We’ve restarted the morning run. Every second morning (well, that’s the plan!) we get up at 5am and run for 50 mins. In Awassa we used to run to Tabor Hill, speed walk up and run down, catching the start of of sunrise over the Rift Valley rim on the way. Here the terrain is much more hilly but all the main roads are surfaced. It’s also a lot cooler in the morning, to the point where I have cold hands within minutes of going outside. It’s beautiful at that time of the morning. The stars are stunning and the surrounding mountains in the moonlight make it the best time of the day to be out. I can feel the effect of the altitude though. We probably vary between 2200 m and 2300 m during our run and I can feel my lungs having to work harder.

Yesterday, Friday, I ran a workshop for science teachers from all the 2^nd cycle schools (Grades 5 – 8) in Gondar Town. Each school has nominated a “key teacher” who will attend training in the college and then train their colleagues back in their school. After Gill and I ran two workshops on Wednesday for key English teachers, Gill ran one on Thursday for key Maths teachers. I had 27 key Science teachers, with the primary aim of exploring the training and development needs of their departments. One of the activities I planned was a “bus stop” tool, where five sheets of flipchart paper were placed around the room, on the walls, with a different question on each, such as “What are the challenges for teaching science in your school?” and “What is good about how science is taught in your school?”. Everyone was organized into five groups, each group got some time to discuss one of the questions and then wrote their responses onto the flipchart. After a set time, all the groups moved round one “stop” to consider a new question and add their responses to the ones made by the previous group, etc. Eventually every group had considered every question. This worked very well, apart from the question about what was good in their department. Almost every group had difficulty giving answers that matched the question. When I talked with some of the teachers I realized the main problem was that none of them thought there was anything good about the science teaching in their schools! After a varied couple of hours I now have some information to go on which I can turn into a needs analysis and then meaningfully plan training.

In the evening we went to “Blue House”, a bar café in town. A half-decent pizza is done there and a very nice fish “cutlet” i.e. fish in breadcrumbs. On the walk home, which takes 25 mins, out of town the night sky was stunning. The lack of light pollution means the stars here are more vivid and numerous than at home, with the Milky Way often being very prominent. The phases of the moon are also more noticeable here as the resulting variation in its brightness makes a big difference given the lack of any street lighting. On the horizon were bright flashes of lightening, but so far away there was no sound of thunder. A wall of cloud was forming on the horizon which was briefly lit up by the lightening. An absolutely beautiful night.

As we entered our compound we could see that the porch area, which is covered in cream coloured tiles, was covered in ants. I then realized that the whole of the “garden” (which is actually barren compacted builders rubble) was swarming with tens of thousands of ants. I’ve never seen anything like it. The big soldier ants climbed up our socks and started biting! Inside the house were probably a hundred or so ants which we spent the next hour killing (squashing ants is less productive than it sounds as they are tough buggers).