Alan #7 - Stand up for the ARSSENAL

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That evening the current VSOs had arranged a Pub Quiz at a new “European” restaurant called Delicious Dishes. My body had clearly diverted most of its energies to the liver to process the evil araki, rather than my brain. It was good fun and the Aussies didn’t win everything, which made a change! The hyperactive Gordon, a self-confessed pub quiz nut, led his team to victory. We had a delicious dish of blue cheese and vegetable tart - making sure we maximised our cheese intake now forewarned about the lack of it in the regions.

Steven had told us an amusing tale about an earlier volunteer who had such a cheese and pizza craving while out in the country that she got one of her visiting mates to bring a whole stuffed-crust Dominos pizza over from London for her. The friend took it through the Heathrow boarding process, across Europe and Africa during the 12 hour flight and delivered it to the VSO office in Addis, where she sat in the VSO garden and ate the lot in one sitting in front of a crowd of very jealous other VSOs!

The following day’s briefing was by a guest speaker on the Ethiopian Development context, which I found very interesting and really reminded me of our reasons for volunteering and coming to Ethiopia. He talked about Global Citizenship and how we all have a duty to look after our fellow citizens and how volunteers and voluntary activities in every walk of life in every country have been the driving forces behind the progress of humanity. As an IT geek, I am not as aware of current trends in development theory and I think some volunteers with both more knowledge of the subject and maybe a further left political view than me were starting to get restless and agitating for a fight. The speaker clearly picked up on this and kind of passed over their questions which rubbed them up the wrong way even more. Nevertheless, I found the whole briefing very energising and left with great enthusiasm.

Holy Vegetables, Fatman!

Today was Friday, which meant we would eat well at lunchtime! Wednesdays and Fridays in Ethiopia are fasting days where Christians will not eat any meat. This means restaurants and catering facilities at places like the Management Institute would only supply vegetarian food. Hallelujah!

Unfortunately the concept of voluntary vegetarianism is not one that Ethiopians are very familiar with. I guess that when you are used to being hungry, meat is a treat and so why would you deliberately pass up the opportunity to eat it? As a fat ferenji used to 1,001 vegetarian choices at Tescos I was finding it hard on the non-fasting days, though to be fair, there were good vegetarian choices. It was just I was getting into the wat (stews) and shiro (chickpeas) so to have to fall back on salads and fruit felt a bit dissatisfying. Not as dissatisfying as having no food at all of course, which is a prospect faced by 89% of Ethiopians who earn less than $2/day.

After a great big vegetarian feast we spent the afternoon in a professional briefing. As an IT professional I would be with the 2 other new IT volunteers and Steven again. This turned out to be quite a useful session as Steven works as an IT expert at the bureau Sara would be working for. It became clear that our expectations may need revising in terms of IT capacity and infrastructure. We also found out that much, if not all the software is illegal.

There May Be Trouble Ahead

This is not the fault of the Ethiopians however. When ordering new PCs, they are delivered from China with a fake software licence which means that the PCs cannot get new software updates from the Internet as they are seen to be illegal. This in turn means that all the computers are susceptible to computer viruses and so a huge amount of IT resource time and end-user time is spent fighting viruses, not doing work to help Ethiopia develop.

In addition, there are no credit cards in Ethiopia. The banking system is not linked to the rest of the global banking system in the same way it is in Europe or America. This means whereas I can order software in the UK with a credit card, particularly anti-virus software, it is almost impossible in Ethiopia. The only route is to use a highly bureaucratic pro-forma ordering system (deliberately over bureaucratic to combat corruption).

Another hindrance to development is a lack of consumer right legislation and high import taxes on electrical items. When you order IT equipment you have to take it apart at the shop and check it has all the components you ordered as well as check it powers up and functions. If you leave the shop with the equipment and subsequently find out that half the components you ordered are missing you cannot go back for a refund.

Similarly if you import electrical items you can pay import duties of up to 100%!,(MISSING) though typically it is around 35%! (MISSING)The customs checks are notoriously time consuming - again to avoid corruption. Parcels are often opened and resealed.

It was clear that my UK days of raising a corporate purchase order in 30 minutes, one email and next day delivery of equipment were far behind me! I would have to use those skills of flexibility, resourcefulness and patience that VSO had looked for when recruiting volunteers.

That evening Sara was delighted to discover that as we sat in the hotel dining room, the TV flicked on and up popped a re-run of Manchester City 1 - Arsenal 3. Lucky old me! I’d even had the foresight to sit opposite the TV. Purely accidental of course...

Give Us a Break

By Saturday there were a few grumbles from the new volunteers about needing time off. We had flown in at 3.30am on the previous Sunday and training started with a meeting at 10am the same day. We were then up every day for our 7.30am bus and by time we were back at our hotels it was 6pm. This left very little time to get shopping done, visit the bank, get online (there would be 30 other people vying for the same 4 connections), call home and so on.

A few of us were also getting restless and keen to crack on and get to our placements. The whole VSO recruitment process, from application to in-country training, had taken some of us over a year. I think the vibe did not go unnoticed by VSOE, who rescheduled Sunday’s planned 6 hours of language training so that we had a free afternoon and condensed the final language lesson into one elongated session.

We had actually managed to get out and about on Saturday afternoon to do some shopping at Shola market again. VSO had given us our in-country grant of 1,500 birr (1,000 birr for an individual volunteer and 1,500 birr for a couple) which is about $150 or £75. This was for us to buy items for our house, like an iron, a kettle, sheets, pots and pans etc. Fortunately we had been in touch with the volunteers who had been living in our house for 2 years and we had a pretty good idea of what we would need.

VSO provide all volunteers with an electric cooking ring, a kerosene stove for when the electricity cuts out (or as frequently happens, the cooking ring shorts out for good), a mosquito net, a pillow, a blanket and a water filter. Some other essentials that you need to provide yourself include a voltage stabiliser (350 birr), a surge-protected power strip, plug adaptors, reading lamps and a mobile phone/SIM card (350/350 birr).

We had been told to avoid Chinese goods as they will fall apart or fail and that we should buy Japanese models instead. The price might be higher but the quality and reliability would be worth it. This was sound advice indeed. Our Chinese forks have snapped in half, the buckles on my Chinese rucksack have all snapped off - the first within 30 seconds of purchase - and the Chinese cooking ring doesn’t even turn on. To balance this out I ought to add that our Chinese voltage regulator has worked superbly, but then it was expensive. I think, once again, the moral of the story is you get what you pay for.

Ferenji Price

While Sara was busy buying Tupperware dishes and kitchen knives in Shola market I was hunting for far more useful household items like a cheap Arsenal football jersey.

We had been told we would be paying ‘ferenji prices’ wherever we go, particularly at the market. No prices are marked and it is assumed you are a tourist with a fat wad of dollars, not a volunteer for a UK charity earning a local wage. We were therefore supposed to try to haggle with the vendors and do the usual “oh, too expensive” and walk away type stuff.

Our pidgin Amharic was really struggling with the “look I’m here for 2 years on a local salary, don’t rip me off please” and during the first week in Addis you are still thinking in terms of UK money not Ethiopian Birr. Therefore trying to knock a market seller down from 25 birr to 20 birr for a tin opener, because you know the going rate is 20 birr and it will save you the equivalent of 25 pence seems a bit obscene. I imagine you just get used to it. We are told “work out how much you want to pay for it and if it seems reasonable, pay it”.

One technique for big items is to calculate what percentage of your monthly salary an item will cost and work out how that would translate to a UK price, based on your UK salary. You earn 1,650 birr in a month - about £90. Therefore the bed cover that Sara admired which we were told was 200 birr would be about 12%!o(MISSING)f your monthly salary. In UK terms it would therefore be around £300! Would you be happy to pay £300 for a bed cover in the UK? Possibly not.

Our heart wasn’t really into the whole bargaining thing and it clearly showed. Neither of us managed to get a single birr knocked off any of our purchases.

But then, hey, don’t get stressed about it. It’s you who gets the heart attack, not the market seller. Presumably the seller has worked out that the extra money made from overcharging one or two ferenji outweighs the lost sales from the ferenjis that walk away.

You hope.

I think the whole ‘ferenji price’ thing is a bit of a joke amongst Ethiopians anyway. Even the VSO Ethiopia office tell us things like “ok, you can claim back expenses for that - but make sure you don’t pay ferenji prices !!”.

Bob, Bob, Super Bob - plays for the ARSSENAL

Still, my rotten haggling got me a full “Rosicky, No.7” Arsenal jersey and shorts for 85 birr. Even though the locals pay about 45 birr it translated to less than a fiver, so I was a happy bunny. I was also on the lookout for some West Ham paraphernalia. Gary the Hammers fan had given me a quality Arsenal scarf that he picked up for a snip at Shola. The only problem and highly amusing to all was the fact Arsenal was spelt ARSSENAL. Unfortunately I am yet to see a single West Ham fan in Ethiopia so there is not much of a market for WESST HAMM branded goods. But I will keep looking...

Satisfied with our purchases we returned to the Yonas Hotel and as Sara stayed in to catch up on her sleep I went out with Steven to a micro-brewery at one end of the Bole Road. Known as the “Beer Garden” it is an annexe to a posh hotel near an area of much building activity to the south of the VSO office. It’s forte was the “metre of beer”. Pascal had decided to join us and so Steven, myself and Pascal shared 1m (or approximately 5.5 pints) while chatting to two Dutch VSOs who were about to complete their placements and head home.

The fairly continuous regime of daily training/evenings of restaurants and drinking was starting to take its toll so I took a hire cab back to the Yonas and called it a night, while Steven headed off clubbing with his pals.

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Photos

Two of the Oromo All Stars
Ruth and Dave @ the Zebra Grill

Super Bob!
Sara's new pin-up now Terry H has gone...

Don't follow me...
..follow the ARSSENAL (thanks Gary!)