There and Back Again

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Keep Calm and Carry On

First up, apologies for not updating either the blog, the football site or replying to emails. We have both been in Addis - Sara in her new role as volunteer committee representative for the Western region of Ethiopia and me for the IT Workshop.

And even before that there have been ongoing problems with the Internet access, which have meant I have not been able to update both sites properly.

Basically the Internet has died.

Well actually its worse than dead.

It kind if flicks in an out of some sort of comatose or vegetative state. Sometimes everything starts brightly then grinds to a halt.

You disconnect, reconnect, disconnect. Pray. Reconnect. Curse. Disconnect. Ah, it's back!

Start reading an email... (WHAT!!!) ...it's gone again.

OK, you can say it's a luxury as most Ethiopians can't even access a telephone, let alone the Internet, so who am I to moan?

Thing is, computers, telecoms, the Internet are my bag.

I guess I feel the same way as a qualified plumber would feel sitting in a bathroom in Addis 😉

There isn't much you can do. There are no helpdesks to call. There is only one provider - Ethiopia Telecom - and they, well, perhaps don't even mind these "comatose" periods they are still billing you for every minute online as well as every minute of a local rate call, not to mention the monthly standing charge...

And the funny thing is, both with the Internet and the mobile network, no one seems that bothered!!

People are very patient and relaxed. It's the same with the electricity. A day without power and water? A quick shoulder shrug and move on. It's curious and educational to watch the things that people here will get animated about (money, politics, religion etc) and then the things that are just 'the way things are'

Camera

Other news from our trip to the UK was that after surviving 10 months of the extremes of 35 degrees+ tempearture and torrential rains, my little HP camera broke about 10 days into our stay at Chris & Sue's in Hastings!

It did a job for me and I only spent £45 on it - so I knew I wouldn't be bothered if it was stolen, lost or damaged. It also took a few nice pictures and ran on rechargable PP batteries, not some wacky lithium-ion type thingy.

To replace it we decided to use some John Lewis vouchers left over from our wedding (2+ years ago!) and bought a new Sony something-or-other (you can tell I'm a camera buff). See what you think!

My blogging dream?

To get a picture on the Ethiopia (or Africa) page of TravelBlog...

...yet currently the best pictures we have from Ethiopia were taken by our 16 year old worker and friend Mulatu!

So this is my mission for 2009 but just in case I fail, we are going to lend Sara's old camera to a different friend or colleague in Assosa every weekend and ask them to record their weekend for us.

Fingers crossed they'll spare my blushes 😊

The Perfect Picture

Of course I've analysed the problem and I know how to make the Travel Blog gallery, it's just I haven't managed to meet the following criteria so far

#1 Take a picture of a small African child
- Pick a pretty child
- Preferably smiling
- Maybe looking hungry
- With rags on or (see #2)

#2 Take a picture of people doing "Ethnic" African things
- Wearing Ethnic dress
- Ethnic dancing
- Eating Ethnic food
- Doing something religious

#3 Take a picture of a sunset
- Preferably with mountains somewhere
- Or over water
- Or even a sunset over water with mountains in the background

#4 Take a picture of some machinery of war
- A spear is ok
- A gun is good (AK-47, Chinese or Russian best)
- A tank is better (don't get shot taking it though)
- A sign saying "Minefield - Do Not Enter" include a small child from #1 for hightened effect
- A photo of a military sign saying "No Photographs" is a bonus

The ULTIMATE PICTURE???

A small, hungry-looking but pretty child with grubby face, wearing rags and ethnic jewellry, holding a Chinese AK-47, standing on a wrecked tank, in a minefield, smiling shyly as the sun sets across a lake.

Bingo!

Er.

OK. I think I might struggle to capture that one 😉

China! China!

Our trip back from Addis to Assosa was the reverse of the original before Christmas. This time with our old driver friend Argenyo and his long wheel base Toyota Land Cruiser. Not quite so posh as the Cobra, but a vehicle we are familiar with and we are always offered the comfort of the front seat, rather than the side-facing benches in the back.

Again we did a 1-dayer trip, starting at 4.30am, though this time we did a little round trip of Addis to pick up the various other passengers who would be joining us. This is quite common. If a car is going/coming to/from Assosa/Addis, friends and family of other bureau staff will ask for lifts, which from an environmental point of view makes good sense. 12 people in a car instead of 4.

From a comfort point of view it can be a bit less than optimal, particularly for those in the back. For us lardy ferengis it would be a right struggle but the Ethiopians cope just fine.

I guess the back seats in most UK 4x4's are reserved for Tesco shopping bags, not 9 or 10 people! (Oops - director says we just lost 50% of our readership. We're down to my mate Stu and random hits from Google...)

So off we go. Dropping people off/picking them up at Nekemte (350km from Addis) then on through Oromia.

Just before the Dabus river (which demarcates Beneshangul-Gumuz from Oromia) we stop at this little village that specialises in cheap butter and cheap honey. At 48 birr/kg for butter and 26 birr/kg for honey it is a bargain that most passengers (and Argenyo the driver) find difficult to refuse.

As we park the car is surrounded by small children shouting "Highland, Highland", which means they want any empty plastic water bottles, which not only have a small resale value but can be used to collect water or for storage.

Sara stays in the car while I go and look at the butter transactions being carried out at the shop.

A small group of children detach themselves from the crowd and follow me shouting, "China! China!" at me, a mistaken assumption that I am Chinese as I am wearing sunglasses and this stretch of road has been busy with passing Chinese road workers on the way to Beneshangul-Gumuz.

I turn to my little group of followers and shout "Not China!", lift up my glasses so they can see my Ferengi eyes and give them a big grin.

They stop.

Study me intently.

Mutter "ahhh...not China..."

They study me more.

...and finally with a nod of satisfaction they point at my eyes and shout in unison "Korea! Korea!..."

The Road to Development

Them Chinese have certainly pulled their socks up and cracked on with the road.

Actually, let me correct that. The Chinese have finished, packed up and moved on. I gather that a local contractor was paid to complete the road from Bambasi to Assosa and for whatever reason the work was delayed.

No longer, it seems.

On the way to Addis before Christmas the first 90 minutes of the 14 hour trip was on dirt road; after Christmas it was down to 40 minutes.

Soon it will be asphalt all the way and Assosa can look forward to...

...uh...draft beer from Addis!

Yea!

Just like we've never been away?

Erm. So what has actually changed?

The first thing we notice is someone has gone crazy with the black and white paint and we have zebra crossings on every street around Assosa.

Probably better to have done donkey crossings as I haven't seen a zebra in the entire 12 months we have been here? (uh-oh, just lost our last reader and Google are de-registering us as I type...)

The power cuts have started again. It hasn't rained for 3-4 months and with the region dependent on hydro-electric power it's power rationing time once more.

This time the power goes off between 6-9pm on one night a week. Usually Thursday.

Though we think the power company are toying with the daft ferengis as whenever we re-arrange plans on a Thursday to a Tuesday, they switch the power off on Tuesday instead...

There are the usual random power cuts that last 10-15 mins and Saturday mornings are a bit flakey.

This time though we are prepared. I brought back a bunch of rechargable batteries, Sara brought a solar light her Mum and Dave gave us and I still have 3 extra batteries for my laptop.

As you know from my earlier rant the Internet service is in need of medication...badly.

Similar medical attention is required for the mobile network.

Ethiopia Telecom (who also run the Internet service) have been busy selling more and more SIM cards - the original mobile range was 0911, I am 0913 and Sara is 0917 and the infrastructure is creaking badly. It was not great last year but seems somewhat worse.

The 'network busy' or beep-beep-beep (enagaged) or "The mobile phone you are calling has been switched off" or the grand 'beeeep' tone of death or the 'please try again later' and assorted messages in Amharic - and sometimes even just a silent refusal to acknowledge the dialling attempt - have become the theme tune to making mobile telephone calls, both in Addis and Assosa.

Even texting - once the reliable alternative to calling - fails over 50%!o(MISSING)f the time.

So is it a bother?

NO! Of course not.

I have been back helping with the football teams and watched the U-15 play two matches at the Stadium, as well as running a goalkeeper training session at the junior school one evening after work.

We could not decide which TV show to watch together next - The Sopranos, The Wire, 24, Sarah Connor Season 2, Rome, Dexter Season 2, Lost Season 3, Ashes to Ashes, Weeds or Six Feet Under - so put all the options in a pot and pulled out....lost!

Which has been better than we remembered. We kind of lost interest half way through series 3 when the sky+ (or whatever the Virgin equivalent is) failed to record a few episodes, so it has been good to get going again.

What else?

Oh yes. We both came back feeling about 3 stone fatter - probably true in my case - and in a bid to avoid being a porker for my 40th (when I fully expect life to begin again) I have joined Sara in doing her Davina McCall work out.

No there won't be any pictures or videos, though I guess it might be one way to recover my lost readership 😊

I'm quite enjoying it! We run twice a week for 20-30 mins and do 3 Davinas!!

And on that note I better dash...

Sara is just moving the furniture out of the way...

...got 45 minutes of a 'bum and thigh' fat burning workout to complete 😉

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Photos

Lock and load...
Argenyo's goat, cow, sheep, dog, bird, human, horse and donkey-dodging long wheel base 4x4

Back in the saddle
Room for a porker?

Out of Addis
The sun rising behind us

Long Way Down
700km to Assosa

More hobbit than habasha!
Lord of the Rings film crew just out of shot

Tweety birds on a multi-coloured pole
You can tell I'm not an ornithologist either

Bird and a wire
The long-nosed, short-tailed African hunting pigeon...

Assosa ahoy!
I'd recognise them mountains anywhere

Sunset and ethnic houses...
Sorry, couldn't find a lake!

Wood-gathering women...
...about to cross a minefield...NO, NO, NO! Come back my final reader - I didn't mean it...!