Back to School

The last couple of weeks here have been slow. The first week back from vacation for the students was interesting. Most of the teachers weren’t teaching their sections and most of the students didn’t show up to class anyway. The teachers were busy grading exams and having meetings. The students were busy enjoying a second week of vacation. The teachers didn’t mind taking another week and the students absolutely didn’t either. In the second semester the morning and afternoon shifts switch, so the teachers and the students have to get used to a new schedule. The school administrator posted the new schedule on Monday. From this schedule we have to take one class from every 9^th grade section. They posted the morning and afternoon shift revised schedules at different times during the week. It took us about two weeks to get a new schedule. The teachers constantly change the schedule for their individual benefit (not having class one day as opposed to having a section or two). I think we have a good handle on our schedule moving forward and we don’t expect any more changes.

One interesting interaction that week was with one of our final classes on Thursday. When I entered class, just like every other section that week, there were barely any students there. Most other classes were just lingering around campus because the teachers weren’t teaching. I finally asked this class what was going on around campus? Where were the students? One student, who isn’t great at English but always tries and I respect him, told me simply what was going on.,“All of us failed the exam, all of the students in this class failed the exam,” he said. “We are very upset and we don’t feel like learning this week. Maybe in a week or two you come back.” I was taken back by his honesty and appreciated a real answer. I wish that I could have communicated this with the students, but that attitude, that failure is ok and we’ll just take more time and try again later, that is the issue with education here. No one cares. It is so far from my own way of thinking. If I fail something, you better believe I am going to put in twice as much work and make sure I ace it the second time. Here, it’s “ah, we failed, all of us, so we will start in a few weeks.” With that, the students asked me to just go, so I obliged them and left. That was the end of my first week back during second semester.

The majority of students did poorly on their English midterm. I have only seen a few that are willing to buckle down and make a change. These are the students that regularly attend our Saturday classes. From the original 13-15 students that used to show up it’s now around 2-4 students, but the same students keep coming. I don’t know how to get through the rest of the students. We are offering free English lessons, from native English speakers, giving them worksheets and helping them with sentence structure, pronunciation and spelling and this only appeals to about four students in the roughly 1,000 that we teach a week. I don’t know how to communicate the importance of having us here for a year. I understand that a lot of students work when they aren’t at school, but I also know a lot of them could spare an hour and get better at a foreign language that will get them further in life. I think that I need to try some different tactics of attracting more students. I know one issue is our consistency with offering the sessions. We have been busy or in and out of town for the last couple of months. I think that if we can develop some consistency with the Saturday sessions then more people will come. We will have to wait and see how that works out.

On another very different note, Liz and I found some food a couple of weeks ago that has changed our lives here. A few weeks ago I went to the market to buy chickens and other stuff to make doro wot, a traditional Ethiopian chicken stew. Yes, I slit the chicken’s throat. Yes, it was exhilarating. No, I didn’t intend on having to feed the chickens the day before they were scheduled to die. We had a bunch of friends over and ate a lot. It was really fun. Anyway, as I completed my food run I came across this juice place. Outside were some vegetables I hadn’t seen in Gondar. There were watermelons, cucumbers, zucchini, green beans, mangos, papayas and some other delicious fruits and veggies. I was shocked. The only place that I knew of to get this stuff was Addis or Bahir Dar. I bought a watermelon and some cucumbers and knew that Liz would be ecstatic. We’ve been going back twice a week for fresh produce ever since. The man that runs the shop gets his stuff from Addis twice a week on Monday and Thursday. We go in the afternoon on those days and stock up on food for the rest of the week. It’s the little things that get you through the tough times here. These foods are something that I could just walk down the street and buy whenever I wanted at home. Here I find them and end up thanking the shop owner for a half hour for enhancing my life. He’s a really nice guy and we enjoy seeing each other a couple of times a week.

This week we are going to Israel for our mid-year seminar and visiting my younger sister for a few days. I haven’t seen her in the flesh in six months. I think this may be the longest time I’ve gone without seeing any member of my family, kind of crazy when I think about it. However, with Skype and iChat I can see them as often as I want or as often as they would like to see me. The only questionable thing is the Internet around here, but we make due. I am excited to see her in her element in Tel Aviv. She just bought a puppy and I absolutely can’t wait to squeeze it! After this trip my entire family is coming to Gondar for five days to visit Elizabeth and I. They have all been here before, years ago, but this will be a different experience. I can’t wait to show them our work environment, the students, our home, our friends, our life here. I know they are anxious to see it too.

We have some fun stuff coming up. School will pick up a little bit more and we’ll be back in our normal groove with work. I am excited for continued progress with a lot of our students. A lot of students are reacting well to having us around. Our lesson plans have gotten better and I think that’s reflected in the students’ involvement in our classroom exercises. We will keep cranking away at the English Club and see if we can make this thing more popular and hopefully sustainable. I would like to figure out a way to involve the teachers but a lot of them have similar attitudes as the students. I will keep you all posted on its progression.

I hope everyone is doing well. I can’t wait to see my family so soon. I can’t believe I’ve been here for almost six months. That continues to blow my mind.

Fendika....What a Day......

The last few days have been interesting. Our students had exams last week and vacation this week before they start second semester. Liz and I have had quite a bit of free time. We toured Axum and Lalibela last week, which was amazing.  Really great pictures. Personally, I thought that Axum was just ok but Lalibela was really wonderful.

Something really interesting happened to us today. Liz and I are going to Addis until Sunday to relax a bit and get some stuff for the house. Yesterday when we woke up, Liz was looking out of our balcony window and commented that it looked like a snowstorm. It was a complete white out. We couldn’t see any of the surrounding landscape outside of our neighborhood - very weird. So today we went to the airport for our flight. As usual it was delayed, but the reasoning behind this delay was unique. It is dust that is covering the sky and really everything around us. Dust from Sudan is blowing into Ethiopia and causing airports to shut down. One of our coworkers told us that it could sometimes take up to two days for the dust to clear. I was really looking forward to going to Addis but we had to put that plan on hold for another day. Hopefully, we will be able to get out of here tomorrow morning.

For the last couple of days a group has been in town from New York. We got a chance to hang out with and meet some great people. These trips are really fun for us and are a nice change from our normal schedule. This one though was particularly special. One of the participants in this trip was a woman, who together with her son, raised and donated money to build a schoolhouse and well in a rural area outside of Gondar. The school is called Fendika. I had the pleasure of visiting this school with the University of Maryland trip and interacting with the students two weeks ago.

The history of this school is great. Three years ago our program director visited the area and found a first and second grade class. First grade was learning under a tree that is now directly behind the new building and second grade was a bit further away under another group of trees. These students and teachers now have classrooms, desks, benches and chalkboards. They also have a clean water source about 50 yards from the building. Really a remarkable story.

Now back to yesterday – it’s even more remarkable that one of the donors traveled from America to Ethiopia to see it. Although students are on vacation now about 50 students showed up to welcome her. A makeshift plaque was hung on the wall and uncovered to show this donor’s family name. The children were singing, “Welcome, welcome, welcome!!” when we arrived. It was really powerful. As if this wasn’t enough she brought soccer balls, volley balls, jump ropes and arts and crafts for the students. The chairman of the village had us in his home for some injera with milk and berbere (a first for me and absolutely delicious although, yes, it sounds gross). The whole experience couldn’t have been better. We all had a lot of fun. We finished up with a traditional coffee ceremony before we left.

As often happens in these situations, specifically when you come to rural areas bearing gifts/donations, the kids start to get a little riled up and it can get chaotic. A lot of the kids started asking for money, which can get really annoying really fast. When we started to leave the kids followed us. It was a crowd of about 30-40 kids at this point. I lagged behind a bit to talk to a few of the kids as we walked. As we were walking along I felt something hit my backpack. I thought nothing of it. Then I saw something fly over my head and break on the ground a few feet in front of me. Then something hit me in the shoulder. I turned back to see a bunch of kids throwing rocks and clumps of dirt at me. This made me angry. This was one of the few times here that I was fuming mad. We just spent two hours dedicating a school and giving out fun stuff for the students and this is how they react? Throwing rocks at us, at me, as we leave? I was shocked. Who would act like that? How did the mood degenerate so much as to make some young kids think it was ok to throw rocks at people visiting their school and their village – one of these visitors being the person that made that school and well possible? It took me a few hours to get over this and I had to literally tell myself over and over again to not let the end of our visit cloud the great experience that we all just had.

This is a microcosm of how life is here. You have incredible highs and unbelievable lows. You have to take the good with the bad. It’s difficult to keep your cool sometimes but you have to no matter the circumstance. This place is different. People here act differently. I have to understand and accept that. I also realize that every day isn’t going to be a cakewalk. My patience is tested often and it keeps me grounded. So what do I choose to remember about that day? I remember someone traveling from America to see the results of her donation to a tiny village in Gondar, Ethiopia. I remember the look on this amazing woman’s face when we arrived and the children were clapping and singing. I remember the exact words that the chairman of the village said to this woman and how caring they were. I remember having a wonderful experience….and that’s all I remember.  

Give Me Five Birr??

After being on vacation for so long we’ve transferred back into work perfectly. The only thing that’s been difficult at school is getting used to lower attendance. Just like in the States when work slows down between Christmas and New Years, students tend to stop showing up between Genna (Ethiopian Orthodox Christmas) and Timket (Epiphany). Many people leave town to visit their families or their families are making the journey to Gondar. Whatever the case, work and school seem to be on the back burner even as we approach final exams for the first semester. During the last two weeks, we regularly find about 15-20 students in our final classes of the afternoon session, a far cry from the 65-70 students that should be there. This being the case the students that do show up have been incredibly well mannered and as eager as always. Final exams are the Monday following Timket, which is in 9 days. Most of our classes haven’t completed Unit 6 yet (the final Unit before finals) and we still need time to prepare for finals. I smell a time crunch coming….

This week we dove into the chapter in our exercise books about HIV/AIDS. I find this material interesting, not simply for the educational value for the students, but because I like learning what the students know and don’t know about HIV. We’ve regularly had students in different sections contend that you can get HIV by drinking after someone with HIV or getting your hair cut by a barber who has previously cut the hair of someone who has HIV. It’s shocking to me that some students know so little about HIV but it’s all around them. We haven’t asked the question yet but I’m sure some of these young people know or knew someone with HIV. It’s also very possible that HIV in one way or another has directly affected a lot of our students. It’s such an important issue that it’s in their English textbook. Throughout all my years of school I never had one specific lesson in any class devoted solely to the topic of HIV. I chose to write a term paper about HIV/AIDS for an African history class. When my family was in South Africa years ago we visited an AIDS clinic and I was stunned. There were babies, toddlers, young adults and elderly people there. HIV affects people young and old; age has no bearing. It’s important that we talk about this subject with these young people.

After finishing a great day on Wednesday I was walking out of school over to our car. I felt good about the day. The lesson plan was great and the students took to it brilliantly. Classes were lively. As I strolled down the sidewalk one of my students came jogging after me yelling, “Max, Max!”. I stopped and greeted her. She stood there for a half second before asking me, “give me five birr?”. I’m your teacher. You’re my student. No student would dare ask any other teacher at Fasiledes for money. It’s something that is just inescapable here. We’ve been teaching here for over four months and some of our students still look at us as rich Westerners who are willing and able to hand out money. I really thought I was safe from all of that at my place of work. It turns out I’m not. It was really disheartening but something that you have to deal with here. Here, I am always going to be the rich Westerner and as much as I think I’ve assimilated someone is always willing to bring me back down to Earth.

I Homesick You

Coming back from vacation is tough, especially to Gondar. I got used to life here and the transition for me was relatively seamless. I was in a great groove with work and what you could call a social life. But going away and experiencing a place like South Africa and coming back to Gondar is difficult. Life in general here is difficult and it takes hard work to find any kind of normalcy.

That being said I am happy to be back home. To get back into that groove of working at school and on some fun projects is wonderful. I feel rejuvenated and motivated.

Our trip to South Africa could not have been better. We went on safari. spent a lot of time exploring Cape Town and the coast (wine tour, lounging on the beach at Camp's Bay, V&A Waterfront, Long Street, Cape Point, Boulders Beach and lots more). We ate a ton of good food and enjoyed the nightlife. We met some amazing people. Like I said, couldn’t have been better.

We came back to school on Wednesday and the students and teachers were happy to see us. Everyone came up to us and said, “Welcome!” as if we’d never been there. What they meant was welcome back, which we’ve been suggesting. One of our fellow teachers said “I homesick you”….to which I responded flatly “what?”. What he meant was that he missed us and we both had a good laugh. The teachers are genuine and they enjoy having us around. They enjoy conversing with us, learning about America and teaching us about Ethiopia.

The students were great this week. Every class was excited to have us back and really well behaved. I am equally as excited to see the kids and get back to work. They are making good progress in their exercise books and will soon be gearing up for final exams.

Monday is Genna, Ethiopian Christmas. We don’t have class and everything shuts down. Everyone spends this holiday with his or her families and most Ethiopians attend church. I was told that there’s a big meal as well, which hopefully one of our friends will invite us to attend because lord knows I love to eat!

It’s funny, some of the teachers here have been telling Elizabeth and I that we look “fat”. Now, I’ve never eaten more food in my life than I did in South Africa so they may be saying this literally. However, it’s a common saying here that when someone looks healthy people will say that you look “fat”. I prefer this meaning but honestly who knows…..

Happy New Year to everyone. I hope this year brings new challenges, adventures and successes. 

A few pictures from our travels:

In the cage

Jaws........cage diving with Great White Sharks at Dyer Island

Liz and I on Table Mountain

Some of the 12 Apostles over Camp's Bay

Clouds coming over Table Mountain w Cape Town below

A Pride

Sleepy Lion

Giraffes

White Rhino

Beautiful sunset over Camp's Bay

In Franschhoek on a wine tour

With some friends after we hiked up Lion's Head to watch sunset