Workshops and Wildlife

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Most of the time I feel a little bit like a fraud as a volunteer in Ethiopia, as my quality of life is so much better here than in the UK. I am often asked how Ethiopia and the UK compare economically - my stock answer is that it is difficult to compare because, of course, wages are much higher, but so are costs in the UK. There is no air pollution; just the dust of Robe to contend with in the dry season. And I rarely take work home in the evening or at weekends. I sleep well and eat locally produced, organic, food.

However, over the last week or so, I have felt like a “proper” VSO volunteer. I have been running lots of workshops in Cluster Centre Schools for teachers. When the workshops are at Galema School in Robe, I walk from the college, with a daypack, a local basket and a roll of prepared flip charts. I take everything with me - chalk, board rubber, pins, tape … everything I will need during the training session. Workshops at Finca’a Bamo School, in Goba, involve an early morning bus ride from Robe, then a half-hour walk to the school. Burkitu, just outside of Goba, involves the same bus journey then usually a garri (horse and cart) to the school, but a 4 km or so walk back to Goba after the workshop as there are no garris waiting for customers out there. The teachers at Burkitu do the walk to and from school every day. They cannot believe that teachers in the UK can often afford a car. Last week, when I took a garri to Burkitu, the driver tried to charge me 50 birr - much to my amusement and that of a teacher who was about to attend the workshop - as the fare should be around 6 birr.

Although the facilities in most of the schools are very basic, every school I have visited here has a beautiful compound, often with trees and livestock, both of which are eventually sold to raise funds. The classrooms differ greatly between schools, and even within schools. Some are built of concrete and have glass windows. Others have mud walls, woven bamboo floor coverings or wooden floors and wooden shutters, while still others have mud floors and walls lined with newspaper.

However, one of the more unusual aspects of running workshops in Ethiopian schools is the occasional wildlife! Last week, I was leading a workshop on the use of Active Learning Methods (not that the topic is relevant) and was in mid sentence when I noticed a rat running along the gap between the wall and the tin roof. Several more followed during the next two hours! Then, a few days later, in a different school, a speckled pigeon flew into the classroom I was running a training session in (this time on CPD and portfolios) and perched on a ledge above the blackboard. As if that wasn’t enough, apart from the fact that I had to move my resources as they were getting hit by droppings, it turned out that there was actually a nest with young in it behind the rafter.

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