Liza (another VSO) and her partner, Rupert, came up to Robe on holiday. Hooray! More visitors with a vehicle! They very kindly took me out with them for a couple of days. They stayed with me on Saturday night, mainly because the Bekele Mola only had a twin room and the other nice hotel, the Bale Park, didn’t have a room that night. So, on Sunday morning, after an amazing number of cups of tea for Liza, we headed to Dinsho, the Bale Mountain Park Headquarters, with Elias their driver. We called in on Deb and Alastair on arrival, who recommended that we get a guide from the lodge and head to the Web Valley as we wanted to walk. It was wonderful. Such a beautiful, untouched place. One of the highlights was seeing giant mole ... read more

Today, which is Christmas Eve in Ethiopia, the flags are out in Robe, the fountain is working and 3 strings of coloured lights are strung across the main road through town. This is only the third time that I have seen the fountain working - it is switched on for high days and holidays only. However, the celebrations are not for Christmas, apparently, but because the new Mada Walabu University and the road are both officially being launched this afternoon. I went up to the College Hall this morning for a sneak preview of an exhibition. There are some lovely items on display to show the culture of Bale Region, but none were for sale. I particularly liked a model of a woman performing the coffee ceremony (although for some reason she was white not black!). ... read more

Christmas in Addis was very different to my usual cheese and tomato sandwiches on a walk with Martin, but it was good - made by being with some good friends from VSO. We even bought, and decorated, a (very small) Christmas tree. Four of us stayed together in David and Nadia’s house, and often stayed up late talking. I had a nightly argument with Teresa, but won the right to sleep in the lounge (which made sense as I was usually awake first). On Saturday night, we invited Nigel to dinner and had a Christmas celebration meal (pasta and tomato sauce by Mary, fruit salad by Teresa) complete with crackers and paper hats. Sunday was Christmas Eve. The four of us went for a leisurely walk along Bole Road, looking for places to have Christmas Dinner, ... read more

Moving to Ethiopia has obviously been a good way of fooling the Aliens that usually live in my bank account. (This may not make sense to some people reading this - but some of you will know exactly what I mean!) I went to the bank this morning, for the second time today - the first time was my first day in Robe when I opened an account. As I had been told there is often an initial problem with transferring money to the bank in Robe, I had brought with me, in addition to two months salary that VSO gave us before departure, some money of my own. I still have 500 birr of that left, but decided to withdraw money from my bank to take on my grand trip to the capital city - ... read more

It cannot be said that my first visit to Goba, a town 14km south of Robe, was a roaring success! I had decided that this weekend I would go away, somewhere. I considered Dinsho, but nobody I spoke to was sure about how to get a bus there, and most said that it was even harder to get back. I was also told, that there is Internet access in Goba - the more I thought about it, the more I became obsessed about going there to spend many hours sending emails. I wrote emails in advance, saved onto a memory stick, and off I went. The bus journey was cheap (2 birr) and blessedly short - there is no tarmac on the road from Robe to Goba either. Goba looks like a set for a gold-mining ... read more