Mai, Mai everywhere

Eritrea is part of the Sahel, a zone of scrubby semi-desert which lies to the South of the Sahara and, despite heavy rains at certain times of year (the actual time varies depending on the zone within the country), water shortage is a constant fact of life.

Such shortage and a creaking water delivery system mean that water is never constantly available even in Asmara and, to act as a reservoir for the majority of the time when mains water is off, Asmara houses usually have large water tanks somewhere on their roofs.

Given that water is so precious you can imagine our consternation last Saturday when we came home to find it cascading onto the tiles at the side of our house. After clambering onto the roof in the dark I managed to ascertain that the ball-cock in our tank wasn't working properly and the tank was overflowing onto the roof. So, I thought, let's just shut off the supply at the stop-cock further upstream. That wasn't working at all so the flow couldn't be stopped now panic was setting in.

Back on the roof I managed to break the arm of the stop-cock completely in an effort to force it shut and in the meantime our reserve-reserve chemical-drum-tank was nearly full of overflow water collected in a bucket. Eventually I managed to stop up the leak with a rag.

What I couldn't believe was the feeling of guilt at letting so much water run away and this was compounded this weekend when the valve on the toilet cistern failed to close and we failed to notice it resulting in an empty roof tank this time. Then the tank filled to overflow again. I'm actually aching from carrying buckets and shinning up onto the roof repeatedly. Yet our water access is really easy compared to most of Eritrea where water comes from boreholes and often has to be carried home several kilometers.

I suppose what I'm trying to say is that leaks and spills can turn into major events here. Now if only that plumber would actually come and do the repairs as he said he would ...

P

Solar Power in Eritrea

I read a BBC article this week which was a report on an interview given by Philip Rosedale, founder of Second Life virtual world, in which he was asked what his technology dreams and predictions were. His response centred on electricity and the changes which will have to be made in moving to a more distributed model of power generation if the world is to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels. This in a week where we have seen more power cuts than usual even in Asmara (we don't know if this is policy to reduce oil consumption at Eritrea's only power station but it could be).

In a way it's good to be part of a shift to Solar Power in my (minor) participation in the Rural Schools' Solar Power Project but it represents a lot of work for quite a number of people just to get a few panels out to where they are needed. The BBC article indirectly raises a lot of questions for the poorer countries in Africa, particularly those who don't have a great relationship with the world's biggest technology country, the US.

So here's the fantasy. Here, in Eritrea, there are two observations that you can make - the sun shines a lot and the country cannot afford to buy much oil on the world markets no matter what the prevailing price is. It is also true that large numbers of Eritrea's people are off the grid in any case. So wouldn't it be great if a mega-rich (fortune from technology?) philanthropist were to step in and fund the Solar Power Revolution in Eritrea? While we're at it we could introduce other technologies in a big way - Geographical Information Systems to find the optimum sites for larger installations (the intersection of maximum hours of sunshine, land unused for anything else and proximity to population centres). Internet centres and libraries throughout the country.

The reality? This region is perceived as being too unstable for investment of such enormous magnitude. Eritrea also feels the need to control information and movement of people (just try using a GPS device as a foreigner here) so internet access and the gathering of data will remain difficult. Furthermore countries who owe Eritrea big-time in terms of assistance with previously-arbitrated border disputes and (in the case of UK) in terms of technology removal as unmerited war reparation will continue to fail to provide official support.

But we can all dream.

P

Monday morning

I’m sitting in the office by myself, working, after a weekend of sickness and feeling sorry for myself. Feeling better today but slightly resent the wasted weekend. Everyone else has gone to collect the Grade 4 cassettes which we’ve just been told are finally ready for collection from the studios. I’m not sure why all three had to go but I guess I might see them later.

Killed a cockroach in the bathroom, eight hours later the ants had dissected it and carried it away. Good creatures ants. Very organised. They seem to be everywhere at the moment. Any crumb of food that gets dropped soon develops several pairs of legs and starts moving across the floor.

Phil has a grazed nose from playing football, a wound he wears with pride.

C

Christmas Appeal

Please read further this is not one of our pathetic requests for chocolate, neither is it anything at all to do with VSO's programme in Eritrea we just thought we'd try and help someone whom we meet most days, who always greets us happily and who lets us practice our bad Tigrinya on him but who has never been able to walk in his life and, incidentally, whose father was an amputee, a victim of Eritrea's war of independence.

First a little background; Eritrea has conducted annual vaccination programs against preventable childhood diseases since 1980 gradually reaching more and more of the population and has all but succeeeded in eliminating the common ones - neonatal tetanus, diptheria, measles and so on - including polio which has not been seen in Eritrea since 1997 apart from isolated imported cases.

Unfortunately vaccination programs came too late for Dawit who is now in his late twenties and who now gets around his local neighborhood in a wheelchair due to childhood polio. Furthermore he does not qualify for any government assistance in the same way that war veterans do. He has, however, ambitions to be able to travel further afield and is hoping to be able to raise the money to buy a motorised tricycle (40,000 Nakfa - a small fortune in Eritrea) via donations.

However 40,000 Nfa is only around 1,500 GBP so we thought we'd try and raise it from people we know (we don't really expect strangers to put their trust in a web appeal but if you feel you can trust us ...). The main problem is collection of funds but, given we have time, this is what we've come up with as a plan of action:

• We will contribute the first 500 GBP from our savings to get the ball rolling.


• Please send your donations to us at the VSO address to the left.


• Please send cheques ONLY - please DO NOT send cash as it is illegal to import undeclared currency into Eritrea.


• Please make cheques out to either Phil Appleby or Caroline Holden or both.


• We will then send donated cheques to the UK for payment into our UK bank account (you'll have to trust us on this one).


• Then we will draw Nakfa in Eritrea by changing UK bank cheques at a foreign exchange bureau.


• If we have funds in excess of what we need it all goes to Dawit to cover running and maintenance costs.


• Once we have reached the stage where the tricycle has been purchased we will try to post photos to show the money has been well-spent.

We realise that times are harder for everyone just now and that the response to the discreet appeal for funds for VSO which has been on this page for a long time has been less than stellar (apart from two gentlemen who live in Singapore and Tokyo - THANKS GUYS!). But, we're not asking for all that much from each person and you'll feel better we promise.

One last thing - if you do feel that you can contribute then please let us know via email when sending a cheque so that we can follow-up and check our post.

Visting Asmara and Eritrea

Thinking again about some of our postings we seem to have become a little complacent about what's around us. Please don't get the wrong impression, Asmara is an amazing place and Eritrea's semi-desert / rift valley scenery has an awe-inspring austere beauty.

This was reinforced by a conversation I had last week with a (slightly drunk and lost) English tourist who was quite knocked out by the cleanliness of Asmara to say nothing of the 1930's and 40's architectural gems. The other big selling point for him was not feeling threatened at all as a stranger walking the streets of a city he didn't know - this is, after all, Africa's safest capital city.

So we would say by all means visit Eritrea but be prepared to stay in accommodation which is clean and tidy but not right at the top of the range (Eritrea's only luxury hotel, the Asmara Intercontinental, is now closed and has an uncertain future. Even that was hardly 5-star). It ranges from the Albergo Italia a beautiful, recently renovated, old Italian hotel in the centre of town (prices in $) through basic clean hotels to pensions (clean, very cheap but very basic) and the Appleby Holden bed in a corner of the living room (clean and very welcoming.) Also be prepared to forego a few of what are life's luxuries here (good wine, good beer, top-quality food) but be prepared to spend some currency, Eritrea badly needs it.

In summary, the visitor finds a country which on the one hand is poor and whose population has to put up with many trials and tribulations (once again there are further observations which we could make but which, as volunteers working in education, we prefer to avoid) but on the other hand has friendly, honest people who get on with life under trying circumstances. Tourism is undeveloped here so no viable beach resorts yet. From an eco-tourism point of view perhaps there is an angle ... come and see how people whose carbon / consumer footprint is a fraction of your own lives.

Oh and one last word; Asmara's climate at this time of year is excellent, cool nights and bright, sunny, not-too-warm days so perhaps this should be the time to visit?

P (with contributions from C)

English as a Medium of Education

Off to a workshop this morning on the use of English as a content language (as opposed to a subject.) All classes here from grade 6 upwards are taught in English and it poses a lot of problems: the standard of English teaching in Grades 1 to 5 needs to be improved as the majority of students go into Grade 6 with only a smattering of English, certainly not enough to do all their schoolwork in. We’re currently rewriting the course books but there’s so much more involved – the standard of the teaching (not just down to the teachers as their working and living conditions leave a lot to be desired, those finishing off their national service get 140 Nakfa – 5 pounds a month, they’re doing the best they can.) Teacher training is far too short without enough resources, there’s not enough schools – in a lot of areas there are two school shifts a day, morning and afternoon and even with that only a small percentage of the children are getting regular schooling. And then on top of all that all classes suddenly get presented in English from Grade 6! It places a huge strain on students and teachers.
There needs to be much more involvement between English as a Subject and English for Content, the National Curriculum is committed to it but it’s a tough one. The workshop this morning is a starting point, trying to get a dialogue going between the different curriculum writers and educationalists. The tough bit, as always, is getting the changes at grass roots level.

Sorry if I‘m rambling on a bit. At the moment my life seems to be split between working and sleeping. I think I need another holiday, or at the very least an evening in the pub (dream on Caroline)

C

ICT work update

Summer training is over and we're now engaged in activities to move a couple of the Ministry's projects along. About 100 donated laptops are being set up for moving out to those schools in the Rural Schools Solar Project phase 1 and the solar power kits are now in Asmara and ready for their arduous journeys to the far corners of Eritrea. So it looks as if I may be on the road again for a while quite soon.

Meanwhile the first attempt at the infrastructure for the MOE website is now done. We eventually went for a simple homegrown implementation with rudimentary content management for our initial Ministry-only offering as opposed to using a recognised heavier weight product such as Chisimba or Joomla. Now we need to both get agreement and gather page content from the Ministry's departments before we can open the site to the outside world, no small task - I can see it taking another few months and a lot of chasing people down!.

Asmara Observations
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Asmara is frequently described in terms of its Italian Art Deco architecture. We were sent a surprisingly positive article from the NY Times this week which contained all the usual cliches on the subject of sherbet-coloured buildings and the spaceship nature of the Fiat Tagliero together with a description of the train ride - all largely true. Yet, Eritrean village life is only just under the surface here and lack of money means that extended families often live together in spaces which were not exactly designed for the purpose.

Each working day we walk about 4 miles a day (2 round trips to and from work) on a back street route through some of what were Italian neighbourhoods - plenty of sherbet-coloured buildings. If you look behind the gates you see that the larger parcels of land, both residential and former industrial, house multiple families and chickens and goats are commonly kept (cockerels crowing in the morning are our frequent alarm clock). It's almost like there are numerous small villages in the city. Similarly the larger Italian-era buildings often house a number of families. Elsewhere empty land and gardens are used for growing vegetables - cabbages and corn amongst others.

P