Sunday 8th September07
on J and M in Assosa (Ethiopia), 09/Sep/2007 13:15, 34 days ago
Blog Sunday 8th September 07This has been a stressful week for Jeremy as he had to get a bid out requesting companies to tender to write manuals for training at the MI. This is part of the 1 million birr given by the Canadian NGO, CIDA.There is a great deal of bureaucracy involved in the procurement procedures in Ethiopia, but we can hardly complain about this and the level of corruption at the same time. It has taken all week to produce this 36 page document and the plan was to copy it and post to the different companies on Friday afternoon but…. the one and only man who is in charge of the photocopier and has the one and only key was absent on Friday pm! So no photocopying. This is important as the companies have to be given 30 days to bid so time is important – at least to us it is. As this grant from CIDA needs to be spent before the end of December we do not have much time.This week we also went to a wake, it was another MI expedition as we left the office an hour early and everyone on the bus was involved. One of the MI employees, the postman’s brother had died, apparently he was too fond of ‘chat’ and alcohol. During the course of the day we learnt that the Bureau Head of the Assosa Municipality Bureau and some of his colleagues had been put in jail for corruption. This Bureau Head was another brother of our postman and another brother is the Head of the Supreme Court in Assosa – an interesting family. Just shows the difference in your position if you play politics.We all visited the compound where I would guess the whole family lives. There was a tent like structure open at the sides with forms at one end and at the other side about 10 men sitting on mattresses. We followed our colleagues and sat on the forms, there was no communication between either group. After a few minutes it suddenly dawned on me that I was the only female on the forms and there were no women to be seen. I alerted our Ethiopian colleague sitting beside us and he said it was not a problem. I realised the women had all gone into the house and I decided it would draw more attention if I got up and moved. I apologised to our most ardent Muslim at the MI and he assured me it would not have given offence. We were given chick peas and hot sweet tea and left after about 10 minutes.This week Mulatu’s brother,Kefiyalew, aged 13 has been in hospital. He was at the market on Saturday and on Sunday his mother sent him to walk the 3 hours back to Assosa as she was worried about the swelling on his neck. Originally we were told by Mulatu that the swelling was on his brain but we think now it might have been a boil on his neck – apparently it was the size of a fist. He stayed with .Mulatu on Sunday night and on Monday their older brother, Kidanu, took him to a hospital run by nuns – Mulatu referred to it as the ‘Catholic hospital’. We were intrigued as we had never heard about it although it is run by ferenjis. We do not know any other ferenjis here at the moment. Interesting Mulatu had never heard of this hospital before now. We visited it on Saturday morning as we thought it might be useful for us to know its location. It is just like a private house and there is no sign from the outside it is a hospital. Mulatu’s brother came out to speak to us and he had a beautifully clean bandage on his neck (having visited the hospital I really appreciated the difference), he was clean and well dressed. He had a gadget on his arm for injections, possibly antibiotics, vitamins ?He was told last Monday he would stay in for a week and there is no charge. We did not see any ferenjis but Mulatu thinks the Sister in charge is Spanish. It sounds an excellent acquisition for Assosa especially as I have heard recently that the staff in the Assosa hospital sell off the drugs to private clinics and records are not kept.