A Crappy Time

One month today, I will have said goodbye to Ethiopia and will be waking up in my own bed, in the UK. Sometimes - more often than not - I am sad about this: I love Lalibela, I love Ethiopia, I love my job (most of the time!) and I love the people I work with.

However, today, it cannot come quick enough.

Quite frankly, everything that could go wrong, has gone wrong. First the computer blew up in the storm and we had no computer for a few days. Then we spent a lot of money, expended a lot of stress, and begged a lot of people to get the part sent from Addis, which of course didn’t fit. So we begged and pleaded again with someone from the internet cafe so they would swap it with one that will work , which luckily only took a few days.

Except then the modem wouldn’t work and we couldn’t connect to the internet. Okay, no big deal, at least the actual computer works. We can fix the modem later.*

Except now the printer and USB drivers don’t work, and nobody can fix them (nobody can work out why it’s stopped working). So I’m handwriting endless registers and reports, and trying not to think about the 200 report cards we’re supposed to be printing for when the children come back to school, or the 150 student files I’ve been diligently working on and which need to be printed and filed in hard copy by the 14th September.

So that’s the computer part of it.

The rest is just as bad. The maggots are still falling from the ceiling. My bath still doesn’t drain. Ab is walking around in the worst mood I’ve ever seen (and I have some bad moods!) and yet we can’t moan at him because we completely understand why he’s in a bad mood and he is completely justified. Added to that, his phone was stolen by people he was giving a lift to (for free!) a few days ago. What a great show of gratitude from them.

I am supposed to open the school for the new academic year in two weeks yet I don’t have enough text books, pens, tables and – oh yes – teachers , although in theory all should be here by the week of the 14th, give or take a few days. A and I are trying to employ said extra teachers, except what we want and need to do is very different to what the Ministry of Education in Lalibela are insisting on doing, and although the Ministry of Education have no authority to insist on employing our teachers, we have to get officials from the office in Bahir Dar to confirm that, and the Director who needs to do that is out of the country for a while.

Of course, with crappy communications, we have no way of conveying that to the relevant people. Thank God the phone network is still working!

In the meantime, summer school continues, where I discover that the deaf child who has been in our school for two years cannot even write or recognise her own name. This should have been picked up a LONG time ago ... by me, definitely, and it’s a disgrace that I haven’t, but also by the teachers and other staff before me.

In two days I have to explain to the community that the school will not be providing education for the 100 children from the area as planned in the Project Proposal, and who are excitedly waiting for September to come so they can start school (some even turned up to summer school they were so desperate to get in!). Instead just 30 children will be registered. I don’t know why this is, as it’s not a decision I’ve taken and I haven’t got any information about it, but I am the one who will be passing the message on.

The information and explanation should arrive with the Directors when they come over in two weeks – on New Year’s Day, when everyone will be off work (particularly people in Lalibela, who celebrate every Saints Day). On top of that, the organisational and administration meetings that are going to be going on at this time are really, really not going to be fun.

So, deep joy all round. Consequently, when my TV stopped working today as a result of yet another power surge I very nearly burst into tears, even though in the grand scheme of things a broken TV is not even worth worrying about.

In the good news department, I have a load of trashy magazines that my family have sent, so I intend to shut my door, get into my pyjamas, read my magazines and forget about the world and everything that’s wrong with it.

Ps. Yes, I am well aware of the irony of moaning about these things when I clearly have enough to eat, enough money, an education, a family and a roof over my head – and am working with a lot of people who have none, or very few, of those things. Indulge me.

*We’ve fixed the modem now, clearly, as I have managed to send this update!