Time for an upbeat post, though you can be sure that it won't be all positive! I've been talking to a teacher, also a VSO volunteer, from one of our Rural Schools Solar Power (RSSP) project schools and it's worth summarising what she said since the effect of getting one of the installations has been galvanising.
Foro, the school and village in question, is in the Northern Red Sea Zoba fairly close to the coast. In fact it's not far from the ancient Auxumite Red Sea port of Adulis. Here, the climate can be infernally hot and food and water have been in short supply of late all of which conspired to lower morale amongst teaching staff.
Add to that the effect of not having an electricity supply (at the school, the nearby town manages 3 hours from it's generator per day) and fighting boredom becomes another factor. However, since the installation of a solar power pack as part of the RSSP things have changed both for students and teachers of the school.
It has been found that, not only can the panels run 5 full-size computers for most of the day, they can also run lighting for all of the evening, allowing teachers to follow the MoE's Distance Learning classes and also allowing the occasional spot of recreation in the form of playing music.
It should be emphasised that these are quite small (1.5Kw) as solar installations go and yet, the effect has been striking and my colleague even talks of it being such a morale booster that it has made all the difference this term.
A while ago I was going on about Eritrea’s advantages for Solar Power, and now we have concrete evidence that it can make a huge difference. Personally, I would like to see a concerted effort to deliver thin-client technology (many more workstations run from the same power supply; units sealed against dust and heat; much better control over computer viruses) in conjunction with medium-size solar power packs to all remote schools in this country.
It won’t happen for a while. Europe will have to exhaust its supply of high-power-consumption CRT’s and PC’s before Eritrea gets significant donations of LCD’s. But, it appears, we have finally made a good start.
Friday, 27 February 2009
Saturday, 21 February 2009
Monday, 16 February 2009
Food Security?
Saturday morning and there's an insistent tapping at the gate. Upon opening it, it's no surprise to find "The Farmer" standing there in his suit which has seen better days. We've mentioned him before, he comes to work in our garden from time to time and is especially useful in the rainy seasons when things go wild. Outside the rainy seasons there's not much to be done, but he seems to have become one of our charity cases (yes, yes we know this does not represent the sustainable part of what we're doing here) and so we give him money, bread and bananas from time to time. Today he shows up with a broad nearly-toothless grin as usual and explains in a mixture of Italian and Tigrinya that there's just no work around in Asmara at the moment. Is it my imagination or does he look even more hollow cheeked than usual? Is his dark leathery skin stretched even tighter over his facial bones? Perhaps it's that we had been talking about hunger in the countryside just the previous evening. He apologetically takes the money on offer and leaves.
Food is never far away from the top of the list as a topic of conversation in Eritrea, even amongst the small group of diplomats we now seem to know, it's just that it's difficult to take complaints about having to use powdered milk seriously from them when the food situation is worsening for the country as a whole and powdered milk is way too expensive for the vast majority of the people.
Increasingly we seem to be seeing more people begging on the streets and there are some examples of very thin older women amongst them. They really don't look all that much more healthy than some of those featured in images from past famine campaigns. As for the rest there are very few overweight Eritreans and those that are we always suspect of being here on a visit from a developed country.
Volunteers as well almost all lose weight during their time here (once again I'm not suggesting that we have a hard life in comparison to the locals, it has to do with a switch to a mainly vegetarian diet and the odd bout of sickness) and I've started to see this in myself, though Caroline and I are virtually the only volunteers who haven't really been ill yet. I even have ribs emerging once again after years buried under layers of blubber; I should be used to it really as I was really very thin at school ... Biafran, match-stick man and carcass were just some of the (kinder) names I was called.
Back to the point, though, the food situation never seems to get better so we really don't know where this one is heading particularly combined with the ongoing lack of fuel and, in the meantime, we'll just have to keep our charity cases going as long as we can.
P
Food is never far away from the top of the list as a topic of conversation in Eritrea, even amongst the small group of diplomats we now seem to know, it's just that it's difficult to take complaints about having to use powdered milk seriously from them when the food situation is worsening for the country as a whole and powdered milk is way too expensive for the vast majority of the people.
Increasingly we seem to be seeing more people begging on the streets and there are some examples of very thin older women amongst them. They really don't look all that much more healthy than some of those featured in images from past famine campaigns. As for the rest there are very few overweight Eritreans and those that are we always suspect of being here on a visit from a developed country.
Volunteers as well almost all lose weight during their time here (once again I'm not suggesting that we have a hard life in comparison to the locals, it has to do with a switch to a mainly vegetarian diet and the odd bout of sickness) and I've started to see this in myself, though Caroline and I are virtually the only volunteers who haven't really been ill yet. I even have ribs emerging once again after years buried under layers of blubber; I should be used to it really as I was really very thin at school ... Biafran, match-stick man and carcass were just some of the (kinder) names I was called.
Back to the point, though, the food situation never seems to get better so we really don't know where this one is heading particularly combined with the ongoing lack of fuel and, in the meantime, we'll just have to keep our charity cases going as long as we can.
P
Tuesday, 10 February 2009
Nothing much
Asmara is looking good, well it always looks good but especially now, as the weather is perfect – completely blue skies – and there’s flowers everywhere. That, combined with the gently decaying art deco architecture makes for a very relaxing walk to work.
Arriving at work however is something else. We are revising Grade 3, writing Grade 5 and planning Grade 8, sometimes all at the same time it feels. It’s definitely one of our busy periods. We could do with several more pairs of hands.
A few days ago I had lots of ideas for including in this blog entry, suddenly my mind has gone blank. If any of my brain cells decide to return I’ll write more later in the week.
C
Arriving at work however is something else. We are revising Grade 3, writing Grade 5 and planning Grade 8, sometimes all at the same time it feels. It’s definitely one of our busy periods. We could do with several more pairs of hands.
A few days ago I had lots of ideas for including in this blog entry, suddenly my mind has gone blank. If any of my brain cells decide to return I’ll write more later in the week.
C
Tuesday, 3 February 2009
Old and New Volunteers.
-----------------------
It's almost exactly one year since we arrived in Asmara and, while work sometimes seems to progress very slowly, it's been very eventful in other ways.
We talked about the wedding of one of our original group (there were seven of us arriving together this time last year and one left in October having completed her planned short placement) last weekend - very fast work really! Well, this weekend two more of the seven left early for various reasons ... and then there were four. So we have to say "all the best" Tom in your bicycle travels in West Africa and Jennie in your new volunteer post in Uganda and that we're going to miss you.
Coincidentally, there were a couple of parties to attend on Friday evening thrown by the expat community meaning Tom was able to go out with a pretty good hangover early Sunday. With a lot of volunteers being in town and, due to the kindness of Sean and Julie, we descended en masse to take advantage of a different world complete with barbequeued sausages and shrimps; and alcohol. There was not much food left at the end (VSO's have been likened to locusts before).
In the summer our original group of seven will become only two - we still intend to stay for our two years though, I must admit, we're already planning a very long wander through North Africa and Spain on our way back to the UK delaying our return until the spring of 2010.
The cycle continues though. The six new January volunteers have finally arrived, visa problems have been sorted out, they've been welcomed by us and, after two weeks of In-Country Training, they'll be on their way to placements as far away as Barentu and Agordat in the West of Eritrea.
The Motorised Wheelchair Appeal.
--------------------------------
We haven't had quite the response we wanted and the slide of the pound versus the dollar has moved the goalposts a little but, on the other hand, our house in Cambridge has just been rented for the next two years so we feel we can make up the shortfall. Please, if you do feel like contributing, send your cheques (any currency) to the VSO address on the left - it's never too late.
For us the next step is to move on and try and find one of the machines in question even if it means having to import one ourselves ... at least we still have time.
As for Dawit - he's on the same street corner every day, still selling his small items on the street, still ready with a cheery "Kemay hadirkum?", "Dehan do?", "Serah kemay?", "Kulu tsebuq?" and so on ...
Early Morning in Asmara
-----------------------
This morning (Tuesday 3rd) up at 5:30 am and out by 6:20 due to Caroline taking a bus to the Mai Nehfi technical school on a teaching assignment. At 6:30 the streets are really empty and we almost have the sunrise to ourselves apart from a few scurrying ghostly figures (women in traditional white shawls). Such is the lack of traffic that we can clearly hear early morning birdsong and I have two thoughts - "life is not so bad" and "I really need a coffee".
P
-----------------------
It's almost exactly one year since we arrived in Asmara and, while work sometimes seems to progress very slowly, it's been very eventful in other ways.
We talked about the wedding of one of our original group (there were seven of us arriving together this time last year and one left in October having completed her planned short placement) last weekend - very fast work really! Well, this weekend two more of the seven left early for various reasons ... and then there were four. So we have to say "all the best" Tom in your bicycle travels in West Africa and Jennie in your new volunteer post in Uganda and that we're going to miss you.
Coincidentally, there were a couple of parties to attend on Friday evening thrown by the expat community meaning Tom was able to go out with a pretty good hangover early Sunday. With a lot of volunteers being in town and, due to the kindness of Sean and Julie, we descended en masse to take advantage of a different world complete with barbequeued sausages and shrimps; and alcohol. There was not much food left at the end (VSO's have been likened to locusts before).
In the summer our original group of seven will become only two - we still intend to stay for our two years though, I must admit, we're already planning a very long wander through North Africa and Spain on our way back to the UK delaying our return until the spring of 2010.
The cycle continues though. The six new January volunteers have finally arrived, visa problems have been sorted out, they've been welcomed by us and, after two weeks of In-Country Training, they'll be on their way to placements as far away as Barentu and Agordat in the West of Eritrea.
The Motorised Wheelchair Appeal.
--------------------------------
We haven't had quite the response we wanted and the slide of the pound versus the dollar has moved the goalposts a little but, on the other hand, our house in Cambridge has just been rented for the next two years so we feel we can make up the shortfall. Please, if you do feel like contributing, send your cheques (any currency) to the VSO address on the left - it's never too late.
For us the next step is to move on and try and find one of the machines in question even if it means having to import one ourselves ... at least we still have time.
As for Dawit - he's on the same street corner every day, still selling his small items on the street, still ready with a cheery "Kemay hadirkum?", "Dehan do?", "Serah kemay?", "Kulu tsebuq?" and so on ...
Early Morning in Asmara
-----------------------
This morning (Tuesday 3rd) up at 5:30 am and out by 6:20 due to Caroline taking a bus to the Mai Nehfi technical school on a teaching assignment. At 6:30 the streets are really empty and we almost have the sunrise to ourselves apart from a few scurrying ghostly figures (women in traditional white shawls). Such is the lack of traffic that we can clearly hear early morning birdsong and I have two thoughts - "life is not so bad" and "I really need a coffee".
P
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