[N] Our two wheeled exploration of the surroundings of Awassa (principally driven by Keith) headed north to look at a spur off the side of the Rift Valley which we fondly call the Northern Ridge. We have previously been along the bottom of this fairly imposing feature, as doing so provides a viable route to Wondo Genet. To get onto the top of the ridge you can head about 5 km out of town on the Shashemene road then strike off to the right on a fairly steep rise up to the brow of the ridge. Naturally this attracted the usual attention from the local residents - three farengi on bikes going nowhere, not suprising really. It was interesting to see when we got to the point where we could look south towards Awassa over a pretty significant cliff face that on the north side of our 'ridge' there was a very lush gentle slope with a large amount of cultivation going on.
So having relatively flawlessly ascended this hill we now had to make some decision about where to go - our options were to follow the ridge and probably end up on the Shashemene-Wondo road or to descend the ridge onto the known teritory below. We opted for the later at a point were other people were driving cattle, donkeys, goats etc in that direction. If they were going to go down then it would be no problem for us. Well. That would have been true if we didn't have our Phoenix mountain bikes weighing us down. It's easy to think that a cow isn't that agile on rough / steep terrain, but those four legs really do help (I know that goats have quite a reputation for agility in a mountain situation, but cows are a lot bigger!). Anyway, we slip-slided our way down, passing the bikes over particularly steep bits and taking advice on the best route from the cattle herding lady who was heading our way.
Arriving at the base of the ridge more or less intact, after a much appreciated lunch break we made our way to the hot springs which lie between Awassa and Wondo Genet. There we found a group of people huddled around the bubbling source of the water. It turned out that they had a load of potatoes threaded on string, nicely boiling away in the spring. Now that's an eco-friendly way to prepare your dinner if ever there was. Turning back towards Awassa, after some time we took the opportunity of being completely by ourselves to fly a kite.
Our only remaining obstacle was the mighty Tikur Wuha river. Well, the crumbling bridges suggest that it was once mighty. Now due to deforestation, leading to a build up of silt in Lake Awassa causing a rise in water level, the river is somewhat depleted. However, as found out by Keith, it does still offer some resistance to the wayward explorer. Keith got waist deep in water before deciding that the rickety bridge was infact the better option for making a crossing...
We decided to have a wee party to celebrate our birthdays this year. Due to the expanding number fo volunteers in Awassa we decided we couldn't cook for everyone we wanted to invite so we thought we'd try the option of getting take out pizza! We spoke to Mengistu (head waiter at Post Rendezvous) to see if it would be possible to have ten pizzas ready to pick up at 5 pm on a Saturday night. He said it would be and we could call his mobile to put in the order......yes you read that right - mobile phones have made it to Awassa! We made a few dips and salad and stuff and Neal and Keith went off to collect the pizzas after phoning in our order - they don't do home delivery yet - but hey it's a start.
[J] Those of you who are football fans will be pleased to hear that Awassa won the Ethiopian "premiership" this year. The final match took place in the stadium just round the corner from our house. We were invited to a friend's house for lunch who lives on the other side of the stadium to us. After lunch it took us ages to get home as the police had closed off all the streets surrounding the stadium - not just to cars, but bikes and pedestrians too. This as just before the match started and I suspect it may have been partly to prevent people getting into the stadium who hadn't paid. Anyway we had to cycle round half of Awassa to get back home. We didn't go to the match ourselves but we could hear the crowd everytime a goal was scored and they let fireworks off at the end which sounded scarily like gunshots at first! So well done to Awassa Ketema football team.
[N] So there I am, closing the back door to the house, getting ready to have a shower, when I see that Almaz doesn't look very happy. I figure out from her that the puppies that are about six weeks old are in the shint beyt (that's the pit latrine at the back of our house). And yes I mean in the hole, in the shint. I assumed that this was a fatal situation and rather glumly got on with my shower. As I finished in the shower, Michela came around to the house and I told her about what had happened. As I did so I heard a noise which sounded rather like a puppy that wasn't very happy, from towards the back of the house. So we went around to investigate and sure enough, much to my amazment there was a puppy visible through the hole in the concrete slab that covers the cess-pool. The hole is about eight inches by ten inches and the surface of the pool is just a bit greater than arms-length, it turns out. Getting a torch to shed some light on the matter, it became apparent that the puppies were both still alive and able to just about keep themselves about the surface. Now I'm not sure about the exact properties of our cess-pool, but a six week old puppy is able to kinda walk around on it.
Obviously we had to try to do something to get these guys out of there, so I got some cord and tied a noose with a slip knot and then held the noose open with a small piece of wood. Idea being that I could manouver this over the puppy's head, knocking the wood out in the process and pull it tight enough to haul the little blighter out. As I was trying to get the hang of the technique, the phone rang - I had been supposed to be meeting Jenny at Keith and Lori's house to go to one of the Euro 2004 matches. So I quickly explained the situation and rejoined Michela at the hole. A few more attempts and puppy number one was out of the hole! A pretty extensive dunking in several buckets of water got most of the filth out of his coat then we wrapped him up in a towel.
Puppy number two (no pun intended) was not being very cooperative and seemed to have moved quite far to the back of the pit, making her inaccessible. By now Jenny and Keith had arrived and Keith had the bright idea that our latrine might share a common pit with our neighbour and if so, the puppy was probably nearer to their hole. So Jenny, Keith and Almaz went around the block to meet our adjoining neighbour for the first time. The conversation apparently kicked off with something like "our dog is in your toilet, please can we try and get it back". Keith got to the hole and could see the dog and immediately tried to reach down and grab her, but tantalisingly he could only tickle her. I came around with the noose contraption, but couldn't get it to take properly. However I did get her to be directly beneath the hole and Keith managed to reach down and pull her straight out. A serious dunking under our new neighbourhood friends outside tap got the worst off her. We bid a hasty farewell and reunited the two hopefully now wiser puppies.
You may recall at the begining of this epiosode that I'd just had a shower - all this activity demanded another serious scrubbing. I was a bit worried about what horrendous diseases we might have picked up in the process. I'm pleased to report nothing untoward appeared to result from spending two hours with my arm down a shint beyt. By this time England had finished playing and we just went out to get a beer and some food. I chose a dish that I could eat with a knife and fork, rather then getting my hands anywhere near my dinner...
[N] Awassa has been going in for the summer festival vibe thanks to to Euro 2004. One of the beer companies (BGI), who among other delights brew St George Beer (Patron Saint of Ethiopia as well as England), set up a big screen in a showground upon which they projected all of the matches. Dotted around the field were little gazebo-like shelters with refridgerators full of beer. For the regular beer price you could sit and watch the matches with a cold Georges in your hand.
The timing of the matches was ideal here, the first kicking off at 6.45 pm and the second at 9.45 pm. This resulted in perfect viewing conditions on the big screen. And it was really big, like 40 x 30 ft. The only slight snag was that it is the rainy season here at the moment and the prefered downpour time is usually in the early evening.
I'm afraid to say that Jenny and I didn't really put in a big enough effort in supporting the English bid. We only went to one match - which they won, I understand they did this by scoring more goals than the other team. Had we shown a little more support then perhaps they would have done a bit better throughout the tounament.
We heard a rumour that a similar event is going to be put on during the Olymipics, which would be fantastic. For a start it won't be during a semester so we can afford to dedicate ourselves a little more and the Ethiopian runners are obviously in with a big chance and they'll get massive appreciation if they succeed.
[J] We were invited to join the 3rd year biology students on a field trip for their Fisheries Biology course. Of course I know nothing about fish but that didn't see to matter. We missed the first day of the trip when the students visited the rift valley lakes north of Awassa but joined them the next day after they spent the night back in Awassa before heading South to Arba Minch where there are two more lakes. We were told to meet the bus at the old campus at 5:45am so we dragged ourselves out of bed at 5am threw on some clothes and walked to the old campus in the dark. The driver was inevitably late, so we sat for about 40 minutes with three lab technicians, Debebe, Kassaye and Tafesse and Dr Elias who teaches fisheries biology. Eventually he showed up and we headed to the new campus to pick up the students. We arrived at the new campus as the sun was rising, the students were loaded up along with three cooks, a mechanic and food supplies for 55 students for two days.
We set off south through beautiful lush countryside and rolling
hills and heard about their trip the previous day. I didn't need to
worry about my lack of fish knowledge as it seemed the most important
thing was to enjoy ourselves! We stopped in a wee town for a spot of
breakfast and by 10 o'clock we were making good progress. Uh oh spoke
too soon, about 20 km past the fairly major town of Sodo we got a flat
tyre. This is a common occurrence on the roads in Ethiopia, I'm not
sure of the causes probably a combination of rubbish tyres to start
with, rubbish roads with big potholes in and rubbish suspension on the
vehicles. We stopped in the middle of nowhere and all got out the bus
while the mechanic (now you know why he came!) set about changing the
wheel with some of the ather staff members. Neal and I notice the
ground by the side of the road was suitably flat and appropriate to
introduce everyone to a frisbee (thanks Helen and Dave!). the frisbee
went down a treat if not a little cautiously at first. We soon had the
majority of students involved and for once all the little kids (that
magically appear from nowhere whenever you pause for more than a few
seconds) were all staring at hte students playing frisbee instead of
staring at the ferenjis - hooray. After about an hour the tyre was
changed but the bus had to go back to Sodo to get the spare fixed lest
we had another flat in the 60 remaining km to Arba Minch. the bus
dropped us off a little further down the road at a pleasant spot with a
water outlet and lots of women washing clothes. This time it was the
cooks who sprung into action unloading all the pots and food to prepare
lunch.
it was actually a great experience to be in a pleasant spot in the countryside (albeit by the side of a main road) watching the students muck in to help prepare lunch. Lunch mainly consisted of a sack of onions which were peeled and chopped by a handful of students and Neal who was trying to address gender issues and actually persuaded a few of the other guys to join in too! The cooks negotiated with some passing women to buy wood for a fire which was lit after further negotiations with some inhabitants of a nearby tukkul (hut) who already had a fire burning - seems the cooks don't carry matches! An enrmous pot of water was put onto boil which was eventually used to cook spaghetti. A second pot was used to cook the onions in some oil and water and finally two tins of tomato paste were added. There was a major disaster when the cooks realised they'd left the berberry on the bus. No Ethiopian dish is complete without berberry a red powder made from dried red chillies and other spices. Several attempts were made to flag down passing Isuzu trucks to take someone back to Sodo to the bus to fetch the berberry. There was even talk of a motorbike being arranged to take someone but in the end none of these plans materialised so the inevitable decision to make the sauce without berberry was made!
Meanwhile some of the students had gone exploring the area and one of them came back and asked if we wanted to visit a plantation. We had nothing better to do (all the onions were chopped at this point) so off we went. A short walk brought us to a small set of fields where a local cooperative (originally started by World Vision 10 years ago) were growing fruit and veg for export to Addis Ababa and furhter afield. We saw sugar cane, bananas, mangoes, coffee plants, lettuce and lots of other crops including a plant which I don't know the name of which is used to feed silk worms. When the silk worms make their coccoons (of silk) they are harvested and the silk is processed for export.
By the time we got back, lunch was ready and the bus had returned so we all ate lunch and the students all wanted photos of themselves eating lunch with Neal and I. Then they all wanted photos of me under the sign on the back of the bus that colourfully told anyone who cared to read it that the bus contained biology students from Debub University on a field trip. I felt like a celebrity on a photo shoot and my smile must have been wearing thin after a while - i feel i can really empathise with posh spice now.
We arrived in Arba Minch just as the sun was setting and the bus rushed off to the Bekele Molla hotel on the top of a hill over looking the lakes so the staff could check in there and get rooms. After negotiating to get "foriegn resident" rate rather than ethiopian rate we dumped our stuff in the room and got back on the bus. Of course, there was no accommodation booked for the students so we spent a few hours driving round various hotels finding out if they had enough rooms for 53 students and then arguing about the price - the students had a limited budget of about 20 Birr (£1.50) for their rooms. Eventually they found somewhere very nice for 11 Birr each if they shared a room with a shower and toilet. I felt a bit gutted at this point when I realised we were paying over 90 Birr for a crap room in the Bekele Molla which didn't even have a hot shower. You definately pay for the view and nothing else at the Bekele Molla and we even missed the sunset!
In order to get our money's worth we got up early to watch the sun rise over the lakes. Well we were told to be ready to get picked up by the bus between 6:30 am and 7 so we had to get up then anyway. I braved the icy cold shower for about 5 seconds before running out the bathroom and chucking some clothes on. A good way to shake the cobwebs out at such a time I suppose. We then watched the sun rise and drank coffee as we waited for the bus. I'm not sure it's worth 90 Birr but it was pretty spectacular none the less.
Back on the bus and we headed to the shores of Lake Choma. We were in a biggish bus - we had over 60 people on it and it was anything between 10 and 30 years old. After a few minutes on the "main" road out of Arba Minch the driver "off-roaded". This was possibly the scariest part of the trip as the little dirt track to the lake was connected to the main road by no more than a dirt ramp at an angle of about 45 degrees. This didn't seem to concern the driver (or anyone else on the bus really) but I let out a little yelp of distress as the bus started rocking from side to side and we appeared to be driving through various types of undergrowth. However it all turned out fine and this seemed to be the obvious access road to the lake-side. About ten minutes later the driver decided he could no longer negotiate the gaping craters (well big potholes really but I was on an adrenaline rush by this stage) and random mounds of earth etc so we had to walk the last bit - Thank God, I was about to have a a heart attack.
At the lake-side the students had a talk by some people who appeared to be waiting for us (although they could have been random passers by for all I know). The talk was in amharic - and about fish - so I didn't pay much attention. Instead Neal and I looked at some enormous crocodiles on a peninsula jutting out into the lake. Thankfully they were very far away and we looked at them with our binoculars. Apparently an American tourist was dragged into the lake and killed by crocodiles a few years ago - her husband was trying to film her and apparently videoed the whole thing! Anyway I was a little edgy and didn't stand too close to the edge. After the talk we had another photo shoot - this one included dead fish which were used as props during the talk. There were examples of tilapia, catfish and Nile perch presumably caught from the lake.
We walked back to the bus and enjoyed bread rolls and marmalade for breakfast and headed to the other side of Arba Minch to visit the crocodile farm. When we got into town the bus needed to have some tyre problem fixed. We were told it would only take 40 minutes or so, so we went off to have a lass lassa (soft drink) in a nearby cafe and then headed back to the - unfixed - bus. The students were entertaining themselves by getting their shoes cleaned and paying small boys 20 cents to hire their bikes and ride them up and down the main street! Neal got his shoes cleaned too which unfortunately turned into an argument when the guy obviously ripped him off. I got my own back when the guy came over to offer his shoe cleaning services to a bunch of the students and I told them not to use him coz he was a thief! The 40 minutes soon turned into a few hours and there wasn't really very much to do once your shoes were cleaned and I'd explained to a small boy (in Amharic) that I didn't want to hire his bike - not because I couldn't ride it but because I ride a bike to work everyday and I was on holiday today!
Eventually the tyre was fixed and we finally made it to the crocodile farm. It's owned by the government and the crocs are farmed for their skin. The aim is supposedly to stop illegal hunting in the lakes as a few decades ago the crocodiles were almost hunted to extinction. After a brief talk (again in Amharic - so I didn't learn much!) we were escorted to the enclosures. I was expecting 10 or 20 crocs in total so I was gobsmacked when we looked in the first enclosure and saw hundreds of juveniles. There were three enclosures in all each one with slightly older animals. They keep them till they're about 10 years old or so and then they're turned into handbags and belts for export. One thing I don't think they use is the meat which would seem like a potentially money-making export. I think they just feed it back to the other crocodiles. Two of the enclosures had these rickety platforms which you could walk on which were right over about 200 crocodiles. I managed to stay there for about 5 seconds but couldn't get images of the platform collapsing and being snapped up by a hundred hungry crocodiles. No-one seemed to be plagued by this thought (no health and safety regulations in Ethiopia) and I was quite relieved when Dr Elias told everyone it was time to go back to the bus.
It was about 2 pm by this time and I wondered if we'd make it back to Awassa that night. I asked if we were staying in Arba Minch another night but was assured we'd be heading back up to Awassa. The reason for my concern is the first part of the journey between Arba Minch and Sodo is known as a bandit area and it is not advisable to drive along it at night. We know of two different sets of people who've been held up along this road at night time. Anyway it's only about an hours drive between Arba Minch and Sodo (if you don't have a flat tyre!) so I relaxed a little until I found out the students had to have their lunch before we set off. The bus pulled over to a nice spot by a river and cooks got out all their stuff and the onions and pasta were prepared once more. After lunch we set off amid much commotion of loading everything back on to the bus kicking off the stray kids who wanted a ride and set off on a short cut past the airport which would join back to the main road. This was okay, it was before 5 pm and doesn't get dark till about 7pm so I thought we'd be fine....
After driving for about half an hour we got past the airport and then shock-horror the road had gone. The rain water had completely washed away part of the road so it was completely impassable - by a big old bus anyway. There seemed to be a bit of commotion and some little kid ran up to us and got on the bus and we turned around and headed back to town. When we got back to the spot where we'd had lunch we realised what the commotion was about. We'd left one of the students behind! It seemed that this little kid had ran after the bus or got some kind of lift on a bike or something. Anyway he'd caught up with us when we stopped and must have told the driver we were a student missing! We picked him up and he got a big Telling Off from Dr Elias and we set off back to Awassa this time by the conventional route.
Still I thought we had enough time to get back to Sodo but I hadn't counted on the banana and mango frenzy. When we passed a truck of bananas everyone started banging their seats and stamping their feet chanting "muz muz muz" (banana banana banana). The driver stopped and the women selling muz were immediately swamped by students and staff desperately wanting bananas to take back to their dorm mates/families - after all this is what you are expected to bring back from Arba Minch....Oh and mangoes too so the same thing happened ten minutes later down the road when the mango-selling women were spotted. We actually bought all the mangoes available - There must have been at least 600 bananas (10 each) and 300 mangoes on the bus! While we were waiting for them to find more mangoes, a girl came on with some lomis kind of a cross between a lemon and a lime. She waved a bowl full at me saying "one birr", "Pah!" I snorted - "I'm not getting ripped off by that they're only 20 cents in Awassa" Then I realised it was one birr for the whole bowl! Sale agreed and birr handed over, the bowl of lomis was emptied into our laps and the girl got off the bus. We counted forty lomis which we paid about 7p for!
After all this frenzy the driver was getting a bit mad and kept revving the engine and driving 2 or 3 metres up the road as a subtle hint he wanted to go. Neal and I decided we needed a carrier bag for our fruits so one of the students called out the window to the people at the side of the road. A price was agreed and the bag handed over but the bus drove off (for the final time it seemed) so some money was chucked out the window for the poor bag seller to chase after and pick up in payment for the carrier bag! We arrived in Sodo just as the sun was setting and after a mass exodus to the cake shop and more revving up and pulling away we set off to Awassa and made it back safely.
We had a really great time. The students were fantastic and were genuinely concerned that we were having a good time. I think they were worried that the bus breaking down had ruined the trip for us. But it didn't at all in fact it made part of the trip - playing frisbee and having lunch by the side of the road. It was nice to speak to some of the students too and try and find out what their plans are for the future. Most of them want to teach for a while before going on to study for masters degrees or they want to work for an NGO. They also asked me loads of questions about life in the UK - how the students compared aswell as what I thought about Ethiopia including whether I could eat a whole injera in one go!
[N] Within VSO there are various kinds of meetings which aim to bring together the experiences of the volunteers working across the country. These are used at an organisational level to assit planning and form policy and at a volunteer level to share and generate ideas. The meeting took place in Addis Abeba at the Ethiopian Red Cross training centre. This is the place that we went to when we first arrived in the county and I hold a certain fondness for it. Some volunteers hate the place because they felt couped up inside it, but for me a nice room, a shower and a cafeteria with three meals a day has a certain oasic quality to it.
A language training course was taking place in Yir Gellam (just south of Awassa) so we were able to get a lift in a VSO vehicle back home after the workshop. We were making a brief trip down to Awassa because we needed to do various bits and pieces at work. The next day we went back to Addis with the returning vehicles to do various bits and bobs and to say goodbye to Lori and Keith who were returning to Canada.
[N] We struck up a great relationship with Lori and Keith when we first got to Awassa, they were the big kids who knew how to order beer in restaurants and even were able to keep track of their bill so that it could be told to the waiter at the end of the night. In this way they guided us through our first weeks in Ethiopia. Because they were here before us, they also left before us, so we decided to bug them for just a bit longer for their last few days in Addis. The day before they left a bunch of people went to the Hilton to lounge about and have a slap up meal, we had been planning on using the pool, but the summer (cold) weather conspired against us. Also, Jenny sadly picked up some kind of bug the day before we went and she was unable to eat anything. That's pretty rough, being sick AND sitting in the Hilton while everyone around you chows down on a veritable banquet.
Anyhow, the time finally came to say goodbye - see you again soon in a different part of the world!