Bet Giorgis (St George's Church)




The priest in most of the churches was happy to pose. "Elvis" here insisted on wearing sunglasses to protect his eyes from the flash.


From the plane back to Gondar

An indication of how underemployed at work I am is that I have nothing really to say about it. I’m still waiting for the college to select the instructors who will work with the Cluster Unit on the in-service programme, and keep getting told that it will be “soon”.

Gill and I have used some of the slack time to get serious about what we will do when we return to the UK. We spent most of a day working on our CVs, have signed up for various automatic email education job alerts and looked carefully at a few advertised education-related jobs on the internet.

If we can’t work because there’s little of value to do then we might as well do something for ourselves. We went to the town of Lalibela over the weekend; flying there on Friday morning and returning on Sunday afternoon. Vincent, a visiting lecturer in Physics from UMIST who is spending a couple of weeks at Gondar University, came with us. Lalibela has been described as one of the wonders of the world, and the most remarkable thing about it is that it is almost completely unknown by most people outside of Ethiopia. What Lalibela is famous for is its rock-hewn churches. Created sometime around the 11^th century the churches are the most important site in Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity and one of the most important in all of Christianity. The churches were carved from the bedrock using simple hand tools, probably taking around 25 years and involving 40,000 people. These churches were not built out of blocks of quarried stone, like European cathedrals, but were actually carved as one block from the rock and then hollowed out. To walk around them is really quite amazing. But what really is amazing about Lalibela is that it is a living place of worship. It is not deserted ruins or preserved like a museum, the churches are still operational in a way that hasn’t really changed for hundreds of years. UNESCO are busy constructing a canopy over each cluster of churches to protect them from weathering which meant clambering at times around ugly scaffolding.

We stayed in a cheapish (for Lalibela) hotel after a 40 min flight from Gondar. As long as you know in advance that the prices will all be inflated tourist prices then that’s not so bad, but some of the prices really were silly, especially for Ethiopian food which wasn’t really up to much compared to what we know is good. We joined a group of Ferenji tourists with an official guide, Berhan, and went round two clusters of churches on the Friday afternoon and the remaining cluster on Saturday morning. The sense of awe I had about the churches was a bit dampened by having to pick our way around poor Ethiopians who were attending services or trying to pray. The tourism brings in much needed money, but as far as I could find out local people don’t benefit directly which surely has to be sorted out. Why can’t some of the entrance fee for the churches (200 birr per person!) go directly to organizations or activities which benefit local people instead of all going to the church?

Lalibela is one of those places that you “must” visit if you are in Ethiopia. My preference is always for wild places, natural history, etc but it has been a very interesting experience to wander round Lalibela. It’s certainly impressive, but somehow not quite as impressive as I imagined. After living and working here for a year and a half the Ethiopian setting, the poverty and the traditional way of life held no novelty value for me, which would be a big factor in the overall Lalibela experience for any tourist. Developing a cold (yes, a cold) while I was there didn’t help. Vincent was good company and had some interesting views from his perspective as a short-stay visitor.

Debre Birhan Selassie church

After a couple of recent trips to a local workshop to cut-up wood and produce a blizzard of wood chippings, Mulugeta has been happily banging and sawing away in his workshop for the last few days. He’s finished a new noticeboard for the cluster unit, to be displayed in the main admin building, and has also been producing counting sticks for Gill to use in mathematics training. My main task for the last few days has been assembling pictures and blurb for the noticeboard. I like the creative part of it but it’s hardly a full-time job at the moment.

Our somewhat limited social life is one of the things that keeps us going. We had lunch at Steve & Gemma’s on Saturday (veggie curry) followed by wandering up to Debre Birhan Selassie church to take a look around. Debre Birhan Selassie is one of the most famous churches in Ethiopia. The original site is several hundred years old and was supposedly built to house the Ark of the Covenant (Ethiopian Orthodox Christians believe the Ark is in Ethiopia, currently in a church in Axum). The feature it is perhaps most famous for its ceiling, which is decorated with the painted faces of 80 angels. Although we had to pay 25 birr for entry, the churchyard was just as beautiful as the church itself. The trees inside have been protected from being chopped down for firewood and the whole place had a soothing and tranquil feel to it.

An often-quoted slogan in advertising about Ethiopia is “The Land with 13 Months of Sunshine”. Ethiopia uses a Julian calendar, which means there are 12 months, each with 30 days, and a 13^th month with 5 days, or 6 days in a leap year. Several hundred years ago the date of the birth of Jesus was re-calculated and most countries changed their calendars at the time to reflect this. Ethiopia didn’t so yesterday was the first day of the year 2000. For months people have been looking forward to the millennium celebrations, with many diaspora Ethiopians expected to return from abroad. The most visible sign of the approaching millennium has been the sudden rush to repaint many of the buildings around Piazza, the centre of Gondar. Some extra lights have gone up and masses of T-shirts have been printed with millennium slogans on them. I’m a bit cynical about it. Apart from the fact that it is just an arbitrary date (and the often ignored fact that the 2000^th anniversary of Christ is actually at the start of 2001) I don’t really know why anyone is celebrating. Ethiopia has a rich and glorious history, but in the last hundred years it was a rigidly feudal society which was replaced by a brutal Marxist dictatorship which was in turn replaced by a democratic government which isn’t worthy of the name. The country is one of the poorest in the world (171 out of 176 countries on the UN Human Development Index) and has a whole heap of problems which I don’t see getting any better. Nevertheless, people have been looking forward to it. On the streets for the last few days there have been lots of undernourished sheep and goats hanging around in forlorn-looking groups ready to be sold and eaten. With the heat and sunshine in the afternoons it's hardly been a Scottish hogmanay, although the sight of scrawny creatures hanging around in the streets with bugger all to look forward to did kind of have a Scottish ring to it. So yesterday was a holiday which people spent with their families. New Years Day was a Wednesday, which is a fasting day (no animal products) for Orthodox Christians. The government announced only the day before that Thursday and Friday will also be public holidays (the coming of the millennium has only been known about for two thousand years after all), which is probably a smart move as most people in this carnivorous society will be gorging on meat today and will be ill on Friday as a result.

We were invited round yesterday (New Year’s Day) by a neighbour for a coffee ceremony. We were also plied with misir wat (spicy lentil stew) and injera. We are slowly getting to know this neighbour. One of the daughters, Kibub, came round to our house a few days ago and, for an Ethiopian woman, was surprisingly confident and forward about asking questions about us and our lives. Her look of horror on discovering our non-religious views was a picture and I’m fascinated to pursue further her stated non-belief in the theory of evolution. When she was together with all of her family yesterday she went back into shy Ethiopian woman mode. I think on her own we can discuss a much wider range of topics than when her father is around. We all sat together for a chunk of the afternoon and watched the Ethiopian TV, ETV. There was lots of coverage of the millennium celebrations in Addis Ababa which did actually look quite impressive. Ethiopians with money ($150 per ticket apparently – at 1400 birr that’s our entire month’s allowance!) could go to the new Millennium Hall in Addis and hear the Prime Minister, Meles Zenawi, give a speech. Having sat through many many official speeches here I can confidently state that it would have been a tedious waste of money. Still, we had a nice time chatting and drinking coffee.

On New Year’s Eve we went to a party at the house of two physiotherapy non-VSO volunteers, one Canadian (Katie) and the other Japanese (Micky). A couple of dozen of their Ethiopian students were there, so instead of the usual UK syndrome of everyone getting hammered there was lots of singing and dancing to traditional Ethiopian instruments. One of the students did unfortunately manage to get drunk enough to pass out and vomit, giving the whole event a certain British-style charm.

Today, the day after New Year, there’s a noticeable lack of sheep in the streets and piles of freshly removed sheep skins and fleeces are appearing on street corners for sale. The meat consuming has begun in earnest.

Mulugeta and I did some work together on Tuesday. I helped him carry some wood to a workshop a few streets away to be chopped into pieces he can turn into counting sticks and other maths resources. The “workshop” was actually the front yard of a house and was a health & safety nightmare, although after a year and half here I get less fazed about that sort of thing now. In a small room was a circular saw surrounded by piles of sawdust. Moving the sawing bench into a more convenient position was achieved by the operator kicking it across the room while it was on. I spent the next hour watching him spray the area with wood chippings and sawdust.

A lot of the time I want to be in charge of the cluster unit so I can make some necessary changes, but then occasionally I’m really glad I’m not. A few days ago I was told by the instructor who is “in charge” of the unit that we have 20,000 birr left over from last year to add to the 50,000 birr we have been allocated for the coming year. Yesterday it turned out that we supposedly overspent by 23,000 birr last year. Given that the 50,000 birr has already been allocated this leaves us with a few problems. As usual I was left stunned by the lack of any proper systems that would allow people to track important things like budgets.

At least Mulugeta was happy yesterday. Being busy making something makes Mulugeta very happy and contented. We want to put up a noticeboard in the entrance to the main admin building to communicate what we do in the cluster unit to the college staff. I’m hoping that this will help to get instructors onboard about what we do and make it easier for us to get instructors involved in the in-service programme. Getting this thing up and running will feel like a big achievement in the current climate of chronic under-work.

After nearly five weeks of normal bowel movements while in the UK (now that’s what I call a holiday) Gill was the first to return to normal Ethiopian service, followed by me yesterday. I might have Giardia so our first stool test since our return is probabaly iminent.

Our spirits continue to see-saw, not helped by having bugs. The near-continuous rain yesterday didn’t help either and we both realised that we are suffering from homesickness. Today is hot and sunny and my mood has lifted as well. I’ve managed to get Mulugeta busy on preparing a new noticeboard for the cluster unit and he’s also busy sorting out Science Kit training for the college for the next two days.

Debbie (Canadian IT volunteer) left today. She is spending a few weeks in Awassa before going home. Although we don’t have our futures in the UK anywhere near sorted yet, I’m envious of her. Feeding our West Wing addiction probably hasn’t helped either. I just can’t remember watching a TV drama that is so completely absorbing. After only two weeks or so back here we have finished series 3 and are half way through series 4.

We’ve been back from the UK for only two weeks, supposedly refreshed and recharged to give what we can. I feel like moaning. We always knew that the second half of the summer would be slow, but I’m starting to climb the walls already. Mulugeta occasionally pops his head into the office to ask what he wants me to do. All this does is wind me up partly because I don’t know what he should do as it’s too early to prep for school training, and I’m still waiting to find out who in the college we are supposed to work with. What really winds me up is that he even asks the question. Right now I don’t know what he should do, I’m not in charge and what about making some constructive suggestions yourself? What I find hard is having no demand made on me. I end up wallowing in a feeling of purposelessness which leads me to feeling passive and then completely fed up. There are times when I feel angry about the appalling state of almost everything here and I feel an urge to try and do something about it. My anger has deserted me for the time being and I just want to go home. I feel more interest in playing a part in my own society at the moment than I do in this one. In a couple of weeks or so we’ll start gearing up to work intensively with schools and that will be good. I’ve just got to hang in there until then.

The appliance of science never stops impressing me, especially here where we get left out of most technological developments. I've written this entry using “StarOffice Writer”. StarOffice is an opensource equivalent to Microsoft Office, supplied by the Open University as part of the materials they supply you with before commencing a course. It's free, includes “Writer” (equivalent to “Word”), “Impress” (equivalent to “Powerpoint”) and “Calc” (equivalent to “Excel”), and I've just installed it on our laptop, out of curiosity. Not only does it do everything Office does but it appears to be better AND creates files in conventional Office formats or opendocument formats. Guess what: the opendocument formats produce smaller file sizes than Microsoft Office formats.

It's been a very slow return to work. Meleshew is away all summer at Mekele University (which I knew about) and Mulugeta has apparently gone to Harar (in the east of the country) to visit his family, but he hasn't returned yet despite being due last Friday. The fact that I'm counterpart-less is an issue for what I do with myself, but nowhere near as big an issue as the fact that nobody at college seems even slightly concerned that he is now a week overdue. He could have been killed in a road accident and his late return from holiday would be a possible disciplinary issue in the UK, but here everyone has just shrugged their shoulders and said that maybe he'll be back at the weekend. So I've done some small bits and pieces at work (such as rewriting the placement description for the volunteer who will replace me; a surprisingly enjoyable activity given I still have five months of work to do) but nothing to keep me fully occupied.

While walking to college on Thursday morning we passed a couple of children squatting by the roadside in full view and defecating, smiling at us and shouting “hello”. I'd forgotten how normal that is here.

What has been nice is the number of college staff who have welcomed us back with a feeling and expressiveness that's usually absent. Welcoming back people who have been away on a trip is an important social convention here, and all of the welcomes include being asked about the health of your family. This to me gives three insights into Ethiopian life: the importance of family, all non-work related trips are to visit your family (there is no concept of a holiday for fun/pleasure/interest/recreation/etc in the “developed”-world sense) and the state of your family's health is an important matter given the very poor state of health care. We've been surprised by some of the staff who have greeted us with enthusiasm when they normally wouldn't make any effort to talk with us.

I've found the last three days quite difficult. I loved being in the UK and to come back here to no work is a bit of an anticlimax. I've been more conscious of the poverty here since I returned and a wee bit guilty about how much I enjoyed all the opportunities to consume (even if I couldn't afford it) while in the UK. Ethiopia seemed a long way away, mentally, while in the UK and the reality of the state of the place has had to sink in all over again. My spirits lifted a lot last night when Gill and I went out to a tourist restaurant called Habisha Kitfo to meet Steve & Gemma. The restaurant is a “tourist” restaurant in that it's decorated with all the trappings of Ethiopia you'd find in an Ethiopian restaurant in London. It was though, very nice. The food was good, but the company was a tonic. As well as Gemma & Steve, we were joined by three British 1^st year medical students on an exchange visit to the University Hospital; Jacob & Lea, two Belgians who BICYCLED from Belgium to Ethiopia (via the Middle east) and are working in an orphanage in Gondar; a Finnish couple, who are working with Gemma in the eye clinic; Kate, a Canadian physiotherapist working at the hospital for a few weeks; Micky, a Japanese physio also at the hospital; Nigist, an Ethiopian who works for an NGO caring for the 2000 street children in Gondar; and an Italian who could only speak Italian and French (the Belgians being french speakers were very useful here). What a great night. I think both Gill and I had been feeling a bit down during the day. When you both work in the same place but have no work to do it's very easy to hit a low spot where you both have absolutely nothing to talk about. Blethering with people from a “northern” culture was a real boost. Yes, it's not always good to socialise with ferenji, as it hardly helps you to integrate into local culture, but sometimes I just can't be bothered with the whole integrating thing. It's nice to be able to talk in a culturally familiar way about culturally familiar things without the extra drag of doing so in slowly pronounced English so you might be understood. I like learning new things about Ethiopian culture, but I'm also more honest about how integrated I want to be or can be given the time we have left to us. I am afterall here to do a job, a job I care about and believe in, and am not looking to immigrate.

We went for our first run on Friday morning. Getting up at 4.45am was the usual horror, but the starry sky and that beautiful crescent moon, with the crescent along the “bottom” edge of the moon, is something I wish I could photograph. My running performance left a lot to be desired. I'll blame it on having to re-acclimatise to the altitude and four weeks of UK food.

The Fife coast


Cadderlie bothy


Cadderlie bothy with Dave and Ian


Gill half way up a Munro


Finishing an orienteering course after my usual bad run

When we left to go to the UK I felt very happy to leave everything behind and not think about our house. Returning to our house yesterday was like walking into a rented villa in Greece at the start of a holiday. The sun was shining and we could walk barefoot on the the tiled floor. After nearly 24 hours of travelling being home was a relief. Our flight left Heathrow at 1300 on Monday and arrived at Addis Ababa at 0030. We then had to hang about in the airport until our flight to Gondar at 0710. Our various attempts to sleep in the airport weren’t very successful but at least we did manage to sleep a bit on the plane to Gondar. We hadn’t even boarded our flight to Gondar when I had my first truly Ethiopian experience. We spent most of our time trying to sleep in the International terminal because the Domestic terminal didn’t open until 5am. As we were getting ready to make our way to the Domestic terminal, I stepped outside one of the exit doors from the International terminal to see if it was raining. The policeman at the door watched me step outside (literally ONE step) and then refused to let me back in. My attempts to point to my bags lying just a few steps inside the terminal and the fact that he had seen me hanging around inside for several hours were pointless. I had left the terminal through an “exit” door so I could not enter throught he same door. Hmmm...OK. As there’s no point arguing with a man with a gun I walked up to an “entrance” door a few meters away. However, you need a flight ticket to get in which of course was with my bags inside the terminal. The policeman on the entrance door wasn’t going to compromise. I applied the principle of not arguing too much with a man with a gun and walked back to the exit door, where the policeman was waiting to see if I would threaten national security again. Fortunately Gill had seen me stranded outside through a window and came out with all the bags. Welcome to Ethiopia.

Visiting the UK and coming back to Ethiopia has felt quite different from our last visit one year ago. Last time, being in the UK wasn’t always comfortable and coming back to Ethiopia felt like coming home. This time I enjoyed almost every minute of being in the UK and have very mixed feelings about being back here. After an eventful year in Ethiopia I loved the UK. It’s a beautiful country. Transport is so good it’s a pleasure to use (even in London). I can buy almost any food I want almost anywhere I am. I can sit in a café with a coffee while reading a paper and be completely ignored. I can walk the streets and be treated like anyone else. The trees are stunning. I can understand anyone speaking (apart from in London). I can use broadband internet (the term world-wide web is a complete joke – most people on this planet cannot access the web even if they know of it and most web content is effectively inaccessible with a dial-up connection, which is the only way most people in most countries can access the web). There are opportunities everywhere to do almost anything you want. Even the smallest town has at least one bookshop where I can choose from a bigger selection of books than any Ethiopian will ever have access to in their lifetime. The one aspect to life in the UK I really noticed more than anything else was that most people are more friendly than I remembered. I think I just didn’t notice the friendliness of most strangers in the UK before I came here. Perhaps I’ve been too cynical and closed to notice.

During the weeks leading up to arriving in the UK we planned our visit like a military campaign. I still remember the child-like pleasure of booking cheap UK train travel via the internet from Gondar. As a result after spending the first couple of days in London I visited a friend in Salisbury for two days, met my PGCE Tutor for career advice, bought some bits and pieces that we need in Ethiopia, travelled to Leeds to meet a previous VSO vol to discuss a trial of a textbook he developed, spent a week in Edinburgh with my mum and sister, spent two days walking the Fife Coast Path with my mum, hung out for three days with two friends in a bothy in the Highlands, walked and camped with Gill for a week in Scotland and finally camped in Speyside for the Scottish Six Days Orienteering Event (Gill ran all six days while I made do with four). We returned to London via Easyjet from Inverness (cheap via the net but environmentally costly I know) for one more day in London before leaving the UK. Sue and Sue in London were very hospitable in putting up with us descending on their house and cluttering it up with our stuff for several days. A great trip.

Within an hour of landing at Heathrow we were sitting in a Pret a Manger in Piccadilly eating sandwiches. I can’t do justice to the simple pleasure of that sandwich. Every part of it was delicious: the brown bread that didn’t turn into dough when you squeezed it, the humous and the salad that was safe to eat. I think we both felt during the first day that we were mentally and emotionally ready to come home to the UK for good. I have lots of work to do in Gondar, in fact the next six months should be my busiest time, but I’m ready and want to be part of UK society. In our remaining time as VSO volunteers (at the moment it feels like serving out the rest of my sentence) I have lots of training to develop and lead for Gondar schools, we both will be doing Open University courses and we need to sort out what we do next with our lives. We both want to move north and want to be involved in education. After that, we have a lot of exploring to do.