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Published: March 4th 2008
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The School Bus
Trailer load of ferengis Come to Addis to get fat Strange though it may seem and contradictory to everything you might expect in Ethiopia, I have been getting fatter since I arrived in Addis! The restaurants serve up all the European dishes you dream about whilst out in the regions living off of injera and shiro, you are usually at a workshop taking very little exercise on a nice per diem and you normally have the company of like-minded VSOs who are itching to get stuck into a casa-casa jambo (pint of ice cold draught) and catch up on the gossip.
Besides, my good work on Weight Watchers was rapidly coming undone after a Christmas of excess, 12 days in Harborne Hall (3 cooked meals a day + beer) and then TV dinners for a fortnight as our house was packed into boxes - not to mention the farewell curries and leaving drinks.
In Country Training (ICT) Picked up at the outrageously early hour of 7.30am in the 1950’s school bus we were on our way up the main road, past Shola Market, chaos of the Megenanya roundabout and headed for the Management Institute in Addis. As anyone who has ever
Addis Management Institute
What is this strange phenomenon called 'the Sun'? worked with me knows, I don’t do early morning. In fact, as far as my body clock is concerned, 7.30am is the middle of the blooming night! Nevertheless it was fascinating to stare out of the bus window at the hustle and bustle of Addis on a Monday morning. At one point we pulled up opposite one of the local Addis buses, squished full of workers heading in the other direction. They stared at the bus load of ferenjis while the bus load of ferenjis stared right on back.
Anyone who was still snoozing had a rough awakening as the asphalt road changed abruptly into shale and stones and the bus driver took our lives into his hands as we crossed the oncoming traffic to chicane past a breeze block onto the management institute slip road. As in many places in the world, the horn seems to be the most efficient working part of the vehicle - either to warn of imminent danger, to advertise a taxi service, say hi to a buddy or just to do the “I’m a goat” bleat.
Once inside the 7 floor Institute building we struggled, panting, up 5 flights of stairs to
Sara hard at work
Qonjo mistene (my beautiful wife) the breakfast area where we were met with a long set of trestle tables loaded with porridge, vegetables, fruit, fried egg, bread, toast and juices. My pre-departure assumption that I should buy clothes that felt tight, because I was bound to lose weight, was starting to look like a foolish one!
Once truly stuffed we went upstairs to the main hall for our introduction to Amharic. After a brief welcome from the author of the course and head instructor we were off to our individual classes. We were to have 2 hours of language classes a day for 6 days and then the entire day on Sunday learning Amharic.
Yeh baamaregna mendenaw? (what is this in Amharic?) Our instructor was a lovely smiley guy, who was the splitting image of Brian Lara and I just couldn’t help but warm to him. Fortunately for this intake of volunteers they had decided to speak both English as well as Amharic. As an IT geek I don’t have a clue when it comes to teaching languages but apparently the latest fashion is to totally immerse the student in the language and to speak no English whatsoever. This sounds like an
interesting concept. I think I might just try it with my IT students. Maybe I can put them in a room full of disconnected IT equipment, chuck a few technical terms onto a blackboard and let them put it together on their own while I stand well back and drink coffee! Genius! Sink or swim. Power up or electrocute.
Luckily sense prevailed this time round and we got the traditional style of teaching that old geezers like me are more comfortable with. But unfortunately for the Amharic teachers, VSO recruits a fair few English language teachers and well, just teachers, who all have opinions on how a language course (or any sort of teaching for that matter) should be conducted. By about the third day I reckon the local guys were wishing it was a total Amharic immersion course after all 😊
I guess the course followed the usual pattern of Day 1 - saying “Hello, I am Alan”, Day 2 - counting and telling the time, Day 3 - ‘In the market’ and so on. From day one, when we were shown the 228 character ‘fidel’ or alphabet and told there were 7 vowels and 28 consonants,
VSO Jonathan #1
Our man in Addis. but (smile from teacher) quite a few exceptions to the rules, I realised my work was cut out. The pace of ICT and the requirement every evening to either go out and explore Addis and its restaurants/hostelries, or just grab some sleep, left little time to reflect on our daily learning.
My attitude was this: pick up the essentials like ordering water, beer and (vegetarian) food and with 2 years ahead of us, give up on learning affixes of the perfect tense and quadro-radical verbs (what exactly are they anyway??). If anyone asked, I was a master of the imperfect when it came to Amharic!
Still, I came away with “ene Alan nann ena wafram mahandis nann” (My name is Alan and I am a fat engineer), “enna gobaz tamari nan” (we are good students ) and “misten ewadallahu” (I love my wife). Clearly my Amharic is work in progress...
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Ana
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learning lingo
what is anharic for 'what is the latest cricket score' or 'where can i buy cheese please?'. really enjoying your blog. saw dave and kiki today but we missed you both. we are moving on friday, will email you the details soon. love from ana, simon, dan, darcy, paddy xx