This is a view of Gondar from the top of a hill!

OK, OK I know I haven’t written anything for ages but it has been quite a busy time. We finished our placements in Awassa in quite a rush – our final day was 15^th November and we had the moderators in college all day looking at the work we (and the candidates) had done. That evening we packed and then travelled to Addis the next morning. Thursday afternoon and Friday were spent running between the VSO office, British Embassy doctors and the dentist but we managed to fit in a visit to the Zebra Grill (great cheesy bean burritos) and an Indian restaurant. We flew up to Gondar on Saturday and the Dean of the college met us at the airport. We had a couple of days in a hotel (big screen TV in the bar so lots of football!) and then moved in to our house on Monday. It is a new house, which sadly means no garden yet, just a building site but we have found loads of seeds so we will get to work out there soon. VSO have insisted we have guards so we have a day guard, Mekdes, and a night guard, Tiluhun. Mekdes is fab – she has trained as a primary school teacher but can’t get work – it is ridiculous as such a low proportion of the population go to school. The problem is lack of buildings tho in the first place. Anyhow, Mekdes cleans obsessively and tidies everything away. It is quite weird! Tiluhun doesn’t seem to do anything but I think that is the norm. We will try and get him involved in the garden I think. We are still struggling to work out their working hours and all the logistics. I think it is quite unnecessary to have them as our house is on the edge of a police camp so is probably quite secure. We pass these teenage police with their rifles everyday. I’m trying to be friendly and stay on the right side of them.

Gondar is quite mountainous – we are at about 2,200 metres here and the town is spread over the hills. The walk to college is fairly flat but a brisk 15 minutes. Up into town, in the other direction, is uphill and takes nearly half an hour. You feel the altitude initially. The air is clear and there is often a lovely breeze. Mornings we have that lovely clear blue African sky and sunshine but it gets a bit chilly in the wind in the evenings.

The college campus is lovely, lots of trees and great views of the hills all around. People seem really nice too. We are both trying to make sense of the work we will be doing. Fortunately we are in separate offices this time – different buildings too! We are going out to visit local schools this week, which will be really interesting. We will be working with all different kinds of schools from private ones to those that have no building even – we’ve heard stories about classes taking place under a tree.