Ups and Downs

On reflection, this week has been a bit of a learning curve. Whilst it was fun, my students were leaving me tired and stressed at the end of each day. I’m just starting to know my students, and whilst some are really progressing, other seem only preoccupied with getting top grades. Thus, there is an unbelievable amount of cheating and copying that goes on! Many of the students really struggle to write full sentences in class, but when looking at their written homework assignments everything suddenly becomes near-perfect. The students either get their friends in the advanced class to write for them, or copy whole letters from books (sometimes with hilarious results – one letter from an eleven year old started off with “Dear lover, I miss your embrace”!). During class spelling tests, everyone will get nineteen or twenty out of twenty, rather than admitting that they had made some errors. This all makes my job as a teacher harder, as it’s difficult to judge which areas the students need to improve in, and also means that the students aren’t really learning.

I had a chat with Nugus, the head of the school (and head disciplinarian of the students), about all of this, and he agreed with many of the comments that I made. Ethiopian education has been preoccupied with getting results, and has not focussed much on actual learning in the past. Nugus gave the example of how today a person with a Masters degree would always get a job above a person with a Bachelors degree, no matter how skilled or experienced either person was. However, he also said that I shouldn’t be worrying about this so much, as it’s very unlikely my efforts in the remaining three weeks will make a big impact(!). He’d heard that I’d been getting quite stressed and disappointed about my students, and wanted me to relax and just concentrate on teaching. I’ve taken his advice, and so Friday’s lesson (post Nugus chat) was much more fun and enjoyable. I guess I’ve just got to crack on and try to get as much through to my students as possible. However, it’s test time again on Monday, and I’ll be keeping an eagle eye out for any copying!

Low wages – whilst I had read about the low wages that people in Ethiopia receive, it’s a different thing confronting the issue face-to-face. Across from the school there are a group of workers who are building a house. They seem to be constantly hard at work, and yet receive just 17 birr a day (which comes to about £1). I’m told that this is actually a reasonable wage, as many people work as street sellers or shoe shiners for about half that. Whilst I know many will think “oh well, things are much cheaper in Ethiopia”, this still means that local people really struggle to get by. Food prices have soared in the last year, and even the cheapest mud hut requires rent to be paid. Whilst it’s an obvious point to make, there is a real divide between my life and that of the locals - on the few occasions I’ve gone out for a beer or glass of coke, it has struck me how that drink can cost more than the daily wage of a normal person...

Inter-religious tensions? Ethiopia is a predominantly Christian country, surrounded by Muslim states. This has obviously made for an interesting history. However, in today’s Ethiopia the relationship between the Christians and the Muslims seems to be pretty good. In Mekele, the churches and mosques seem to sit happily in close proximity to each other, and the two communities seem to get along quite well (from what my foreign eyes and ears can detect!). At the school I work in, the Christian and Muslim students get along very well, with every student I talk to having a friend from the alternative religion. However, the same could not be said for ecumenical (inter-Christian) relations! The Ethiopian Orthodox Church, of which 98% of Christians here belong to, is very suspicious of the new Protestant churches that are starting to spread in the country. About 5 years ago some of the local Orthodox went on the rampage in Mekele, burning down all of the Protestant churches and schools – the Catholic church was only spared because the mob saw a statue of Mary inside! As a result of this anti-Protestant feeling, the local Protestants have to worship in secret. Two weeks ago I saw a secret Protestant wedding take place in a hotel on the outskirts of the city, where everything was well secluded. You’d have to be pretty committed to be a Protestant here!

Lynda’s departure – unfortunately my fellow volunteer Lynda received some bad news this week, and so has to return to the UK. Her flight back to Addis Ababa is on Monday, so she’s just getting ready to leave. Lynda is very sad to have to cut her stay short, and feels like she’s still got loads more to see and do. This is a reminder to me that I should really make the most of my time here, as the remaining time will fly. Anyway, I wish Lynda well, it’s sad to see her go. Ged and I will miss her a lot. Fingers crossed we can meet up again when we’re all back in Britain.

Now we’re all off for a fun-packed day with Lynda, to try to visit a few of the key local sites before she leaves. Lots of love and best wishes,

Robert

Silence of the Goats

So, a third of the way through already! Time flies, as I’m being put to good use. Aside from the daily English language classes I’ve been fitting in trips to see the school’s football teams, visits to the homes of families and various large meals that the nuns have been giving us! At the end of every day I’m tired but happy, which is a pretty good sign that I’m using my time well. Anyway, here is a collection of information and thoughts from the week:

The challenges of being a student from the streets - It’s become increasingly apparent that each and every one of the children that we’ve been working with have a very interesting and often saddening story to tell. Many come from broken homes (in two cases the children had to live on the streets after their fathers had murdered their mothers, thus making life at home untenable). Others face extreme poverty, or do not have a safe place to sleep in the evenings. Such a simple thing as access to light in the evenings becomes a rarity – something that I have to bear in mind when I give my pupils homework to do. Add to this the lack of nutrition and sleep that the children get, and it’s very difficult for me to feel able to tell my students off when they don’t do their work or concentrate during a lesson (however, I must say that the majority of students are very hard working and do a lot more work than I ask them to do).

Nationalism - Curious to find out more about the attitudes of my students, I set the children homework on "What is your favourite country? Why?" and "Which country do you hate? Why?". Unsurprisingly almost everyone chose Ethiopia as their favourite country. People here are very patriotic, and are keen to point out the fascinating history that the country has. One Ethiopian joked that when God was creating man He first put man in the oven too long, creating the very dark skinned West Africans. On the second attempt man was baked for too short a time, creating white people. It was only on the third attempt that he got it perfect, creating the brown skinned Ethiopians! When answering the "which country do you hate?" question, almost all picked Eritrea, citing the recent conflict as the reason for their dislike.

#You’ve got to pick a pocket or two boys# - the other main piece of information that I’ve got from the students is about the darker side to life on the streets. I’ve managed to get to know some of the older boys (or I should say young adults), and after a while they’ve felt confident enough to tell me more about their previous lives trying to survive as a street child. I’ve seen some of the drains that they would crawl into to find a safe place to sleep (out of the reach of the police who would beat them). I’ve also had a lesson in pick pocketing, in which I was shown top tips on to remove someone’s wallet without them noticing! The boys all seem ashamed of this past life, and very thankful of the opportunity that the Abba Gabremichael School gives them. They are also glad to be away from dangers of the streets. One young guy told me of how other children would get drunk or high, set pieces of plastic on fire and then throw them at the other street children. The plastic would attach itself to any exposed skin, and then slowly continue burning. Many of the boys have scars from such attacks. The life of street children has moved on a bit since the days of Oliver Twist...

Visits to our students’ homes - During the last two weeks I’ve been privileged enough to have visited the homes of two of the children that we’ve been working with. It’s here that one can really see the necessity of the work that the Abba Gabremichael Project does. On Friday I visited a grass hut belonging to one of Ged’s students. The student in question is a young girl of about 14 (although no one seems to be able to confirm the age of any of the children) who lives with her grandmother. The girl’s mother was killed by her father, who was then swiftly sent to prison. The father committed suicide soon afterwards, which had the knock-on effect of forcing the girl and her grandmother to flee their family home, for fear that the mother’s family would seek retribution on them...

Upon arriving in the city of Mekele, the two of them had to beg on the streets to get food and enough money to cover the 5 dollar a month rent on the grass hut that they live in. Life was, in their own words, very difficult. However, it was on the streets that the girl was spotted by the nuns who run the Abba Gabremichael Project. After a few checks to verify that she was a worthy case for support, not only does she receive free schooling, but also gets breakfast and lunch every day. The grandmother also receives support to pay the rent. Now neither of them beg on the streets, and the girl has a real chance of a good future – she’s hoping to be a pilot, and considering her grades and her work ethic this may not be so unrealistic. Both of them are so grateful to the project – it’s amazing to see how the work of the sisters, together with a little funding, can change a family’s life. On a slightly separate point, it was really heart-warming to see the love between the grandmother and granddaughter. They both support each other so much, and the granddaughter always rushes home from class to help do chores around the house. Despite all the problems they have experienced, they are both very loving and kind people.

Sister Meden Tesfay’s return - Sister Meden Tesfay, the leader (or Sister Servant) of the group of nuns that I’m staying with, returned to Mekele today. She’s been receiving treatment in Addis Ababa for the last few weeks, so she had a grand welcoming on her arrival back. Perhaps the most interesting part of this was that two goats were killed and cooked in honour of Sister Meden T. I got up early in the morning to see the process of slaughtering the goats – a process which was both gruesome and interesting at various points... I won’t go into great detail, but just to say that it wasn’t quick and painless!

Ok, that's it for another week. I hope all is well and that you're enjoying the summer. Lots of love and best wishes from Mekele,

Robert

Welcome to Abba Gabremichael School

What a week! On Sunday Ged, Lynda (my fellow volunteers) and I arrived in Mekele, the capital city of the Tigray region in northern Ethiopia. We were greeted by our hosts, Sister Feseha (the nun in charge of the school we’re working in) and Nugus (the school’s administrator). It was great to finally make it to our destination! Anyway, after a day settling in to our new surroundings we were straight to work. I’ve been teaching two groups of approximately 23 students, and so far it’s been a really fascinating and enjoyable experience. First of all though, let me introduce the school that I’m working at...

The Aba Gabremichael School – a really fantastic institution. The school was set up in 1995 to help the street children of Mek’ele, but now also works with a variety of particularly poor children in the city. Its aim is to give these vulnerable children education and support/counselling for their daily problems. Whilst the education is key to the children’s long term future, the school also meets their more pressing needs – every student receives a basic breakfast and lunch, and the children can use the school’s showers and laundry. This support is fantastic. However, because of financial constraints the project cannot offer every student a place to stay in the evenings, and cannot give the children dinner. The staff spend time ensuring that the children who attend the school have a safe place to sleep in the evenings, and seem to be having success (relatives or charitable people can often be persuaded to let a child sleep on their floor). However, the students still have to find some way to get food in the evenings. A few of my students have to work the whole of the evening to get enough money for a bag of food left-over from the plates of diners at the local hotel. It’s been really shocking to hear of stories like this from the happy, smiley faces of my classmates.

The scene that greeted us on our first day at the school will be in my memory for a long time. Upon arriving at the school gates we were met by about 150 students, all of whom were cheering, singing and clapping. We were then each given a bunch of flowers and were taken by the hand by some children in traditional clothes. After processing through the students we sat in the school’s main hall, and were treated to a variety of songs, dances (which we had to join in with of course!), speeches and jokes – all for our benefit. I’ve never felt such an important person! It was a really touching experience. I left the room feeling that I had better do a good job as a teacher so that I’d do justice to this welcome!

Teaching – I’m teaching two groups of about 23 students. My students are aged between 13-17 years old, and are all loosely at the intermediate level. They are great fun to teach, being a hard-working and (on-the-whole) happy bunch of children. The boys are energetic, always putting their hands up to answer questions. They seem to know everything about English football – one boy was telling me about the reserve team goalkeeper that Tottenham Hotspurs (the team I support) have! The girls are really sweet but were a bit shy at first, but the fact that I make a fool out of myself on a regular basis seems to have helped a bit. I’ve got the classes to choose a name for themselves, so boring "Class 3" has now been reborn as "Class Michael Jackson" and "Class 4" is the unforgettable "Class Bob Marley"! Everyone seems keen to learn, hopefully we’ll make good progress in the weeks ahead.

It’s been really interesting to see the education that the students had received before our arrival. To sum it up in a sentence, the students are all incredibly intelligent for their age. Their knowledge of different subjects is so impressive – they seem to have memorised every scientific formula and the dates of every historical event. It is so frustrating to see such educated, hardworking children face so many problems and have so few opportunities. I guess this will be a theme of my time here... Anyway, on a lighter note, I took a photograph of some of the English language work my students’ had done in the past (no doubt they had written it down after a teacher had dictated it to them). You can see it to the right of this paragraph, click on it and enjoy!

Living with the Daughters of Charity – Ged, Lynda and I are all staying with the sisters who set up the school. Sister Feseha and Sister Meden have been our main hosts, and have done an excellent job at helping us settle in. We’re really well fed and looked after, so much so that we’ll probably return home double the weight that we came. The sisters have a group of female students doing all of the cooking and housework for us, which whilst making things easy for us, is a bit uncomfortable. I’m not entirely keen to have people my own age doing everything for me! However, we are "guests", and besides, men cannot do any housework here...

The main staple food is "injera", a thick and sour pancake. This is then complimented with a variety of toppings, usually some kind of stew. Whilst we sometimes have meat stews, this is very uncommon in Ethiopia - most people will live off lentil stew. The enforced simplicity of the Ethiopian diet really hit home when I asked my students what extra-special food they would eat at Christmas. Their answer was "meat!".

Challenges of living in Ethiopia – the main challenges so far have been dealing with the power cuts and water shortages. Both are linked, as the lack of rainfall in the region leads to a lack of power – much of the local electricity is generated through hydroelectric power plants. Thus, we only have power on alternate days. At least this is planned, so we can arrange things accordingly (we have to do most of our lesson planning and all of our printing during the days that we have power). Water, on the other hand, is less predictable – fingers crossed I’ll be able to have a shower tomorrow, otherwise my colleagues will not be happy...

I have loads of other things to share with you all, but this blog has gone on for ages! Sorry that this has all be condensed into a single, long blog entry, but I have very few opportunities to access the internet (both because of the power cuts, but also because I simply don’t have much free time during the working week). Fingers crossed you found it interesting and that you managed to read this far! Expect another update next weekend... I hope all is well with you, lots of love and take care of yourselves,

Robert

P.S. Apologies for not replying to any emails that you're sending me - the internet is very, very slow here - it takes about 3 minutes to load up an email... Your messages are much appreciated though!

Safe & Sound in Addis Ababa

I've arrived! I don't want to tempt fate but everything has been pretty smooth so far, all my baggage is here and I had no problems with passport control. Stepping out into the arrivals hall, I got my first taste of Ethiopia - a huge crowd of people all trying desperately to spot their loved ones coming out of the baggage hall. Despite this hustle and bustle we were spotted by the very kind Salomon, the driver of the local organisation that's running our project.

After dropping off luggage to the hotel, we were taken to visit local staff to receive a security briefing. I say "we've" because I'm part of a team of volunteer teachers working at the Mek'ele summer school. Ged and Lynda are CAFOD staff who are also going to be helping out with English classes. Ged is from near Newcastle and Lynda is from Aldershot. They both seem nice, and we're getting on well - although conversation is not as fluid as we would like, we're all pretty tired!

The security briefing was interesting - it was good to get some basic information and also have a first opportunity to ask questions about life in Ethiopia. On issue that popped up a lot in conversation was that food shortage is still a big problem here, 25 years on from the major famine that gripped the country. Our local source suggests that this is down to a variety of factors, such as a growing population, climate change and poor water management by the government. In addition, the foreign aid that has gone to Ethiopia has mainly been spent on food handouts, rather than developing local agriculture. The result of all of this is that over 5 million people are still dependant on food aid. In the coming blog entries I'll pass on more information about the issues in Ethiopia.

Back to the day's events: At 2pm all our sessions were finished and after lunch I took the opportunity to have a little walk around the area of the hotel. Please find some photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/16775704@N03/sets/72157620814648217/. Addis Ababa seems to be an interesting place, full of people and noise. The thing that first struck me are the endless rows of market stalls, and the many buildings that are half-constructed. Salomon tells us that there is a lack of building materials in Ethiopia, so the buildings are unlikely to be finished anytime soon.

However, there's no time to further explore Addis - we're leaving for the northern city of Mek'ele tomorrow morning (6:30am flight - horaay!). I'm excited but have no idea what to expect, I will tell all in the next edition of this blog... For now though, lots of love to you all and all the very best from Ethiopia,

Robert