HDP in action


Mesfin and Mesfin!

Tabor Hill

Coffee at college this morning was spent with Bisrat. Bisrat is an ex-student who, as the top performing diploma student, was given a job in the Programme Office for a year (which is the office that organises teaching practice placements in schools for the college trainee teachers). We initially thought this was a bit strange, a bit like giving the top graduate from a degree course a job for a year in the college admin office as a clerk. His diploma was in English (i.e. he is now qualified to be a teacher in a 2^nd cycle primary school teaching Grades 5 to 8), and unlike a lot of English teachers his English is actually very good. He is articulate, confident and has a manner about him that makes me think he is somebody who could go places and make a difference. Over coffee he talked with me about a dilemma he is facing. He wants to continue his studies and do a degree. His heart is telling him to do his degree in English so he can be a High School teacher, but his friends and family are telling him to do a Business degree so he can earn more money and have a higher status in a business or finance job. His mother is absolutely adamant that he should study Business as she thinks being a teacher is shameful. Yet again, the low status of teachers raises it very ugly head. Bisrat actually wants to be a teacher, which makes him a bit unusual, and is not simply driven by wanting money. It’s hard to advise him. My immediate reaction is he should follow his heart and do what he is interested in (study to be a High School English teacher), but I also understand that choosing a subject he is not interested in (Business) because it will lead to status and better pay is not to be disregarded lightly, given life in Ethiopia. Ethiopia needs people like Bisrat who are interested in teaching and want to help their country: fewer than 45% of children even go to primary school, most teachers are teaching subjects they are not interested in, most teachers don’t even want to be teachers, teaching is poorly paid and is viewed as a very low-status job. He has to make his decision by the end of the week.

Gill left early on Tuesday morning to travel to Addis. She is the Awassa rep on the VSO volunteers committee which is meeting this week, and she will also be meeting the new intake of volunteers who arrived in Ethiopia on Sunday. So for most of this week I’m working here in the college on my own. Given my relatively light workload at the moment I’ve had some time to ponder on what it’s like to do VSO with my partner instead on my own. Is it easier to do this as a couple compared to on your own? In many ways it probably is. We have support from each other, somebody to do things with and somebody to share the effort in doing the many things which would be trivial and mundane in normal life at home, but here require effort and energy due to the language and culture barriers. I wonder though if in other ways we would have a richer experience is we were here as two unconnected individuals? I think staff at the college might find it a bit easier to approach us on a social basis if we were not here together. Also we work together, sharing the same office and doing the same work which is less than ideal, and can be boring. It’s not as if we can talk in the evening about how our day has been! I think if I was here on my own I might make a bit more of an effort socially with colleagues, although having said that, making friends with Ethiopians is difficult. As I’ve written before, Ethiopians are very friendly and hospitable, but there’s a cultural (and language) barrier that makes true friendship perhaps impossible. The English of most of our colleagues (and certainly my Amharic) simply isn’t good enough to share genuine humour and sarcasm, an important ingredient to me in establishing a meaningful friendship.

It’s not every day you have your portrait painted! Some time ago, Yohannes (one of my HDP candidates and art teacher) offered to paint my portrait and today was the day. After work I went to his house and within 50 minutes my portrait had been painted. The finished picture is amazing, but what really fascinated me was the process. He found it funny mixing paints to achieve the right colours for a ferenji face as he has only every painted Ethiopian faces! There’s something very intimate about being studied intently by somebody else. I was aware of him really looking at each part of my face and being totally absorbed by his task. As he finished off he started smiling a lot and muttering about how happy he felt as he had “captured” my character and his experience of me. This was very important to him, he wasn’t interested in just painting a picture of me, he wanted it to communicate something. One of the most difficult aspects of our role as HDP Leaders is helping the teacher educators to develop and express their ability to reflect on their teaching. Yohannes, despite his difficulties with English, has no problem with being aware of his feelings and thoughts and expressing them. While he was painting he really came alive and was completely in his element. To call it a “hobby” wouldn’t begin to do justice to the passion he has for making art. As for the portrait, there's something shockingly honest about it in a way that a posed photograph doesn't communicate. I don't know how flattering it is and I don't care. It means something to me and to Yohannes.