire in fact ranged from 60’s and 70’s classics to Christina Aguilera, from Ethiopian Folk to Salsa but it was fantastic. They had about six singers between them that took in shifts to perform, and each one had a voice at least as good as the person they were covering! The only trouble was that with the English songs they often got the lyrics a bit wrong... it sounded just as good but didn’t always make sense! My favourite for the night was ‘if loving you is wrong... I don’t wanna be a rock’ rather than the slightly better known...’if loving you is wrong ... I don’t wanna be right’. The man singing it sung with so much enthusiasm though I almost doubted myself on the lyrics.

This incredible night of entertainment, not dissimilar to a night at Ronnie Scots, was a complete bargain by British terms. It only cost about £1 for entry and drinks ranged in price from £1.50 for a beer to £3 for a cocktail. We also had an amazing curry  (I’ve been craving curry since I got here) at quite a classy restaurant just before we went to the club for about a fiver. All in all I guess I spent about £10 for an incredible night out... curry, taxis, drinks and a live band. It is very easy to quickly start converting things into British pounds and feeling like we were getting an amazing deal... however that extravagant evening out did start to pinch at the wallet when I converted it into a percentage of my allowance here. I’m not sure how much of a bargain I would consider an evening out if it cost me 10% of my monthly income back home!

Going to Addis always ends up being expensive though and thankfully the rest of the month I am able to quite comfortably live off of about half my allowance in Ambo so that I can splash out when I come to town. I really don’t know how the Addis volunteers manage though. Almost every time I come to Addis I end up blowing half my allowance in one weekend! Most of it normally goes on groceries that I can only get in the capital. This month I spent 25% of my allowance on a potato masher, a slotted turner, a tin opener, some olives, a tin of tuna fish, a small block of cheese, cocoa powder and a few spices. Clearly I can live without all these things and I feel very fortunate that I can afford these items at all. Although my finances are a far cry from the Expats and rich Ethiopians we saw in the Club on Friday night, just the fact that I can occasionally splash out in this way puts me a in a very privileged position out here. It also makes me realise even more how privileged I was back in England where I wouldn’t think twice about buying olives or cheese and wouldn’t feel the need to save up for a potato masher!

Things that have made my heart melt in the last week...

·         The  beautiful music played by a lovely night guard on his Kirar (traditional Ethiopian Guitar type thing). It has become a bit of a routine now that after a night out we pass by his hut for a short performance. He insists he is just learning but it sounds so fantastic. It seems all the more amazing to me as he is practicing while sitting inside his tiny guard hut. It is made of corrugated iron raised above the ground by wooden poles and is about 1m wide, 1m tall and just long enough for him to lie down.

·         My friend Gashaw describing my white male friends in Ambo as ...’those gigantic men’.

·         Walking home last night and having to stop approximately every 100m to shake hands with a small child that had run to say hello to me.

·         At the market the other day when some cute children were trying to sell me some very old broken children’s plastic wellies that they must have found in a rubbish dump or something.

isn't it ironic...don't you think?!

It’s like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife!

It probably isn’t ironic at all... whenever that Alanis Morrisette song is playing there is always guaranteed at least one person around who wants to explain to me why most of the statements in her song are not in fact ironic! However, that line from that song has felt very appropriate during the last month as I have been unsuccessfully shopping for a decent knife! I have been to the two largest supermarkets in Addis and a number of small shops in Ambo and all I can find is hundreds of spoons and forks and not a single knife!! I do have some knives at the moment (a set of 6 in fact) but they each consist of a very weak wobbly blade attached to a plastic handle. Every time I try to spread anything thicker than honey the knife bends completely out of shape and sooner or later it is going to fall out of the plastic handle!

I did actually find a decent knife (several actually) about 2 months ago when my family came to visit. At the time I was short of cash so I just bought one so that we could spread some peanut butter on a picnic. After all...all I need is ONE decent knife! However, after my family arrived back in England, I got an e-mail from my Dad saying that the knife had been confiscated at the airport on departure as he had forgotten that it was at the bottom of his rucksack! And so began my search for another knife!

Hopefully on my next trip to Addis I will be more successful...in the meantime (to continue with the words of the song) I am waiting for the man of my dreams to turn up with his beautiful wife!