Solar Power Project Update

As I mentioned previously, one of my ICT tasks is to participate in the Schools' Solar Power Project aimed at schools which have little immediate prospect of having enough electricity supplied to be able to run meaningful ICT training for school and community.

In the past few days we have travelled to four remote schools to make preliminary assessments and to get project documents signed. There is a second trip planned for this week towards the West of the country.

As a reminder the project was kicked-off by a former VSO volunteer from Ireland, John Brogan, and is funded in the main by the Irish Government charity Irish Aid (www.irishaid.gov.ie). VSO has now taken responsibility for running the project and is working with the Eritrean Ministry of Education as well as with the donors.

The following is a log of the first trip - it may be of interest to some but, since it's possible I may have rambled on a bit about aspects which interest me, perhaps it should be skipped by most. Suffice it to say that we were five (John - VSO Country Director, Yakiem - VSO Proramme Manager, Abdou Saleh - MOE Representative and Language expert, Zerit - MOE Driver and me) and that we travelled into some quite remote areas of the eastern lowlands.

Day 0 pm, Wednesday 4th June 2008 - Massawa
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The start of the first of two trips, this one will take in schools in She'eb, Foro, Tio and Afambo. The first two mentioned are in the Northern Red Sea (Semienawi Qeyh Bahri) zoba and the second two are in the Southern Red Sea (Debubawi Qeyh Bahri) zoba. Pronunciation of these place names in Tigrinya is not always as straightforward as the roman alphabet rendition suggests - for example the 'Ti' in Tio is a popped sound and the 'o' is a pharyngeal stop ... best not to think about it and just try and imitate someone!

Today the intention is to set off in the evening and take the steep and winding road down to Massawa in order to get a start on the journey South along the Red Sea shore tomorrow.

To get kind of tectonic for a moment - geologically Eritrea is all about the Great Rift Valley and its two northern relations (the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden - all three together form a 'Y', more about this later) whose pushing apart will eventually result in Somalia wandering off into the Indian Ocean somewhere as the African plate splits into two.

In our current timescale, though, all we need to be concerned about is the long descent of one of the valley sides to the Red Sea coastal plain and Eritrea's principal port of Massawa, much damaged in the long struggle against the neighbouring country, followed by the journey into Danakalia.

Having dropped to the lowlands it feels much warmer and it's dark by the time we get there which probably means lots of mosquitoes. Overnight it's feverishly sweaty and the air conditioner is way too noisy to leave on - the bed-net works well though.

Day 1, Thursday 5th June 2008 - Foro and Tio
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Up at six to take a few photos of the sunrise over a glassily calm Massawa port, and for scrambled eggs Eri-style (with green chilis). Leaving Massawa we head South-East along a well paved road (apart form the odd excursion across dry river-beds), the scenery is similar to the other parts of the Eritrean lowlands I have seen - semi desert dotted with hardy acacia bushes but I expect that to change as we progress.

We arrive in Foro before lunch and immediately search for Foro school. We find it by driving in amongst the stick houses (I think they're called ari's by the Afar, they're made with sticks and matting - I'll send some pictures of some to our photo publisher soon) which are common to some of the semi-nomadic peoples of Eritrea.

Foro school seems to the untrained eye (me!) to be bleak and inhospitable and an unlikely place to install technology but when you speak to the school director you realise that efforts have already been made to get computer training up and running by renting a room in the town (which can only be used for an hour or two a day) and the designated room for the new computers is quite secure and suitable - we still need to think about heat and dust, though.

After our first document signing we’re heading South along the (now unsurfaced, bumpy in places and very dusty) coast road towards Tio. The heat is still rising. We're now moving into Danakalia (also known as the Afar triangle) which has the reputation of being one of the hottest places on Earth and which is getting close to the junction of the 'Y' in the Great Rift Valley system. Further inland part of it is below sea level (the Danakil depression) but we won't be going there this time.

This is where a lot of the Rift Valley system action is currently taking place - it is said to be one of the only two places on the planet where the mechanisms of ocean-floor spreading can be observed on dry land (the other is Iceland).

The view from the car is of a desert landscape seared by a very hot sun sometimes with the blue ribbon of the Red Sea in the distance. On the occasions we get out of the car it's like stepping into an oven. We're driving along on the flat for the most part but always there are volcanic bulges and craters and, in the distance, the mountain wall which represents the Red Sea Valley side.

The Tio school visit is a little less successful than Foro - the school director is not available to sign the VSO project documents and there are doubts about whether the school is about to get some form of generated power or not. We left it to be decided later.

Continuing on the road South-East, from time to time we see people living by the sea and also evidence of the (we think Japanese-sponsored) mangrove project. Also there are tantalising views of wildlife as well as free-range camels everywhere - antelope, desert fox, ostriches and an osprey. Controversially I'm also claiming a sighting of a lone spotted hyena in the half-light (no photo) at the end of the day just before we stop for the night.

We spend the night at Idi on the Red Sea coast, arriving there we are treated to the unusual sight of rows of beds in the main street (the only street) - after a fish dinner we settle down to a night under the stars lulled to sleep by the insistent drum beat of not so distant Eritrean music (b-dum, b-dum, b-dum ...). The beds? Apparently Idi is an overnight stop for buses on the Asmara-Assab route.

Day 2, Friday 6th June 2008 - Afambo
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Up at 5:00 and on the road by 5:30 without breakfast we turn inland towards Afambo school - now we're really getting more into Danakalia and the landscape under the pre-dawn light starts to look Martian - shades of brown and red streaked with the black of recent lava flows together with threatening-looking volcanic craters and domes. As the sun comes up we also cross the beds of rivers which look like run-off channels from the heavy highland rains and which make for detours to find suitable crossing places. The journey from Idi to Afambo takes 3 hours.

Afambo school is in a spectacularly austere location. On arrival we take breakfast of tea and bread which tastes delicious. The school compound consists of loose grey stones surrounded by a wire fence with a mountain backdrop. Like Tio it's a boarding school providing education for Afar children and appears to be very well run. Once again I'm impressed by the school director who has already instigated ICT education in Afambo village with limited resources, who already has a good idea of what he wants from the installation of a solar power pack and who has run the school in this remote spot for the past 4 years.

A note about the Afar: A wild desert people who take tourists hostage and who will kill for a rifle, a vehicle or maybe money. At least that's what you may think if you read the few press articles available about them (mind you, the western press seldom fails to include the words "war-torn" when describing Eritrea as a whole) ... the problem with that view is that most Afar lead a pastoral life herding goats, sheep and cattle and generally struggling hard to survive.

We also learn that Afar culture specifically excludes beating children and includes them in discussion at an early age. So teachers at Afambo have to learn to negotiate around difficult behaviour in marked contrast to some highland examples we've heard about. Afar people seem to me to be quite shy at first and, especially here, I don't feel able to photograph people close-up. With the exception of a boy who specifically asked to have his picture taken.

Afar culture also includes sharpening of the four upper front teeth (not all Afar, but common to both male and female) - possibly very painful, though not as painful as FGM which still commonly practised.

We make it back to Idi for lunch and then it's on to the strangely modern hotel at Ghela Alo (built in preparation for a big push into tourism which hasn't come so far?) in the middle of extensive lava fields on a headland where we have dinner and pass another very warm night.

Day 3, Saturday 7th June 2008 - She'eb
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Up at 6:00 this time and on the road by 6:30. A short while later we stop for a swim in the Red Sea. We pick the wrong spot, however, and have to wade out a long way to get any depth at all. At one point Abdou asks me "Have you ever been to Morecambe?" which is not so absurd a question as it first sounds if you think about it but makes me laugh anyway.

We arrive back in Massawa for lunch and here I'm going to pause to go into competition with "The Lonely Planet" - Luna Hotel, Massawa - "Best chips in Eritrea" (Rated thermally, dimensionally and texturally).

She'eb is part-way back to Asmara then turn right and head out for about 60km - it's home to members of the Tigre people who, like the Afar, are semi-nomadic and mainly Muslim and who also live in stick houses. She'eb school is again in a hot, bleak location but again the enthusiasm of the school director for providing the means to properly timetable ICT classes is undeniable. He also enthuses about an outgoing VSO volunteer, Sharon, who has just finished there.

As we leave She'eb we visit Sharon's house (one built room and one stick-house room) to pick up the heavier part of her and VSO's belongings.

The children here are shyly (at first) friendly, all want their photos taking and are happy to take our empty plastic water bottles as presents. Some of them seem a little confused by the mention of Teacher Sharon's name and I'm even called "Mister Sharon" on a couple of occasions.


In Conclusion
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I may well be back at all the schools mentioned when Phaesun (the German company selling the equipment to the project) installs the solar power packs since we will do the computer installation and preliminary training at the same time. On balance it looks as though the project could be of great benefit - there seems to be a real desire to at least make a start on computer teaching even in these really remote and underprivileged locations and, we are told, that there is always a percentage of students who are really keen to get just any computer experience at all. The challenge is how to sustain the project - I'm already having nightmares about equipment failure (this happened in the pilot project) and, as others have pointed out, one of the main ICT troubles in Africa is lots of installed equipment and very little teaching material beyond learning the standard "office" packages - which is why I'm trying to gather information on computer-based teaching content as a side-project.

P