On Monday, I had to deliver a letter to a village around 6 km from Robe, so it was a perfect opportunity to go by horse. Daamaa was being unusually stubborn and not far out of Robe, just stopped; no amount of encouragement would get him moving. Slightly embarrassing! Then an older man took pity on me and started to lead him. He obviously thought I was totally incompetent and when we reached the village and he had to turn off to his house, he handed the rope over to a woman who took great delight in stopping at the house of every one of her friends (and she had many) through the village to explain that she had to lead the Farenji on the horse - we even took a detour to her sister’s house. ... read more

Although it is not part of my actual VSO placement, I am privileged to have a small involvement with a vocational training project for deaf students, at Galema Elementray School, in Robe. The project was set up by Catherine, Emma and Elmy (previous volunteers in Robe) using funding that they helped the school to obtain from the International Deaf Children’s Society. Today was a celebration of the first graduation of students who have completed Year 10. There were several speeches, translated into sign language for the students by Aynalem - one of the Special Needs Teachers at the school. There were also two plays performed. The first, performed by hearing and deaf students, was the story of a couple who had a deaf child; they tried going to a priest and a doctor to get her ... read more

Just as the bus was leaving Robe bus station at 6.30am, I became aware of a rustling by my feet. I was sitting at the very front of the bus, with Hannah just behind me, as the conductor had insisted on moving us to the privileged seats at the front. I heard the rustling again, and assuming that the woman behind me was stretching out her legs, looked down to check that I wasn’t kicking her. It was a live chicken. Part way through the journey, I thought a Pepsi bottle falling out of the cupboard in the dashboard had killed it. But it was fine. I kept tidying up the rubbish, except for the plastic drinks bottle it ended up resting its head on, and after Dinsho, accidentally dropped kollo (local roasted barley snack) for ... read more

I had thought that the rainy season had ended, but apparently not! For the last few days it has rained a lot - often for most of the night and day. The sun does still make a brief daily appearance, thus justifying the Ethiopia Tourism slogan of “13 months of sunshine.” Today, being Thursday, was market day! Although tempting not to venture out, it is the only place and time to buy decent vegetables … it is possible to buy sad looking onions and tomatoes at some of the small shops in town, but they are more expensive, not as good and not guaranteed to be there! It is possibly the worst I have ever seen the mud at the market. Many women had given up on shoes and were wading through the quagmire barefoot rather ... read more

Sama, the Ethiopian Tourist Guide with four German clients, had said that he would phone me when the group left Dinsho - the plan was for Hannah and myself to join them on a trip to Sanetti Plateau. Liza, a friend from Addis Ababa, had met the same group when her and Rupert were trekking in the Simian Mountains - the German group were then heading to the Bale Mountains so Liza had given Sama my phone number so that he could contact me for advice about the trip. He phoned at 7.30am to inform me that they were already in Robe! I, in turn, phoned Hannah, who managed to get dressed and be ready to leave to meet them at the Bekele Molla Hotel (where they were having breakfast) in 10 minutes. Their mode of ... read more