Bonga Bonga

Aha, the leak has stopped leaking! Why? Who knows, we are just thankful for the simple things in life. But to give the 'plumber' (he was a guy carrying around a wrench) his due he did say leave it a week, and he was right. Maybe the hay needs to swell or something.

Well it has been an interesting week. We went on tour for the REB to the west of Ethiopia to one of my favourite sounding places in Ethiopia – Bonga. I have to resist the urge to call it Bonga Bonga. The hours of neck-breaking (by the seatbelt) bumpy riding on the non-asphalted roads was worth the journey. Breathtaking scenery – oh so green and luscious – and there were trees – proper trees; if I squinted my eyes a bit and held my nose I could have been in England. Apparently Bonga is the birth place of coffee – but I imagine many places in Ethiopia can lay claim to this title. Our hotel didn't even sell tea – much to the chagrin of my travelling companion. But it is truly beautiful. What was also encouraging to the soul was to meet teachers and college lecturers working hard on CPD, and without per diem!! There are young teachers out there who want to improve the education of themselves and their students – and it is all the more heartening when you see how little resources they have.

I often wonder at the sense here of spending millions on 13 new universities when the school classrooms are so (literally) bare. And not just bare – but lacking sufficient numbers of desks for students, blackboards crumbling off the wall, 1 textbook per four students (if they are lucky) and 1 teacher for 75 students per class. It is funny how we look at development – all students in Ethiopia have free education right through to the end of university – including being given accommodation allowance. When I think of the debt our students come out with at the end of four years it is staggering – and yet Ethiopians all think white ferengis are loaded with money. Even in the remotest rural west in Bonga – where the sight of a white person is real cause for staring and commotion – there is the cry of one birr one birr, money money money!!! Do they get taught this at school I wonder! But again and again I am coming back to the notion of working at grass roots level – it is fashionable for NGOs working in development to alleviate poverty through working at the federal level. RUBBISH! Let's get back to simply building classrooms and giving schools and children proper places for learning with decent resources. How can we help alleviate poverty if the country won't help itself? The CPD team at the Ministry produced a manual to support teachers in their learning. All schools were to receive copies of this for their teachers and there is recognized funding set aside for this. It has been stuck in planning and procurement at the MoE for over a year now. When I kept chasing it up no-one seems bothered. How can you make a government care for its people? Why, I wonder, are we trying to introduce CPD in schools when teachers can't even get enough books and pens for theirs students and are paid a pittance for their trouble. Primary schools have on average 4,000 students and maybe 50 teachers. It gets back to the Ethiopian blame culture – no-one takes responsibility for their actions. The government blames teachers for the poor education of the students – even though it is not prepared to equip schools properly or pay its teachers a decent wage. Teachers blame their students for not learning even though they do not have the books to learn (students are regularly hit with sticks in schools). A volunteer mid-wife told me she was at a delivery and the baby was distressed and they assumed it was dead or dying. Not one of the Ethiopians took care of the baby. She had to insist on getting oxygen and stuff to revive the baby – which survived due to her care. While all this was happening all the Ethiopians in the room were laughing. When she asked about this she was told that no-one wanted to take responsibility for the baby in case it died and so avoided caring for the baby and used laughter to take away their sense of responsibility! The lack of responsibility is compounded by the fact there is so much 'Aid' money in the country that I think Ethiopians believe that is how you get money – through foreign aid and not actually working – hence the call for money, money, money from the smallest dirtiest child to the fattest well-dressed mama in the street. Paul's counterpart asks every day when Paul will give him his laptop. A friend lent an Ethiopian friend and colleague her camera and it was never returned.  When she asked for it back  her 'friend' said – I am keeping it, you are a ferengi and can afford to buy another one. When the ferengi pointed out that this was simply stealing the Ethiopian shrugged his shoulders and walked off – with camera!

Now there are genuine cases of poverty here – but it is getting harder and harder to distinguish who they are, and it is frustrating to have worked in a VSO placement where you thought you were going to be doing capacity building and sharing your skills when in actual fact they simply want you to do their work for them. So having travelled to Bonga has been a mixed experience. We were literally swarmed by children all trying to touch our skin, small children were actually being trampled on by other children to get to us. Real pop star stuff – but quite frightening and unsettling. I still do not understand the fascination they have for white people; it's a real mystery to me. People will literally stop in the street and stand and stare at you while you are having a coffee in a café. But I have come away remembering those teachers who are freely giving of their time and energy to improve things for others and their country. They are all young (in their late 2os early 30s) and I believe they are the great hope for their country. It is time for the new generation of Ethiopia to take over – and I wholeheartedly support them.