Wow! Well I feel like we have really arrived in Africa now. Today we were invited to Fasil’s family in Yirga Alem, a village about an hour away from Awassa. It was Easter Sunday here, so the end of about 50 days of fasting ( no meat or dairy products) – a big holiday. My guts were still playing up this morning so I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to go but drugged myself up and hoped for the best.

Fasil is our landlord and says his family is small by Ethiopian stands – he is one of seven children. He lives in the same compound as we do with two of his sisters, Mersha and Emebet and his nephew, Abi. They had all gone down to Yirga Alem a couple of days ago so we set off to join them this morning. Awassa bus station was closed but there were a couple of mini buses trying to get business outside. We were quickly directed to one for Yirga Alem but we were the only passengers to start with. After about 10 minutes driving down the road and reversing back up again we managed to fill up. Well, I thought we were full but obviously I was wrong because we stopped a few metres further on and managed to get 5 more passengers in. Ok, now we are off, no way we can get anyone else in…. well, just 3 more then! And so it went on. I couldn’t turn round to count but I estimate about 30 of us in a 12 seater bus. Every so often we would stop to let out one passenger and add a few more.

The scenery is so different outside town, so green everywhere, not at all like you would imagine. Traditional circular thatched houses line the roadside, cultivated land protected by cactus fences. We saw coffee bushes for the first time today, lots of huge avocado trees, papaya, enset, others we couldn’t name. Everywhere so poor, you can see why the drought further south and east is so devastating. Children in earth coloured clothes playing outside their houses, colours muted. This is the reality for most of the population here.

We were besieged by a small army of children at the bus station on arrival but managed to find a phone to announce our arrival. Spotted Fasil in the street shortly afterwards – he must have been waiting. We did have an enforced stop on the way to exchange one bald tyre for another so lost a bit of time. Yirga Alem is much more relaxed than Awassa, just a rural village really. We were made very welcome by the family – Fasil’s parents, brothers, sisters and their children. Bizarrely the TV was on in the corner of the lounge with Brendan Foster commentating on the London marathon! We were in time to see Castor win and Haile loose out – a great disappointment. Still, it is only his third marathon and the weather didn’t look too kind.

The photo shows the bread being baked – the dough is wrapped in enset leaves (like banana palm leaves) and a fire lit above and beneath it – takes about an hour to cook. That’s Fasil’s mother with the big smile, Emebet poking the flames and Abi’s mother behind. They had all been feasting for some time – they had slaughtered a sheep and three chickens! Fortunately they made some tagabino (a kind of spicy lentil dish) for me. We tried teulla, the local home made brew, but I don’t think it will replace white wine for me anytime soon!

On the way home we stopped in at an aunts house and Fasil sent a friend to the bus station to reserve the two front seats in a mini bus for us! Eventually the bus arrived at the door and we were off…. but not for long. The engine cut out after a short while but we managed to get going again. Then it happened again and required some banging about under the bus to get us going. A couple more times this happened, getting more and more difficult each time to restart. Finally, most of the passengers had to resort to bump starting us by pushing the bus back down the hill we had just come up! Looking back through the rear window I could see disaster looming in the shape of a big bus barrelling down the road towards us. Fortunately, this turned out to be our saviour – most of the passengers from our minibus realised the problems were terminal and flagged the other bus down. We joined them and were soon crammed into an already jam packed bus which had come all the way from Moyale on the Kenyan border – some 12 hours away. Brilliant bus ride back to town, with the rain teeming down and a great spirit amongst the passengers – a definite feeling that we had arrived!

The post continues to be a bit erratic here but at least things seem to be getting through. We’ve spoken to our line manager again about it and college seem to be sending someone daily to check – well they have for the last few days anyhow! This morning we got three editions of the Guardian weekly - March 10, 17 and 31^st. The inbetween one we got last week! Hopefully it will settle down and they will come weekly? Mike got the DVD he ordered thro Amazon – seemed to take over a month so we think the man who collects the post at college has sat on this stuff for a while – apparently he’d had an accident and that was why no-one had collected the post. Post takes on huge importance for us here. Today I also got a slip asking me to go to the Post Office to collect a parcel – real excitement. It was the promised minty smelling parcel from Helen – now we have more variety in our teabag collection – that should keep us going for a while. Also got a birthday card from mum – a bit mean I thought as it had pictures of chocolates on the front!!!

Had a great birthday do – I thought that since people don’t have much money here it would be good to do a meal for everyone so we asked Fiona’s maid Almos if she would prepare food for 15. I invited the dean and vice deans from college, the other VSO’s and Fasil, our landlord, and his family. Almos did enough food to feed about 50 people I think – it was lovely if a bit over the top. It seems to be the way it works here – I guess not having enough food is a sign of poverty so people go to the other extreme. We gave loads of left-overs to Fasil and to Almos so I think we’ve fed two families for a day or two. Anyway I ended up feeling really bad as everyone brought presents – adopting our English tradition. I got a gorgeous Ethiopian bag and scarf from the dean, a t-shirt with the Amharic alphabet on from our line manager, another Ethiopian scarf, cakes, chocolate and a garlic press from the others – I wasn’t expecting anything. Another thing I have to confess – it seems you can get birthday cards here - I was presented with several, very flowery birthday cards. So grovelling apologies to mum!

My Higher Diploma group did some of their microteaching the other day – they were brilliant! They’d had a week or so to prepare a ten minute teaching activity using an active learning method either individually or in small groups. For me one of the most successful methods was Jigsaw groups – you divide your group/class into groups of 4 or 5 and give each group a different topic or part of a topic to read about, becoming experts in that area. Then you form new groups with one person from each of the original groups and each person has to “teach” their topic to the rest of the group. We were given a chemistry topic to work on and it really made my brain work – trying to understand the information in order to be able to share it later. I had to sit and mark a pile of their work today – normally something I would find tedious but it is quite inspirational really. Candidates are working in English, which for some of them might be a third or fourth language and you will remember that very few of them actually wanted to be teachers – however, they are all really enthusiastic about what they are doing, trying out new methods and reflecting critically on their practice. It is very humbling to work with them.

First slightly dodgy gut problem today so I stayed home this morning – phone calls from the Dean and vice dean to check I was ok! They are looking after us so well.

Things are grinding to a halt at college – very few students in today. This weekend is Easter so Friday is a public holiday and the college is closed – but just for the long weekend. We are struggling to understand it – there are no students and they don’t expect most of them back till next Wednesday. A lot of the staff have also said they won’t be there Thursday or Monday. Why don’t the college just declare those two days as holidays too? Easter is the biggest holiday here I think and everybody goes home – journeys that could take 2 days so it would make sense to have a long holiday.

Power has gone off for the third time today so I am writing by candlelight and battery power....

Ok, a couple of birthday pictures hot off the press. We had 15 people round and food for at least 40! Top picture is Almos, the chef with the bread and injera and then me cutting the birthday bread. More later....got leftovers to eat!!!

School uniforms. Some of the kids look like real fashion victims. Purple trousers with bright red jumpers, or lime green shirts and turquoise trousers – anyway makes them easier to miss on the bike.

It’s hot again today and I’m feeling sleepy. No rain for a couple of days so the streets and choking with dust. Things are calm here and we are back on green – proceed as normal! Talking to a couple of the guys from college at the bar last night and they wonder how Ethiopia will ever move forward. People always talk about development as if it is a good thing but I think we have lost a lot in the “developed world”. Social relationships are much more important here and people will do anything to help each other – they really have time for each other. In such a poor country there is a custom that people invite you for drinks and food without a second thought.

There is a donkey braying in the street. And a very quiet, very dead cat. It is probably the one that a previous volunteer kept as a pet. I can’t believe VSO sanction that – you can’t take them back with you and then someone is stuck with having to try and look after it.

Michael is trying to make ginger biscuits with some very yellow long life margarine – no refrigeration needed! Really he should be making hot cross buns but I’m grateful for anything. Anyway it isn’t Easter here for another two weeks. Having about 15 people round for lunch tomorrow for my birthday. People don’t celebrate birthdays here – a lot of people don’t know what day they were born on and there is no money for celebrations. I love being away from all the commercial nonsense in the UK, but I have to confess that there are some things I miss. Often it is just a craving for something a bit different.

Saw two maths lessons this week at college. The first was calculus – I had to confess to the teacher that it was my least favourite area of maths at college. They were differentiating and did the whole lesson without any graph sketching at all. The other lesson was teaching methodology – how to teach multiplication to first cycle (lower primary) children. Great active starter, followed by a multiplication game. Then they looked at multiplication using partitioning and I was itching to get up and show them the grid method but I managed to resist! How is Alfie getting on with his multiplication, I wonder??

The view from Tabor Mountain and enjoying the feast at Michael's induction dinner a couple of weeks ago. Our phone is sorted again, thank goodness.

Sunday

Raining here - got soaked on our way to the internet cafe. Michael thought it was great to be out in the rain, I wasn't quite so amused.

Quick check of the emails shows there have been some explosions in Addis over the last couple of weeks, anyone hear about it on the news? We get very little news here but things seem ok. Fab run this morning!!

Saturday 8th April

We’ve had no phone line for a week now so no easy internet access. Earlier in the week, Fitsum, our line manager, took us to a couple of internet cafes and introduced us to the owners – to ensure that we got habasha rates and not ferenji. Been so busy tho that we haven’t had time really to get there.

On Monday we had another college dinner at Pinna Hotel – in honour of a visiting American who had adopted two children from Awassa and was meeting his extended family. He was travelling with an Ethiopian whose organisation had donated books and helped fund the computer lab at college. Marhary was fascinating – he has a wealth of experience – coordinating relief during the drought in the 80’s amongst other things. Both got us all thinking about the role of the college in bringing change in the country – the teacher educators train about 5,000 students a year who all go off and teach hundreds of children themselves.

On Thursday our programme officer from VSO turned up at college with two volunteers from Dilla, a town to the south of here. They have been evacuated as there have been some problems this week – the local sidaminga group still trying to get their own region. It sounds as though things have calmed down there already but I guess it is better to be sure. Everything seems quiet here in Awassa though we have heard that people are still imprisoned following the trouble here a few weeks ago. I think the Amnesty International site has more information – difficult to get anything reliable here. Bizarrly non of it seems to affect us.

Today was a very leisurely day – breakfast at Lewi 1 with Lena – our first trip there. Good to visit somewhere new. They had fabulous mango juice and a great omelette – a nice atmosphere, very popular with locals. Breakfast for about 60p. A bit of shopping and then called at Fiona’s – just in time for the coffee ceremony! Bliss!

Sunday 2nd April

I think Michael is a bit of a Cinderella really – our morning run has been getting earlier and earlier so that he can be back before there are too many people on the streets. Today the alarm was set for 5 am – at that hour I have no desire at all for exercise and today was no exception. I kept as still as possible hoping that he would go back to sleep – tho at the same time a small part of me wanted to run, I know I always love it once I get out there. Anyway, by 5.30 we were out and it was lovely as usual. Had the life frightened out of me be Bobby (our guard dog, who should have been at home!) as I turned the first corner in the darkness and there were loads of bats flying around as we turned the second. We have had rain daily I think for about 3 weeks so the insects are starting to breed. Everywhere is really green now too and you can smell the eucalyptus as you get to the trees. I’m afraid I did the usual walk to the top of the hill but once down again I did a few reps. The first twenty minutes or so is always so hard as my body just wants to be in bed. Out long enough to see the sun rise. I long to be able to go for a run at a sensible time of day….

The rains are great – really dramatic, not like the endless English drizzle. Clouds build up during the afternoon and we usually have a dramatic thunderstorm late afternoon. This week we had a grey day – no sign of the sun and I missed it tho I was glad of the lower temperature. Evenings generally are a welcome relief from the heat.

Got the bird book we ordered so we can start to identify some of the many new birds – they have great names. The “Beautiful Sunbird” is a regular visitor to the garden, as is the “Speckled moosebird”. One of my favourites is the “Red-cheeked Cordon-blue” – a tiny azure blue waxbill. If it stays dry we will go down to the lake later and see what else we can identify. Well, there isn’t much else to do here…..

I’ve had a week of observations at college, really interesting. I have my first maths observation next week. I’ve seen a lot of education methodology lessons and people are taking on the new methods of teaching with enthusiasm. We are struggling to come up with alternatives to lecture notes in a place where books are scarce. Exciting moment this week when I was observing and a snake was discovered under my chair – now that doesn’t happen at home!