Well I’ve got a good few weeks to catch up on on the blog front, including a few before we went on our field trip, but for now so you know I haven’t completely given up on my blog entries I thought I’d just say hello world and write a few lines about being back in Assosa. Unfortunately is seems the power outages we experienced on our trip are happening across the country and today it's terminal. We haven’t had any power all day today - which is a first for us here. I’m using laptop battery and candle power now [View Full Entry]

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Around the Woredas in 18 days! And it was an amazing experience!! We covered over 2,500km across 9 woredas, stayed in 10 different hotels and visited over 20 villages and towns in 3 regions (Amhara, Oromo and Beneshangul-Gumuz). With between 9 and 13 people (plus luggage) in the long wheelbase Toyota Land Cruiser the journeys (up to 8 hour drives) were uncomfortable, but not unbearable and it was the same for everyone on board. Plus whenever there was additional comfort to be had (better hotel rooms, front seating when possible in the vehicle, catering for our vegetarian eating [View Full Entry]

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mango alleh (there are mangos) Sunday saw the end of our language training. We wrapped it up with each group doing a presentation to the rest of the groups. Luckily, as it was still fresh in my mind, we ended up doing a “at the market” scene. I was the ‘good’ market trader who sold the fruit at a proper price, as opposed to Jonathan who was playing the ‘bad’ trader charging “ferenji prices”. We got a few laughs from the teachers and it clearly struck a chord with the rest of the volunteer’s experiences from the market the previous [View Full Entry]

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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 [View Full Entry]

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Ah, Ambassador, You (Didn’t) Spoil Us So did the Ambassador spoil us with small crunchy spheres of chocolate? Er, no. In fact he didn’t even make an appearance at all. The Brits, plus one miscategorised (and displeased) Australian, queued outside the compound before being led to a room for a very interesting health briefing with the Embassy doctor - a lovely happy woman who explained the contents of our individual small first aid kits and the large “safe-house” first aid kit. Apart from the missing latex gloves (!?!) and the out of date and largely use [View Full Entry]

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It’s OK. Our field trip has been postponed! From Wednesday 10am, to Wednesday 1.30pm, to Wednesday 5.30pm. Then Friday morning. Now maybe tomorrow... ...or Sunday or Monday. Inshallah! :-) Anyway, it means I can at least explain where we are going and post my last few entries from training in Addis. The last Addis entry was a monster (10 pages). For those with short attention spans I have broken it down into 3 entries. Sara doesn’t even read my entries as there are ‘too many words’ so ration yourself if you please. Regions, Zones and Wored [View Full Entry]

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It’s been a busy weekend Friday we tried out another restaurant/bar/hotel for our regular volunteer gathering, they had some great food - it’s fasting day again so only veggie fair, and the beer went down well, we’re, as usual the last men and women standing at the end of the night, the culture here does not seem to be late nights out on the town, although one of Al’s colleagues has promised to show us the local nightclub sometime soon. So at about ten after putting the world to rights we happily weaved our way home. I spent Saturday morning exploring [View Full Entry]

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Ok - we are off to the Woredas for a last minute trip for 26 days - back on 16th (ish) April. Will update then or sooner if the trip is delayed, Buhallah! [View Full Entry]

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After our introduction to shoulder banging and mucky handshakes we spent the afternoon listening to a very interesting briefing on Ethiopian geopolitics and an “Addis Survival Guide”. Addis is not a particularly dangerous city for things like random muggings or kidnap - your major risks are trip-hazards and crossing the road!! Cheers Drive! We also had line taxi etiquette explained to us. Line taxis are these blue and white Toyota minibuses that hare up and down the roads, horns tooting, jam-packed with people while a young boy hangs out of a window shouting out somet [View Full Entry]

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*HobNob biscuits *Ploughman’s sandwich (actually and whole lunch with French bread and pickles and a pint of beer) *Pizza (I think it’s a cheese thing) *Pasty and chip shop chips (Cheese pasty of course) *Cucumber (preferably with cheese) / [View Full Entry]

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