Hiwot in action on Friday

Making indicators with flower petals



Musa in action on Saturday

After working flat out all day on Thursday to get ready for the next phase of training for science teachers, Friday and Saturday have been very very satisfying and uplifting days. Friday was Day 3 of four scheduled days of training for one science teacher from each 2^nd cycle school and Gondar Town cluster supervisors. During the four weeks since Days 1 and 2 were delivered I’ve visited some schools, observed some lessons and had some time to reflect on how I can design Days 3 and 4. Star of the show again has been Hiwot. She too worked flat out on Thursday to prepare to deliver two of the four sessions and on the day itself she was impressive.

A brief outline of Day 3
Session 1: review of Days 1 & 2 and sharing of experiences in schools over the last four weeks
Session 2 (Hiwot): exploration of subject knowledge of acids & bases, including using flower petals as an indicator to test some common substances.
Session 3: Methods for using textbooks actively and to support learning in English
Session 4 (Hiwot): some more chemistry practicals using local materials

Friday evening was beers and blethering with Gemma & Steve.

Day 4
Session 1 (Musa, a college Physics teacher educator): basic electronics in the physics lab
Session 2: more activities for using textbooks actively and to develop English skills
Session 3: review of all the methods covered over the four days and what happens next.

I’ve really enjoyed these two days and the teachers have been fully engaged. The adrenalin, excitement, stress, being fully occupied in an activity, being fully engaged with the teachers in trying to take them forward from how they work now has been thoroughly fulfilling. This is what we need to be doing. The real test of course is the effect this all has on the actual practice of the teachers in their classrooms. Another series of school visits and observations can now start next week. Suddenly my time here is worthwhile and achieving something. The rollercoaster continues…

Mariam Debre Primary School

Sometimes it doesn’t take much to transform your mood. After a day of frustration (I do seem to use that word a lot at the moment but it best seems to sum up how I feel) and thwarted attempts to make progress with developing training to be delivered on Friday and Saturday, the final hour of the day was spent working on one of the sessions with Hiwot. She has her own ideas, is willing to share them, will listen to advice and asks good questions. She is by far the most impressive person I have worked with in the college: proactive, keen and really wants to learn. Today I discovered that she has a husband who got a Green Card and is studying in the USA. When Hiwot gets her degree next year she is going to join him, and good luck to her. She is the kind of person this country needs but she isn’t likely to get anywhere in this college. I’m perfectly happy to work with her because whatever skills she gains from working with me she will take with her and pass on.

The more experienced college instructors should sit up and notice. Many of the instructors are, frankly, up their own arses and think they have no need to change. Well guys, most of your teaching is crap, you’re lazy and couldn’t organize a piss up in a brewery. Try getting out into schools and seeing how many of the teachers are trying to improve their practice.

I’ve tried to visit more schools this week and observe the science teachers. Friday morning was spent at Atse Fasil School to observe the science teacher who came to the training at the college. Gill came along as well to observe one of the maths teachers. Unfortunately the science teacher was absent. So I ended up also observing the maths teacher. By the time we made it back to college the whole morning had passed. More than three hours to observe one 45 min lesson.

Monday was more interesting. We went to Mariam Debre School, which although not far from Gondar felt like it could have been hundreds of miles away and required a 4x4 off-road vehicle to get to. Many of the kids spend more than an hour walking to school. The science teacher did some good stuff with a Grade 8 Biology class, but he told me afterwards he was a bit worried about being judged as he is only trained to teach up to Grade 4! Rural schools have so much difficulty recruiting 2^nd cycle teachers (they all want to work in towns) that often 1^st cycle teachers are forced to teach 2^nd cycle. The school had a lovely peaceful feel to it, and we had a great time chatting with some of the teachers in the staffroom: a ring of stones under a tree!

Tuesday saw me in Hibret School watching a lesson which was just a lecture, because the teacher wanted to impress me as a visitor instead of doing “noisy activities” such as group work! Today, Wednesday, was Keye Ameba School, another off-road vehicle ride away. Unfortunately the Supervisor arranged for me to come at 1.30pm but it turned out that the lesson I came to see started at 1.10pm. Nobody told me this of course. I discovered this when the lesson ended after only 15 mins! Also, the Supervisor, who I arranged to jointly observe with, didn’t turn up…

Still, the violent hailstorm as I was driven back to college was impressive. The weather has turned dramatically in the last few days. After months of baking hot and dry days, the “short rains” have arrived. Storm clouds gather around lunchtime leading to thunder and bursts of heavy rain. In Awassa the rain always started around 4pm, but here it seems to be lunchtime. Also, the short rains have arrived about a month early. Perhaps that’s global warming for you. One thing I do like is the drop in temperature when it rains. The daytime temp has actually fallen to as low as 19^oC at times! Unlike the UK, there are no half measures when it comes to weather. It’s either hot and dry, or stormy with heavy rain.

Last night was also the first night in ten days when I have been able to sleep through the whole night, without getting up in the early hours with painful cramp across my back. After a week of waking up at 4am with cramp in my back I had a consultation with Marjo on Saturday, the VSO vol working at the hospital as a physiotherapist. The conclusion was that my fairly stiff and inflexible spine had become even stiffer due to being laid out with tonsillitis the week before, a generally sedentary life here compared to the UK, and pent up frustration and anger at work. After practicing a few back-loosening exercises I felt like I’d been given a new spine. I need a punchbag…

Another highlight of this week so far: Mesfin, ex-colleague and one of my HDP candidates from Debub Ethiopia College in Awassa, was here for a day and managed to contact me. He has left the college and is now the Programme Co-ordinator for a new university in Debre Birhan, near Addis. We spent the evening together and caught up with the gossip from Awassa. His insights into people in Gondar were very revealing, as he himself described people here as being particularly resistant to change. He was also able to be much more honest about the intrigues and politics in the college than he could when we both worked there. Gill and I had a great night. Seeing Mesfin gave us both a real sense of connection to the lives we had in Awassa, and a sense of pride that we managed to have such a positive effect on so many people. Although many of those people have since moved on from the college, I really feel that during those nine months we gave something to other people, who will take what they learned from us elsewhere in Ethiopia and influence others. I feel good about that, really good.

Fleas, back pain and sleep deprivation are the highlights of this week. I have a stunning collection of flea bites all over my right hip, probably from the chairs in our house. We have to spray the furniture regularly and usually Gill is the flea and bed-bug victim. Suddenly I seem to be tasty. After recovering from a week of tonsillitis, I woke up in the early hours of Monday morning with painful cramp all over my upper back. I couldn’t find a comfortable position and the pain just seemed to spread. I had to resort to a very hot shower which fortunately seemed to unlock my back muscles. Not for long however, and I eventually had to get up. Once I was up and about, my back relaxed. Gill reckoned there was a problem with our mattress, but turning it round and also sleeping on the floor last night made no difference: around 4am I wake up crippled with pain which only hot water will fix. So this evening I’m anxiously anticipating another sleepless night. I can only assume that the stress and frustration of working here is getting to me.

After a night of back-misery Monday started with the college experiencing the most wildly varying electricity supply I’ve seen so far. Unfortunately I only realized just how varying when I turned on the Cluster Unit PC only for smoke to waft out followed by the stench of burning plastic. Replacing the burned out PC power unit should have been simple, given the spares that Jordan (IT vol) has collected together, but my PC would have to be the only one in the college with a power unit with different connectors to all the other units in the college. Of course, the voltage surge protector that the PC was plugged into survived unscathed. The college lost another PC, a photocopier and several power lines as well. Apparently the electricity supplier was delivering 350V in some places!

Despite all that I have managed to achieve something. I visited Atse Bekafa school on Tuesday and observed one of the science lessons. After a shaky start the lesson turned out to be quite good with lots of encouraging signs. This teacher clearly wanted to try and put into practice what we had explored in the last batch of training. Today I visited Azezo Elementary School and observed a Grade 8 Physics lesson. Again, despite some rough edges, there was clear evidence of a teacher thinking and responding to the difficulties of the students. As usual, visiting schools is positive while trying to get anything done in the college is like pulling teeth. I’ve started another round of arranging-a-meeting-which-the-instructor-doesn’t-turn-up-for game. Two more days of training for science teachers are supposed to take place next Friday and Saturday, but trying to get together with college instructors to develop the training collaboratively is a real drag. Maybe we do actually care more than the college does. Still, Hiwot, who worked with me on the previous two days of science training, is consistently keen and helping me to retain some belief that there are people who do want to try and make a difference. Unfortunately our combined efforts today were thwarted by the non-appearance of a college lab assistant.

Steve dropped by this morning and I inflicted a cup of college tea on him. We had an interesting chat about the merits of aiming for individual capacity building compared to institutional capacity building. I increasingly think that VSO are aiming too high, and the institutional capacity building aim is not succeeding, even though many people on an individual level clearly do get something from working with us.

On the plus side, the kids at Azezo school today were great. While I was waiting in the Supervisors office, several small kids poked their heads in the room to get a look at the Ferenji. Their fascinated stares were transformed into excited and embarrassed looks when I looked up and noticed them. They would linger for a moment, break into a beaming smile and then run off giggling. They love it when a Ferenji visitor comes to their school. I suppose its like a semi-mythical creature dropping in from some mystical world they have only heard snippets about. All they want is the thrill of eye contact: the Ferenji noticed me!!

Fog! For the first time a huge cloud has descended over Gondar. The cloud itself seems to be half dust, but I’ve become so used to seeing across to the centre of town from our house that I’ve spent some time just staring at the change in scenery.

I finally made it back to work this morning (Friday) after a week of feeling totally crappy and wiped out. The fever has stopped and I’m getting some energy back, so the antibiotics appear to be authentic! I didn’t stay long at work, partly because there wasn’t much I could do and also because I’m still pretty tired. What was nice was the obvious concern shown by my colleagues about how I was feeling. Being ill here is a much bigger deal than at home, as the basic medical facilities make a serious illness truly life threatening. So, when you are ill, people here take notice and are pleased to see that you’re OK.

While at the college, I poked my head into the training being delivered to cluster supervisors from all over Amhara Region on how to use the Science Kits in schools. We managed to buy eight new kits last week and more than one hundred supervisors were coming to the end of a week of training on what you can do with the kits. I was impressed and everyone I saw was clearly enjoying putting bits of equipment together to do simple science demonstrations. It doesn’t take much to get people enthusiastic and I must get on with visiting schools and working directly with teachers. I want to tap into and foster that interest in doing something better and more exciting. I think being housebound for five days and therefore not having to deal with Ethiopia has helped my mood and motivation. Being ill has its advantages perhaps.

There’s nothing quite like being ill for making you stop and contemplate life. I’ve been hammered with tonsillitis for the last few days. After going to Joseph’s leaving drinks on Saturday night (Joseph is one of the German doctors here) I woke up on Sunday morning feeling terrible. It clearly wasn’t a hangover. I’ve had sore throats before but the fever that went with it was horrible. During Sunday night and Monday I spent long periods shivering violently even though I also felt hot. What kept going through my mind was “malaria”. A malaria test at a clinic on Monday morning produced a negative result and the doctor diagnosed tonsillitis. I felt relieved, and after an awful Monday of sweating, painful swallowing and shivering, I’ve started to feel better with the help of antibiotics. Fortunately there’s a new clinic close by, so despite being in one of the five poorest countries in the world I could still get medical help. I wouldn’t want to get seriously ill though as the facilities are basic. The drugs are cheap but as they are made in Ethiopia or India I had the additional worry of counterfeit drugs. I got even more suspicious when some Ethiopian aspirin I took to help with the fever didn’t make any difference. Once in Awassa, when I saw a doctor about chronic diarrhea, I was prescribed amoxicillin, a common antibiotic. In the pharmacy I was given a choice between getting the UK version, made by Glaxo, for 200 birr or an Indian version for 90 birr. Given at that time my monthly allowance was 1050 birr then spending 20% of it on one course of drugs was an awful lot. At least I can afford drugs if I need them. How many local people can? It’s no wonder few people in rural areas even bother going to a clinic when one is available.

Mekdes, our day “guard”, has been concerned about our health. She keeps saying the Amharic word for “ill”, which is a word I’ll have to learn to say, and has given us concerned looks for the last three mornings. For the last few mornings she has also bought bananas for us. Natural medicine.

Gill has been off work for a couple of days with a similar thing. I think our lack of health is a reflection of our lack of satisfaction with our work situation. I just don’t think we are particularly valued at the college. People say they want us to “help” but usually lack any specific ideas about what they want from us, or show any sense of commitment to get what they can from our time here to make some things better. It really is as if so many people have been so mired in apathy and a sense of helplessness that the capacity for self improvement simply doesn’t exist in most people. One of Gill’s colleagues today mentioned that her father was a teacher, and was murdered by the Mengistu regime. Apart from one or two colleagues, working at Gondar College is so much more difficult emotionally than it was in Awassa that I think we have both been running ourselves down trying to get anything done.

To distract ourselves from feeling ill, we’ve spent some of the last few days working our way through series 2 of The West Wing. The dialogue and acting is just brilliant. We also watched a free DVD with an episode of Michael Palin’s “Full Circle” on it. Watching all of this, although very distracting, also made me feel homesick. I’m looking forward to being back in a culture I understand, with objects, references and humour I understand and a language I’m fluent in. I’ve felt very down at times (usually when shivering and sweating!) and very aware of the idea of poverty as being some measure of the lack of opportunities available to people. When there’s a chronic lack of opportunity one of the effects seems to be a lack of aspiration. We are so lucky because of all the choices we have. Most people here have few choices and little aspiration for a better life because they don’t really know what that life could be like.

Having Friday off certainly helped me to summon up some energy for the first day of science training on Saturday. The original plan was for the first two days, out of a planned sequence of four, to take place on Friday and Saturday, but the public holiday forced a change to Saturday and Monday. After enjoying a rest day it took a bit of effort to get mentally geared up for training, but the day worked out well, despite a slow start. By the start time of 8.30am only two people had arrived, out of 41 who were invited. After a few minutes of worrying that I would have to cancel, some more arrived and we finally started at 8.45 with sixteen. Somewhat less than forty one but here you have to make do. At least the sixteen who did turn up were ready and interested. The first day was designed to be a basic course in teaching skills, and covered learning styles, self evaluation of lessons and some discussion of science and why we teach it in schools. The most interesting part of the day was during one discussion about the nature of science teaching, when one of the teachers argued that teaching science in school is a waste of time because we do not even know the “origin of the earth”. I knew where this was leading, and right enough, he disagreed with a science that teaches humans are the product of evolution. He’s the first person I’ve met here who was willing to talk openly about his Creationist views and I liked his honesty. Although I completely disagree with him, his comments provoked some of the others to contribute which made the whole session more active. I’d like to explore these kinds of views more. At a time when the deceptions of Intelligent Design and Creationism are trying to creep into schools in many places I’m fascinated to uncover what Ethiopians think, in this very religious of societies.

Gill and one of our Ethiopian colleagues jointly delivered one session during the afternoon, and then I finished at 4.15pm. Everybody was keen for an early finish so they could watch the Man Utd vs Liverpool game!

After recovering on Sunday, Day 2 of science training took place on Monday. This time, most of the day was to be delivered by one of the biology instructors in the college. During our pre-training discussions he kept reassuring me that he was ready and had everything planned. I had to bury my worries about his inability to listen and let go a bit. At least the training would not all be delivered by a Ferenji. As for the day itself, I sat and observed all morning while gripping my seat in frustration. Watching it was like watching somebody on teaching practice making elementary mistakes. This is an experienced teacher educator I’m talking about. One of the morning sessions involved the teachers collecting some leaves and river water, and then looking at the cells under microscopes in the college biology lab. The session started badly when the instructor disappeared for a few minutes without leaving any instructions for the teachers on what to do. Eventually the teachers had something to look at and it was quite satisfying helping them and watching their delight at seeing objects many of them had only studied from books. Unfortunately the practical experience of even the biology teachers was woefully lacking, and there were some fantastic examples of people describing what they expected to see. I was talking with one of the biology teachers about the amoeba he was looking at under a microscope. He could draw the structure of the amoeba, but when I looked into the microscope it turned out he was looking at an air bubble trapped in the river water sample!

After lunch, the plan was for the college instructor to deliver a session and then I would deliver the final session. As he started the after-lunch session it became obvious he didn’t really know what he was going to do. When he started to introduce the idea of making model cells out of simple materials, he indicated for me to take over. I couldn’t wait! We had a great time for the rest of the afternoon making models out of plastic bags, bits of stones and leaves, and water. Several of the bags burst all over the floor, but the mess was worth the fun and excitement we all had. For me the day ended on a high, and despite the rough edges during the day, some worthwhile training was run by me and an Ethiopian from the college. The real test now is visiting as many of the teachers in school as possible and monitoring the effect.

After feeling a bit seriously stretched thin for the last few weeks (I’m sure there’s a quote from The Lord of the Rings somewhere about feeling “like butter that’s been spread over too many slices of bread”) today is a day off, a holiday. It’s Ethiopian Patriots Day, which is an official holiday to celebrate the Ethiopian victory over the Italians at the Battle of Adwa, in the 19^th century. I couldn’t care less about the reason because it’s been really good to slob about all day at home instead of being at college dealing with a 101 Frustrations. Despite all the good work (hah!) I’m trying to do at college I do increasingly feel the need to be doing something that’s mind stretching. Gill has started an Open University course on maths and education, and I’d love to be doing something about science education. All being well, Amazon are going to deliver to me here some books about science to get my teeth into during the evenings when I need to switch off from college.

Another good reason for enjoying today off is that I’m delivering training all day tomorrow to 2^nd cycle science teachers. At last, after over three months, I’ll be doing something which is hopefully useful to teachers. After delivering a second day of training on Monday, I’ll be busy on a program of visits to every 2^nd cycle school in Gondar (all 32 of them) to observe lessons and monitor the effect of the training. I can’t wait to get into schools on a regular basis and work directly with teachers. There’s so much potential for helping teachers to improve their practice. It will be good to be working outside the college and be exposed to a range of different attitudes and needs.

A third good reason for enjoying day off: my colleague, Mulugeta, who was supposed to be helping me yesterday afternoon to get some resources together for the training day, buggered off during the afternoon and never came back. I was furious, especially as he did a similar thing while we were getting ready for Gill to deliver maths training two weeks ago. I need to try and understand him better, because I don’t think it’s as simple as him being lazy. He says all the right things, but I think he is struggling to deal with our different way of working, and our belief that by working with teachers we can change how they do things. Like many people here, he seems to think that we cannot and should not try and involve ourselves in how other people work and try and change anything. Perhaps this is a simple reflection of the widespread philosophy here of stoically accepting adversity and low quality instead of deciding not to accept and then trying to make things better. It’s this attitude that makes working here so difficult. We Ferenji are supposed to deliver radical change and make Ethiopia a better country, but few people seem to understand the change of mindset this requires.