Going Jack-a-nory We arrived in Addis feeling pretty breathless after our English exam shenanighans, yet we still had 60 or so papers to mark as well as a host of other tasks to complete before flying on the Friday. Allan - the final survivor of the St George Beer Lodge (aka The Gin Palace) - had kindly agreed to put us up for the time. As he is off back to Scotland to start teacher training in early August this would probably be the last time we had the pleasure of one of the plushest volunteer accomodations in Addis (VSOs may [View Full Entry]

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What's the story...? The last 3 days in Ethiopia before travelling back to Europe for Sara's sister's wedding were pretty horrendous. In fact the final week in Assosa was, well, challenging... Sara, Lesley and I had been asked - as native English speakers - to prepare and deliver an oral and written exam for the 100-odd applicants from Beneshangul-Gunmuz who had applied to become a University Lecturer. The Federal Ministry of Education were taking on the batch of new lecturers for 2009-10 and although there is no university in this region, people living here can apply to work at a [View Full Entry]

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"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]

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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]

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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]

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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]

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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]

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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]

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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]

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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]

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