Today was my last HDP session before we head home for a break. We fly to the UK on Tuesday for two and a half weeks in the UK. I’ve never looked forward to being at Heathrow airport so much. The last week has seemed very slow and the teacher educators I work with have seemed to be in end-of-term mode. The students have finished their exams and the college is very quiet. The summer school programme doesn’t start until mid-July so a lot of staff are simply not here. Out of 26 candidates I had only 18 today, and one of them disappeared at the break! It’s like having a problem pupil in a class to deal with. I made the mistake of describing our trip as a holiday. Here holiday literally means a “holy day”. Ethiopians don’t have holidays in the way we mean them. Even weekends are not seen as a break as they are at home. There is no Amharic equivalent to “have a good weekend”.

Yohannes, who I am giving English lessons to, seems to be enjoying our time together. Despite my complete ignorance about how to help somebody improve their English, we are improvising our way through some interesting sessions. He is an art teacher and I used a picture of Holbein’s “The Ambassadors” from the Guardian newspaper as a subject to practice talking about. As soon as he saw the picture he just lit up. His face and body language brightened up and once he started to describe the picture I couldn’t hold him back. It was amazing to sit with him as he explained features about the picture I hadn’t even noticed. Despite his poor English his interpretations were vivid and sophisticated. He really does see the world with an artist’s eyes. He knows a lot about western art and it hit me that he has never seen any original works by the famous artists he can talk about. He has only seen pictures in a very small number of books. In London anyone can walk into the National Gallery and see a rich collection of artistic masterpieces, for free!!!! Surely being able to do that is a better sign of a “developed” culture than how many cars people own.

The weather has cooled as the long rains approach. In the evening it’s almost cool enough to need to wear a jumper. At night I’ve had to resort to sleeping with a sheet over me instead of nothing at all.

I’ve felt slightly better nourished this week. One of the physics teachers at the college is a woman called Aloka, from India. Her husband teaches economics at Debub University. There are quite a lot of Indians teaching at the University, and Aloka and her husband have been living in Awassa for four years. They invited us to dinner last Saturday. She had cooked a vegetarian Indian meal of several different dishes including chana massala, rice, raita and freshly made pooris. At home, I love that kind of food, but here I could have wept with gratitude at tasting something different after four and half months in Ethiopia. The food was simply fantastic. She can get all the necessary Indian ingredients and spices, and knows how to use them. I actually felt physically and spiritually better afterwards.

I’ve been reflecting a lot on what we have achieved here and what I personally have gained. The feedback we have had from the staff at the college has been very positive and warm. I do think we have started to make a difference, perhaps not so much to their teaching but in their attitude. None of them wanted to be teachers and they received no training and development once they completed a very basic teacher training. A lot of them have said they have never experienced anyone work in the way that we work e.g. we are consistently punctual, we listen and encourage them to share their ideas, we are informal, enthusiastic and interactive. At my low moments (and there have been many of them) I’ve tried to hold onto a belief in the cumulative power of small changes. Hopefully, by role modelling how they can be as teachers and always trying to be positive, we are planting “seeds”, ideas that might influence them later and they might pass onto their students, who will in turn be better teachers than they might have been. A lot of the time, I feel very selfish and wrapped up in my own feelings about being here and how hard it is for me. When my motivation is low I have to remember that this is supposed to be about them and what we can give.