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??