Introduction

After two years of living and working in Essex, I decided it was time to leave behind the job insecurity of Nortel Networks and seek a new challenge. In September 2002 I started a placement with VSO (Voluntary Service Overseas) at Wachemo High School in Hossana, a small town in the Ethiopian Highlands. Hossana lies at an altitude of 7,500 feet, a little less than 150 miles (an eight hour bus ride!) south of Addis Ababa, the capital. The school is for 15-18 year olds and has just under one hundred staff who teach over 4000 pupils, one third girls and two thirds boys. The school is one of the oldest in southern Ethiopia, founded in 1967 by the Emperor Haile Selassie on one of his visits to the region. It has a reputation for good results in the ECLSE, the Ethiopian equivalent of GCSE/O-Level. The pupils work in two shifts, one in the morning and one in the afternoon with over 100 students in many of the classes. For two years I worked mainly as a physics teacher but in addition provided basic computer training for the teachers, laboratory training for the physics teachers and helped run the HIV/AIDS awareness club. From September 2004 until March 2005 I changed my job slightly. I gave computer and laboratory training for teachers in two other high schools about an 20 km from Hossana. In April 2005 I returned to the UK.

Photographs

Click here for photographs of Ethiopia.

A Day in the Life of a VSO Volunteer

This is an article that I wrote for VSO to use for publicity about the work of VSO volunteers in Ethiopia

When I reached the bus station in Hossana I could hear the conductors shouting out the names of the different destinations. My heart sank because the bus for Morsito was undoubtedly the oldest bus in Ethiopia, even the rope holding it together was ancient. Nevertheless, I climbed in and grabbed a place pursued by a boy selling socks and packets of tissues. The bus soon filled up but there always seemed to be room for one more person, until finally all the seats for one person had two people on them and all the seats for two people had three. The bus slowly creaked out of the bus station and started bumping along the gravel road with dust billowing out behind it. As it wove its way along the winding road from Hossana towards my destination of Morsito I looked out at the view of rolling hills, a rich green colour and covered with fields of wheat gently swaying in the wind. Apart from the false banana plants (Enset) and circular mud huts I could believe I was looking at the British countryside, and certainly nothing like the arid landscape most people in the Europe imagine Ethiopia to be.

The bus eventually shook its way into the small town of Morsito and glancing out of the window I saw a line of people waiting to fill up their brightly coloured plastic jerry cans with water from the town tap. Some had donkeys to carry the water back to their homes others would heave it themselves. I headed straight to the school. Morsito High School is a fairly typical Ethiopian High School. Blocks of four classrooms, built with concrete walls and corrugated iron roofs, are arranged in a grassy compound with a flagpole in the centre. The students come in two shifts, half the students in the morning and the other half in the afternoon. This allows twice as many students to learn but nevertheless the class sizes are almost one hundred with three of four squeezed onto each desk. For the last two years I was teaching students, forcing my way through the non-existent gaps between desks to mark class work, trying vainly to remember the names of the 600 students I taught, making them laugh with physics demonstrations made out of old bits of rubbish and gradually building their confidence to answer questions orally. Now I’m spending all my time giving training to the teachers which hopefully will improve the education of many more students than I can personally teach.

I met a group of teachers and after the customary long greetings we went together to a restaurant for lunch. As usual the only option was the staple food of Ethiopia which is a large circular flat bread called injera. Curry like dishes are placed on top and you then tear pieces of injera off with your right hand, wrap up the food in it making a small parcel which you then pop into your mouth, hence no cutlery is required. I’m a bit worried that when I get back to England that I’ll have forgotten how to use a knife and fork. We all ate off the same large plate making the meal a very sociable. Afterwards they quizzed me on whether people eat injera in England and I replied not really but that there are a few Ethiopian restaurants in London.

In the afternoon I helped the Biology teachers prepare a laboratory practical. Opening the door to the lab store we were greeted with a strong smell of chemicals. There are many shelves pilled high with glassware and chemicals most of it has never been used and it is all covered with a layer of many years dust. Last week the lab technician and I arranged and labelled everything so we could find all the chemicals we needed and we practiced the tests for different food stuffs. As the solution in the test tube slowly began to change to a purple colour indicating that protein was present, the teachers became excited as they saw for the first time practically something they have taught for many years just using white chalk. At that instant I knew that the process of making the science teaching practical had just begun and I felt the effort was all worth while: the three weeks fighting bureaucracy for the letter to give me permission to work in Morsito, leaving behind family and friends in England, the bumpy bus rides and the endless children shouting ‘ferenj’ (white person) at me. Then my mind came back to earth and I realised it was time for me to start the computer training session.

Two years ago the high school received more that 20 computers but they since then they have been stored in their cardboard boxes in the store room because no-one knew how to use them. By the end of the training the teachers will be able to use the computer to prepare their own exams and handouts as well as using electronic encyclopaedias. Today I taught them how to use the computers to write in the Amharic alphabet. Amharic is the national language of Ethiopia. This is the part of the course I enjoy most as it gives the teachers a sense that not everything on the computers is from abroad. The teachers all laughed as I wrote my name in the Amharic alphabet. Today we were lucky and the electricity stayed on the whole time. Most days the electricity will go off at least for a few minutes. My job then becomes that of an entertainer to stop the teachers becoming bored and at the same time hoping the electricity will return. By the time I finished the second group of teachers it was completely dark and together with the teachers I stumbled my way into town by the flickering light of a torch with almost dead batteries.

Voluntary Service Overseas

Contact Details

I can be contacted by email at simon@ethiopia.org.uk.