NOT an Ordinary Day...
on Tara's Ethiopian Adventure (Ethiopia), 11/May/2010 04:26, 34 days ago
Friday 6thMay,Friday wasn’t a typical day by any stretch of the imagination. I woke early to listen to the UK Election News on BBC World service and was shocked to hear about voters queuing for hours only to be turned away. That sounded like something that might happen here– not in England! The idea of a Hung Parliament also added to the surreal feeling I was experiencing. I then headed to work and at 9am received a call from Wizero Azalech (the Director of Awaro Primary School) inviting me to the official opening of the newly built library. She asked me to be there by 4 O’clock (10am) and then informed me that Biranu wouldn’t be able to make it. Biranu is the real reason the library is now complete. Without him I would never have been able to negotiate my way through all the building contracts etc. He always ended up doing all the hard work as a go-between and translator, where I just provided the money donated by Band-Aid and wrote up the reports. Unfortunately he has now been asked to be an official go-between and translator for the EU election observers and so for the last week I have found myself negotiating alone.  I was disappointed Biranu couldn’t make it as I really felt his input needed to be fully acknowledged, but I also didn’t really relish the idea of turning up at the school alone. After my experiences described in my‘bad timing...’ blog post I was determined not to arrive at the school without Habasha backup. However, the mobile network was down and I couldn’t find any of my Ethiopian friends in time. At 9.45 I therefore made my way up to the school by myself. As I sat in the Bajaj (3 wheeled vehicle) I imagined I was going to a small opening ceremony, followed by a sort of open morning for the local community to see the new library. I was therefore totally unprepared for what was in store.Embarrassingly, I slightly underestimated how long it would take me to walk from the end of the Bajaj route to the school and so arrived about 5 minutes late. To my horror I saw about 1000 of the local community plus several hundred of the students gathered in the open area in front of the school. They were all seated in neat rows and had clearly been waiting for my arrival. When I was still about 200m away they started clapping and they didn’t finish until I took my seat in a place clearly designated for guests of honour.  Thankfully I was joined by a member of the Regional Education Bureau (REB) who had very good English. As various people got up to speak he translated for me by writing comments in his notepad, in English.The ceremony began with speeches from some of the students and staff outlining major achievements of the school over the last year. One of these was clearly the building of a library. Once they had had their say the floor was given to the members of the local community. The tone soon changed from that of a prize giving ceremony to that of an AGM, and the comments from the community quickly moved from praise to concern about school standards. As my colleague wrote down the main points raised in concise English I am sure I was spared the flowery apologetics and politeness that must have been present and instead I was amused to see bullet point after bullet point of complaints and suggestions!  I was pleased to see that they didn’t just leave it at that though. Once everyone had had a chance to have their say (and there were plenty who did) they then decided to form a committee to tackle the issues raised. The newly formed committee were subsequently brought to the front and given a round of applause before being invited to the more intimate opening ceremony of the Library.   So...about 20 of us headed towards the library. I kept feeling very conscious of the fact that, as much as I tried to follow other people, I kept finding myself at the front of the procession. In front of the library they had erected two poles and between them had draped a‘ribbon’ decorated with flowers. In the entrance stood two school children and a teacher holding a beautiful bunch of freshly picked flowers. It soon became apparent that they wanted me to cut the ribbon. Wow...what an honour! As I went to cut I noticed that the beautiful ribbon was none other than a humble piece of toilet paper! So I cut, and they clapped, then we went inside and took a look. Although not all the furniture was ready in time it looked fantastic. They had strewn grass all over the floor as is traditional for special occasions and on the back wall stood 3 bookshelves proudly displaying some of the books we had bought last week. As we returned to the main crowd we were greeted by some fantastic entertainment. I watched the students dancing in the traditional Oromo style and assumed that the ceremony was drawing to a close. It was already past 12 and I was getting quite hungry.   That, however, was only the beginning. Once the entertainment finished I was nudged to the front to receive a thank you present from the school. They had bought me a traditional Oromo dress with matching jewellery and shoes. Within a few minutes I was fully decked out, dress, belt, scarf, shawl, earrings, head piece, and necklace. All the while the crowd continued to clap. I felt very humbled and undeserving. Unfortunately the matching shoes were a size to small and so through the rest of the ceremony I sat with very scrunched up feet as other teachers and students came up to receive prizes for excellent work. The prizes were followed by a‘short’ drama which actually ended up being about half and hour long! The drama was about how the school can help orphans and students affected by HIV and AIDs and the importance of inclusive education. It was clearly quite entertaining although I couldn’t understand a word as it was performed in Afan Oromo rather than Amharic. Meanwhile the sun was beating fiercely down and I was slowly cooking as was wearing the dress over my other clothes.  Feeling rather light headed from the sun, I hoped that the end of the drama marked the end of the ceremony and indeed for most people it appeared it did. However, I was immediately whisked back to the Library for more photos and a coffee ceremony. Unfortunately, I had to make as quick an exit as possible as I was already over an hour late for lunch and I had the only key for our house. I knew Maggie would be waiting, very hungry and frustrated. Wizero Azalech was very understanding about my dilemma with the key and so didn’t expect me to stay for the full 3 rounds of coffee that normally go with a coffee ceremony. However, I was there long enough to enjoy a nice cold Fanta and a lovely greasy Bombilino (the Ethiopian equivalent to a donut) and to be thoroughly embarrassed by another round of speeches in my honour. There was lots of repetition so that it sounded like chanting and after a while I was expected to join in. After each sentence I was expected to say‘Amen’ along with everyone else. Having grown up going to church I felt quite comfortable with that until the kind guy from the REB started translating the some of the sentences that we were‘amen-ing’ to. Apparently, amongst other things, I was agreeing to have lots of children! For some reason my mind flipped to the Indiana Jones‘Temple of Doom’ as they continued to chant. I guess I felt quite overwhelmed as I sat there in my full Oromo gear hearing line after line of kind words that I really didn’t deserve. All that chanting did give me time though to decide that I really do want to help this school out long-term (perhaps their brainwashing worked?!) and so thought about how I might be able to link it up with my old Primary School in England.  I arrived back at work 2 hours late for Maggie (sorry Maggie) but just in time to accompany Solomon to an interdepartmental quiz being held in the main hall. The 3000+ seat auditorium was filled with excited students. In between rounds of questions different groups of students got up to entertain us with songs, dancing and poems. Thankfully the quiz was entirely in English so I was able to keep up and was quite chuffed that I knew most of the answers. One of the deciding questions did flummox me slightly though; Q -‘what do you get when you put 8 on its side?’ A-‘Infinity’. After the quiz I got further updates on the election from the internet and managed to catch my Mom on Facebook. Inspired by the recent political events, I then decided to treat myself to watching the TV series‘West Wing’ from the beginning. I think it may well be the best TV series ever written...a great end to an incredible day!It really was a mindbogglingly amazing day! I didn’t achieve any work but I was thoroughly entertained from start to finish! I promise my life is not normally so interesting here in Ambo. Friday 6thMay is a day, I am sure, I will never forget!