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
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment