David Judah

Ethiopia 2015A brief account of my travels and

experiences.

Volunteering

I arrived in Ethiopia on the 10th of June, eager to start volunteering but not quite sure what work I would be doing. The organisation I had chosen to volunteer with - Project T.E.N. - has the view that volunteering should be about empowering the local people to help themselves rather than just giving in an unsustainable way that ends when the volunteers leave. The organisation had already been working in Gondar for almost three years prior to my arrival, and had good links with local NGOs that we worked with during our time there. Project T.E.N. aims to establish leadership in the community and help empower the communities through informal education. In order that we could be the best volunteers possible, before the actual voluntary work began we had a week of orientation and then a further 5 days of activity planning. The orientation period consisted of a series of discussions and workshops aimed to make us consider the ethics of volunteering, allowing us to understand the profiles of the people we were helping and to make adjusting to life in the city easier. As the NGO was Israeli, aspects of Judaism were used and discussed throughout our time there, looking at biblical examples of hospitality and generosity and linking it to our work. Once the orientation period was completed, we were presented the different options for the projects we could be involved in. Since it was the summer holidays period in Gondar, rather than the usual Mobile Schools projects that run throughout the year, informal education summer camps were the main format of our teaching. There was the option to choose between: Azezo camp (a very poor neighborhood in Gondar), street and shelter kids’ camps, blind association camps, ‘Admas’ (young leaders empowerment) and also the Menna shelter for elders and people with mental disabilities. Rather than being affiliated with one specific camp, I chose to teach computers, thus allowing me to visit all of the different projects a few times during the week. It also meant I was able to do Menna. During the planning period I, along with two other people, wrote a four-week curriculum for computer lessons for beginners. This outlined what I would be teaching and was intended to be passed on to future volunteer groups as well as to be integrated into classroom curriculum in future years. The curriculum, designed for first time users, taught basic functions of a computer and how to navigate through it. Through the use of simple

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games, students were able to familiarize themselves with the mouse and keyboard so that they could then begin to use programs such as Microsoft Word and Microsoft Power Point. The children learnt how to save and open documents, how to treat the computer and generally were able to familiarize themselves with its interface. I would teach in Azezo on Mondays and Wednesdays from 9am-12pm and then again from 2pm-3pm every week. These children were between 5 and 12 years old and came from some of the poorest families in the city. Their camp was held at Aste Fasil School, a school made of reinforced mud.

It was really rewarding teaching these children, and although the classrooms were often overcrowded with up to 40 students at once, their excitement at being able to use computers made the lessons run smoothly. Local volunteers allocated through the Admas program helped me. My volunteer was called Tadale. As the aim of the project was to pass on our knowledge to the local volunteers, I would deliver the first lesson in the morning alone, and then Tadale would teach the next two with my assistance. Azezo was definitely a shock; seeing the conditions the students studied in made me feel fortunate about my own schooling. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I would teach at a camp for children living in shelters. These children had been living on the streets before being rescued by the shelters, unlike ‘street kids’ which are children that work on the streets but might be sent out by their parents to work rather go to school. The NGO that works with these kids is called Yenega Tesfa. This group were much older than in

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Azezo, with some being as old as 22. This group was the oldest age group of Shelter Kids and was being reintegrated back into society after the summer camps. They were often more chatty and less well behaved than the younger kids, however they picked up the skills we were teaching them remarkably quickly and also showed real enthusiasm for the lessons. In the afternoons on Tuesday and Thursday, I would also teach at an orphanage that shares its campus with Gondar University. The orphanage is called Bridge of Hope and it also runs its own private school for the children during the year. Their facilities were very good and many of these children were already familiar with how to use the computer and navigate through its interface. Their lessons would include more advanced functions of Microsoft Word, skills that would give them an advantage when they went to university. Aside from teaching, I’d also chosen to take part in the Menna project. When the project was initially presented to us it was intended to be one afternoon a week and was not considered a priority for Project T.E.N., however as the weeks went on I developed a special relationship with the residents of the shelter and progressed from one afternoon a week to four afternoons a week. The shelter has 12 residents, some of whom are old and some with mental disability. All of them were living on the streets before and were found through churches around the city.

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Initially the other volunteers and I would go to the shelter and just play games with the residents. After a while we began to do activities with them such as English lessons and other gardening, things that made them feel useful. They really enjoyed this, having never had people take such an interest in them, and this was by far the most rewarding aspect of my voluntary work.

Gondar For the duration of my time in Ethiopia I was living in Gondar, in the North of Ethiopia. Gondar, of the Amhara region, is 2133 meters above sea level and is very mountainous. The city has been used in the past as Ethiopia’s capital, with a few castles dotted around the city including the main castle, Fasil Castle, which has been referred to as ‘Camelot of Africa’. Emperor Fasilides, a man whose name has been used countless times for schools, and whose portrait plasters the walls of the city, founded the Gondar in 1635. His successor, Yohannes I, divided the city up so that people lived in communities according to their religion. Today there still exists a Muslim quarter of the city, a much larger quarter of the city dominated by Ethiopian Orthodox Christians, and the Falesha village where the Jewish people of Ethiopia lived before the mass immigration to Israel took place in the 1980s.

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There are currently around 207,000 people living in Gondar, a figure that is double what it was in 1994. The vast majority of people follow Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity, 84.5%, whilst 11.8% are Muslim. There are 88 individual languages spoken in Ethiopia, although many people speak Amharic, which is the national language, as well as English to a basic level. During my time in Gondar I learnt enough Amharic to get by in an interaction with someone providing a service, and made an effort to use my limited vocabulary in every situation possible. Whilst Gondar was the poorest place I stayed in and was by no stretch the prettiest place I visited, it is a very special city and the people are what make it so. It sadden me to leave Gondar; having been there for two months I felt as if it was my home and that I was more than just a tourist.

The Simien Mountains

After two and a half weeks of being in Gondar, the group had organized a trip to the Simien Mountains National Park. The drive from Gondar to the Park was itself very beautiful, but nothing in comparison to the magnificence of the mountain range. We stayed in

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concrete walled buildings that were essentially big rooms with loads of beds and little more.

In total we walked around 30km during our time there, including a visit to the top of Mount Dashen, the highest point in Ethiopia and fourth tallest peak in Africa at a staggering 4070m above sea level. Highlights of the trip included seeing a 1,500m waterfall, spotting a Walia Ibex (a type of mountain goat that can only be found in the national park), and seeing hundreds of Gelada baboons. On the final day, I also spotted a lammergeyer, a bird of prey with a massive three-meter wingspan. It was difficult to walk at such heights, despite Gondar being quite high as well, and by the end of each day I was ready to collapse. The Simien Mountains was undoubtedly the most picturesque place I visited during my time in Ethiopia.

Bahar Dar

The second trip I did was with one other friend, Miles, who I’d signed up to volunteer with, rather than with the whole group. We got a lift from some local friends down to Bahar Dar, roughly a three-hour drive. The landscape on the drive down was stunning and very different to that of Gondar.

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Bahar Dar sits on the bottom of Lake Tana and is one of the main tourist destinations in Ethiopia due to its beautiful scenery and slower pace than many other cities. Lake Tana is the source of the Blue Nile and about an hour away from Bahar Dar one can visit the Blue Nile Falls. Despite the amount of water being regulated to allow for the construction of hydropower stations, the Blue Nile Falls remains one of the most spectacular sights in the area. One afternoon, Miles and I spent the day on a boat going from island to island on Lake Tana and visiting some of the more famous and stunning 13th and 14th century monasteries. We went to different islands and peninsulas and saw how Ethiopian Orthodox monks live a totally secluded life devoted to God and distant from any temptation. On one of the islands we visited, Miles and I wandered off from the tour and found ourselves sat in someone’s mud hut, drinking beer that had been brewed in the garden and talking about life in Ethiopian and more specifically on the island. When we left, we exchanged email addresses and I am not engaged in a thirty message strong correspondence with the man. Bahar Dar was a very pretty place, however the people were much less friendly than in Gondar and we felt we were being treated as

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tourists rather than as temporary residents as was the case in Gondar. Nevertheless, it was a very fun trip.

Awra Amba

For our final weekend on the program, the group went to a small village between Gondar and Bahar Dar called Awra Amba for a seminar on the concept of charity.  The village was founded in 1980 with the goal of solving socio-economic problems through helping one another in an environment of egalitarianism. We spoke with the founder of the village, Zumra Nuru, who told us of his childhood and how from a young age he had questioned the wrongs in his society. Awra Amba has no religion, meaning historically its inhabitants were prohibited from owning land. Instead, most of the village income is earned through the production and sale of cloth and other weave work. The village is not unique for its views on equality and religion, what sets it apart from other communities is the social net that it provides for its inhabitants. There are formal committees to provide services that include: education, to receive guests, to take care of the elderly and children, and community health. They have established a literacy campaign for adults, a library, and a primary school. Despite living in a culture that practice early marriage, the

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people of Awra Amba have decided girls should marry only after reaching the age of 18, and boys at or above 22. It was an eye-opening glimpse into village life and how most people in the country live (the mud huts, not the social rules). This marked the end of my time on the volunteering program.

Addis Ababa, Shashamane and surrounding villages

After saying our goodbyes to the people of Gondar, those we’d worked with or become friendly with, we flew to Addis Ababa. For the whole duration of the trip various people had told me how chaotic Addis was, many said they didn’t like it and that it was too busy. When we arrived I could see why. A friend from Gondar met Miles and me at the airport and took us to a hotel. During that drive I took in my surroundings, such a contrast with the rest of the country; Addis was huge with towering buildings, advertisements wherever one looked. Unlike the other places we’d visited, there was little evidence of religion as an important figure in peoples’ lives. There are roughly 5,000,000 people living in Addis and it was easy to see that whilst many people were living in poverty, some people had made a name for themselves.

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Once we’d arrived at our poor excuse for a hotel and put our bags down, we went out for food and to wander the streets.

The next day we arose early, ready to drive to Shashamane. The drive itself was beautiful, I remember being amazed at the plains that seemed to stretch on for miles. Huge lone mountains dominated the skyline, big black silhouettes in the distance that sharply contrasted the vibrant greenery. The landscape was noticeably different to that of the north and I found it impressive how one country could be so diverse, both culturally and geographically. We arrived at Shashamane, and were introduced to the person who’s house we would be staying at, Ras Lumumba. He taught us a bit about Rastafarianism, explaining that Shashamane was the land that Emperor Haile Selassie gave to the exiled slaves from all over Africa. He explained that there are four types of Rasta: Bobo Shanti, Nyabhingi, Twelve Tribes of Israel and Ethiopian World Federation. Each one has different beliefs but believe that Haile Selassie is God. On our second day there, Miles and I went for a tour around the city. We went to the Banana Art Gallery; one man’s profession is making paintings and pictures entirely from banana leaves. We visited the Bobo Shanti and Nyabhingi churches, went around Rasta Village and saw various other points of interest.

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The next day we went to a place called Wundun Gnet, translating to ‘Quiet Village’. We trekked through thick jungle overgrowth for three hours, going the wrong way at one point and walking for half an hour up a steep mountain, only to realise that we’d gone the wrong way. Eventually, after falling over a few times, we arrived at a huge and magnificent waterfall in the heart of the jungle. It was amazing to see as the thick of the jungle prevented any sound of crashing water from reaching us until we were in plain view of it. We then walked back the way we’d came, again I fell over a few times having chosen terrible shoes for the occasion. We walked for another hour before reaching a hot spring pool maybe 4m2 in size. This, the tour guide told us, was supposedly where Haile Selassie was baptised. Whilst I wasn’t convinced, I still enjoyed the water – the hottest shower I’d had since the Premier Inn in Gatwick. We stayed in the spring for 20 minutes before getting dry and finishing our walk. Upon arriving back at Ras Lumumba’s countryside house (not the one in Shashamane) we were greeted with coffee and relaxed for a while before heading back to Shashamane. Our final day trip was to the beautiful city of Awasa. Awasa sits on Lake Awasa, in the Great Rift Valley, and is very clean with a much slower pace to life than many other Ethiopian cities. We walked

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along the lakeside for some time, taking in our surroundings, before deciding on somewhere to eat lunch. We sat in the sun at a lakeside restaurant and ate fish caught that morning. We then went to a recreational park, where we wandered around for a bit and relaxed. We saw Colobus and Grivet monkeys, definitely the highlight of the day, and sat by the lake just drinking in the views, but not the water because cholera. We returned to Shashamane and spent one more night there before getting the bus back to Addis Ababa. We didn’t do much in our final 24 hours in Addis; we ate food that vaguely resembled ‘Western food’ and rested before our final journey home.

Conclusion

I went away to Ethiopia with no preconceptions of how it would be. People told me that I was about to grow up and that the experience would change me. I don’t feel any different as a person in terms of my mannerisms or behaviour, however I now feel as if I have more of an understanding of how most of the world lives. Prior to my voluntary work I was very much of the mind set that if someone is dealt bad cards in life it is up to them to do something about it, but after seeing how unfortunate some people are, I realise that not everyone has the opportunity to better themselves, or the drive to do it. I am committed to making sure that this experience will not just become a ‘once in a lifetime’ thing, and I intend to maintain relationships and correspondence with the people that I met during my travels.

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