Full Circle...
on Tara's Ethiopian Adventure (Ethiopia), 24/Oct/2010 13:52, 34 days ago
A year since I first arrived and I have been finding it amazing reflecting on all that has changed since then. It seems like yesterday when I nervously set off for Ambo and was dropped off at lunchtime, left alone to make the most of it. I knew no one. I was the only white girl in town. I spent most of the first month pretty dazed and confused and totally exhausted as I did my best to take it all in. Now everything feels so natural. It feels like home. I have lots of friends in Ambo and we are now three volunteers here. The contrast between then and now has been highlighted for me by the arrival of Rod. Like me, he arrived in the September intake and I can't help but compare his first experiences and impressions with how I felt. As he struggles to learn names and pick up the local language it makes me realise just how comfortable I have become and how effortless it now feels to communicate (all be it in pigeon Amharic- I can't pretend to be fluent after a year) with people around me.My first real work in Ambo came in the form of a 3 week workshop that I assisted in running for newly recruited staff. It was a fantastic experience as it gave me an opportunity to work closely with others in the Education Department and get to know them as we trained 35 graduate assistants on student centred teaching methods. We are now about to begin the 3 week induction for the next set of graduate assistants this week. How has it come around again so soon?! It has been interesting noticing the difference between then and now. When I arrived last year I felt that we were all on fairly equal footing. I had more experience in active learning methods but my colleagues definitely knew more theory. Now I feel they have more than overtaken me. They have the knowledge as well as the experience and skills to match and I am so impressed by the way the whole department has been working together to prepare and deliver workshops for everyone else in the University. As well as training up 45 graduate assistants this year they have also put on a series of smaller 5 day workshops for senior lecturers. So far they have trained up over 100! Last year, although I was impressed by their attempts to teaching in a student centred manner, I wasn't always convinced by the content they felt necessary to cover in the training. This year I can't fault them on anything. They are invariably coming up with better ideas than me and not surprisingly are much better than I am at putting the material into the Ethiopian context. I have been pleased to see them using some of the resources from the Higher Diploma Programme but also even more excited when I've seen them adapt and improve on these and other resources. They really are fantastic and I am so proud to know them. Last year I commented that I thought my role here ''will not be toeducatethem in new teaching methods but rather tosupportthem as they go about trying tocreate a cultural shiftin education from a lecture based approach to one based on'active learning' ''. A year later and I think that was very true and the exciting thing is that I think I have been able to witness the start of a very real culture shift here at the University. I really can't take any credit for this change though...the Education Faculty and the University Management have been the ones to take the big steps towards making that happen. Sometimes I feel my role here was more of a scapegoat if things went wrong than an actual instigator of change. They could blame it on the crazy white person who tried to change things. And if I've done a good job of providing a viable scapegoat then I am happy-job well done! It has been exciting to be a part of it all and I'm quite confident that as I leave in December they will no longer require a scapegoat as people are seeing for themselves the positive difference active learning makes. I am however glad that another volunteer will be arriving in February to continue to offer support. I think it will be great for them to have an injection of new ideas from a new face to keep them fresh and enthused.So...a year on and things have changed. As well as changes in attitude and practice, within the University there have also been a huge addition of new buildings. Ambo town too is constantly upgrading itself. I'm often boring Rod with tales of how different it was a year ago...'this bar didn't exist', 'Solomon used to be inthatoffice', 'there never used to be anywhere you could buy pizza', 'this stadium is brand new'. No doubt next year it will continue to change(and improve) without me. I'm sure I also have changed a lot since being here (and will continue to change when I leave) but that is a whole other story.