Tena-hab-alay (or at least that's how we now say "Hello" as we are now in Tigray.
So I left you in the bar on my first day. A week has now passed which seems like a lifetime. While, Abi Adi literally means "big town", it is in fact a small rapidly expanding town with one or two shops, bars, restaurants and cafes – and thankfully nothing Western. The Bradt guide states that it "holds little of interest". While that may sound harsh, this opinion appears to be shared by a number of the staff as their main aim is to move to Mekelle (the regional capital).
A few local shops speak English, while I learn the local dialect. One owner is prepared to travel to Mekelle (3 hours on bus) and get something not available here for me. I've been able to open a bank account - complete with written bank book and grey passport photograph taken with a 1970s camera and large bulb flash. Over the next few days I will get a phone line and Internet connection at my house. Tomatoes, peppers, red onions, potatoes and garlic are all readily available and the fruit smoothies of mango and lime are utterly amazing. Probably the oddest thing is my new liking for coffee and tea – admittedly both laced with sugar.
My single storey house (with the expected four rooms) is situated on the college campus, a 30 minute walk from the town itself, although a college car or bus always seems to be travelling in that direction. While VSO states each house should have a minimum of a bed, table and chair, I am lucky enough to have a fridge/freezer, "fairly-constant" electricity (see below), a hot shower, oven and phone line (allowing for the Internet). AND… Bills are paid for.
<center> *** Blog replies ordering your top 5 most important amenities, please *** </center>
I will be sharing the college's PO Box in the town, so anyone wishing to send goodies, please do ask! All water for drinking is boiled and filtered which is not too bad with the equipment provided – especially with 90 minute lunch breaks and 2½ hours on Friday. To be honest the only hassle I've had regarding the house has been the consistent invasion of ants through ever small crevice that has not already been covered or filled with chalk or ash. Waking up in bed and finding that your pillow and head have ants crawling over them will be moment that will never leave me. I've used up 4 cans of insect killer and decorated each socket (a favourite entry point) with a multi-coloured selection of chalk.
Passing time in the evening has not been an issue. Tony kindly gave me a book before I left, and so far I am half way through "A Spot Of Bother" by Mark Haddon (follow up to The Curious Incident of Dog in the Night Time). Maybe I'll finish my first novel. I've also started eating my way through the enormous selection of TV series I ripped off everybody before leaving (which has doubled after all the volunteers spent an evening sharing). Considering how much TV I watched, there's a huge array of new stuff to watch. Currently enjoying "Coupling" – Thanks Leander and "Spaced" is a gem I missed the first time. As the nights arrive about half 6, by the time I've made dinner, the brain is still telling me that 9 o'clock is late.
The campus is large enough for 3 teaching blocks, 6 halls of residence, about 12 houses and various staff and student common rooms. The staff lounge sells a selection of egg/tomato foods and drinks - Pepsi and Minanda(Fanta) all for less than 25p. We have a fence around the site with a permanent guard day and night, although I have no reason to feel threatened by anyone or risk theft. That said it was interesting have the local prisoners in to cut the grass down. I felt slightly locked up when at lunchtime they moved on mass to cut the grass around my house. Half of them chopping away with machetes and scythes, while the others just stare at the strange white boy in his house. Although the guards carrying machine guns, I'm not convinced they are all dangerous. I heard that one lad got 9 months for hitting his boss after the boss sacked him because he didn't receive his sick note on time. It's taken a while but it's been much weirder getting used to the number of stray dogs and cats that roam the place. Fed by scraps, they spend the day fighting each other, producing more stray puppies and kittens and the night howling.
Onto the electricity. Before we left Addis, another volunteer, explained the importance of using a stabiliser here. [BORING BIT: it equalises the voltage so that it remains constant to avoid damaging sensitive equipment such as laptops] Thankfully, he was correct as numerous times it clicks away – I guess doing exactly what it says on the tin. Considering I brought, an electric toothbrush, hair clippers, phone charger, battery charger, laptop and of course I cook with electricity, I hope it continues to work. Apparently, I've been lucky so far, as even though it sometimes goes off at least 5 times a day - the most without electricity has been less than an hour. However, bearing in mind that I'm working on computers and trying desperately to download virus definitions, that can cause problems to say the least. The college has some solar power but lets just say that is not an option exactly either.
My first day, I sat with my technical counterpart getting to know what he thought and what equipment the college had. He has interesting ideas and organisational skills. Certain plans such as (i) data-basing the store room (more on that another time) and (ii) getting teachers to program their own training software, I feel should be delayed until they can all use Anti-virus and Word and we find out what machines we do actually have.
So my first task at work was to sort out the Internet. I hear people say: "It hasn't worked for months and everyone is very keen to do their research".. So I take a telephone to the line, it's dead, no dial tone, and tell them to call the ETC (Ethiopian Telecommunciations). First job tick. Well when I say tick. We call them 4 times, they come on Saturday when I'm not there and don't finish until Monday. And let's face it – it's still Dial-Up. The ETC by the way are a "private" monopoly, which also control the distribution and release of SIMs. So 380 for a SIM, 280 for a phone line and 180 for an Internet account – half a months salary.
My second day – College closed - National Holiday (as was the Saturday previous). There's actually about 20 of them a year. However, I offer to help the other volunteer here (Crissy) plan her cluster training for tomorrow. Local headteachers (Directors) and Inspectors come to learn about the term "inclusion". She has set up a model classroom for schools to incorporate showing off a variety of home-made but very recognisable tools and resources. Bottle tops as counters, a light bulb filled with water as a magnifying glass, linen and seeds with burrs on as Velcro and an amazing selection of models made by the students (trainee teachers). Unfortunately, I soon realise that one of my plans to produce posters is not feasible due to the lack of printers that each school will have. And using college resources is not possible.
The next few days are about updating the college with the latest virus definitions that I brought out. Scanning and planning training for all staff to ensure the spread is reduced is top priority. The main one here is called File1 – which if opened, renames every single one of your documents. No-one seems duly bothered when this happens however. Although removing viruses from computers is time consuming and boring, nothing quite compares to the government procedures and rules set up to combat corruption. Everything is owned and henced signed for. It took an hour to get a tape measure from the store before I could measure the size of the computer lab. Don't even get me started on the palaver I had trying to understand why I could not take a working CD drive from a broken machine in order to fix another.
I'd already met a number of people over the weekend, all very helpful, friendly and keen for me to do training. Crissy's counterpart, Yukeno has attempted to teach me some simple Tigrinyan. I wanted to find out what the menu in the staff lounge said but he was far more keen to go through every greeting polite and informal that exists on the planet. Never shall a person just pass another without discussing their previous evening and family. I was invited around to a teacher's house for lunch and coffee ceremony on Saturday afternoon. VSO told us to avoid politics and any talk about the government so try in vain but it's of little use. The highlight had to be me eating scrappy meat joints from a watery dish (which were pretty lean and tasteless). After they looked at me, offered me more and smiled, I realised that it was a actually a soup. For the record, tibs was yet again on the menu – a firm favourite here. Tonight I'm heading out on the town, with the vice-dean. Will the hard work ever stop!
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