It’s been a while since I last blogged. I'm blaming a combination
of the network in the office being down for about 3 weeks, not being arsed to
walk around the corner to the internet café on an evening (mainly due to powercuts every evening) and it taking me a while to figure
out how to use my internet dongle (silly word). Finally got it sorted and now
I’m connected to ‘China Net’ via the ever-so lovely but quite unreliable Ethio
Tel network. Ethiop Tel is the only telecommunications network in Ethiopia and
it’s owned by the government, which is really annoying when they ‘fall out’
with certain sites or deem them to be unsuitable for their people. For the past
2 weeks the Al Jazeera English website’s been offline as I think, but can’t be
sure as I can’t get on any of the sites that mention it, they criticised the
government’s dealings with Muslim groups in the country. We’ve also had got no
mobile network or internet for the past 24 hours as they’re both inexplicably
down…it’s made me appreciate a little diversity in the markets, I hope it comes
back soon as calling abroad from a payphone is silly expensive. Oh well, life
goes on…
I finally moved out my ‘pension’ aka hotel on 17th
July (Huzzar!!). I moved in with a German lad called Julian who’s just about to
start his final year of his economics undergrad in Munich. He’s here on an
internship for 3 months with an NGO based in the US called Innovations for
Poverty Action. He’s conducting research in to the methods households employ to save
money. I’m also meant to be sharing with his supervisor, an American lad who’s
been here 8 months but he’s in the final stages of his research and so he’s in
the field every day. Julian’s a right laugh and has been entertaining me with
constant whistling, singing and various tunes on Matt’s guitar, namely
Blackbird, Leila and various classical pieces. They’re both really lovely and
the house is nice and more importantly it has an oven!! I’ve been making a
range of yummy baked and grilled dishes, plus I found a shop in town owned by
an Italian bloke and he’s got mozzarella and mushrooms in this week, HEAVEN! In
the past week we’ve also had another American guy move in called Joe, he’s here
for a month conducting some research for his MA into reproductive health; he’s
brought a Ukulele with him so the music continues. I’m going to be really sad
when they all leave in the next few weeks :’o(
Work’s got more interesting and I’m getting busier and
busier. I’ve managed to apply for about 5 funding opportunities for various
HIV/AIDS, women’s empowerment and orphan and vulnerable children projects; and
I’ve got a few more in the pipeline. We were even approached by another NGO to
be the technical advisors and field researchers for a UN Women’s Empowerment Baseline
survey but last week we were told we didn’t get it. I’m gutted about that as
that would have been amazing to be involved in, but never mind life goes on…
Last month I went on a trip to Axum and Adwa to visit the other 2
Mums for Mums offices. They have an ICT centre in Adwa and drop-in centres in
both towns, no skills training though. They mainly focus on HIV/AIDS prevention
programs such as door-to-door education and sexual and reproductive health
education. Whilst we were there I was also involved in a handover ceremony
which was really exciting as it was the first time a funded project Mums for
Mums facilitated has been handed over to the community. There were loads of
community groups and government offices in attendance and the funders flew up
from Addis for it. The project started life in 2006 and came to a close
on 30th June 2012, funded by the Consortium of Christian Relief
Development Associations and Irish Aid it focused on HIV/AIDS prevention,
support and education, Gender empowerment, reproductive and sexual health and
environmental protection. It’s enabled Mums for Mums to set up door-to-door
education programs, to reduce HIV/AIDS stigma in the area and to get a better
idea of how many PLHIV there are. It’s also enabled capacity building between
NGOs and government services to take place, to increase the awareness and use
of health facilities by pregnant women and PLHIV and enabled bed-ridden PLHIV
to receive hot meals and treatment. All in all a pretty ace project. I hope all the community groups and
government offices continue working together... Mums for Mums will be involved in
monitoring and evaluation over the coming years so I suppose we’ll find out
soon.
I’ve started work on their website and have been teaching
myself how to use Wordpress, I’ve only done a few things so far but it’s
looking dead snazzy, in my humble opinion, thanks to their pre-set themes ;o)
I’ve also just finished this quarter’s newsletter too which has a fantastically
cheesy photo of your truly in it.
Mark’s coming out in 2 weeks (can’t wait!) and we’re going to
make a short film about Mums for Mums and get lots of interviews for their
website. Ashenafi’s really excited about that one. I’m looking forward to
getting to do a bit of travelling with Mark and revisiting Bahir Dar, Adwa and
Axum to so some filming with Mark’s ace camera ;o)
I’ve been helping Henok and Tsige, my mates at Mums for
Mums, with their English and also giving them a few French lessons on a lunchtime as they both want to learn. That’s been fun. My Tigrinya lessons
started about 3 weeks ago but I’ve now stopped them as my teacher pisses me
off. The lessons cost me a month’s rent in 2 weeks which is very VERY pricy and
which would be ok if he wasn’t always justifying the price by asking me how
much my belongings cost and then saying ‘well in comparison to that my lessons
are really cheap’. He’s always getting me to do things like read his CV or read
through his book he’s written (in lesson time) but then he won’t take any input
even though he asked for it and it eats in to my lesson time and tells me he
can’t extend despite wasting 20mins of my lesson doing stuff for him! Last week
he was arguing with me that in Britain we use the word ‘cheers’ for ‘goodbye’.
I told him that it was only used for a toast and to say thanks and that we
might from time to time say it as we’re leaving somewhere but that it still
only means thanks. He told me I was wrong and that his American friend told him
so. I’m was trying to decide whether I was being intolerant or whether he was
actually being annoying, last week I decided life’s too short and started
looking for a new teacher. I told him I wanted to stop our lessons and he tried
to charge me 2 weeks severance pay (aka a month’s rent). I laughed and showed
him the door. Farengi equals cash cow.
I’ve met a local woman who works for Save the Children USA
and she’s just started her own research in to the provision of social
protection services, i.e. who’s here in Tigray providing services for orphans
and vulnerable children, women, the homeless, the elderly etc and what they’re doing
and how successful they are. It sounds really interesting and I’m going to get
involved with helping her conduct the field research which means that I get to
go with her to interview loads of beneficiaries, government officials and NGO
staff. That’ll be a great experience plus I said I can proof reading once she’s
written it up.
My brain’s all engage and I’m really loving it here. I even met a
French girl who works for the International Red Cross managing projects in the
conflict zone around the Ethiopian/Eritrean border (she’s well hard!). More
importantly she has a stash of goat’s cheese and has invited me for lunch
sometime soon. I’m so friggin’ excited!!
Sorry about the essay! Big love! xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
