I'm very grateful to the anonomous person who has just sent me a parcel of assorted chocolate, but I wish I knew who you were. Tell me. It was such a nice surprise. As I'm a bit of a chocolate monster these days (very different to how I was in the UK when I hardly touched the stuff!)it probably won't last too long.
C
Wednesday 22 July 2009
Eritrea Wildlife
We find ourselves noticing quite a bit of wildlife, mainly birds, around just now – maybe it's the lack of other volunteers to talk to ...
We haven't turned into “birders”, though we enjoy watching the variety of birds which we can see from our garden, and this is hardly a definitive guide and is, more than likely, not accurate though I have tried to find the birds mentioned below in our copy of “Birds of Africa, South of the Sahara”.
The list of bird species which can be spotted in Eritrea is long and includes (seen in and from our garden):
Weavers, Firefinches, Cordon Blues, Swainson's Sparrows (I think), Little Swifts, Sunbirds, Tawny Eagles, Storks (Abdim's), Crested Mousebirds and the odd Hoopoe and Canary. And that says nothing about the resident Speckled Pigeons.
There are currently about five ball-shaped woven nests hanging from our palm trees, I haven't managed to spot any young though and I also can't really identify the weaver species which made them - so much for the book!
Out and about in Eritrea we have been able to photograph an Abyssinian Roller, an Osprey, Steppe Eagles, numerous Crab Plovers, a few Sacred Ibises and a couple of Hornbills of some description. Publishing the better shots, amongst our existing online photos, is out of the question for now, but other web-sites will have images.
It's the end of the first Summer ICT course and there are three to go, two more months in all. Last Saturday night there was a celebration at Hdmona (an Eri-style restaurant and dancing place) and the presence of beer meant a late-ish start on Sunday. A commotion in the garden turned out to be five storks having a disagreement in the big palm tree. Lots of ungainly wing flapping and high pitched calls. It was all a bit handbags though since there didn't seem to be any injured parties when it was all over.
We have also seen great swarms of helicopter-winged insects rising up from the ground a couple of times - I think they're some phase in the ant life-cycle baling out of the ant's nests dotted around the garden and heading out on mating flights and it all seems to be timed for early evening when there are no birds around, but I'm not really sure about all that; they don't really look like ants.
P
We haven't turned into “birders”, though we enjoy watching the variety of birds which we can see from our garden, and this is hardly a definitive guide and is, more than likely, not accurate though I have tried to find the birds mentioned below in our copy of “Birds of Africa, South of the Sahara”.
The list of bird species which can be spotted in Eritrea is long and includes (seen in and from our garden):
Weavers, Firefinches, Cordon Blues, Swainson's Sparrows (I think), Little Swifts, Sunbirds, Tawny Eagles, Storks (Abdim's), Crested Mousebirds and the odd Hoopoe and Canary. And that says nothing about the resident Speckled Pigeons.
There are currently about five ball-shaped woven nests hanging from our palm trees, I haven't managed to spot any young though and I also can't really identify the weaver species which made them - so much for the book!
Out and about in Eritrea we have been able to photograph an Abyssinian Roller, an Osprey, Steppe Eagles, numerous Crab Plovers, a few Sacred Ibises and a couple of Hornbills of some description. Publishing the better shots, amongst our existing online photos, is out of the question for now, but other web-sites will have images.
It's the end of the first Summer ICT course and there are three to go, two more months in all. Last Saturday night there was a celebration at Hdmona (an Eri-style restaurant and dancing place) and the presence of beer meant a late-ish start on Sunday. A commotion in the garden turned out to be five storks having a disagreement in the big palm tree. Lots of ungainly wing flapping and high pitched calls. It was all a bit handbags though since there didn't seem to be any injured parties when it was all over.
We have also seen great swarms of helicopter-winged insects rising up from the ground a couple of times - I think they're some phase in the ant life-cycle baling out of the ant's nests dotted around the garden and heading out on mating flights and it all seems to be timed for early evening when there are no birds around, but I'm not really sure about all that; they don't really look like ants.
P
Monday 6 July 2009
it's wet
Well, the rain has finally come and spirits have definitely lifted. Not something you’d ever hear said in the UK but it really is a life and death matter here. Now it just needs to continue at least for the next month. I’ll put up with the cold, thinking of putting the duvet back on the bed.
C
C
Thursday 2 July 2009
It’s ICT teaching time
For about the next 10 weeks I’m going to be really busy as it’s time to get back in the MoE teaching lab and try to help 4 groups of school directors and school ICT teachers learn enough IT basics (both software and hardware) in order that they can take the skills back to the schools and organise IT labs and training.
This year it’s going to be a little harder for us (the trainers) since there are only three of us, whereas last year there were five. However it’s even tougher for the students some of whom come to us with next to no computer experience at all – I have certainly had to find new levels of patience in order to help people who, for example, have never used a mouse before – it’s great to see the rapid progress most of our students make, though.
The training is also linked with the Remote Schools Solar Power project insofar as teachers and directors from the schools involved have been selected to attend, this presents a particular challenge given that some of our phase 2 students may not have touched a computer since phase 1, last summer, due to the fact that not all schools in the project have had their installations yet.
The overall situation for ICT in Eritrea is that it’s picking up after a slow start. Internet access can still be very slow, though no slower than in certain other sub-saharan countries by all accounts, but more and more people are wanting to use technology and ICT training is very popular so to get it into schools cannot be a bad thing.
Miss Eritrea
----------------
A chance encounter in the garden of the Ambasoira (formerly Imperial) hotel allows me to make remarks about Eritrean women which I couldn't normally make (well this is a joint blog).
Ever since Asmara beer made its very welcome re-appearance we have, from time-to-time, visited what past volunteers knew as “the beer garden” but what we have only known as “that-nice-garden-where-you-can-have-tea-at-the-side-of-the-Ambasoira” until now.
Last week at a leaving do I couldn't help noticing, as we made our way to join the others, that one of the tables seemed to have more than it's fair share of supermodels sitting around it. Eritrea, in turn, has more that it's fair share of stunning looking women (don’t even get me started on a discussion of bone structure) just wandering around - very distracting. It turns out that they were actually prospective contestants for the Miss Eritrea competition and were being interviewed on camera in a nice peaceful garden setting, I'm not going to say much more but I have never seen such a concentration of long limbs in one place before.
P
This year it’s going to be a little harder for us (the trainers) since there are only three of us, whereas last year there were five. However it’s even tougher for the students some of whom come to us with next to no computer experience at all – I have certainly had to find new levels of patience in order to help people who, for example, have never used a mouse before – it’s great to see the rapid progress most of our students make, though.
The training is also linked with the Remote Schools Solar Power project insofar as teachers and directors from the schools involved have been selected to attend, this presents a particular challenge given that some of our phase 2 students may not have touched a computer since phase 1, last summer, due to the fact that not all schools in the project have had their installations yet.
The overall situation for ICT in Eritrea is that it’s picking up after a slow start. Internet access can still be very slow, though no slower than in certain other sub-saharan countries by all accounts, but more and more people are wanting to use technology and ICT training is very popular so to get it into schools cannot be a bad thing.
Miss Eritrea
----------------
A chance encounter in the garden of the Ambasoira (formerly Imperial) hotel allows me to make remarks about Eritrean women which I couldn't normally make (well this is a joint blog).
Ever since Asmara beer made its very welcome re-appearance we have, from time-to-time, visited what past volunteers knew as “the beer garden” but what we have only known as “that-nice-garden-where-you-can-have-tea-at-the-side-of-the-Ambasoira” until now.
Last week at a leaving do I couldn't help noticing, as we made our way to join the others, that one of the tables seemed to have more than it's fair share of supermodels sitting around it. Eritrea, in turn, has more that it's fair share of stunning looking women (don’t even get me started on a discussion of bone structure) just wandering around - very distracting. It turns out that they were actually prospective contestants for the Miss Eritrea competition and were being interviewed on camera in a nice peaceful garden setting, I'm not going to say much more but I have never seen such a concentration of long limbs in one place before.
P
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