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Published: February 18th 2009
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OK well maybe not in the middle of a street. We actually live in an area of Asossa called Arba Betoch (40 houses) which is just next door to Hostel. It is all government housing. The other government area just up the road is Selsa Betoch (60 houses) and a couple of the other volunteers live there.
We live in a small group of houses, we are directly opposite Mustophe, who is a UN Volunteer working at the Regional Education Bureau as an IT adviser - he sits next to me in the Planning office and has become a good friend, always helping me understand how things work, interpreting for me at the Ethiopia telecomms company, having a joke in the office and going for regular Shi/Buna Breaks. In the other house opposite us there is an Ethiopian Airlines employee - quite handy if you need to find out if the flight is running or more recently that the airport was closing for 3 months! Our neighbour is a man who works for an organisation called Hope who run a school in town and behind us there are a number of families who we don’t know so well, but we
hear the sounds of their daily life drifting across the garden.
We have a big garden - which we’ve struggled to keep under control. We’ve never been great gardeners, but this year we were able to harvest a pumpkin, some chillies, a Guava and some mouldy corn. We didn’t do much to be fair, it just happened, courtesy of the past volunteers and Mulatu.
Currently the garden is going brown and is full of dead leaves, plus the cat family we adopted and the remains of several dead pigeons. Well, I tried adopting the cat family, but cats are very fickle, I even bought some meat for them (various entrails no human would or could eat) which they enjoyed the first few days then played with it on the last day. I think I have to come to terms with the fact these cats are wild, I will not be able to steal one of the kittens and I will not be sitting on the couch cuddling one of them anytime soon. But - look at how cute they are!
There’s a nice veranda area outside the house, which is lovely to sit out on and have
The Garden
Rainy Season breakfast at this time of the year as the weather is getting hot. Well it was lovely until about 4 weeks ago, our four chairs were stolen. It was our own fault to be honest, we hadn’t chained them up as we usually do when we got back after our holiday. Ethiopia is a very safe country and this was the first crime we have experienced. I mentioned it to a few people and discussed reporting it to the police, but I actually didn’t know where the Police station was so just left it. After all it was kind of stupid on our part to have left them outside, no security etc etc. But about two weeks ago, a police pick-up truck turns up at my Bureau…….and the chairs in the back look vaguely familiar. The chief comes into my office, and I get a telling off (via Mustophe interpreting) for not reporting the crime in the first place. Yeah, yeah, I know, but I come from Bristol, where the only reason you report a crime is for insurance purposes and certainly not because you ever expect the crime to be solved or belongings returned. So Mustophe (for interpreting purposes)
The Garden
Dry Season and I have to get in the truck. We squeeze in the front, the chief gets comfortable in one of my chairs in the back. I have no idea what we are doing at this stage, but I’m hoping we’re delivering my chairs back home and everything is good and happy in the world. But as we turn on to the track and up to my house, we are greeted by 6 federal guards, 2 thieves and a camera man!
At this point there is a re-enactment of the crime. I think it was probably a bit disappointing all round and the police probably expected the thieves had more criminal expertise than they actually had - after all they just walked though our un-locked gate, picked the chairs up and walked out, not worth the mini film crew really.
Mustophe and I hid in the house - laughing, mostly in disbelief. As Mustophe pointed out, how on earth did Al and I sleep though four large wooden chairs being taken about 3ft away from out bedroom window?
Sadly we still do not have our chairs, after all that, they were taken away again. We have to wait until
the thieves go to court and that could be months away. We’ve been a little more careful since then, I don’t think I could stand the embarrassment of coming face-to-face with thieves, federal guards and film crew again!
So back to the house. It’s pretty big inside, our American friends reckon it’s bigger than the average New York apartment they lived in and I tend to agree, we get a good deal as a couple. All the rooms are linked by a long corridor, we have a large living room / dining room, a big kitchen, a big store cupboard, which stores all sorts of interesting things, including a medical kit and emergency food, as our house is designated as the safe house, so if there is an emergency everyone comes to us.
A small bathroom, big enough for a shower, western style toilet (I don’t think I could cope with the pit latrine at home as well as work - although it’s good for the thigh muscles) the cold shower is actually a welcome relief in the current climate.
Our water is provided via a water tank in the garden, not all of the houses have these
Chillies
From our garden - they are not that common, but all the VSO houses have them and our neighbours have one. In fact we occasionally enjoy lukewarm showers at the moment as the water heats up in the tank.
The house is surrounded by a bamboo fence - they don’t last very long as they tend to get eaten up by termites and already there’s lots of holes in it even though it was repaired in April. The holes provide perfect viewing portals for the children in the neighbourhood - ferenji are almost better entertainment than TV - last month some kids caught me dancing and singing in the kitchen - must have been quite a spectacle. If any kids come by at the moment they might be lucky enough to catch Al and I doing our Davina workout - now that would be fun, usually we try to remember to close the curtains for that!
VSO provide a basic set of furniture in the house, a bed, wardrobe, a large table and chairs, some living room chairs, a cupboard and table for the kitchen. Over the years extra bits have been accumulated by the various volunteers staying in the house.
It’s all well worn at this stage, but is perfect for our needs. Along with our 25 kg of luggage we travelled here with when we first arrived, we came with 2 blankets and pillows, a mosquito net, a water filter, an electric ring and a Kerosene cooker - for powerless days, which are frequent at the moment, or when the electric ring blows up! Life for us is easier with less in it to worry about.
So this is where we have been living for the past year and will be for the next.
Your welcome to come and visit if you would like to, who knows we may have got our chairs back by the time you come.
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