Leaving Dodola


Wahoro hut


The forest


vegetation in the "erica" zone



Horse and handler!


Approaching Adele hut


The evening view from Angafu hut




Hussein (our guide) cooking dinner

I’m back after an eventful and stimulating two weeks. We went trekking for six days in Bale Mountains, which includes some of the last remaining native Ethiopian forest. Travelling there was part of the overall experience, as is travelling overland anywhere in Ethiopia. The bus journey to the town of Dodola took three hours over unsurfaced, rough, stony and often muddy tracks. The landscape was stunning as we climbed out of the Rift Valley and then climbed again towards the mountains. Dodola is a small, quiet and dusty town and there was a noticeable lack of hassle from people in the street. In Bale Mountains there is the National Park, which is accessed from Dinsho, another four hours journey further east, and an area covered by the IFMP (Integrated Forest Management Plan). The IFMP was set up by a German NGO called GTZ approx seven years ago, and is a brilliant example of community-based eco-tourism. The local people were busy destroying the forest to provide grazing land when GTZ came up with the idea of working with the mountain communities to generate income from tourism to provide an incentive to preserve the forest. A chain of six mountain huts was set up, which are run and looked after by somebody from the nearest village. The huts have a wood-burning stove, basic cooking equipment and eight beds, with sleeping bags provided (like a luxury bothy). Local porridge (thick, made from wheat and maize, and with a large melted lump of spice butter on it: not convinced about the taste but certainly good walking food) and bread can be ordered from the village in the morning. You walk or horse-ride between the huts accompanied by a guide and a horse-handler. At each hut, you change horses and handler so each community benefits from your tourism rather than just the starting location. Our guide, Hussein, was a native Oromifa speaker (Bale is in the Oromo Region) and spoke good English. He also had that easy-going endlessly patient Ethiopian way about him. The weather was hot and sunny during the day and then the temperature would plummet from late afternoon onwards, so that in the course of a day we would be walking in a shirt and then have to wear a fleece and a down jacket in the evening (the huts are all at between 3000m and 3500m altitude). At this time of year from about 1pm heavy rain is almost guaranteed. As for the landscape, well I’ll try to post photos on this blog, but no photo could really capture the stunning variety of plants and bird life, as well as a couple of sightings of the rare Ethiopian Wolf.

We had most of the huts to ourselves, apart from Mololichou and Adele. About 30 mins after arriving at Mololichou during heavy rain, a line of horses arrived carrying equipment for a group of eight trekkers on their way to the hut. One of the trekkers arrived soon afterwards on horseback with a guide. She was soaked to the skin and slightly hypothermic having not brought waterproofs. The rest of her group walked in soon afterwards, all soaked and all without waterproofs. Most of them were diplomats from the Israeli embassy with two non-Israeli UN staff. The huts have bed space for eight people and we were now ten. We were in the correct hut on the correct night and the Israelis’ also claimed to be correct. We never found out if the Israelis or the IFMP guide was wrong, but there was an awkward and unpleasant moment when two of the Israelis insisted they would not camp outside even though we had arrived first. Eventually they settled for sleeping on the floor, but their approach, coupled with their general pushy and arrogant manner towards their guide, simply added to a negative impression of a group of people with no outdoor experience in the mountains.

The following night in Adele hut, we had the opposite experience with three Germans. One of them had worked with GTZ seven years ago to help set up the IFMP and he was now back on holiday to see how the programme had developed. I think he was justifiably pleased: this is one of the few clear cut examples I’ve seen of development obviously working and benefiting a community in a sustainable way.

I can’t do justice to the amazing experience we had during probably the best walking trip I’ve done anywhere. The website (www.baletrek.com) is worth looking at and the whole trip has made me reflect on the importance of community-based eco-tourism and the role I as a tourist can have in affecting local communities.

The journey back to Awassa on Saturday was typically Ethiopian. We got on the bus in Dodola and waited for an hour for it to fill up (buses don’t go anywhere until they’re full). Eventually it crept out of the bus station, stopped, let a few more people board, reversed back into the station and emptied us all out! So, we all scrambled onto another bus and finally left. Three bum-numbing hours later we arrived in Shashamene to change onto a minibus to Awassa. Three different people practically fought over us to use their bus, with much grabbing and jostling going on. Our overcrowded minibus (at least twenty people in a VW-sized van!) delivered us exhausted in Awassa well after dark.

On Sunday I then had to board another bus to journey to Addis Ababa for a two day workshop. My next placement in Gondar involves me working as a Cluster Co-ordinator. In Tigray and Amhara regions schools are grouped into clusters which are co-ordinated by a unit based in a CTE (College of Teacher Education). The cluster co-ordinator sets up a model classroom and organises training in student-centred active learning methods for teachers from each school cluster. The trained teachers are supposed to set up model classrooms and deliver their own training to the rest of the teachers in their school. After the workshop I felt excited and keen to get started. Still waiting to hear from VSO about when we move to Gondar.

On top of all this some new VSO vols have arrived in Awassa from the September intake. At 48 vols this has been the biggest intake anywhere at anytime. We have been joined here by Jason (American), Cerine (American), Paul (Ugandan) and Sudhir (Indian). They’re an interesting bunch, a breath of fresh air.

So much to write about! Maybe I’ll add more in the next few days.