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)

6th August

My new Amharic phrase for today is 'yallen feeyna' – no balloons! … see below …

This morning I made my way to the orphanage for the first time on my own – woo hoo! Well, I say on my own, I went in a cab, but that's not actually as easy as it sounds: before I can go anywhere I have to go through what I have dubbed 'the taxi ceremony':

first I have to find a cab driver who has been 'vetted' by E, M or Hanna (that is, recommended by someone they know – so they're fairly sure I won't be kidnapped, apparently …)

then I call them, and it turns out they are not available … but they will send someone else …

So I call the someone else and find he doesn't speak any English and my Amharic just won't cut it in this situation

So we start again from the beginning, with a friendly cab driver Hanna has found for me called D. He speaks good English and understands my sparse Amharic …

But he doesn't know where my house is. You can't always just give addresses or street names in Addis, as most roads have several different names (and you can guarantee the name you know is the not the name anyone else knows!). Also, my road is a fairly new one (a couple of years old) so people don't know it …

So we agree I will walk to the Meridan Hotel, about 5 mins away, and meet him there.

I then try to work out exactly where the orphanage is … I know the general area, but there are many backstreets and I can't always remember where it is. Cue D turning into muddy lanes while I'm in the backseat saying 'er, I think it's this one … no, no, no, not this one …'. Luckily, he was very patient!

All that aside, I arrived safely and without to much trauma.

And then Hanna asked me could I teach a class of 25 Grade 3 students who speak very basic English? Um … sure! I don't have any problem with teaching, but I had no resources and no plan, and I don't speak Amharic well enough to be able to give instructions/explain things! Sadly, 'group juggle' - which is the game I normally throw in when a lesson is not going well or I'm not prepared - just wasn't going to work this time.

So I improvised. I found the balloons I'd brought over and found one of each colour to blow up, and we played 'Colour Catch' – each time they caught a balloon, they had to say what colour it was. Not the most sophisticated teaching device ever, but a good start!

Except then, when the class was over, everyone realised I was the balloon lady and there was a never ending cry of 'feenya, feenya!' (and occasionally 'feenya faranji, feenya faranji!') So I sat for ages blowing up balloons with the balloon pump, trying to meet demand for an orange one, or a blue one, or a white one. After an hour, my arms were aching and I had responded to most requests, so I went back to the office to finish the brochure I am writing for Hanna. And so the children followed … feenya, feenya!

Eventually, as otherwise nobody in the office would have got any work done, I had to say 'yellan feenya'. I've promised that I will bring feenya on Monday, though …

5th August 2008 - Part 2

When I was in Addis in April 2007, Hanna told me of a street boy, A, who she had tried to help. In the past, Hanna has tried very hard to help the street children in Addis, but often they are so brutalised and entrenched in the street culture, that they are beyond the limited help that Hanna can give them. Many of them are addicted to alcohol and are sniffing petrol, and are involved in inappropriate sexual behaviour and a lot of petty crime.

When A was five, he was kidnapped from his family by a criminal gang and was taken to a neighbouring country to work as a beggar. As is apparently quite common in these situations, he was mutilated so that he would inspire more sympathy while begging. For years he worked during the day, begging for money and then having to hand over enough to his 'gang masters' or be beaten.

When he was older (10 or so) he was able to tell the police, and get some help. To their eternal credit, the police rescued him and some of the other boys and their captors were put in prison. As A is from Ethiopia, the local police gave him enough money for a few months, and then sent him back to Addis. Of course, by this point, A didn't have any idea where his family were, or who to go to for help, so he did the only thing he knew how to do – beg.

This is where Hanna came across him, begging on the street. She became friends with him and asked whether he would like to come and live at the orphanage and go to school. Of course, he did want to, and so he started living in the orphanage and going to school. However, he soon struggled. Not only to live in an orphanage and abide by someone else's rules after all those years of fending for himself, but also at school. As he was mutilated by those who took him, he faced particularly difficulty, but he had also never had any formal schooling, so he found it very, very hard.

He told Hanna he would stay if he stopped going to school and could go out and beg – but one of the rules of staying at the orphanage is that all children must go to school or be taught at home. So he ran away and went back onto the streets. Why follow someone else's rules and struggle with something you don't want to do, when you can earn 5 or 6 birr a day begging from money from faranji's like me?

Hanna told me this story to both illustrate how much specialist and focussed help most street children need, and also to show me how it's not always the right thing to do to give street children (or beggars in general) money.

But good news when I visited the orphanage today – A is back! He came back of his own accord (which is probably the best way for it to happen) about 6 months ago and is currently living at the orphanage and studying with the help of others. He wasn't there today as he was with some friends, but it was some great news to hear!

Maybe one by one, we can help the street children?

5th August 2008 - Part 1

Another productive day! After being woken up at 3am this morning (Tuesday) by the biggest and noisiest thunderstorm I have ever experienced, I had a bit of trouble getting out of bed at 8am (how things change, huh?!) but by 9.30am Hanna and I were on our way to Shiro Meda.

Shiro Meda is a district of Addis where around 16 of the children from the orphanage live in a house kindly donated by an Ethiopian family living in the US. They are my favourite children (am I allowed to have favourites?!) and I love going to visit them. I took the balloons and pumps left over from the fundraising 'Balloon Race' we ran in July, some sparkly hairbands for the girls (these girls LOVE anything with glitter on!) and some Haribo left over, I think, from my cousin's wedding. Feel a tiny bit guilty bringing E numbers to Ethiopia, but not too much!

I even love travelling to Shiro Meda, and the walk through the muddy lanes – everyone is normally so friendly and I don't get anyone shouting 'You, You, You!' or 'Faranji' at me! Instead, I can smell the cooking from the houses and see the women walking along wrapped in their Nutellas (a kind of wrap that is normally wrapped over the head and round the shoulders). I always want to take pictures, but it feels disrespectful, somehow. Anyway, I always enjoy the long bus or taxi ride and then the short walk.

And when we open the gates to the compound, 16 small children come hurtling out of the house and throw themselves at me and Hanna! They always remember me, which always surprises me, and generally the smaller ones attach themselves to one of my available body parts, and there they stay until I leave!

Today, Hanna had been told by one of the men who comes in to teach them English during the holidays (it's school holidays in Ethiopia as well as the UK) that two of the boys were fighting a lot and wouldn't listen to anyone. They respect and love Hanna very much, so a short talk from her (of the 'I'm so disappointed in you' variety) was enough to make the boys apologise and sort out their fight.

Of course, I think the effect of the talk may have been spoiled slightly by my attack of the giggles half way through. I couldn't understand what Hanna was saying (apart from 'eshe' which means 'okay?' and which, be warned, I will be saying constantly when I get back to England!) but the tone of the talk was very evident, and there was no reason at all for me to laugh. Except that behind Hanna there was a regular parade of chickens that had come in the open back door and were making their way into the younger girl's bedroom - to have a quick peck around, I presume, and get comfy on the beds. These chickens looked so business like (if you can say that of a chicken!) and so focussed, and paid so little attention to the people around them, that it just made me giggle. And once I'd started giggling, the children's bemused faces made me laugh even more! Eventually the chickens were removed, and I put my 'serious face' back on …

We did have to leave Shiro Meda and lunch time, but I shall definitely be back. I plan to spend a couple of nights there some time in September, too. Spending time with those kids is one of the best ways I know to cheer me up, and they seem to appreciate my hugs, too!

Ps. On a completely random note, one of the advantages of being far away from anyone who has any real concept of English pop music (apart from hip hop and rap, which is very popular here!) is that I can listen to the most awful, cheesiest music in the world and nobody bats an eyelid! It's fabulous! Spice Girls album, anyone …?! :o)

Sunday 3rd August

On Thursday last week I had the first – and I certainly don't expect it to be the last – moment of feeling 'Oh God, what have I done? What am I doing here?'

I was missing London and my friends, and was mourning the fact that in London I can go around the city without people pointing and laughing, and without what feels like 30 children following me shouting 'You! You! You!'. I thought I'd made a big mistake.

And then I went to the orphanage and remembered exactly why I came here! Hanna Teshome, who runs the orphanage and was the reason I got involved, came to meet me and took me to the new orphanage premises. Sometime last year, while we were busy fundraising in the UK to replace the orphanage's kitchen, the landlord of the orphanage (nearly everywhere in Addis is rented, and it's very expensive) decided that he didn't want so many children using his property, and raised the rent. Luckily, Hanna and the staff managed to find another place only 10 minutes walk away which is cheaper and bigger – and has a decent kitchen!

So the money we raised isn't needed for a kitchen – but their new premises are perfect! There is a big place for the children to play, with a volley ball net, a basket ball hoop, and enough room for a very small, very well behaved game of football (using the footballs we bought for them, and normally wearing the tee shirts CSV donated!). There is also a Fuseball table (think Joey and Chandler in Friends), which seem to be popping up all over Addis! There are several just on the side of the road in Wollo Seffer, and teenage boys congregate around them at all times of the day. The play area is surrounded by classrooms, the library (stocked with books we have provided) and the computer room. Then there are offices for the accountants, for Hanna, and for the social workers and psychologist who work with the children.

It was great to see all the children again (some who remembered me and were keen to say hi, some who weren't the slightest bit interested!) and even better to be able to talk to Hanna about how we can continue to help. Some of the money we have raised for the kitchen will now – as per the updates on our myspace page – go towards creating an education centre which will provide a safe and productive place for the children of the orphanage and the surrounding community to study.

However, some of the money will now go to support the Prisoner's Children Programme, one of the new ways Hanna has found to help the children of Ethiopia. In rural Ethiopia there are quite a number of women in prison, serving long sentences for murder or similar crimes. These crimes are frequently the result of domestic violence and family problems, and there are often no relatives to look after the women's children. Consequently, their children have to go to jail with them, meaning they suffer the horrible prison conditions whilst completely losing their chance of a childhood.

Hanna has been working with the prisons, other NGOs and social services in Ethiopia to try and solve this problem. They have opened a 'children's centre' in Jimma, a place about 350 kms from Addis. This centre is similar to the orphanage, and it's a place where the children can grow up while their mother serves her sentence and still get education, care, medical treatment, food (there is rarely enough food in prison) and, most importantly, the chance to be a child. The mother and children get time together during the week, so the bond is not broken, and when the mother is released they will be given help to build a life together.

So, another donor has paid for the first year's rent of the children's centre, and the money we have raised will pay for the second year's rent. A few people have donated money to us to buy animals for the children, so that will go towards three sheep for the centre. Animals are very useful for any branch of the orphanage; as well as providing food and other things such as milk, looking after the animals teaches the children responsibility and discipline. It can also be the beginning of a small business for some of the older boys – they were able to sell chicken eggs and baby rabbits at the local markets. Sadly, any chickens we bought for the Wollo Seffer orphanage keep dying (apparently that's what happens to chickens in Addis – nobody here can give me any other reason!!) but the ones in Shiro Meda are still going strong!

I hope to be able to put some pictures up on here soon, so that you can see directly where your money is going. Thank you for all you have given over the last two years, and all your support!

I'm off to eat Injera …