I’m in Addis now, and catching up with the orphanage. Hanna is at the prisoners’ children’s house in Harar, so she is not in Addis, but D, the new communications man, is there.
First of all, we dropped off two and a half sacks full of baby clothes, donated by LEAP, the NGO I work for. We also gave them some ‘Where’s Wally’ books to go in the little one’s room, and maps of the continents to be hung on the walls of the classrooms (these were all bought with money you’ve raised through Hanna’s Orphanage).
Ab and I visited the Shiro Meda children as well, bearing gifts of bananas (in a rare deviation from my ‘Bringing E-Numbers to Ethiopia’ project). I have to confess that seeing the kids all run to the door calling ‘Jenny, Jenny, Jenny!’ and being genuinely glad to see me, makes me so happy. Yeah, okay, so there’s an element of ego stroking, but it at least it means I know that they do remember me and I’m making them happy!
Ab and I got roped into playing a game of football with the kids. I tell you, some of these children are demons with a football – girls as well as boys! However, for many of them, competitive games are a trigger for any residual anger issues they are dealing with. One of the boys was annoyed that his team were losing and, in an effort to keep back the tears, got angry. Ab called him over and had a little chat with him, and then watched the rest of the football game together, Ab’s arms around his shoulders.
Watching them made me realise how much many of these children need normal physical affection – especially the boys. Physical affection between men is easy in Ethiopia – close friends walk around hand in hand, or with their arms around each other – and many of these children, particularly the ones who have lived on the streets, or with grudging relatives who have refused to send them to school, simply haven’t experienced the platonic affection and attention. Of course, this need makes them quite vulnerable to being taken advantage of, but in a safe, nurturing environment such as the orphanage, it’s an important aspect of their care.
Of course we have to make sure the children are safe from anyone who does want to take advantage of them, and that’s obviously Hanna Orphans Home’s priorities. While we were at the Shiro Meda site, an Ethiopian man came in and said hello to everyone, and then went into the main living room of the house and chatted to some of the children in there. Curious, I asked the children’s tutor (who was playing football with us) who he was.
“He’s the father of those two boys,” he said, pointing out two children enthusiastically chatting to the visitor.
I thought I’d heard wrong. A while ago, this man was convicted of abusing his daughter (the boy’s sister) and imprisoned, hence the fact the children were assigned to the orphanage. The girl is obviously traumatised by the experience, and has moved to the main site of the orphanage to be able to spend time with girls who have been through similar experiences and to be able to access the psychological help she needs.
I asked the tutor shouldn’t the man be in prison? Did Hanna know he was here?
The tutor shrugged (hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil?) but confirmed that Hanna knew he was here. Still, once we left, I called her just to check. Apparently – and this is just speculation – this man managed to bribe whoever he needed to be released from prison very early, and now wants to see his sons. Hanna has agreed to let him see the boys but obviously refuses to allow him to see his daughter.
As for me, I plan to keep away from the man. It’s Hanna’s decision to let him see his sons – and there was never any suggestion he abused them – but I don’t particularly want to make small talk with the man. Or even be civil to him, quite frankly.
Tomorrow, I will continue to learn more about the children in the orphanage as I am going to work on recording their stories and histories. T, the psychology student, and I are nowhere near finishing, but we’re working through them slowly. It’s important to get them done, so every time I’m in Addis I will spend some time doing them.
And I’m sure I’ll end up back at Shiro Meda again for another game of (badly played on my part) football!
Friday 13 March 2009
Thursday 12 March 2009
Let’s talk about toilets!
Seriously, the toilet perils of travelling don’t get talked about enough – maybe because so many of the Africa travelogues I’ve read are written by men and, I don’t care what anyone says about gender equality, men simply don’t have the same issues when it comes to toilets. They can generally whip it out and pee anywhere (and they do… every time I turn a corner there’s an Ethiopian man peeing up a fence or a lamppost or on a parked car) but for women it’s not so easy.
For a start, sometimes a toilet, however rudimentary, doesn’t actually exist. At our school there are no toilet facilities (they are being built) and very little cover to enable you to pee behind a tree. Consequently, if I’m at the school from early morning until the evening I have to either drive back to the town to pee (which makes me feel utterly ridiculous) or just hold it. So I try and plan to only stay for a few hours at a time, and ration the amount I drink (not so easy when it’s really hot!).
So wherever you’re going and whatever you’re doing, you try and make sure there are toilets. The first time my three male colleagues and I were going to drive from Lalibela to Addis, I made sure I said to Ab, the driver, ‘look, you guys are men, you can pee anywhere, but we have to make sure we find me a proper toilet sometimes’.
I don’t mean I have to have a western style toilet, I’m quite happy with a hole in the ground – in fact, sometimes these can be a more pleasant experience. Toilet wise, I have done things I never would have done in the UK. I have peed while a goats watched, peed in a group, behind a tree (okay, I’ve done that one before!), in the most disgusting and smelly shed, and – most memorably – I have peed in a hat (don’t ask. Really, don’t ask).
I’m not asking for 5 star toilet facilities, I’m relatively unfussy. The one thing I do ask for is some kind of privacy – it amazes me that in most of Ethiopia they don’t feel that a door is an essential part of the toilet experience. I really do. In one café where we stopped for breakfast, people eating had a perfect (I’m talking cinema-scope) view of anyone using the toilet as there was no door. Of course, this is fine for men, but for women it’s not ideal. Can you imagine what would have happened if I’d used the toilet? A faranji? I suspect they would have been talking about it for days.
Even when there is a toilet door, it’s rare that the door closes properly. A newly built, beautiful hotel in Lalibela has toilet doors that have to be held shut whilst you are peeing, which requires quite a lot of balance and freakishly long arms. Worse than that, the toilet doors are half glass! Half glass!! What’s that all about? Yes, it’s ‘smoked glass’ so you can’t see detail, but you can still see the shape of someone sitting on the toilet, and quite frankly, that’s not a silhouette I want anyone to see.
Once you’ve worried about showing your big (well, in my case) white bottom to the watching world, you need to worry about quite where you’re putting that bottom. Toilets in Ethiopia run the full gauntlet from ‘nice’ right down to ‘oh my God, that’s disgusting’, but it’s amazing what you can ignore when needed. I have peed (and worse) in the smelliest and most repulsive excuses for toilets I have ever seen. I can’t understand why they just don’t clean them, especially when they’re in hotels and restaurants. When I was in the South of Ethiopia, there was a particularly revolting toilet in a hotel (I’d name and shame, but I can’t remember exactly what it was called). The floor was covered with something that definitely wasn’t mud and as I gingerly tiptoed my way through it, I dropped my wrap. Argh! I could have cried. In fact, I was ready to throw it in the bin – it’s bad enough having to deal with horrible toilets, let alone carry the contents around on your clothes – but luckily there was a big sink outside and a lovely woman who managed to clean it in minutes.
So, cleanliness is not always a given, and you don’t get much privacy, even in the 3 star hotels. You don’t always get toilet paper either. When you first travel in Ethiopia this comes a bit of a surprise and you get caught short sometimes, but soon you get used to it and you learn to steal any toilet paper you come across, stockpiling it in your bag for future emergencies.
Of course, all these issues triple their impact when you start factoring in dodgy stomachs or periods - I know, I know, but nobody talks about this stuff, and it’s an important consideration. How can I go and work at the school when I might need a toilet at a moments notice, and just popping behind a tree won’t cut it? When you’re doing a 9 hour drive and the only place to pee is behind a tree – it’s not the best feeling in the world when you are fighting a heavy period. And if you’re travelling with someone, well, let’s just say that amoebic dysentery really deepens the intimacy between you. That or it ensures that you never speak again after the trip has finished.
So there are definitely lessons to be learnt from this. When travelling in Ethiopia: be prepared for some variations in toilet standards; build up those thigh muscles for the squatting you will have to do; invest in some kind of stick to hold doors closed when you need to; and always, always, always carry your own toilet paper.
For a start, sometimes a toilet, however rudimentary, doesn’t actually exist. At our school there are no toilet facilities (they are being built) and very little cover to enable you to pee behind a tree. Consequently, if I’m at the school from early morning until the evening I have to either drive back to the town to pee (which makes me feel utterly ridiculous) or just hold it. So I try and plan to only stay for a few hours at a time, and ration the amount I drink (not so easy when it’s really hot!).
So wherever you’re going and whatever you’re doing, you try and make sure there are toilets. The first time my three male colleagues and I were going to drive from Lalibela to Addis, I made sure I said to Ab, the driver, ‘look, you guys are men, you can pee anywhere, but we have to make sure we find me a proper toilet sometimes’.
I don’t mean I have to have a western style toilet, I’m quite happy with a hole in the ground – in fact, sometimes these can be a more pleasant experience. Toilet wise, I have done things I never would have done in the UK. I have peed while a goats watched, peed in a group, behind a tree (okay, I’ve done that one before!), in the most disgusting and smelly shed, and – most memorably – I have peed in a hat (don’t ask. Really, don’t ask).
I’m not asking for 5 star toilet facilities, I’m relatively unfussy. The one thing I do ask for is some kind of privacy – it amazes me that in most of Ethiopia they don’t feel that a door is an essential part of the toilet experience. I really do. In one café where we stopped for breakfast, people eating had a perfect (I’m talking cinema-scope) view of anyone using the toilet as there was no door. Of course, this is fine for men, but for women it’s not ideal. Can you imagine what would have happened if I’d used the toilet? A faranji? I suspect they would have been talking about it for days.
Even when there is a toilet door, it’s rare that the door closes properly. A newly built, beautiful hotel in Lalibela has toilet doors that have to be held shut whilst you are peeing, which requires quite a lot of balance and freakishly long arms. Worse than that, the toilet doors are half glass! Half glass!! What’s that all about? Yes, it’s ‘smoked glass’ so you can’t see detail, but you can still see the shape of someone sitting on the toilet, and quite frankly, that’s not a silhouette I want anyone to see.
Once you’ve worried about showing your big (well, in my case) white bottom to the watching world, you need to worry about quite where you’re putting that bottom. Toilets in Ethiopia run the full gauntlet from ‘nice’ right down to ‘oh my God, that’s disgusting’, but it’s amazing what you can ignore when needed. I have peed (and worse) in the smelliest and most repulsive excuses for toilets I have ever seen. I can’t understand why they just don’t clean them, especially when they’re in hotels and restaurants. When I was in the South of Ethiopia, there was a particularly revolting toilet in a hotel (I’d name and shame, but I can’t remember exactly what it was called). The floor was covered with something that definitely wasn’t mud and as I gingerly tiptoed my way through it, I dropped my wrap. Argh! I could have cried. In fact, I was ready to throw it in the bin – it’s bad enough having to deal with horrible toilets, let alone carry the contents around on your clothes – but luckily there was a big sink outside and a lovely woman who managed to clean it in minutes.
So, cleanliness is not always a given, and you don’t get much privacy, even in the 3 star hotels. You don’t always get toilet paper either. When you first travel in Ethiopia this comes a bit of a surprise and you get caught short sometimes, but soon you get used to it and you learn to steal any toilet paper you come across, stockpiling it in your bag for future emergencies.
Of course, all these issues triple their impact when you start factoring in dodgy stomachs or periods - I know, I know, but nobody talks about this stuff, and it’s an important consideration. How can I go and work at the school when I might need a toilet at a moments notice, and just popping behind a tree won’t cut it? When you’re doing a 9 hour drive and the only place to pee is behind a tree – it’s not the best feeling in the world when you are fighting a heavy period. And if you’re travelling with someone, well, let’s just say that amoebic dysentery really deepens the intimacy between you. That or it ensures that you never speak again after the trip has finished.
So there are definitely lessons to be learnt from this. When travelling in Ethiopia: be prepared for some variations in toilet standards; build up those thigh muscles for the squatting you will have to do; invest in some kind of stick to hold doors closed when you need to; and always, always, always carry your own toilet paper.
Friday 6 March 2009
3rd March, 2009
I have a slightly strange sense of humour, and it’s the little things that make me laugh. Obviously, doing a blog about these things is foolish, as I’m sure that none of these make you laugh, and you’ll go away thinking I’m an idiot. But I’m doing it anyway!
A lot of the time, the things that make me laugh are those that happen with the children or at the school, but last week it happened on the way there, when Ab and I stopped to pick up an elderly woman. She was walking barefoot in the hot sun, a bag of tef (which you use to make injera) strapped to her back, and was very grateful when we stopped to pick her up.
She climbed into the trailer of our car where a few other people were hitching a lift, and Ab continued driving. A few minutes later, I noticed him looked worriedly at his wing mirrors. I asked what was wrong.
“Where’s the lady?” he said.
Things are always falling off of the back of the car when we’re driving (though generally not people) and we were worried that we had gone over a bump too fast and she had fallen off (this is proper off road driving!). Ab got out of the car and went to check – and returned laughing. The woman had curled up on her bag of tef and was sound asleep! When he’d woken her up, concerned she was sick, she waved him away and told him it was better this way. No idea what she meant, but we were just glad she hadn’t rolled off the back …
More often than not, the things that make me laugh are to do with language and the fact we spend most of our time stumbling through the English or Amharic we know in an effort to get the other person to understand. Like yesterday, when I asked Ab why he was staring at a middle aged faranji man in a pair of distinctive blue cargo trousers, and he said, pointing to his own blue cargo trousers, ‘I’m watching my trousers’.
Or today, when we were on our way back from the school. As., the foreman, refused my offer of fasting biscuits and clutched his stomach, saying it was feeling ‘stagnant’. After a bit of a conversation trying to work out how a stomach could be stagnant, he explained it was more an uncomfortable feeling in his chest.
“My heart doesn’t work.”
“There’s a problem with your heart?”
“Yes, it has stopped.”
“Your heart has stopped? That means you’re dead!”
He nodded solemnly. “Yes, I think so!”
Cue an afternoon of comments in the office (not all from me!) about not signing the attendance sheet if you’re dead, and explaining there was no cement bought ‘because As. is dead today’. Well, it made us laugh!
But the thing that made me smile most today was when A. came back into the office after lunch and hissed at me:
“There’s meat in Lalibela!”
What? At first I thought he’d said ‘there’s a meeting in Lalibela’, and my heart sank. Great, another two day fiasco where nothing even gets decided. But then he hissed again and I realised he was talking about meat.
“Really? There’s meat?” Ethiopia is in the two months fasting period required by the Orthodox church, and meat in Lalibela is banned. People have been beaten up for killing an animal here during fasting time (I’m not kidding). Who’s got meat? And will they sell me some?!
A. explained that the woman who runs the butcher’s shop that I normally get my meat from (think a dingy concrete shed, with skinned cows hanging from the roof) is selling illicit meat from her home. Fantastic! I asked him if his girlfriend could buy me some.
“It’s okay,” he said. “We’ll go together tomorrow. I’ll call and get some ready.”
I feel like I’m ordering drugs! I’m half expecting the woman to be selling it on a street corner like they do in The Wire – or Brixton, for that matter. (Of course, this would be slightly more likely if Lalibela actually HAD streets). So tomorrow, in the dark of the evening, A. and I will go to buy meat from some dodgy backstreet, and smuggle it back to the house under our jackets.
See, I told you it wouldn’t make you laugh.
A lot of the time, the things that make me laugh are those that happen with the children or at the school, but last week it happened on the way there, when Ab and I stopped to pick up an elderly woman. She was walking barefoot in the hot sun, a bag of tef (which you use to make injera) strapped to her back, and was very grateful when we stopped to pick her up.
She climbed into the trailer of our car where a few other people were hitching a lift, and Ab continued driving. A few minutes later, I noticed him looked worriedly at his wing mirrors. I asked what was wrong.
“Where’s the lady?” he said.
Things are always falling off of the back of the car when we’re driving (though generally not people) and we were worried that we had gone over a bump too fast and she had fallen off (this is proper off road driving!). Ab got out of the car and went to check – and returned laughing. The woman had curled up on her bag of tef and was sound asleep! When he’d woken her up, concerned she was sick, she waved him away and told him it was better this way. No idea what she meant, but we were just glad she hadn’t rolled off the back …
More often than not, the things that make me laugh are to do with language and the fact we spend most of our time stumbling through the English or Amharic we know in an effort to get the other person to understand. Like yesterday, when I asked Ab why he was staring at a middle aged faranji man in a pair of distinctive blue cargo trousers, and he said, pointing to his own blue cargo trousers, ‘I’m watching my trousers’.
Or today, when we were on our way back from the school. As., the foreman, refused my offer of fasting biscuits and clutched his stomach, saying it was feeling ‘stagnant’. After a bit of a conversation trying to work out how a stomach could be stagnant, he explained it was more an uncomfortable feeling in his chest.
“My heart doesn’t work.”
“There’s a problem with your heart?”
“Yes, it has stopped.”
“Your heart has stopped? That means you’re dead!”
He nodded solemnly. “Yes, I think so!”
Cue an afternoon of comments in the office (not all from me!) about not signing the attendance sheet if you’re dead, and explaining there was no cement bought ‘because As. is dead today’. Well, it made us laugh!
But the thing that made me smile most today was when A. came back into the office after lunch and hissed at me:
“There’s meat in Lalibela!”
What? At first I thought he’d said ‘there’s a meeting in Lalibela’, and my heart sank. Great, another two day fiasco where nothing even gets decided. But then he hissed again and I realised he was talking about meat.
“Really? There’s meat?” Ethiopia is in the two months fasting period required by the Orthodox church, and meat in Lalibela is banned. People have been beaten up for killing an animal here during fasting time (I’m not kidding). Who’s got meat? And will they sell me some?!
A. explained that the woman who runs the butcher’s shop that I normally get my meat from (think a dingy concrete shed, with skinned cows hanging from the roof) is selling illicit meat from her home. Fantastic! I asked him if his girlfriend could buy me some.
“It’s okay,” he said. “We’ll go together tomorrow. I’ll call and get some ready.”
I feel like I’m ordering drugs! I’m half expecting the woman to be selling it on a street corner like they do in The Wire – or Brixton, for that matter. (Of course, this would be slightly more likely if Lalibela actually HAD streets). So tomorrow, in the dark of the evening, A. and I will go to buy meat from some dodgy backstreet, and smuggle it back to the house under our jackets.
See, I told you it wouldn’t make you laugh.
Sunday 1 March 2009
1st March 2009
I’m sitting in my living room, on my sofa, watching the thunder and lightning over the mountains. A mouse is making a racket in the kitchen (haven’t got rid of them all yet!) and the television has no reception, but there’s still electricity, at least at the moment.
This time of year is called the ‘little rains’ which makes me smile as there’s nothing ‘little’ about rain in Ethiopia! I’m sure I’ve written about it before, but African rain is not delicate – it literally throws itself from the sky to the ground. If you’re out in it, you’re soaked to the skin within seconds, but if you’re nice and warm with a cup of tea, it’s an amazing sight. In Lalibela you can see the rain coming about an hour before it arrives – huge clouds gather over the far mountains, and last night I could see rain pouring from the sky, backlit by the setting sun. It’s an awesome sight.
The funny thing is, when it stops raining, Lalibela smells like England – particularly the England I remember when growing up in East Anglia or living in London; wet mud and grass, and a kind of clean, fresh smell. It creates quite a weird juxtaposition, when the world around me smells like England yet I’m surrounded by goats and Priests wrapped in white gabis, with woodsmoke drifting over the mud huts.
There have been a few of those moments in Ethiopia – one earlier this week, when a Scottish couple came to visit the school, and brought bagpipes. None of the children have ever seen bagpipes before, but then neither have any of the project staff, teachers or local government. The children were excused from lessons for ten minutes and came and sat on the stones under the big tree, while J started playing. The children stared at him, goggle eyed, as he managed to beat the altitude-induced breathlessness and play various Scottish standards. I normally hate the sound of the bagpipes, but this was really good!
Within a few minutes, drawn by the sound, some of the local kebele (like council) officers had come over the hills and the workers had stopped building. All stood watching, amazed.
It was a very surreal moment. I’m stood in this hot, arid landscape, with lots of Ethiopian children sitting on rocks, and goats, donkeys and cows wandering around, while a Scottish man plays the ‘Highland fling’ on the bagpipes. Incredibly bizarre.
But just another day …
This time of year is called the ‘little rains’ which makes me smile as there’s nothing ‘little’ about rain in Ethiopia! I’m sure I’ve written about it before, but African rain is not delicate – it literally throws itself from the sky to the ground. If you’re out in it, you’re soaked to the skin within seconds, but if you’re nice and warm with a cup of tea, it’s an amazing sight. In Lalibela you can see the rain coming about an hour before it arrives – huge clouds gather over the far mountains, and last night I could see rain pouring from the sky, backlit by the setting sun. It’s an awesome sight.
The funny thing is, when it stops raining, Lalibela smells like England – particularly the England I remember when growing up in East Anglia or living in London; wet mud and grass, and a kind of clean, fresh smell. It creates quite a weird juxtaposition, when the world around me smells like England yet I’m surrounded by goats and Priests wrapped in white gabis, with woodsmoke drifting over the mud huts.
There have been a few of those moments in Ethiopia – one earlier this week, when a Scottish couple came to visit the school, and brought bagpipes. None of the children have ever seen bagpipes before, but then neither have any of the project staff, teachers or local government. The children were excused from lessons for ten minutes and came and sat on the stones under the big tree, while J started playing. The children stared at him, goggle eyed, as he managed to beat the altitude-induced breathlessness and play various Scottish standards. I normally hate the sound of the bagpipes, but this was really good!
Within a few minutes, drawn by the sound, some of the local kebele (like council) officers had come over the hills and the workers had stopped building. All stood watching, amazed.
It was a very surreal moment. I’m stood in this hot, arid landscape, with lots of Ethiopian children sitting on rocks, and goats, donkeys and cows wandering around, while a Scottish man plays the ‘Highland fling’ on the bagpipes. Incredibly bizarre.
But just another day …
27th February 2009
I just made the best ‘chicken fajitas potatoes’ in the world. I know they are the best in the world because I’m the first person to make them. They say necessity is the mother of invention, and I’m starting to run out of ideas for eating at home.
Basically, for the next two months I am vegetarian. All Ethiopian Orthodox Christians fast for the two months leading up to Easter, which means no animal products at all – no meat, no dairy etc. In Addis it doesn’t make that much of a difference, there are all kinds of religions there and not everybody fasts, but I’m in Lalibela, one of the holiest Orthodox Christian sites in Ethiopia, and you can’t even buy meat for the two months.
So I am eating a lot of pasta and tuna fish, and a lot of shiro (a kind of chickpea sauce) and injera. Oh, and carrots. Then when I found some potatoes at the market, I needed some inspiration – which is where my packet of chicken fajita spices came in …
Tomorrow will be ‘Chilli Con Carne Potatoes’ and then after that I will be serving ‘Cheese and Bacon Pasta Potatoes’ … just think, the possibilities are endless!
Ps. On a slightly connected note, ‘Hip Hop’ biscuits have appeared on sale in Lalibela. There are two flavours here, orange and strawberry, but only the orange are ‘fasting biscuits’. Does this mean the strawberry ones contain meat? The mind boggles!
Basically, for the next two months I am vegetarian. All Ethiopian Orthodox Christians fast for the two months leading up to Easter, which means no animal products at all – no meat, no dairy etc. In Addis it doesn’t make that much of a difference, there are all kinds of religions there and not everybody fasts, but I’m in Lalibela, one of the holiest Orthodox Christian sites in Ethiopia, and you can’t even buy meat for the two months.
So I am eating a lot of pasta and tuna fish, and a lot of shiro (a kind of chickpea sauce) and injera. Oh, and carrots. Then when I found some potatoes at the market, I needed some inspiration – which is where my packet of chicken fajita spices came in …
Tomorrow will be ‘Chilli Con Carne Potatoes’ and then after that I will be serving ‘Cheese and Bacon Pasta Potatoes’ … just think, the possibilities are endless!
Ps. On a slightly connected note, ‘Hip Hop’ biscuits have appeared on sale in Lalibela. There are two flavours here, orange and strawberry, but only the orange are ‘fasting biscuits’. Does this mean the strawberry ones contain meat? The mind boggles!
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