Blogs from Asosa, Benishangul-Gumuz Region, Ethiopia, Africa - page 8

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 requirements) our Ethiopian colleagues were incredibly generous in offering it to us first without hesitation. In fact we both count ourselves extremely lucky to have had the opportunity to make the trip, especially together, and even luckier to ... read more

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 day. Or then again maybe they were just laughing at our accents! Passing up the chance to go to an even bigger market in the afternoon, the pair of us took another opportunity to get online ... read more

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 Woredas (war-re-dahs) Ethiopia is divided into 8 regional states (Tigrai, Afar, Somali, Oromia, Amhara, Gambella, Southern People’s State and Benishangul-Gumuz) and 3 city-states (Dire Dawa, Harar and Addis Ababa) each having strong self-administrative powers. Each region is sub-divided into a number ... read more

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 the market with Mulatu again, it’s always a real adventure, there are so many different things to see, people come from all over the region to sell their goods and it’s all so colourful, and ... read more

OK it’s been a good few days, so I though I’d better add another blog entry, plus Al has been nagging me! It’s been a pretty busy few weeks. I got the opportunity to get out of the office and attended some workshops that are being run by my team, it was really interesting to get to experience some of the huge differences but also how many similarities there are too. The first workshop was in Assossa at the high school, the second got me out of town to a place called Bambasi - known for it’s milk, it was an hours journey, with some amazing scenery on the way, I swear people here must think I’m challenged in some way as I have spent the past few weeks with a big grin on my face, ... read more