Evidence of the Easter weekend end-of-fast celebrations is everywhere. There are bones scattered around the roadsides, a noticeable lack of chickens and there is the head of a cow rotting in the lane outside our house.

As a nearly-veggie I had some mixed feelings about trying one of Ethiopias trademark dishes: tibs. Tibs is just fried chopped meat served with injera. There are tibs houses all over the place, i.e. restaurants which serve tibs, and they close down during the 55 day fast. Tibs houses usually only serve tibs, so they are true veggie no-go areas. Leena and Fiona took me to a tibs house in the centre of town on Monday night. This particular place only serves goat tibs. On arrival you are confronted by a rack of freshly-slaughtered goat carcasses. You go up to the carcass counter, order a half kilo or one kilo portion of tibs and receive a ticket with your number on it. A few minutes later your portion of fried chopped goat is brought to your table, sitting in a beautiful clay pot with some burning charcoal in a little burner underneath. Apart from a small side bowl of extremely spicy chilli sauce, there is no sauce or seasoning with the meat. The tibs was actually quite nice; plain and very subtle in flavour. Ethiopian food is usually served lukewarm-to-cold because it is eaten by hand. Tibs is reassuringly sizzling hot and made from meat that’s fresher than most meat you would be able to buy at home. With a large glass of cold beer and our table faintly illuminated by glowing charcoal, my first tibs experience was good. I have to try beef tibs now. Unfortunately you don’t get chicken tibs. Imagine, a whole restaurant that does good business on only one dish!

Well, Easter Sunday was a day I will never forget. Fasil, our landlord, invited us to join him and his family at his parent’s house in Yirga Alem, a small town about 30km to the south of Awassa. Easter is one of the most important holidays to Ethiopians, and nearly every family travels to assemble at their parent’s home. Not only was this going to be an interesting experience but simply travelling to Yirga Alem and back turned out to be an adventure. Unlike many other NGOs, we don’t have the use of cars-with-drivers and have to travel as the locals do. Getting to Yirga Alem involved catching a “bus” i.e. what we at home would call a minibus. I don’t mean a nice, new, long-wheelbase, additional-headroom minibus with decent seats and seatbelts. No, the “bus” was a VW campervan-sized 12-seater which was seriously clapped-out. Catching the bus was the easy part. Waiting for it to actually depart was another matter. Small buses here don’t go anywhere until they are nearly full. We set off with five people, and then stopped a few metres later and reversed back to where we had started from in the hope of collecting more. Only once we were nearly full did we properly leave. We then discovered that “nearly full” meant something completely different from the bourgeois concept we have at home. Whenever the driver’s assistant (who spent the journey basically hanging out of the side door touting for passengers) saw somebody waiting at the roadside he would signal the driver to stop and pick them up. When we reached TWENTY passengers I thought this must be the limit. Oh no, as long as people could squeeze in, they did. People were sitting on each others knees and on the floor, and there were three people in the front passenger seat at one point. I could move my head and just about move my left leg. Everybody was cheerfully accepting of all this and we soon realised this was normal, even when the side door nearly fell off and the driver and his mate had to re-mount it on its runners. Mercifully the journey only took one hour, briefly interrupted by having to stop to change a wheel. Not only did the wheel-change allow everyone to get out and re-establish contact with the parts of the body deprived of circulation, but it also allowed me to watch them replace a knackered and utterly bald tire for an equally knackered and utterly bald spare tire.

The locals clearly don’t see many Ferenji in Yirga Alem, because we were instantly surrounded by a little group of people just staring at us. We were soon rescued by Fasil who escorted us to his parent’s house. We were greeted by his parents, all four sisters, one brother, in-laws, three nieces & nephews, cousins and friends. A large spread of food appeared and we were urged to stuff our faces as much as possible. Easter is also the end of fasting from animal products, so the family had been gorging on meat from soon after midnight. They had nearly finished eating their way through the meat from three chickens and a sheep. The London Marathon was on a large TV. The great Ethiopian runner, Haile Gebreselassie, was running and we had the bizarre experience of sitting in a very comfortable fairly middle-class home (nicer in many ways than a lot of houses in the UK) in Ethiopia listening to Brendan Foster and Steve Cram commentating on the race. The scenes of London seemed to be from a different planet and, most fascinating of all, it was grey and drizzling. Everybody looked so white!

Fasil is the only one in the family who speaks decent English, so the conversations passed largely via him, or via sign language and broken Amharic by us. At home people might choose to moan about Tony Blair, the government and the state of the country, but at least we can do so openly and freely. Running and food were the hot topics. Some people here like to talk about politics. Not many Ethiopians are brave enough to talk openly about it as there is a lot of anti-government feeling. The current prime-minister, Meles Zenawi, is, in the eyes of many, eroding democracy and trying to quash any opposition by divide-and-rule tactics. He was backed by the rebel movement from the Tigray Region in the north, which ousted the murderous communist dictator, Mengistu, in 1991. A new constitution was introduced, which divided Ethiopia into Regions along broadly ethnic lines. The Federal approach seems to be encouraging ethnic tensions and rivalries which didn’t really exist before. The UK and other countries have suspended direct aid in response to the government’s handling of protests in Addis Ababa in November. The trials of the main opposition party leaders are currently taking place in Addis.

We were taken to visit Fasil’s aunt’s house afterwards. Despite having just eaten, she repeatedly asked us to eat. Fasil saved us from forced feeding and we thought it was time to get going, so we could be back in Awassa before dark. There was no need to worry. One of Fasil’s friends arranged for the next bus to stop at the house and collect us and would keep the front seats free. So we then had another bizarre experience of being collected by a bus from the front door of the house and ushered into the empty front seats, while the rest of the bus was packed with human sardines contorted into weird shapes to make maximum use of the space.

Front seats meant more legroom and comfort. They also meant being closer to the point of impact in the event of an accident, as the driver took off like a maniac. Sitting in the front of a clapped-out van, with no working dashboard instruments, ignition keys which kept falling out, no seatbelt and a windscreen streaked with cracks as the driver slalomed around potholes, vehicles and children kept me fully awake. The engine had clearly been thrashed a bit too often, because it cut out every minute or so. The driver would get out, do some fiddling around under the van until the engine re-started and then would rev like mad until the engine died again further along the road. The high point was when he got half the passengers to bump start the engine by pushing the bus backwards down a hill. We were still in the front seats, watching in the mirrors as a very large bus approached from behind as we were still rolling backwards towards it. The big bus clearly took the hint, stopped and took us all onboard as we abandoned the now-miserable minibus driver in the middle of nowhere.

The big bus was a proper grown-up bus, probably designed to seat about 60 people and now carrying something like 80 sardines. Once again, all available space was used. The mixture of life onboard, the urban-bus-type seats, the windscreen wipers the driver didn’t use even though it was raining, the cramming-in, the attempt by one of the passengers to get the driver to play his tape of Ethiopian music instead of the driver’s tape, and the cheerful, accepting nature of everyone fitted my stereotype image of a bus ride in Africa. The bus had started from Moyale, on the border with Kenya. Many of the passengers had been on it for 12 hours.

As Gill said to me afterwards in Awassa, it felt as if we had finally arrived in Africa.

Lake Awassa

An occasional treat: chips, freshly hand-chopped and fried.

We’ve just been having the surreal experience of watching the Malaysian Grand Prix and one episode of ER on a DVD a friend of Gill’s has sent us. Slumping on the couch watching the Grand Prix was a taste of being at home. Two hours of escaping from reality, with the added twist of watching the most expensive sport in the world while living in one of the poorest countries in the world. Everybody we saw on the TV coverage was white and the amount of money obviously being splashed around seemed even more absurd than when I watch F1 in the UK.

The streets are now very quiet. Lots of people will have already left to travel to their home towns to be with their families. There a fewer chickens in the streets already. The sky is now grey and it’s a bit cooler than the baking temperatures I suffered in this morning. We were invited to Fiona’s house by her maid, Almos, for a coffee ceremony this afternoon. The coffee, as usual, was superb. Sitting around with the VSOs (Fiona, Leena and Margaret) was nice if a bit dull. We do see a lot of each other and I think we need to do less socialising together. I’d like to get to know more Ethiopians on a social basis. At times I feel unstimulated and want more stimulation from others. Perhaps I need to create a good argument with the other VSOs and have a heated debate about something!

Bobby, our cute-and-useless "guard" dog

A planned busy week of professional interviews with teacher educators and observation of their lessons has been wrecked by Easter. Easter in Ethiopia is this weekend (one week later than at home because Ethiopia uses a different calendar) and it is a very big deal here. Easter is the main religious holiday and everybody travels to their home town to be with their family. Even on Tuesday a lot of students were already missing from the college, and some of the teacher educators, including three of my HDP candidates, missed my session on Wednesday. Initially I found this annoying as more than a week will be disrupted even though the only “official” day off for staff and students is Friday 21^st. I calmed down a bit when it was pointed out to me that travelling home for many people will take them two days.

We had an intense Amharic lesson on Tuesday evening. Spending an hour saying “the book is on the table”, “the book is under the table”, “the book is next to the pen”, etc was hard work, but we are getting there slowly. The Ethiopian attitude to any Ferenji who try and speak Amharic is to fall about laughing. This was initially unsettling, until we were told that they simply do not expect Ferenji to speak Amharic, and they appreciate our attempts so much they laugh. Hmmmm...

It’s now Thursday afternoon and we are home already after the college Dean decided to close early for Easter. There’s a definite holiday atmosphere in town. Easter also marks the end of fasting for Ethiopian orthodox Christians. Fasting here means no animal products for 55 days. The chickens have had an easy time of it since the fast started, freely walking the streets and growing in size. Well, on Sunday it’s open-season on chickens! Ethiopians go for meat in a big way when the Fast ends. There were several people in the street walking around with live chickens under their arms being approached by other people offering to buy them. It’s like watching people trying to score drugs from dealers on the street corner.

Gill received two parcels from home today containing lots of interesting goodies, such as birthday presents, DVDs recorded by a friend of two recent Formula 1 Grand Prix and lots of decent chocolate. The treats are so much appreciated. I’m developing a craving for chocolate I didn’t have at home. We have both lost weight since we arrived in Ethiopia. Occasional doses of diarrhoea speed the weight-loss programme along...as Gill has discovered all week.

Almos in action and Gill cutting her birthday bread

Happy Birthday to Gill! Gill organised a birthday “do” this Sunday afternoon at our house. We paid for Almos, Fiona’s maid, to cook for us and she and I carried an amazing selection of Ethiopian dishes to our house (I perhaps should explain at this point that everyone has a maid. The name “maid” might conjure up certain stereotype images, but here having somebody clean and do your washing is entirely normal. For many women it provides the only income they can get).

Even walking through the streets wiith Almos was eye-opening. Normally when I’m on my own I am used to being stared and shouted at. When I walked with Almos, an Ethiopian woman, she got the shouted comments and I was just ignored. I later discovered that she was receiving lewd, silly or abusive comments just for being seen alone with a Ferenji man. Although Almos is about 22 years old, she’s tough and I wouldn’t mess with her! She had her first child when she was ELEVEN.

Gill invited senior colleagues from college (Getachew, Fitsum and Mesfin), our landlord Fasil, his sisters Emembit & Mersha and nephew Abi, and the other VSOs, Fiona, Leena and Margaret. The first few minutes were a bit awkward as we all sat in our living room. Ethiopians don’t have a culture of “parties” where people freely mingle and chat so it was all a bit stiff and formal to begin with. Somebody at home once said to me that “inhibitions are soluble in alcohol”, but this was a social gathering without the great Western solvent. A lot of people here do not drink alcohol, and those that do drink do so in very modest amounts – partly a culture thing and partly a poverty thing. Gradually people loosened up and we had a good time.

For me, I was fascinated by the dynamics between the Ethiopians. The three college staff knew each other very well, and they filled the social space quite confidently. Fasil was uncharacteristically shy and quiet and only joined in conversation when directly spoken to. He is younger than the college staff and is “only” a teacher i.e. near the bottom of the heap of educated people. His sisters and Almos did not participate at all. As soon as I started doing anything to get the food ready to serve, Almos would take over while Fasil’s sisters automatically made all the preparations for the coffee ceremony. There was never any expectation that the men would help and, when I tried to do any of the “chores” the women would laugh and make it very clear there was no way they were going to let me do such things. Once Fasil and the college staff left, the Ethiopian women chattered away between themselves in Amharic. We were left with a small mountain of food to sort out. If we had a fridge or freezer (oh how I dream of the blast of cold air when you open a fridge door…) we could feed ourselves for the next three days. We kept some for us, gave some to Almos to feed her two kids, some to Fasil’s sisters and the rest went to Bobby, the cute-but-useless “guard” dog. Bobby now likes me.

Our telephone line has come back to life after “only” 12 days!

As part of the HDP I interview each candidate to find out more about them. All three candidates I met with this morning, left me feeling humbled and selfish about my own life as usual. One of them wanted to study economics at university in Hosanna, but was “assigned” to a college in Dilla to study to be an Amharic teacher. He enjoys teaching but is fed up with teaching Amharic after only one year of teaching. Describing himself as feeling “a bit depressed” about his subject & college assignment struck me as a stunning understatement. He is already looking around for jobs outside of teaching. What a crazy system in a country desperately short of teachers! It’s no wonder so many teachers quit or are seriously unmotivated.

The mosquitoes have started to appear. The proper rainy season doesn't start until July, but the various puddles from recent thunderstorms are already a good breeding ground. No matter how hard you try to zap the buggers there's always one that escapes and buzzes your ear when you least expect it. The mossies I can handle, the supergiant cockroach I just removed from the house is a different matter. There a loads of tiny wee ones, which can be quite cute in a strange way, but this one tonight was way bigger than a mouse. Perhaps the only good 'roach is a dead 'roach but, to be honest, I was quite happy to turn this one loose outside and make a run for it.

I’m fascinated by the way many Ethiopians can amble along in a way that looks as if they are barely moving, and yet they are walking at a reasonable speed. What’s the point of rushing in a hot climate? Ferenji stand out not just because of the colour of our skin, but because we try and walk at the pace we would do at home. Fasil and family have a maid who comes most days to clean and cook. She has an absolutely fascinating way of walking. She has a smoothly fluid walking motion with a gentle rolling of her hips. At first sight she doesn’t appear to be getting anywhere, but she moves at a reasonable speed in a seemingly effortless way.

Anyway, my HDP sessions are going OK, I think. The candidates seem happy and say they are enjoying it. They engage willingly with all the activities, and are enthusiastic about being exposed to student-centred active learning techniques. Some of them are trying out some of the tools we have used already, and yet there’s the depressingly familiar “Top Dog” voice in my head intruding with messages such as “they are actually bored”, “they think you’re no good at this”, etc. I haven’t been teaching since mid-December and I haven’t heard those messages since then. Well, Top Dog has woken up and the same old familiar, intrusive, unhelpful messages I often experienced in the classroom have returned. Something to think about: a complete change of scenery doesn’t leave all the old habits behind.

The morning run is becoming a very satisfying habit. Every second morning we get up at 5.15am and run. We do a circuit including Tabor Hill and get to see dawn develop, and arrive back at the house around sunrise. Today I ran on my own. The running routine starts with feeling awful and grumpy when the alarm goes off, then feeling leaden and stiff for the first 10 minutes of the run, then 40 minutes of pleasure and pain followed by an endorphin rush and looking forward to doing it again. The first 20 minutes is in darkness (there are almost no street lights) and is often adventurous due to the rough ground, the crazy stray dogs, the few especially crazy Ethiopians cycling to church with no lights and the occasional donkey standing in the middle of the road. The last 10 minutes are along a main street in daylight, with gawping Ethiopians being entertained by the sight of a sweaty Ferenji running for pleasure.

Although Ethiopia has some famous runners (e.g. Haile Gebreselassie), most of our colleagues appear completely unable to understand why anyone would want to exercise and push themselves physically for pleasure. Even their great runners became runners because they had to run many miles each day simply to go to school. Walking long distances or physically exerting yourself is associated with poverty, which might explain the bemusement and concern of our colleagues when we insist on cycling or walking to college every day instead of using the bus. Football though is different. Nearly everyone here is obsessed with the English Premiership: there are more Man Utd, Arsenal and Chelsea supporters here than I have ever met at home.

Still no active phone line. We visited the phone people to check on progress on fixing our line. We were reassured they would fix it soon. When we asked if they knew when somebody would come round the response was “no”. OK, can’t argue with that.

During one of our pre-departure VSO training courses we had to consider what our “bottom line” issues were when considering a placement. I was quite happy to live in primitive conditions in a mudhut in the middle of nowhere provided I could have easy contact with home, principally email (not likely from a rural mudhut but you never know…). Not so long ago, internet access simply wasn’t an option for most VSO placements. Now almost all vols have internet access, either at home, work or internet cafes. Even in Awassa there are at least two internet cafes. Here I am in one of the poorest countries in the world and I’ve become used to having a laptop and being able to do internet stuff on demand! I’m going to struggle if (when?!) our laptop dies. The dust in many Ethiopian towns is a known laptop killer. Sometimes knowing I can be in contact is at least as important as actually being in contact. I rely on having contact to help me deal with being here. Although our dead line might just be a temporary glitch, I don’t like the vulnerable feelings that go with being cut off.

In the meantime I am busy being a working person again and we are perhaps settling into a steady routine. My Higher Diploma group consist of 27 teacher educators. Unfortuantely only two are women, although between Gill and I we are training most of the female teacher trainers in the college (6 out of 120). We still meet with the other vols on Wed and Fri nights. I’ve become addicted to a sort-of spicy lentil paste eaten with bread.

Some people here are very efficient. Fasil, the most extraordinarily wonderful landlord on the planet, went to all the trouble of buying a new voltage surge protector for us. 220 birr was the best price he could get for a decent one. Nothing is too much trouble for him. He is much more willing and ready to put himself out for other people than I usually am. I have a lot to learn.

Gill asked a seemingly innocent question about why the voltage stabiliser burned out when I plugged the iron into it. Little did she suspect the extent of the physics lesson about to be unleashed. She handled voltage, current, power, atomic structure, resistance and transformers with an impressive determination and stoicism. After some time we successfully used physics to prove that I had been a complete idiot plugging a 1800W device into a 500W-rated stabiliser. The power of physics!

The BBC World Service is lifeline. Through it, we have heard about the worsening drought in the SE of the country and along the border with Kenya. It sounds bad and is taking place only 150 miles or so to the south of Awassa. Food here in the town is as abundant as always and yet people are starting to die a few hours drive away.

The two VSO vols in Dilla (30 miles to the south of us) were evacuated to Addis on Thursday. Two people were shot dead and several houses were burned. I think it is about another ethnic group demanding their own region, having been inspired by the Sidama people who are demanding a region of their own. There’s no sign of trouble here although we are still officially on Yellow Alert.

Ahhh technology...

Our telephone line has died. The Ethiopian telecoms people are no doubt making us a high priority and with speed and efficiency will fix our line asap. Dream on. At least there are two internet cafes here, although "connection speed" is not an appropriate term given how long this is taking me.

In brief, I have now lead my first two sessions as a HDL and I feel good. There's that familiar teachers adrenalin buzz of leading sessions of 27 people. We have also started Amharic lessons with one of the college staff.

Must stop now. Will probably take five minutes to log off.