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.