Asmara is in a hot sleepy mood at the moment. Everyone walks slowly and on the side of the road that’s in the shade. It seems to be affecting me mentally as well as physically although it could just be senility setting in. The big rains should start in a month or so if I remember correctly. It’s amazing to think we’ve been here over a year (16 months in fact). This second year is flying by.
Independence Day has been and gone and the soldiers have left the streets.
The regional director for East Africa arrives at the weekend so maybe there’ll be some movement in the stalemate we’re all living in. Tune in this time next week for the latest thrilling update.
C
Thursday 28 May 2009
Monday 18 May 2009
Asmara children
We meet a lot of children, not only in the classrooms, but on the streets, for the western concept of having to guard your children 24 hours a day does not exist here. Obviously in the villages where the likelihood is that everyone will know every one else and their families, this is to be expected but amazingly enough this is also true in the centre of Asmara. Our twice daily walks to and from work, involve as well as countless greetings to the many adults we know, many encounters with children. Most kids here will shout out “Hi” some of them following this with “How arrrrrre you” and “What is yourrrr name” Some get a bit silly but most are very friendly and we nearly always make a point of saying something back. At this point many of them dissolve into fits of giggles but quite a lot will attempt to hold a conversation in their newly acquired school English. Anyway the point of this was to say that these kids range in age from about 18 months to 15 and we meet them while they’re out playing on the street. The only “toys” you’ll ever see are footballs and even these are often improvised. The little ones traipse around behind and are looked after by the bigger ones. The bigger ones in their turn are looked after by any passing adults. Adults will stop and intervene if they see a group of boys arguing or fighting (rare as it is), if they feel a child needs help in crossing a busy (by Asmara standards) street and even if they feel the children might be making a nuisance of themselves with the strange white foreigners. Adults look after all children and I have to say the children are very respectful and obedient back. I shudder to think what might happen if a passing adult in the UK tried to act in the same way.
There’s two little ones (2-3 years old) who I’ve been saying “hello” to every day. (I’m on a one woman crusade to get kids saying hello instead of hi.) These two have never been exposed to “hi” and now say “hello” back to me in what sounds like a reflection of my voice complete with London diphthongs.
Asmara beer is back, albeit rationed and only available after 7 o’clock. Word is that it’s not for ever, just for Independence (May 24th) but it’s a very welcome novelty.
There’s been a canary singing in the garden.
C
There’s two little ones (2-3 years old) who I’ve been saying “hello” to every day. (I’m on a one woman crusade to get kids saying hello instead of hi.) These two have never been exposed to “hi” and now say “hello” back to me in what sounds like a reflection of my voice complete with London diphthongs.
Asmara beer is back, albeit rationed and only available after 7 o’clock. Word is that it’s not for ever, just for Independence (May 24th) but it’s a very welcome novelty.
There’s been a canary singing in the garden.
C
Tuesday 12 May 2009
Out of Africa - Maybe
In this kind of are-we-or-aren’t-we leaving limbo in which we find ourselves I’ve had a little time to think about things I've read recently – always guaranteed to result in a load of spurious nonsense being posted to this blog!
To start off though, the current VSO situation is that at least one management-type person is coming to Eritrea towards the end of May to have discussions with senior figures at the MoE but we still have no idea what the outcome will be and we may indeed face the reality of having to look for jobs quite soon – something we were hoping to avoid for some time.
When browsing the internet at work (well I am actually supposed to be scouring educational sites for suitable content though I have only been successful in a very general sense with the excellent schools wikipedia ) I have found I can still read articles on UK news sites such as those of The Guardian or The Independent if I use a content stripper designed for use with low bandwidth such as finch.ploogy.net or loband.org.
A couple of articles in The Independent stood out last week – both of them concerning the fact … I’m going to pause at the word “fact” and say instead: each of them dealing with an aspect of the considerable and growing body of evidence which points to Africa being the place of origin of the human species - one on a recently completed Africa-wide DNA study and one on a skull reconstruction from 35,000 year-old jawbone fragments found in Romania (the article also mentioned a BBC series “The Human Journey” which will discuss the latest theories on past “Out of Africa” migrations, and where the trail led from there, and which I'll miss! I can see a future Amazon DVD purchase here).
For myself it sets the imagination going to be living in a part of the world where DNA and other studies point to the peopling of the globe having started here or hereabouts but there was a bit of a surprise to be found in the comments following the piece on the Romanian skull fragments. The article also contained an image of a facial reconstruction. In the opinion of some of those who left comments the face was too African, too black. It was when the posts turned to making it out to be a BBC plot to soften the impact of all these asylum-seekers that I was quite shocked - I really didn't imagine that such opinions were so strongly-held and amongst readers of the Independent! What is happening in the UK? Anyway, sorry folks, we're all originally African and, on a geological or even anthropological time-scale, it wasn't so long ago at all.
Monday 11th, Asmara
----------------------
Today it rained quite a lot and the mood in Asmara was noticeably happier. Contrast that with weather-related mood in the UK, but that's the way it is in a country where rain at the right time of year can make a huge difference to crops and therefore the people. And ... it certainly made for a nice, cool, evening!
The Rural Schools' Solar Power Project
-----------------------------------------
Some time ago I reported that the original pilot project at Gogne School in Gash Barka had not been a success due to equipment failure. Well, that's all changed. I've had a report back from a visitor to the school who says that, following replacement of the solar power pack inverter and of the old computers with laptops (which don't consume so much power so more of them can be used), the installation is now up and running well. I'm starting to wonder if I'll ever be able to go on the planned follow-up visits, though. There are photos of a selection of the schools which featured in phase one of the project which you can see by following the link at left.
P
To start off though, the current VSO situation is that at least one management-type person is coming to Eritrea towards the end of May to have discussions with senior figures at the MoE but we still have no idea what the outcome will be and we may indeed face the reality of having to look for jobs quite soon – something we were hoping to avoid for some time.
When browsing the internet at work (well I am actually supposed to be scouring educational sites for suitable content though I have only been successful in a very general sense with the excellent schools wikipedia ) I have found I can still read articles on UK news sites such as those of The Guardian or The Independent if I use a content stripper designed for use with low bandwidth such as finch.ploogy.net or loband.org.
A couple of articles in The Independent stood out last week – both of them concerning the fact … I’m going to pause at the word “fact” and say instead: each of them dealing with an aspect of the considerable and growing body of evidence which points to Africa being the place of origin of the human species - one on a recently completed Africa-wide DNA study and one on a skull reconstruction from 35,000 year-old jawbone fragments found in Romania (the article also mentioned a BBC series “The Human Journey” which will discuss the latest theories on past “Out of Africa” migrations, and where the trail led from there, and which I'll miss! I can see a future Amazon DVD purchase here).
For myself it sets the imagination going to be living in a part of the world where DNA and other studies point to the peopling of the globe having started here or hereabouts but there was a bit of a surprise to be found in the comments following the piece on the Romanian skull fragments. The article also contained an image of a facial reconstruction. In the opinion of some of those who left comments the face was too African, too black. It was when the posts turned to making it out to be a BBC plot to soften the impact of all these asylum-seekers that I was quite shocked - I really didn't imagine that such opinions were so strongly-held and amongst readers of the Independent! What is happening in the UK? Anyway, sorry folks, we're all originally African and, on a geological or even anthropological time-scale, it wasn't so long ago at all.
Monday 11th, Asmara
----------------------
Today it rained quite a lot and the mood in Asmara was noticeably happier. Contrast that with weather-related mood in the UK, but that's the way it is in a country where rain at the right time of year can make a huge difference to crops and therefore the people. And ... it certainly made for a nice, cool, evening!
The Rural Schools' Solar Power Project
-----------------------------------------
Some time ago I reported that the original pilot project at Gogne School in Gash Barka had not been a success due to equipment failure. Well, that's all changed. I've had a report back from a visitor to the school who says that, following replacement of the solar power pack inverter and of the old computers with laptops (which don't consume so much power so more of them can be used), the installation is now up and running well. I'm starting to wonder if I'll ever be able to go on the planned follow-up visits, though. There are photos of a selection of the schools which featured in phase one of the project which you can see by following the link at left.
P
Wednesday 6 May 2009
School Visits
School Visits
It was a week of school visits last week and all of them turned out to be very positive. It was C’s task to go to a couple of Asmara schools in order to assess how the piloting of new grades 4 and 7 English books was going and, it seems, that most of the teachers she observed and talked to are doing a very good job.
Just as a reminder; students in Eritrea are taught in their Mother Tongue until the end of Elementary school and then English becomes the teaching language for all subjects. Just imagine being taught in English until the age of around 11 and then having to continue in French for maths, history, everything (French at least uses the same script as, and is related to, English) – it must be really difficult.
For my part, instead of playing my usual football game on Saturday, I went to Fthi Junior School (this is the best rendition I can manage to get close to the pronunciation, sometimes it’s written as “Fitihi” which doesn’t really express the very short vowel sounds and also fails to capture the ‘h’ which comes from the chest and is accompanied by a kind of gasp) in the Accria area of North-East Asmara.
The occasion was the inauguration of both the school’s sports field and the ICT lab which finally seems to be open for business. The sports field has been painstakingly fashioned from a rocky strip of open ground and has taken a number of months to prepare. The students and staff first cleared the excess stones from it and then one of Eritrea’s construction companies was persuaded to donate the services of a heavy roller to flatten it out. The result is an area big enough to mark out a football pitch and an athletics track around it.
Presentations by eager students, cheerleaders and races run by local (Zoba Maekel team) athletes - it was all quite spectacular.
And what stood out? The level of English shown by the 13 year-olds presenting subjects as diverse as the periodic table of the elements, an explanation of different aspects of communication and an analysis of a relief model of Eritrea complete with seeds to illustrate which crops are grown where. If all this can happen at one school, then why not eventually across the country? It seems to me that the staff here really deserve credit for turning things around.
I will try to go back from time to time to get some more teaching material installed in the computer lab. ICT teaching is in its infancy here (this being a Junior school and therefore in the second wave of installations) but with the students being this keen it looks as if it will be rapidly taken up.
It was a week of school visits last week and all of them turned out to be very positive. It was C’s task to go to a couple of Asmara schools in order to assess how the piloting of new grades 4 and 7 English books was going and, it seems, that most of the teachers she observed and talked to are doing a very good job.
Just as a reminder; students in Eritrea are taught in their Mother Tongue until the end of Elementary school and then English becomes the teaching language for all subjects. Just imagine being taught in English until the age of around 11 and then having to continue in French for maths, history, everything (French at least uses the same script as, and is related to, English) – it must be really difficult.
For my part, instead of playing my usual football game on Saturday, I went to Fthi Junior School (this is the best rendition I can manage to get close to the pronunciation, sometimes it’s written as “Fitihi” which doesn’t really express the very short vowel sounds and also fails to capture the ‘h’ which comes from the chest and is accompanied by a kind of gasp) in the Accria area of North-East Asmara.
The occasion was the inauguration of both the school’s sports field and the ICT lab which finally seems to be open for business. The sports field has been painstakingly fashioned from a rocky strip of open ground and has taken a number of months to prepare. The students and staff first cleared the excess stones from it and then one of Eritrea’s construction companies was persuaded to donate the services of a heavy roller to flatten it out. The result is an area big enough to mark out a football pitch and an athletics track around it.
Presentations by eager students, cheerleaders and races run by local (Zoba Maekel team) athletes - it was all quite spectacular.
And what stood out? The level of English shown by the 13 year-olds presenting subjects as diverse as the periodic table of the elements, an explanation of different aspects of communication and an analysis of a relief model of Eritrea complete with seeds to illustrate which crops are grown where. If all this can happen at one school, then why not eventually across the country? It seems to me that the staff here really deserve credit for turning things around.
I will try to go back from time to time to get some more teaching material installed in the computer lab. ICT teaching is in its infancy here (this being a Junior school and therefore in the second wave of installations) but with the students being this keen it looks as if it will be rapidly taken up.
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