15th December 2008

Today I arrived in Lalibela, and so far, it's fabulous! I grudginglyrolled out of bed at 4.30 in the morning, was in the airport departure lounge in time to watch the sun come up, and arrived in Lalibela at about 9.40am. A., the project manager of the charity I will be working for, came to meet me, and together with the driver and the foreman (and my luggage!), we piled into the 4x4 and started thewinding journey to Lalibela.

I was in Lalibela for about 3 days in 2006, and had really felt at home there. I'd hated Addis when I'd first arrived, and was concerned I was going to hate Ethiopia entirely, but then I arrived in Lalibela and fell completely in love. I remember saying to K. as we were driven up the mountains 'I don't mean to be insensitive, and I know these people are poor, but my God, they have amazing views!' And I honestly felt no different this time. The steep, winding roads, the incredible views across the mountains, the women making their way into the town with bundles of firewood on their backs, the traditional wooden tukuls … all of it was so familiar, I just kept grinning the entire journey.



And then my grin got wider (if that was possible) when we arrived inthe town of Lalibela and I was shown my house. At the top end of Lalibela already, we walked up a dirt hill, and then several hundred (well, it felt like it at the time) stone steps, before getting to a little wooden house with a kitchen, two bedrooms and a big open living room with floor to ceiling windows. All the better to see the amazing views of the mountain on the right, and Lalibela town at the front!
The house is on a compound with A.'s house, and the LEAP Ethiopia office, meaning I have a 30 second commute to my desk in the morning. Fabulous! I also have a guard (who appears to be about 103 and makes worried noises whenever I go out on my own!) and his two sons who are available to run errands for me – like buying me bread or something.

I also have a flatmate – unfortunately! – in the form of a rat named George. I don't particularly want to share a house with him, but he appears to be unwilling to leave. My second night here, I was cooking dinner when he popped up to say hello and scared the crap out of me. So I went to find A. and some of his friends to get rid of this rat (Damsel in Distress complex? Me? Never!). They responded to my call, and came bearing rat poison and a shovel (presumably they were going to beat it to death!) but sensibly, George had disappeared. So we put down rat poison and bread. In the morning, the bread had disappeared, but there was no dead rat, and judging by the noise, George is definitely alive and well.

So it looks like I'm stuck with him a while longer. It means I'm kept awake every night by his scrabblings, I am constantly disinfecting my kitchen, and have to keep all of my food in the fridge so he can't nibble at it. He is not a good houseguest.

But other than George, Lalibela is fantastic, and I'm definitely ready for my first week here!

12th December, 2008

I have three days left in Addis before I fly to Lalibela and begin my new job there. As much as I am excited to go to Lalibela, I am sad to be leaving Addis, especially as it seems to be such an important and useful time for me to be at the orphanage.

A week or so ago, the orphanage itself was 'audited' by Caritas, their main donor, and a report was produced, listing strengths, weaknesses and recommendations. This audit was incredibly useful for the orphanage, showing them exactly where they need to improve things, where they can work more effectively, and how exactly they can do that.

For us as a charity, it shows clearly where we can help the most.

Although we help the orphanage by sending money and buying resources, we also help with 'capacity building' and providing skills – for example, I've been helping them write project proposals and design promotional material, which is just as useful to them as providing clothes for the children.

We have also been focussing on ways we can ensure the orphanage works effectively as possible, and is sustainable. The orphanage grew organically from Hanna, and she is the driving force behind it all, so if – God forbid – something happened to Hanna, the atmosphere and ethos of the orphanage would be deeply affected. We want to ensure that the orphanage has a life above and beyond Hanna by making sure staff members have the right skills and knowledge to be able to continue running the orphanage as well as it's being run now.

The Caritas report confirms that we're on the right track, which is good!

Consequently, we are going to use some money raised to provide computer trainings for some of the employees, as well as project planning and management training for the project officers. We are also looking at sourcing software training for the accountancy staff, as only one person currently knows how to use it, so if that person is sick, nobody can access financial records easily.

As for me, I am continuing to type up and computerise records for the orphange (both in English and Amharic), and I am working on assisting S, the Project Officer.

So although I will be Lalibela, I will still be able to do some admin things for the orphanage. In fact, I was really sad to be leaving today, which surprised me a bit. Sometimes, working at the orphanage, I am so frustrated with the lack of progress or the slowness with which things happen that I want to bang my head on a brick wall, and I know that I am constantly bossing S around. And yet, I am going to miss it. And even stranger, they are all sad to see me go – Weird people!

Surprising things that might happen to you in Ethiopia:

- You might discover a grand prix

One Sunday morning a few weeks ago, I was walking down Bole Road to meet a friend at the Ghion Hotel when I noticed that even though it was Sunday the road was unusually quiet. All become clear when I turned the corner and discovered what appeared to be the Grand Prix going on in Meskel Square. Small, brightly coloured cars with 'go faster stripes' were being driven round a professional looking track at alarming speed, and crowds of Ethiopian men packed the streets and sat on top of walls to watch it all going on.

There was no way I could get across Meskel Square without being either run over or arrested by the many policemen who were hanging around, so I had to give up the idea of meeting my friend. Instead, I spent a few bewildered minutes watching these cars screech around the track before making my way home. I later find out that car racing is a completely normal part of Ethiopian life, and this particular race takes place every year (run, I think, by a group of Italians). Not what I expected to find that day, though.

- You might get a doughnut when you wanted a coke – or a macciato when you were promised a mango juice

N sat a table at Saay Pastry, waiting for me to finish in the internet café. After a long search for mango juice in Addis, she was very excited when the waiter confirmed they did have mango juice. Fabulous! A while later, the waiter reappeared with a beautifully presented macciato and placed it on the table in front of her. When she pointed out this was not a mango juice, the waiter agreed. So N drank the macciato.

At the same café about two months later, I had the following conversation:
Me: "und coca? Cass casa? (one cold coke please!)"
Waitress: "eshe (okay)"
Waitress walks away to get order, then turns to me:
Waitress: "one doughnut?"
Me, mildly confused: "No, one coke"
Waitress walks down a few stairs: "Two doughnuts?"
Me, even more confused: "No doughnuts. Just one coke?"
Waitress: "doughnuts?"
Me, completely bewildered: "Coke … coca. Pepsi!'
Waitress: "ahhhh, Pepsi! Yes!"
Sigh.


- You may discover a fashion show populated by girls wearing balloons and not much else

I went to meet U. for dinner at Lime Tree restaurant which is a real 'hangout' for Farangis, but normally fairly quiet. So I was surprised to hear booming music and shouts and cheering as I approached. The cheering wasn't for me, sadly, but instead for whatever was going on
in a huge marquee outside the building. I shifted around so I could see what was going on, and was surprised to see Ethiopian women strutting along a catwalk … dressed in bikinis and balloons. Balloons.

It looked for all the world like a fashion show – but one for clothes made out of balloons. Everyone watching was very stylish and well dressed, and clearly the event was a big success!


- A goat might fall on your head

On one of the last days of our trip to the south, we visited a Salt Lake at a town near the border to Kenya. It was deep down in a crater, so we started early and did the half an hour walk down the mountain before 7am. It was quite slow going down, with many unstable rocks, but of course it was much harder climbing back up and it took us a good hour.

N. led the group, with U. somewhere in the middle and, true to form, me miles behind, sweaty, red, and out of breath. The path went up the mountain in a zig zag, and as N reached one corner, she could hear a 'scrabbling' above her head. It didn't sound like it was another person following the track, and U and I were way behind so it wasn't us. All of a sudden, there was a crash and a goat fell from the path above and landed beside N – causing both of them a considerable amount
of shock, I would imagine.




It's a good job the goat didn't land directly on her, if only because nobody wants to have to fill out a travel insurance claim with the reason for injury being 'goat fell on my head'.

5th December, 2008

I have been in a really tense mood for about a week now, and this morning I woke up with a pounding tension headache to prove it. I feel like I either need to get really, really drunk, or go to the gym for a really good workout.

I'm not sure why I'm feeling so tense and scattered – possibly because I still don't have a date for moving to Lalibela and it's getting very near Christmas: this means flights are getting busy, and if there are any free seats, they're really expensive. Plus U is coming to stay with me in Lalibela and we have a whole Christmas planned (I have crackers, a Christmas tree and everything!) which will be no good if I'm still in Addis! Oh yes, and I'm a bit of a control freak and I don't like it when I don't know exactly what's happening when.

A more serious reason for my mood may be because I have been transcribing the stories of the children from the orphanage, and quite frankly they're enough to make you lose faith in all human beings, let alone 'get a little tense'. Some people might read the stories and feel real sorrow from the children and the things they've been through, or pride that they have managed to get through all life has thrown at them, and I do feel that too. However, I'm afraid the overwhelming emotion for me is anger at the ignorance shown, and how people – particularly those who are supposed to love and care for them – treat them.

These children are bereaved (often by HIV or Aids) and then looked after by other family members, sometimes a surviving parent and a step-parent, or a cousin, or a sibling. Some of these children are raped, abused and beaten by those family members, others are thrown out when children from the new marriage appear and take precedence. Some are taken to a city (usually Addis) by 'friends of the family' who then put them to work in someone else's house as a servant, while pocketing all their earnings.

Having a maid is a normal thing in Ethiopia – it's not just for the rich or middle classes. It's a way of creating jobs, after all. But who employs an 8 year old to look after their baby and cook for them, as one girl's story tells? I am not immune, the family I live with had a maid, and she worked long hours – but she is a grown woman. An 8 year old?

And then there are the stories where people get sick and so go to a 'cultural' healer. They tell them the sickness is not medical, you don't need drugs, it's because of some 'spiritual matter' and you must go home to your family (leaving your children in Addis) and pray a lot. Shockingly, this doesn't work and the person dies, leaving their children to the mercy the streets or people wanting to take advantage of them.

Now, I know I sound disrespectful, and my rational brain says think about all these situations properly instead of having some knee-jerk reaction (a-la readers of a much mocked daily newspaper in the UK …). People are trying to survive in difficult circumstances and they do what they have to do, while if someone gets ill and you don't have the knowledge to understand it, you are going to try and explain it within the context of your life and beliefs. It doesn't just happen in developing countries, either, it happens all the time in our own lives.

It still makes me mad though. It makes me want to shake people and tell them to wake up, open their eyes and act!

And now I'm off to the pub or the gym. I haven't decided which, yet.

Make a Difference Day Ethiopia

I know I declared blog bankruptcy a while ago, but this is the one story I do want to make sure I tell.

On the 18^th of October, 2008, we held a 'Make a Difference Day' (see www.csv.org.uk) event at the orphanage, where nearly 40 children, many members of staff, and several expats gave up their morning to paint the compound, library, offices and classrooms of the orphanage. The Hanna's Orphanage charity provided the paint, and paintbrushes (which of course will be useful in the future) and we all provided the manpower!

I know I often moan about how the pace of life (and therefore work) is much slower in Ethiopia, but my goodness these children can paint fast! We started at 9 o'clock and the whole thing was painted, everyone cleaned up and admiring their handiwork by lunchtime! I've honestly never seen such teamwork and military precision.

The kids were really excited about painting, and soon there were teams washing down the office walls with mops and a hosepipe, preparing the paint tins, and organising who was going to paint which bit. There were so many eager children that I couldn't manage to get a paintbrush (story of my life!), so after helping to wash down the office walls I was relegated to taking photos and videos and providing moral support to those doing the work.

Health and safety is obviously a very important part of volunteering and these kind of events, but I have to admit that the older boys were making very unstable looking towers of chairs and tables to paint the top of the walls, while the little ones crouched under the tables and painted the lower parts of the wall. Luckily, no disaster befell us – though more by luck than judgement – and everyone was still in one piece by the end of it.

As the compound became more and more green, expats and friends started to arrive to help. U and her flatmate B came along first, shortly followed by Y, one of the Ethiopian family I live with. Then M, a friend of a friend from England who hadn't been in Addis for that long, came and joined the group. Of course, the fact that there were no more paintbrushes and the children were running the show like a military operation meant that they had to be content with watching, meeting the children and being shown around the orphanage.

My theory is, the more people who know about the orphanage, the better. B works for the Danish embassy and was soon able to suggest different grants programmes they could apply for, and I spent a while explaining exactly how the orphanage worked, the ethos behind it, and what people could do to help. I guess I felt that was my 'Make a Difference Day' volunteering, as I certainly wasn't needed to help with the painting!

By lunchtime, everything was painted and everyone had cleared up, and a very happy bunch of children went back to their individual homes for some lunch. Next year we're looking at possibly painting and cleaning up some of the community homes, so maybe 'Make a Difference Day' will become a permanent fixture for the orphanage?

29th November, 2008

Things are busy at the orphanage at the moment – which is great! I like to be busy and feel like I'm being useful!

One of the main things I'm doing is attempting to computerise the orphanage's records. As with many organisations that have grown so organically (in this case, from Hanna taking in one child around 24 years ago) the information is often held in people's minds and in the collective memory of the organisation, and not always shared effectively. The orphanage do actually have hard copy information on every child – and every staff member knows each child personally – but they are handwritten and in Amharic. This doesn't make it very easy for funders (such as us) to be able to access them, and it makes them quite difficult to update on a regular basis. There are also some gaps in the information.

So currently I am working with T, a psychology student who volunteers for the orphanage, to translate the current files, fill in the missing bits of information, and transfer it all on to computer. We will then have a typed file on each young person, as well as a database to enable us to monitor and analyse the information. We will also ensure that there is a computerised version in Amharic. This kind of thing will help the school to keep track of the children's academic performances, share information to enable better care for them all, and will enable them to compile data quickly for project proposals and reports etc.

It's quite a time consuming job, and tedious in places, but it's been a privilege to be able to read the individual stories of the children. Some I knew, some I didn't, but all of them show just how important it is to look after these children. So many have lost their parents, only to be abused by the people who were supposed to be looking after them, or they were simply left out on the streets when other relatives couldn't – or wouldn't – take them in. In the next few months I hope to be able to share some of the stories with you (with permission from the children, of course).

Maybe it's because I'm doing this work that I have a sudden fascination with what everyone is doing in Ethiopia. Today we went to an 'NGO Fair' and a 'Diplomatic Bazaar' (no, I wasn't sure what they were either!) and there were faranjis as far as the eye could see! In between eating fabulous food sold by all the embassies, and buying hand made crafts from NGOs, I just kept wondering how on earth all these people had ended up in Ethiopia. The few non-Ethiopians I know in Addis are here doing internships for various charities or aid agencies, but I am always seeing young families around, and at these markets today there were people of all ages and from as many countries as you can think of. As J pointed out, it was probably the most white people we've ever seen in one place since we came to Ethiopia!

As it's probably not polite (and definitely not British!!) to go up to strangers and ask 'why are you here?', I was left wondering as I walked around the stalls. Had that English couple over there come to Ethiopia specifically to adopt the Ethiopian baby they had with them? Or were they babysitting? Or had they adopted the baby in the UK and come for a visit? What about the woman in the Channel twinset, with the immaculately coiffed hair and string of pearls? She must be something to do with the embassy, surely? Is the teenager with the long blonde dreadlocks here because of his parents, or is he on a freakishly early gap year? What about the old couple who are rushing around, making sure everyone has coffee? And the man over there who must be at least 6 foot 4, with a long silver ponytail – what's his story?

In fact, there were some moments at the NGO market, which was held in a Lutheran Church, where I felt I could have been at a church fate in Surrey. It was a slightly surreal feeling! On a slightly different but related note, I was quite impressed with the variety of things on sale at the Diplomatic Bazaar, where every country with an Embassy in Addis was showcasing the best bits of its country. I was a bit disappointed that the UK stall was selling copies of Heat magazine and 'Take a Break', but U was impressed with the mulled wine, and I loved the Harrods biscuits and packets of Foxes Glacier Mints (what's the betting someone picked them up at the airport? They were on special offer when I left!). However, U and I are still a little baffled over the fact that the Austrian stall was selling screwdrivers. Is that really something they're famous for?! Apparently so!

23rd Novermber 2008

After a holiday home to the UK that was supposed to last 2 weeks but actually lasted 5, I am finally back in Addis! I'm really glad to be back and my time at home has made me realise that I'm not finished in Ethiopia yet, I still have a lot I want to do and experience, both personally and in connection to the charity. However, my joy at being back is mixed with the realisation that I've stepped right back out of my comfort zone …

Everything is easy back in the UK! Nobody points and stares (well, not often), everyone understands what I'm saying, I don't make embarrassing mistakes because I'm not familiar with the social etiquette, and power cuts are rare, not a daily occurrence. Also, I don't feel guilty in UK for having money, and I don't have to second guess my response to every situation involving poverty. Here, I have to think 'is me helping them actually making things better for them, or simply making ME feel better?'.

So, I am very, very glad to be back (see how fast I ran to Lime Tree restaurant Saturday night to have dinner!) but there is definitely going to be a 're-entry' phase! I have around two weeks in Addis before I start my move to Lalibela, and that's going to require an adjustment period all over again!

But enough with the moaning; I'm back and I'm hitting the ground running. Literally! Today was the 8^th Great Ethiopian Run and I was privileged enough to be taking part. U+I were running it to raise money for Hanna's Orphanage, while B ran with us to give us some moral support!

The Great Ethiopian Run is 10k long, and it grew with help from the team that started The Great North Run in the UK. It's an NGO now which uses the event to promote running in Ethiopia and health and social issues such as education for girls and safe sex. When there are so many young people taking part in one event, it's a great way to get messages like that across. Nearly everyone runs – people who have never run before in their life take part, and there were a considerable amount of people running in jeans! But after all, this is land of long distance runners, so they barely need to train to be better than us! To remind us of how talented Ethiopia is at running, Hailie Gabre Selassie spoke before the race. Unfortunately, I couldn't hear what he was saying as one, he was speaking in Amharic, and two, the microphones didn't appear to be working! It was enough to just see him.

At 9 on the dot we were off! There weren't as many costumes as you would see in the London marathon (although there was one person dressed as a condom - I'd love to know who the person was!) but the red and yellow tee shirts created a really colourful crowd. There was live music at various places around the course, and with all the people (32,000 people registered to take part!) it was a like a lively, sweaty, moving party! Thanks especially to the group of men who sang all the way round (including a rendition of 'Criss Cross' at one point!) – it kept my spirits up! It was wonderful to look round to see people from all walks of life taking part, and crowds lining the street to clap and shout encouragement.

Quite a few Westerners could be picked out in the crowds; some were in proper running shorts and obviously meant business, and some just seemed to be there for the experience. M (a friend of a friend from England who is now living in Addis) was running, and the Germans from the Awash trip were there somewhere too, although we didn't see them. I even hear rumours that the British Ambassador ran!

Now, bearing in mind I have not run anywhere since running 5k back in May sometime, and for the last month I have been spending my time eating and sitting on the sofa, I was expecting it to be hard. And it was hard – the sun was intense, the altitude makes it a lot more difficult to breathe, you couldn't always set your own pace as there were so many people, and the course wasn't exactly flat. It was such great fun, though, it didn't matter! I ran most of the first 6k, but after that it was walking. U went great guns and could have finished in a much better time, but the three of us wanted to finish together. I came in at 2 hours and still standing up, so not bad, if I do say so myself!

It was a great way to spend a Sunday morning in Addis! We each got a medal, we raised money for Hanna's Orphanage (thank you to people who sponsored us – and there is still time to sponsor us: email jenny@hannasorphanage.org.uk for details!) and managed to be interviewed by a journalist, so hopefully we got some exposure for the charity too! And I still pretty much have the use of my legs (although in a very slow, I'm-82-years-old kind of way!). I'm proud I finished it!

The man dressed as a condom finished ahead of us, though, so I guess I shouldn't be congratulating myself too much …

The Story So Far!

I have declared Blog Bankruptcy – I am so far behind, there is no chance that I’m going to post all the ones I’ve started! So, I’m just going to do an update which covers the main points!

Awash National Park
The weekend after the Debre Zeit trip (which was the last blog entry), I went to Awash National Park with U and four Germans she knows – M, G, P and D. After an eventful couple of hours, which included waking one of the guys up and a speedy stop to pick someone up from the airport, we drove the 5 hours to Awash.

It was probably the first time I’d been on a proper trip out of Addis and it was great. We spent the first half a day seeing animals in the park – crocodiles, monkeys, kudus and warthogs to name a few. Definitely the first time I’d seen these animals in the wild! We stayed at a beautiful hotel by a (now defunct) train station, and after a hairy ‘gari’ (horse and cart) drive around the village, we had dinner and were asleep by about 9pm!

At 4.45am the next morning we all rolled out of our respective beds, had breakfast of bread and omlette, and drove to the hot springs in the North of the park. Whenever you go into the park, you need an armed guide – in theory to protect you from the animals, but actually to protect you from any roaming tribes people. The Afar tribe live in and around the park, and don’t take particularly kindly to visitors - indeed, they used to have a custom of chopping off a testicle of any male intruder!

The hot springs were really hot, not just warm! There were a few girls swimming when we arrived, and G and P had a dip, but you had to be careful – the water was so hot that actually your muscles felt like they didn’t work properly, and it would be quite difficult to get out! The boys did get out safely, and I didn’t swim, I just decided to take an unplanned dip in the mud around the springs. What is it with me and muddy water? Anyone who knew me in primary school will know that I seem to be able to fall into water no matter where I am, and this was no different.

So I did a quick change in the middle of the open plains of Awash (and may have shocked a few tribesmen in the process!) and wore U’s jeans for the rest of the day, while she wore her pyjama trousers (thanks U!).

On the way back we got a flat tyre … and discovered our spare tyre had been stolen. Nice! Thankfully it didn’t happen while we were driving along the deserted roads of Awash, but instead while we were relaxing at Sodore Hot Springs Resort. A man was dispatched to Nazereth, the nearest town, to get a tyre while we relaxed in the restaurant.

Eventually we got home, much later than planned, and I spent a very satisfying 10 minutes in a hot shower!


Baby!
Shortly after this (the next morning, in fact!) E’s baby was born! A little boy, who is incredibly cute and looking more and more like his dad every day! When a baby is born in Ethiopia you go and visit and eat ‘gunfo’ (apologies for the bad spelling!) which is a mixture of grain and butter. I think it’s revolting, but it’s traditional, and it means I can say to E’s little boy ‘I ate gunfo for you when you were born!’


Trip to the South
At 3am on the 2nd October, I stood at Bole Airport, Addis Ababa, holding myself up on the airport barriers, sweating profusely and waiting for N to arrive. I wasn’t just overcome with excitement at N arriving, I’d been being sick all day thanks to some bad meat I’d eaten (Giardasis, if anyone’s interested!).

But N arrived, we slept, I drank lots of water and all was fine the next morning. We then went for a trip to the South of Ethiopia along with U. I would love to be able to write everything down here – and if only I were as good as N and U at keeping a travel diary (I’m not) I would have all the info. Instead I have some wonderful pictures, and lots of fantastic memories – just no will to reproduce the whole thing here!

Suffice to say, we saw:

- the Mursi tribe
- the Karo tribe
- Crocodiles
- Hippos
- Monkeys
- The Hamer tribe

And we

- walked through a river
- fed monkeys
- taught the Hamer tribe ‘If You’re Happy and You Know it …’
- danced in the only nightclub in Turmi
- locked the keys in the car … twice!

Not always an enjoyable experience, but always amazing!


Lalibela and Going Home
N went home on the 17th October and I had a ticket booked for the 20th, which I wasn’t sure I was going to use. But then I was offered a job working for a UK charity in Lalibela, a place I visited in 2006 and fell in love with. I will be living there, working with the teachers and the school to bring in an ‘alternative ciriculum’ – so doing community engagement stuff, teaching dance, drama, music, after school clubs, that kind of thing.

And so I decided to come home before hand. Just for a few weeks, to gather resources, see my family and friends, and just prepare for the move to Lalibela.

Not exactly what happened, but that’s for a later story ….!

Lakes and Debre Zeit

I am actually in the UK right now (only for three weeks) but I am taking the opportunity to catch up on posting blogs. I’m sorry for how crap I have been - all emails of complaint have been noted!

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I am woefully behind on these blogs! However, it is for the best possible reason - I am out and about doing interesting things! Last weekend, I went with some friends to Debre Zeit (also known as Bishoftu) to see the crater lakes that are there and to do some walking. I went with U, my Austrian friend, J who is working for UNICEF, J’s friend R and her husband G.



I’ve been to Debre Zeit before, but E and M drove me so I have never made my way there on public transport. Luckily, U was on hand to guide us all! Minibuses in Ethiopia are brilliant – they’re cheap, quite quick, reasonably safe (certainly safer than tubes after pub-closing!) and rarely overcrowded. However, it’s rare that I can work out quite where they are going – boys hang out of the window and call out the destination, but I can never tell what it is. This one was fairly easy though, and we found a minibus to take us there without too much trouble.

A brief interlude here to illustrate the fact that nothing we do in Ethiopia as Westerners goes unnoticed: R and G were running late, so we were debating whether to get on a minibus anyway, or wait for them. Sods law, of course, meant as soon as we got on one, R and G arrived. They spent a frantic few minutes at the minibus station, trying to work out which of the 100s of minibuses we were on, until they decided to ask a few people. Every single person in the bus station could tell them exactly which minibus we’d got on, where we were going and that we were about to come back to the bus station to pick up more passengers. Who needs mobile phones and GPS tracking devices in Ethiopia!

It was about an hour’s drive to Debre Zeit, and we arrived without a problem. The five of us had lunch in a hotel overlooking Lake Bishoftu, and we spent the afternoon walking around the small town and down to Lake Hora. The sun was hot, the road was dusty, small children were pointing and shouting ‘you, money, give!’ … it was definitely Ethiopia!

The crater lakes that surround the town of Debre Zeit are beautiful and peaceful. Lake Hora is probably the most accessible one, with a ‘recreation centre’ on its banks which basically means there’s a café and some rugs and pillows you can hire to lie on. However, it’s a great way to spend an hour or so; have a seat, a chai (tea) and stare out onto the water, or if you’re braver than me, you can go out on the boat for a while. Ethiopians come to the lakes to relax and chew khat, which you can also do if you would like to. We chose not to, as we think it tastes disgusting!

At around 5pm, J, R and G went back to Addis, and U and I watched the sun set over Bishoftu, deciding not to tackle any more lakes that day. We stayed at the noisiest hotel in the known world in a bed which, judging by the depression in it, had recently been vacated by a horse, and were in bed by about 8.30pm. Rock and roll!

The next day we took a gari (horse and cart) to Lake Kuriftu and Lake Bishoftu Guada (I think …). The journey was a little like a white knuckle roller coaster (although a great way to see the surrounding countryside) and I ended up having an argument with the gari driver when he suddenly changed the price half way through the journey. It’s the first time I’ve been in Ethiopia where I’ve felt ripped off and completely unable to do anything about it. So that annoyed me a bit, but the sight of Lake Kuriftu and the Kuriftu Resort and Spa soon sorted that out!

Kuriftu Spa is a frequent topic in my rant of ‘Why Ethiopia Should be a Holiday Destination’. I first visited it with S, and I almost cried when I saw it - I have honestly never been somewhere so beautiful. The rooms are like little Ethiopian cottages, and are filled with traditional furniture and paintings - but also with a flat screen TV and power-showers! – and each room has a terrace where you can sit overlooking the lake or the gardens. There is a great restaurant hovering on the lake, a swimming pool, a spa providing every treatment you can think of, and a private cinema. You can also go out on the lake in a canoe, or hire a bike and cycle around the nearby hills. The best thing is the price – when I first went, we paid £70 for the two of us, and that included one night’s stay, breakfast, free use of all the facilities, a full body massage and a facial, use of the cinema, bike hire, and a trip round the lake on a canoe.

I will post some photos of it soon, but it’s a genuinely gorgeous place, and I would quite happily fly the 9 hour flight from the UK to Ethiopia to spend a week there … and so why isn’t it being advertised in all travel agents?! Who knows. Maybe tourists simply can’t see past the media’s portrayal of Ethiopia as a famine stricken country?

So. Rant over. Maybe one day it will get the recognition it deserves – and until then I should take advantage of the fact it’s not that busy!



http://www.kurifturesortspa.com/ for any of you who want to book a holiday!!

19th September 2008

A blog actually about the orphanage!! That makes a change, doesn't it?!

You will probably have seen on the TV – and experienced yourself – the economic situation: the rise in inflation and the rise in food prices and other day to day items. I don't pretend to totally understand the situation (despite being glued to BBC World most evenings!) but I do know that the price increase has really affected the orphanage. Due to cautious use of resources over the last few years, they are not in dire straits yet, but they are starting to struggle to find money to pay the increasing costs.

Because of this, we have decided that the rest of the money we raised in the last year (around £1500) will be put towards paying rent. It leaves the Hanna's Orphanage bank account rather depleted, but we have decided that it's best that the money is helping the orphanage rather than simply sitting in our bank account 'just in case'.

So the money you've generously given will ensure that 25 children have stable homes for at least a year by paying the rent on 3 houses for the orphanage. This ensures the children have a safe place to live, and don't have to keep moving around while the orphanage looks to find cheaper places for them to stay. Also, money people have raised by running half marathons (rather them than us!) will be used to pay the rent on one house which will house children who are HIV+.

Paying rent is not exciting and it doesn't make a good picture, but it's really what the orphanage desperately needs right now. So that is what we will provide. Of course, we have brought some fun stuff too (particularly a 'swing ball set' which Colin Mckenna donated … a lot of fun putting that up at Shiro Meda!!) – for a full breakdown of what we have bought, you can see our newsletter, coming to an inbox near you soon …!!

On a happier note, plans for 'Make a Difference Day Ethiopia 2008' are underway! Make a Difference Day is run by charity CSV (www.csv.org.uk) and is one day a year where as many people as possible are encouraged to volunteer to make their communities a better place. I've brought the concept with me to Ethiopia, and 18^th October 2008 will be our Make a Difference Day!

The concept of volunteering is not big in Ethiopia, although it is arguably more a way of life than it is in the UK or America. The generosity of Ethiopian people never fails to amaze me – no matter how little someone has, they are always ready to help someone worse off than them, and they are very willing to give their time to help you.

Our Make a Difference Day will involve the children of the orphanage as well as many expats and family members I have roped in, and we will paint the orphanage's main compound, including the offices, library and classrooms. This compound is used by the orphanage children, of course, but it is also used by the local community, including many older students studying to get a place at university.

The outside of the offices will all be painted green (so I am off to the famous 'Mega Paints' Factory to buy 6 gallons of green paint next week!) and some of the boys who are studying technical drawing will design a mural to go on the classroom walls. They will draw it on with chalk, while the less artistic among us will 'colour it in' with paint. Even the babies will be able to wield a paintbrush and help!

One last thing – Hanna's Orphanage is desperate for a volunteer to help us do all our IT stuff (updating myspace, maintaining our soon-to-be-unveiled website, sending out our newsletters etc). Could you give around 2 hours a week to do it? Do you know anyone who could? If you do, please email me at honeyjenny@gmail.com, cc'ing anthonyh007@gmail.com and I will send you some more details. Thank you

18th September

I'm in the classroom at the orphanage, marking some work, complete with audience as usual (who knew my day to day life could provoke such interest!). One of the older girls ventured a question.

"Do you have a husband?"

A common question – and my answer varies depending on who's asking! But this time I told the truth. "No, no husband."

The girl thought about this and then asked, finally, with no malice at all "Is it because you are not beautiful enough?"

Yes, honey, that's probably why. Sigh.

I love this country! :o)

New Years Day

We spent most of New Years Day at B's mother's house with various aunts, uncles and cousins. B's mother is a fantastic cook and the lunch table was full of traditional Ethiopian food, including (obviously) injera, dorro watt (chicken curry), shiro, spinach etc. There was also a dish called 'doulet', which is cut up sheep's stomach mixed with … er … something else! I've tried it once before, in London, and thought it was revolting, but B persuaded me to try it again – and it wasn't too bad. Not something I'd chose for my last meal, but not too bad. The trick is to clean it well (!), apparently, but I didn't take the recipe …

Much tastier were the cakes everyone had brought with them … mmmm! Lots of people laugh when I say Ethiopia cake is fabulous, but it really is! There is nothing I like more than to sit in a café on Bole Road, drinking shai and eating cake; chocolate, lemon, black forest gateau, it doesn't matter! So, with the cakes and the dorro watt, I ate so much I could barely move, and my belly was nearly as big as E's!

Later in the afternoon I went with E and M to go to visit other relatives, and at each house we were offered food and drink again – dorro watt, injera, shiro etc etc. At one house, I had a glass of 'talla' which is a kind of home brewed beer, but I managed to avoid the alcohol at the other houses – otherwise, everyone would have been carrying me home! It's hard to refuse food and drink without being rude – and I am no stranger to packing in a lot of food! – but I felt like I was going to burst if one more piece of injera passed my lips!

Food is a very social thing in Ethiopia – often, you all eat from the same plate, and whenever you go to someone's house, or even their office, you are always offered food and drink. Ethiopian New Year, although not as religious like many other holidays and celebrations here, is mostly about eating and food – and sharing it with relatives. For a few days before New Year, progress along the roads was slow due to all the goats and sheep being herded along, and on New Year's Eve itself, I could see all the animals tied up outside houses, ready for eating for New Years Day lunch! In the same places on the road, I can now see the left over bits of those animals, the bits that didn't make the pot – intestines and skin, mostly. Lovely!

It took me quite a while to be able to face food again after our New Year Celebration, and any weight I've lost while I've been over here has been grudgingly welcomed back! There is another celebration at the end of September, which happens in Meskel Square, and I have a feeling it will be another eating holiday …

New Years Eve

Happy New Year! Yes, it's the beginning of 2001 - Ethiopia follows a different calendar to the UK, so September 10^th is Ethiopian New Years Eve and New Years Day is 11^th September. Despite having many Ethiopian friends in London, I've never celebrated Ethiopian New Year before, so I didn't know what to expect!

On New Years Eve, I went to E and M's house with Y for dinner (pay attention to this, it may become something of a theme ..) - a meal of injera (Ethiopian bread), watt (Ethiopian curry), spinach (which isn't spinach at all, but a kind of cabbage) and shiro (mashed lentils and chick peas). After dinner, we created a 'shubbo' (a fire) in the garden.

M had already made the shubbos (bundles of wood about 10 feet long, all tied together) and gave one each to Y, E and me. He then lit his shubbo from the cooking fire in the house before carrying it outside and then lighting our ones from it. M and E's caught fire without a problem, but mine took ages – apparently even fire has something against faranjis!!

The shubbos are laid down in the shape of a cross on the grass, and the fire continues to burn. According to M, it's the women who have to lead the traditional song – but E had forgotten the words (she's pregnant, she has an excuse) and obviously I was no help at all! So instead, Y put on a Lauryn Hill CD and we danced around the fire to that (there is video evidence, but hopefully it will be destroyed shortly!).

The New Year tradition is to jump over the fire three times, which M and Y did with no problem at all (with M doing a little mid air spin on the 3^rd jump, just to show off!) but I was worried about my jeans catching fire, so I waited until the flames had died down before I attempted it!

Around 11 o clock, M took us somewhere to dance the New Year in. As we drove through Addis, we could see all the shops decorated with bright lights and the streets packed with people dressed in traditional dress and twenty-somethings out to party. Every so often a firework would shoot into the night sky.

We ended up in a club called Gazebo, watching a singer called Ma Dingo, who is quite well known in Ethiopia. As we paid to get in, the heavily pregnant E barely raised an eyebrow, but of course the word 'faranji' was immediately mentioned by the door staff! It makes me tempted to start wearing a mask or something. There wasn't much dancing done by us, but there was a little count down and we all cheered in the New Year.

We tried to move onto somewhere else – this time playing English music – but by now everywhere was so packed there wasn't really enough oxygen left for us all to breathe! Eventually, we admitted defeat and went home to bed, to prepare for the eating marathon that is New Years Day!

Things I Miss

Forgive my (constant) self-indulgence, but since I did a blog post
about all the reasons I love Ethiopia, I wanted to do one about all
the things I miss in the UK. Obviously, I miss my friends and my
family, and I miss my own home, but these are the little things that I
miss having in my day to day life:

- Text messages!
That little envelope in the corner of my phone screen used to make me
smile! I love to text. Text messaging has is now available in Addis
(I believe the government 'enabled' it for the Millennium celebrations
in September 2007) but people don't use it very much as far as I can
tell. And anyway, anyone who is likely to text me is in the UK, and
it doesn't work internationally.

- The Metro
My morning routine in London was my favourite part of the day: listen
to the radio as I doze on the bus, then jump on the tube with the
Metro. Yes, it may just be a collection of press releases with no
in-depth reporting (and they did write that Ethiopia is a West African
country, which annoyed me!), but my morning wasn't complete without
it. And how am I going to know whether my day is going to be good or
bad now I can't read my horoscope?!

- Chris Moyles on Radio 1
See above! The bus journey was never the same without Comedy Dave, Aled, et al.

- Nandos
I make small involuntary mewing noises when I think of the peri peri
sauce, of chicken breast in pitta with chips, of the fat free
chocolate frozen yoghurt that we all got a sugar high from at
Miranda's birthday … mmmmm ….

- The mix of cultures
Spend a day in London and you will see people from nearly every
country you can imagine, and hear 100s of different languages spoken.
There are restaurants serving every cuisine in the world, from
Ethiopian to Chinese, to Spanish to Lebanese, and there are always a
variety of cultural events happening. The multiculturalism is
something I've always loved about London, and I miss that in Ethiopia.
Not that there aren't different nationalities in the city, there are,
but simply not to the extent that there are in London – and a
foreigner (be they black, white or otherwise) is still a source of
amusement and interest. It can get wearing after a while.

- Have I Got News for You, QI, Mock the Week, Friends etc
All those TV programmes I enjoy so much! I particularly miss the TV
channel Dave, and all the programmes on it (even Top Gear, though I'm
doing okay without that so far!), but generally I miss comedy and
satire. As you may guess, satire is not big in Ethiopia! I miss
watching a panel of comedians make comments on the week's news – even
if that week was July 27th 1998, as is sometimes the case on Dave!

- Indian food
What I wouldn't give for a chicken tikka masala with garlic nann bread
right now …! There is a very expensive, very posh Indian restaurant
in the Sheraton Hotel which I am saving for when I am feeling really,
really homesick, and the craving for curry is just too strong…

Jimma: Part 3 – the bus journey back!

I'd like to say the bus journey back was better – we knew what to
expect, we could prepare better. But no, it was much worse! We had
to be at the bus station by 4.30am. 4.30AM!!! As it was, I was awake
at 4 as my stomach was hurting and I felt sick – this did not bode
well for the journey ahead.

The Jimma bus station was not quite as busy as the one in Addis, and
we got better seats (possibly because we got there earlier) with
Anthony, Danyele and I able to sit together. The bus ceremony
continued for a good hour, while Danyele slept and Anthony and I
groaned at intervals 'come ON!', but eventually the bus pulled away.

The ride was okay – not too bumpy and we stopped a few times, just to
give some men the chance to pee in a bush and for the driver to have a
quick smoke. Danyele slept heavily, while Anthony read his book and I
leant forward onto the seat in front of me and tried to stop the
contents of my stomach exiting through my mouth. There was a lot of
yogic breathing going on!

About two hours into the journey, when the cold sweat was starting to
pour off of me, Hanna gave me a lemon to smell, to stop any feelings
of nausea. Well. One sniff of that, and I was throwing up
everywhere. Luckily I threw up into a ziplock, airtight bag in which
I'd packed our toiletries. But it had a hole!! It's supposed to be
airtight, and it had a bloody hole!!! So poor Anthony's bag got … er
…dripped on (sorry).

The rest of the journey passed fairly uneventfully, punctuated by
small vomiting sounds, and the rhythm of yogic breathing. Danyele
woke up, Anthony continued his book, and a few other women joined in
the being sick competition, except they managed to stand up and throw
up out of the window!

We stopped at the same small town for some fresh air and refreshment,
and we pleaded with the pub landlord to let us use his toilets again
(the ones at the bus station made Danyele retch as she approached them
… not a good start!). This time they weren't as clean, but there were
no goats trying to come in with us, so that was a bonus.

From this town, it is a 2 hour journey to Addis so I was really happy
we'd be home soon. Except I didn't know about the searches. Busses
that are coming back to Addis from the countryside are subject to
searches by policemen – Hanna says they are looking for big quantities
of coffee or khat which we are planning to sell in Addis without
paying taxes. Three times we had to pull over and half of the
passengers got off (I'm not sure why only half) while a policeman (or
someone) came on and had a look round. As Anthony pointed out, if
we'd wanted to smuggle something, we'd just have to NOT leave it on
the seat with a big label saying 'Smuggled Stuff'. Easy!

The last search was the big one, as Hanna warned us. We all had to
get off of the bus this time and they started going through bags etc.
After about 15 minutes some people got back on the bus, and we
followed. The policemen on the bus angrily waved the men back off the
bus, but allowed the women in to sit down and of course us (sometimes
there are advantages to being faranji!). They appeared to be giving a
Rastafarian guy quite a hard time about the khat he had, but
eventually they were satisfied and we were able to go on our way.

Because of all the stopping and searching, the two hour journey took
nearer three, and I have never been so glad to see a bus station!!
D was there to pick us up and take us back to the hotel, where we
spent a good 3 hours recovering before venturing out to dinner.

I did tell Danyele and Anthony I'd show them the 'real' Ethiopia!

Jimma: Part 2 - Jimma

We were all really hungry by this point, and we went to the 'upmarket'
hotel in Jimma for some lunch. The food was good, the hotel was
really pretty (lots of pink chalets clustered around a swimming pool
and a restaurant terrace) and the TV was playing a report about the
closing ceremony of the Olympics. It was in Amharic, but all three of
us paid attention when we heard the words 'Gordon Brown' in the mix of
unfamiliar words!

After lunch we went back to the hotel for a rest, at Hanna's request.
Danyele and Anthony didn't need a rest, so they played Uno, but I
definitely did. I slept really well, only waking to beg Anthony to
give me just another 10 minutes until I had to get up …

Then we took a walk and a short minibus ride to the children's house.
Instead of being called 'farange' as we walked, we just got 'you, you,
you' from the kids that passed us. If someone calls you 'farange' you
can call back 'abesha (Ethiopian)' which usually gets a laugh, but
with 'you' there's no real comeback!

The house is lovely – large, with quite a few rooms, and set on a
large compound where they can grow their own vegetables, the children
can play, and they can keep the sheep we are buying them. There are
19 children at the moment (although it does change, depending on
mothers being released, and new people being put in prison). They are
mostly between about 2 and 11, although there are a few older
children.

They were very quiet and smiley to start with, but as soon as I got
the camera out, they were up and away! If you ever need to break the
ice with a group of under 10s in Africa (or Aisa, I'd guess!) bring
out a camera. Works in seconds!

We gave them the footballs and some of the Haribo (the next step in my
'E numbers to Ethiopia' masterplan!) and started quite a boisterous
game of catch. The baby of the house, Fraser, decided that the
brightly coloured football was hers and hers alone, so she carried
around like a baby and her face broke into a beaming smile when she
managed to throw and catch it.

While they were playing, Hanna told me the stories of some of the
children. A very strong motivation for mothers taking their children
into jail with them is that they are at risk of revenge attacks by the
victim's family. For example, one of the boy's father is in prison for killing a
man (I don't know why). For a while he, his mother and his brother
stayed in their house while the father was in prison, but then the
victim's family set fire to the house in revenge. The mother managed
to get the smaller boy out, but the older boy was trapped in the
flames and suffered severe burns. He is fine, a happy and healthy
boy, but he has lost the sight in one eye and has a lot of facial
disfigurement. He is safe in the orphanage now, though.

Hanna told me another story of how one of the boys was 2 or 3 when he
watched his mum and her new boyfriend kill his father and bury him
under the orange tree in the garden. His mother told everyone that
her husband had disappeared, and soon set up house with the new
boyfriend. But the little boy knew where his father was, and he kept
saying to people 'my father is there!' pointing at the orange tree.
Nobody listened to him until many years later, when they finally dug
up the tree and found the body. He is now safely in the orphanage
too.

It was hard to connect the stories with the shrieking and laughing
children in front of me. I hope the orphanage can give them the
stability and safety they need, and we intend to help them do that in
every way possible.

We couldn't stay for very long at the orphanage as Hanna wanted us
back to the hotel before dark (which was a shame, as the kids had
started to watched Shrek 3, which I quite wanted to stay for …) but I
will be back. The house is quite bare at the moment, and there are
likely to be more children coming in September, so we will use some of
the money we've raised to buy the things they need – some toys, books,
bright things to go on the wall, bedding, blankets etc.

This time though we might hire a minibus rather than using the normal bus …

Jimma: Part 1 – the bus journey there!

Jimma is a place about 350km outside of Addis where Hanna has set up a
children's home for the children of the prisoners (see blog post 3rd
August!). Hanna's Orphanage is paying the rent for the house over the
next few years, so we wanted to go and visit and see what else we
could do.

This is why Anthony, Danyele and I were at Addis Ababa bus station at
ten to six in the morning, trying to find Hanna in the millions of
people who were also taking busses. I have literally never seen so
many people in one place – and I live in London! – and it looked like
absolute chaos, so I'm glad D was able to walk with us to the
gate. Of course, it was fairly easy for Hanna to find us as we were
the only white faces for miles around!

After a scary moment where I began to disappear under the wheels of a
bus (thanks to whoever pulled me clear – I don't know who it was!), we
found the bus we needed and were squidged onto the back seat between
two quite disgruntled Ethiopian men. There is a section in the Brandt
Guide to Ethiopia which describes something called the 'bus ceremony'
which makes me laugh every time I read it, and although we didn't go
so far as to walk round the bus three or four times, there was a lot
of fuss as people were seated and then moved, and friends and
relatives got on and off. We finally left at 7.00am and began the 7
hour bus journey …

It wasn't too bad, but it wasn't the most comfortable bus journey I've
ever had. Danyele and I could sleep by resting on Anthony's shoulders
or on the back of the seat in front of us, but poor Anthony only had
the aisle in front of him, so couldn't sleep at all. When we weren't
sleeping, we could look out of the window at the passing villages and
fields. One time I opened my eyes and the bus was completely
surrounded by water – I thought we were actually driving on a lake!
But the fields had flooded in the night's heavy rain, and we could see
women wading from their houses to the road, food held above their
heads, skirts rolled up. It's apparently a place which floods
regularly – one house even had a makshift wooden bridge, connecting it
to the road.

We stopped once on the journey, at a town which I forget the name of.
We got off of the bus and all of a sudden we were surrounded by
hundreds of people selling seeds, lemons, mango juice and, of course,
khat. Khat is a plant which, when chewed, produces a mild narcotic
effect (so I'm told!). It's very popular in Ethiopia and surrounding
countries (particularly Somalia) and if you drive along the road out
of Addis, you can see people sitting on blankets by the road, chewing
the leaves and enjoying the sun. Quite a few people were chewing khat
on the bus, presumably to make the journey more bearable. I
considered it myself …

We didn't buy any khat or seeds or anything, we just stood and enjoyed
the sun and got some fresh air. Danyele and I decided it would be a
good idea to find some toilets, and a nice man who owned a pub (next
to a hotel called the Semen Hotel!! Is it bad that that made me
giggle a lot?!) let us use his. They were the 'hole in the ground'
type, but fairly clean and okay – except that there were three goats
in the garden who seemed particularly interested in what Danyele and I
were doing. Nothing like intruding goats to give you performance
anxiety!

The rest of the bus journey passed without incident, although I was
very, very glad to see Jimma Bus Station appear as we turned round the
corner.

22nd August 2008

My brother and sister arrived in Addis, safe and sound, and I even managed to meet them at the airport despite a traumatic journey including a forgotten passport (everyone must provide ID to get into the airport – yes, even Faranjis) and being pulled over by the traffic police (God bless M and his quick thinking!). It's lovely to see the siblings, and it's even better to see all the things they have brought me and the orphanage! So I now have Haribo (which I fear may be an obstacle to my 'returning to England a size 8' plan!), the books I had to leave out of my already bulging luggage, trashy magazines full of puzzles, presents from Anna and 3 episodes of Scrubs! Bliss! Big thanks to all friends and family members who contributed to the 'keep Jenny sane' fund!

Much more important, though, was the suitcase full of games, pens, pencils and other goodies for the orphanage. We went there this morning and, after Danyele and Anthony had watched me teach a particularly rowdy class, we started getting out the skipping ropes, the diablos, and the 'velcro catch' sets. Well! What a hit!! I spent about half an hour judging various skipping competitions (185 skips … we didn't quite make it to 200!) and even some of the staff jumped in to try dutch skipping (skipping with two people)! The Velcro catch game – which to be honest, I've never really seen the point of – was a big hit with the little ones, and Danyele was soon teaching some of the boys to master the Diablo. Hanna quite rightly pointed that the skipping ropes will probably last about 5 minutes with the kind of bashing they're getting, but who cares? Sustainability be damned! They're having so much fun!

I've been moaning about not having any coloured pencils and pens for my class, but now we have millions, which is great! Ridgeons, a building company in Suffolk, donated a huge shoe box full of led pencils, Marion Slade has sent coloured pencils and pens, and we at Hanna's Orphanage have bought pens, pencils and paper. There is also a cricket set, but we've decided to wait until Danyele and Anthony have the time to explain it all – cricket is not big in Ethiopia!

In other very good news, the money has finally arrived in the orphanage's bank account! So on Monday, £1,850 will go to the Jimma bank branch, to pay for the rent of the prisoner's children home and for three sheep to go on the compound. The rest of the money will be used to pay for a combination colour printer, photocopier and scanner. It sounds like a luxury, but it really is needed; having it will enable the orphanage to print proper brochures to give to tourists who visit (to encourage them to donate!), to create and photocopy worksheets for lessons and to scan photos of the children onto the computer.

On Monday, Danyele, Anthony and I are off to see the children's house in Jimma. It's a half day drive outside of Addis, so it's going to be an adventure! We're taking some exercise books and pencils, as well as some colourful wall charts with the alphabet and numbers on. We'll also be able to see the project and children who the money is supporting!

Thank you so much to everyone who has helped raise this money over the last year – we couldn't do this without you. And a special thank you to the Hanna's Team back in the UK: I wouldn't be able to be here, helping the orphanage like this, if they weren't working so hard back at home. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Ps. People have asked me to post some pictures – I'm really sorry I haven't (and I have millions of pictures I want to show you!!) but I simply can't upload them as the internet connection is too slow. However, I will be sending Anthony home with a CD of pictures for him to upload, post on the blog and on my facebook page. Keep an eye out!!

Reasons I love Ethiopia

When I first told people I was going to live in Ethiopia for a while, responses ranged from 'wow' to looking as if I had just announced that I was going to curl up under a table and die. People always ask me why Ethiopia, and although I originally came here to see the place where my boyfriend at the time was born, I fell in love with Ethiopia for a lot of other reasons.

Here are the main ones – and apologies if any of these seem patronising or offensive in any way. That's not my intention; these are genuinely reasons I love this country:

- Manners

It's something I've only noticed this time I'm come here, but manners are a big part of Ethiopian life. When serving meals, the eldest people at the table are served first, and they eat first; if guests come into the room, you stand up to greet them; when you greet someone, even if it's the first time you've met them, you shake hands and kiss on the cheek twice – three times, if you particularly like them! At the orphanage, children are always coming in to shake my hand and wish me good morning. These kind of manners aren't really part of my life in London – and I'm always getting it wrong here! – but I'm growing to like the structure of it all.

- Animals

Goats walking around for no apparent reason, donkeys that accompany you down the road and chickens that wander into your bedroom … I remember the first time I was in Ethiopia, I actually made E stop the car so I could get out and take a picture of the herd of goats wandering up the steps of Meskel Square (the Ethiopian equivalent of Trafalgar Square). Then a few days ago, I was walking from my house to Friendship Mall when I realised a donkey was walking almost next to me, no owner in sight. I don't know why the animals drifting along the roads please me so much, but they really do!

- The dancing

I love traditional Ethiopian dancing, and I love the fact that the minute the music starts, everyone's up and going for it! I especially love how Ethiopian men can make what is essentially quite a silly dance look so incredibly attractive!

- Gabis

A gabi is a simply a blanket made of several layers of cotton sewn together; but that description doesn't even nearly do it justice. It really is the warmest, cosiest, softest and most comfortable blanket in the world. They come in all sizes – big ones you can spread across the bed and smaller ones you can wrap over your head and wind round yourself while on the sofa watching TV.

There are thinner, lighter versions called 'nutellas', which both women and men wear both out on the street and to cover their head when they go to church. As you walk down the street, there's a good mix of people in national dress, with nutellas and cotton dresses, and then others in Western dress like jeans and tee shirts.

- Café culture

In England, you go to the pub - in Ethiopia, people go to cafés. There's a real café culture here, with several cafés on nearly every street, ranging from tiny, family run ones to larger ones like Kaldis (which looks suspiciously like Starbucks at first glance!) You can easily while away a few hours drinking coffee and eating fabulous cake (the cake in Ethiopia really is great!), watching the world go by.

- Amharic

I would like to point out that I am rubbish at speaking Amharic, especially considering I have spent so much time in Ethiopia AND have a lot of Ethiopian friends in London. There's no excuse.

I still love the language though. Its nice to listen to, and it has one fail-safe, catch-all word – eshee. It means okay, but it can also mean yes, no, maybe, oh, really? and a million other things! I have found that if I say eshee in the right places, it makes up for all the other Amharic words I don't know!

- Religion and sincerity

The official religion of Ethiopia is Ethiopian Orthodox, although there is a sizable Muslim population and those who follow the Protestant religion or consider them Evangelical Christians. Ethiopian Orthodox is a similar enough to the Catholic religion for me to be able to understand what is happening during a Church service, but it's definitely worth reading up on it, as it's a fascinating and ancient religion.

Religion is everywhere in Ethiopia, but in the most sincere and genuine way I've ever experienced. It's as if religion is so fundamental to the people, and so deep, that it's in their bones. There are churches all over the country, from the big Cathedral sized ones in Addis, to the tiny rock hewn churches in Lalibella, and all are stunningly beautiful. On a Sunday morning or on a Saints Day the churches are full of people, usually so many that the congregation spills out onto the road and the Mass has to be played via a loud speaker.

But during the week – in fact, every minute of every day, there are a crowd of people around the church gates. Some are homeless or ill, and are looking for blessings from God and money from visitors, but others have just stopped off of the way home from work or on the way to see friends just to offer up a prayer or to say thanks for God's help.

So there are a few of the many reasons I love Ethiopia. I have a friend in England who has been to Ethiopia before, and when people tell her how brave I am, or how amazing what I've done is, she tries to explain that living in Addis is not really a hardship. I totally agree. It's a great city in a wonderful, beautiful country, and I'm very lucky to be here! Book your trip now!!

12th August 2008

In honour of several friends in London, this blog will be in point form!

1) I've been here two weeks today, though it honestly feels like months. London seems a long, long time ago. Time goes very slowly in Ethiopia – an hour in England seems to stretch out to a whole day in Ethiopia, and sometimes you can find you've done a whole day's work and it's only 11 o clock!

2) I know this blog is a lot more about me than the orphanage, for which I apologise. I haven't been able to focus much on the work we are doing at the orphanage for two main reasons for this:

• Every time anyone connected to us travels to Ethiopia, we bring a lot of money and resources to the orphanage, but we still have a sizeable sum of money which needs to be sent by bank transfer. This is proving a very slow process, as we attempt to get the banks to talk to one another, and we try to gather all the information that each end of the transfer needs (you'd be astounded at how difficult this is!).
• Even though things such as this move very slowly in Ethiopia, circumstances can change very, very quickly! For instance, the money we raised for the kitchen was all of a sudden not needed as the orphanage had changed premises, and so we had to work out where best to allocate the money, trying to keep everyone who had donated happy as well as responding to the orphanage's needs. Similarly, we had just managed to get a child sponsoring system in place when, due to the global economic situation, the price of every basic need in Ethiopia has risen so much that £15 a month is not enough to sponsor one child anymore. So we are back to the drawing board on that one, too.

Consequently, it often seems as if nothing is happening, but I promise it is! It's just all happening behind the scenes!

3) One update from the orphanage is that they have a new child! H is 3 years old and she lost her mother to HIV/AIDs a while ago. Her father is also HIV+ and is now too sick to look after her and asked Hanna to take her in. H is the sweetest and happiest child I know, and everyone just wants to hug her the minute she comes into the room! She is living in the Wollo Seffer site with some of the other little ones.

4) Every morning, I teach 25 grade 3 students very basic English. I've taught before, but this is definitely a new experience for me! The children are wonderful, but I have very few resources to teach with so it's all about making do – paper, pens, exercise books and coloured pencils, although available, are scarce. So no information sheets, no laminated flash cards, no bright beautiful pictures (well, apart from the ones I draw myself!!). The children only have one exercise book for all their lessons, so I can't take it in to mark it, and the room is so small that I can't always get to the children at the back to help them.

But we muddle along – it's fun, and as they learn the English, I learn the Amharic! Although I finish most lessons covered in chalk dust, and half of the children still call me 'Jelly', we are slowly getting somewhere!

If anyone does want to send me anything, things that will be most gratefully received are:

- coloured pencils

- pictures of people doing things eg swimming, running, reading, talking, eating, sleeping etc. Anything that will help teaching verbs!!

- Stickers – those 99p ones from Woolworths! Smiley faces and stars are particularly welcome, but footballs are also good!

- Any kind of educational material: not necessarily books, but things like word charts, or the alphabet, or flash cards for learning vocabulary.

5) I went to bed with a terrible headache last night, and by midnight I'd convinced myself I had some sort of terrible tropical disease, probably malaria considering the number of mosquito bites on my legs! But I woke up this morning, clearly not dead, and chances are I'm probably not suffering from Malaria. Better safe than sorry, though, huh?! :o)