Well, I am a bit stuck at the moment – I want to start to draft something about leadership support for the college dean but I need some reference books and of course the library is still closed because they have washed the floor. I tell you, nothing is easy! I am getting more tolerant I think though and usually manage to take these things in my stride. Work is at a very different pace here. It has just gone 10.30 am and so far this morning I have been a guest speaker in a second year English class and been to the post office. The English class was quite interesting – they had prepared questions for me but I could see from their faces that a lot of them didn’t understand my responses. English is the language of instruction in schools from grade 7 in this part of Ethiopia and it is meant to be the language used in colleges and universities tho most teacher educators here will tell you they use a mixture of English and Amharic. I suspect that there is more Amharic than English. People just don’t practice enough and teachers resort to Amharic too quickly in my view. Not that I claim to be an expert in learning foreign languages. However, I am going to speak at the students English club this afternoon on that very subject. I will talk about my experiences of learning French and Amharic – one successful and the other not. Key factor in my success – motivation.

We went running this morning – only 35 minutes but it was fab. So good to be out at 5.30 am with the stars! The power seemed to be off for the first part of the route so it was really dark, a bit chilly and the air was really fresh. You feel much more positive after a run! We were a bit indulgent afterwards tho because Mikes mum had sent some Green and Blacks chocolate powder so we had a small hot chocolate after breakfast. It was divine. We are really spoilt at the moment as we have had three parcels from home within a week so we have an extensive range of teabags, lots of chocolate and other goodies. It had been a good two (or maybe three) months since our last parcel so we had been feeling a bit cut off. The parcels are a real lifeline – you do get bored with the quite limited range of goods here and a little treat from home is so welcome. It is nice to get something through the post and people don’t really write letters anymore do they? Anyhow, now I have some boxes and envelopes I will fill them up with Ethiopian goodies and send them home!

Happy New Year!

A couple of photos - us baking in the sun with coffee on Christmas day and Michael's garden - the beans are coming up. Hopefully we can transform our yard into something a bit greener!!

It feels a bit strange here as today has been a normal working day and we didn’t celebrate last night as I am on antibiotics and can’t drink. But did you know you can get Ethiopian champagne? No, I haven’t tried it. Though I think our taste buds have altered – we brought fairly decent bottle of imported wine back from Addis but found it a bit insipid after the local brew! Gouda (local red wine) really grows on you!

Michael and I have spent a lot of today planning our equivalent to the four day course for local maths and science teachers – I think visualisations will feature quite heavily as you can do them with no resources! Otherwise we are still settling in at college and learning the systems – today we discovered (after 6 weeks!) that there is a Post Office on the campus! Induction systems could be improved!