Living here
on My VSO Ethiopian Adventures (Ethiopia), 11/Oct/2010 10:34, 34 days ago
It is early days, but Jenny and I, the VSO colleague assigned to the same institution, are sharing a compound which offers a very pleasant space. Each of us has our own bedroom and bathroom on either side of an open courtyard and we share a central kitchen. The courtyard has 2 small garden beds with shady trees and shrubs and creeping vine with grapes. It is located on a small residential dirt road where all the houses are protected by high walls and large gates (no not like theUKor SA!), some are very impressive and which open up to compounds with open courtyards in the centre. It’s a very local suburb, full of regular inhabitants, and they are all starting to wonder about these ‘ferenjis’ that appear to have moved in with the local population !As is the case throughout the facilities are quite basic and as this is accommodation which has been renovated and newly acquired by the university, we are starting from square one with furniture and fittings. In fact we had to stay in a hotel the first night as the accommodation was not ready.Without a current volunteer here, we are having to learn the ropes by ourselves and this proving to be quite challenging. Firstly we have no idea where we live and we can not speak the language! There are no maps, the roads here have no names or numbers and there don’t seem to be defined suburbs. As the town is very spread out its impossible to walk it also because of the heat, and little ‘bajajs’, or tuk-tuk taxis are the dominant form of transport. As the people are generally very poor here, there are few cars as such and the wide and impressive roads are mainly full of these little 3 wheeled, blue and white taxis. Other vehicles tend to be other forms of public transport such as cramped mini buses or contract taxis, lorries or the occasional impressive 4 wheel drive vehicle operated by the various NGOs working in the area. So the roads are quietin comparison to other cities and mainly filled with scuttling blue an white ant like bajajs. Did someone say there were 40, 000 registered bajajs here? It wouldn’t surprise me.There is no defined shopping area, or CBD and shopping is procured through a mix of road side stalls or just street traders, small shops  scattered along the different streets, the few small‘supermarkets’ selling some western type produce, or the bigger markets. We really have not been able to suss all this out yet and are having some difficulty trying to buy everything we need from vegetables to buckets to fly spray to sheets. We have discovered a small trader who sells bread from  the house a few doors along and  few basic veggies are obtainable all over the place (fruit, apart from bananas,‘muz’and oranges seem in short supply at the moment, but that will go with the season. I think Papaya is about to happen – joy!) We have now finished our supply of tuna fish and would love to find a source of fresh eggs. However, we are managing and learning as we go.An insect expert would have a field day at our house. At dusk the army of nocturnalaerial firepower starts to appear. I must have counted 12 different types attracted to my desk light. So its difficult to work after dark with the light on as we do not have netting over the windows. There is very little that seems to bite, sting or pass disease, its simply a very active air space.We will be meeting more colleagues from the university soon so, I will be able to update you on work matters soon.