TravelBlog » Al and Sara

Al and Sara - Al Mercer & Sara Hassen

Hi - this is Al & Sara's blog!

We are 2 VSO volunteers working in Assosa, Beneshangul-Gumuz, Ethiopia for 2 years from Feb 2008 to 2010.

Don't try to find us on the map, 'cos we don't appear. We are proud to announce a grand total of 0 entries in the Lonely Planet - Ethiopia & Eritrea and um, 0 entries in the Bradt guide. In fact as an "emerging region" within Ethiopia our area is pretty anonymous both internally and (clearly) internationally. With the mud strip airport being relaid with tarmac we had a 2 day 4x4 journey here from Addis. That said, Assosa is a regional capital, has a population of 15k and at least 40 vehicles. It is hot, green, welcoming and (currently) pretty dry.

About us - Al has swapped a daily 3-motorway commute (M32/M4/M5) between Bristol & Cheltenham and a life of managing IT Security & Networking for a 3-mango tree commute to the central regional Capacity Building bureau where he is sharing IT skills with the bureau ICT staff. His Arsenal and Bristol Rugby season tickets have been exchanged for 56k updates via BBC online and some quality match analysis from the host of dedicated Arsenal fans found across the whole of Ethiopia!

- Sara has put her job as a Marketing & Communications manager at JISC (based at Bristol University) on hold for 2 years while she embarks on a slightly further daily commute (5 trees and the occasional cow) to work as a Planning Officer at the Regional Education Bureau. She has traded 10k runs along the Bristol cycle path for as yet undecided routes around the dusty streets of Assosa town.

We hope you find something interesting here - and if not, just marvel at the photography ;)

For more information on Voluntary Services Overseas (VSO) see www.vso.org.uk.

We have been raising money for VSO - thanks to everyone for your help - we have over £3,500 so far. If you would like to help us out the money goes directly to VSO, not us and you can do so at this page http://www.justgiving.com/alandsarainethiopia

In fact VSO liked our themed 10k run so much they featured it here :)

Finally we have a domain registered which is our home site and will link to this blog see www.alandsarainethiopia.co.uk.

So ciao,ciao & buhallah!
Al & Sara
(IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER - The views expressed in this blog are Al & Sara's only and not those of either VSO (UK) or VSO (Ethiopia)!!)

Private Message Subscribe 3 Forum Posts Blog Map

Guestbook Search Blogs Favorites First Entry Latest Entry

Joined on: February 13th 2008
Last Login: June 27th 2009

Blog Entries: 66
Photos: 753
Recommended by 2, Recommends 1

TB Code: [blogger=61110]
Status: BLOGGER

Blogs & Travel Journals

by Al and Sara, order by Date newest first.

By Al and Sara
June 22nd 2009

You are a lazy Ferengi... Africa » Ethiopia » Benishangul-Gumuz Region » Asosa

Congratulations!
The lazy ferengi nets 3 million birr for the region

"You are a lazy Ferengi. You should not be in Ethiopia" This was the cry from one of the two adolescent boys walking behind Sara as she made her way back from the sigga Bet (Butcher or 'meat house') with cat meat last week. Sara seems a bit unlucky at times. It seems the weirdos and rude kids gravitate towards her, whereas I rarely get any trouble. Maybe because I am 15 stone and don't look much like a vegetarian - in fact I look like I could eat a small kid for a snack - that they keep their own [View Full Entry]

By Al and Sara
June 22nd 2009

Life Begins Africa » Ethiopia » Benishangul-Gumuz Region » Asosa

Let them eat cake
Don't mind if I do...

So what does it feel like to hit the milestone, 40? At 30 I gave up smoking, which was a pretty big deal - both for me and Sara, who kind of had to give up too. At 40? Well I was going to give up biting my nails. But then that seemed a bit insignificant. Maybe I should give up picking my nose; but then again in Ethiopia that may be a bit difficult. It is a national pastime during the dry season - and when in Rome... ;) I also do not want to become a 40-something bloater. I've [View Full Entry]

By Al and Sara
June 11th 2009

"40? But his face does not look that young?" Africa » Ethiopia » Benishangul-Gumuz Region » Asosa

The Big 4-oh!
It is pretty big and it is pretty clever, thanks, Sara :)

Er, thanks. That was the assessment of one of Sara's colleagues from the Education Bureau about my passing of the middle-age milestone. People say things here like "you look like a baby" when what they mean is "you are very young looking" so I hope he got his adjectives muddled, but maybe not... I'm not a vindicitive sort who remembers such slights; but he can forget any PC support he needs on HIS b** laptop! Silicone Implants Before I move on and talk about the birthday in Addis, I should pass on a great discovery of mine, courtesy of eBay. Silicone [View Full Entry]

By Al and Sara
June 7th 2009

The Al and The Pussycat all at sea Africa » Ethiopia » Benishangul-Gumuz Region » Asosa

The dim one & the vegetarian
A comedy duo playing in a kitchen near you...

Halellujah! The power is back! Well for tonight at least. It's been really shocking recently - one day on, one day off, which has kind of made it hard to find time to update the blog. When we do have laptop battery power, we use it for emails, banking tasks (ok, ok, eBay) and preparing for our trip back to the UK in, oh, under three weeks now! In fact is, the power is worse than last year, which is a shame. Plus the mobile network has been dire for the last week or so in Assosa. Normally it would take [View Full Entry]

By Al and Sara
May 28th 2009

Left For Dead Africa » Ethiopia » Benishangul-Gumuz Region » Asosa

Sorry for the silence! We've been in Addis for a one-day workshop that resulted in a pretty stressful 9 days away. While we were away it was my big 4-0 birthday and I'll cover that one in the next entry - hopefully later this weekend, power permitting (it has got pretty damn bad lately - one day on, one day off). We flew to Addis on Saturday 16th and had a birthday lunch planned the next day, followed by a farewell party for Jackie at Kev and Izzie's house. The day went pretty well (see next entry pics) but the following [View Full Entry]

By Al and Sara
May 8th 2009

On the Move in Ethiopia Africa » Ethiopia » Benishangul-Gumuz Region » Asosa

Drinking Sign

Yo Yo Yo homies! (sorry, been watching too many episodes of The Wire) Herewith Dave's second and (I am guessing) final guest blog entry from Ethiopia. It's a good one :) Remember - you too can take advantage of Al & Sara Tours Ethiopia Inc. and make a guest blog entry... On the move Our plan, or ‘programme’, is to do a week of tourism with Al n Sara, so it’s back to our friendly Fokker for the flight to Addis. Not many airports offer shoeshine service in the departure lounge, but Assosa does. I call it the lounge; in fact [View Full Entry]

By Al and Sara
May 3rd 2009

They will make good soldiers... Africa » Ethiopia » Benishangul-Gumuz Region » Asosa

The Master
TaeKwanDo Teddy

The Drums that roll upon my Soul... It is early morning. I feel like I have been asleep for a total of 20 minutes. My head is thumping. Not because of a large quantity of rather nasty, on-the-turn, cheap red wine - mixed with white wine when the red wine ran out - that passed my lips the night before; but because our neighbour has put on her holy drum music yet again. BONK-BONK-BONK (pause) BONK-BONK-BONK (pause) bink! (pause) bink! (pause) bink-bink-bink (pause) BONK-BONK-BONK (pause)..... This goes on over and over again for hours. During the ru [View Full Entry]

By Al and Sara
May 1st 2009

The Barefoot Women Engineers Africa » Ethiopia » Benishangul-Gumuz Region » Asosa

It's a road Jim
But not as we know it...

We're back! Our holiday with Dee & Dave in Addis, Awassa, Wondo Genet, Arba Minch, Konso, Addis (again) and Wenchi Crater is finished; but what a holiday it was :) The trip reaffirmed to us (and confirmed for Dee and Dave) how wrong the western perception of Ethiopia is. It really is NOT some arid desert full of animal carcasses and fly-covered children. It has mountains, lakes, grasslands, forests, scrub plains. Jungles as well as deserts. It has rivers, gorges, hot springs. Because of it's isolation from foreign influences - it was never colonised properly, though the Italians [View Full Entry]

By Al and Sara
April 18th 2009

Ethiopian WOW! Africa » Ethiopia » Benishangul-Gumuz Region » Asosa

Formal Introduction

Here is a special guest blog from Dave! Dave and Dee (Sara's mum and husband) have arrived and we have just spent a great week in Assosa. Today we are off to Addis for two days before heading out in our hired car & driver to Wondo Genet springs, Awassa, Arba Minch, back to Addis then Wenchi Crater. We will not be back in Assosa now for 10 days and then may well be immediately off to the Metekel Zone for training - Sara with the Shinasha Development Association and myself with computer maintenence training... Could go quiet for a while [View Full Entry]

By Al and Sara
April 3rd 2009

Great Assosa Run Africa » Ethiopia » Benishangul-Gumuz Region » Asosa

The Great Assosa Run

So we came back from England feeling pretty lardy, with a few extra pounds from the Christmas celebrations. On our way back from Addis Ababa Al and I sat up front in the car and it was a tight squeeze I can tell you, I was almost sitting on the drivers lap, to say nothing of Al sitting on mine for the 14 hour journey home. We came back with good intentions of getting back into a regular fitness regime. But we didn’t realise quite how soon we’d be required to get our lardy arses in gear. Within a week of [View Full Entry]

TravelBlog » Al and Sara

Al and Sara | Al Mercer & Sara Hassen | Travel Blog

Al and Sara - Al Mercer & Sara Hassen

Blogs & Travel Journals