Field trip to Ambo

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  Ambo, Ethiopia
Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Had a day long field trip in Ambo today, 130 km from Woliso. We travelled 50 km off road and visited 3 schools which were under construction. The first construction site had a run down government school where an American man taught 30 years ago while he was in the peace corps- today he is the director of save the children in Westport, Connecticut! The basketball court he had created still stands! Next to it save the children is adding 2 more blocks which will contain 10 classrooms. The construction was going well - what stunned me was that there were 2 women carrying the cement!
 
The next site was a government school where again all the children swarmed around me as if they saw a crocodile for the first time. I have brown skin, my hair is straight and shiny so I'm a real attraction here. And again sadly I witnessed an old man with a long stick whipping the kids into the classrooms!! I was up in arms and talked my colleagues' heads off about the ills of corporal punishment.
 
Throughout the area we drove through all day the landscape was amazingly beautiful. Driving along a beautiful asphalt road, we were surrounded by mountains, large colorful fields - a plot of land that has been newly ploughed and prepared for plantations, another with bright yellow flowers of the season, plots of land planted with light green tef, and light yellow wheat.
 
The third school we went two was  4 km off road deep in the midst of the beautiful landscape surrounded by mountains. There was nothing around the school but vast areas of land. The construction was not yet completed but children were already in the "classrooms" sitting on the cement blocks their feet sometimes bare, dug into the red earth. They had a teacher who had a piece of paper on which the alphabet was written and that he posted on the unpolished cement walls. Such was the desire to learn, and the need for schools.
 
After a long day of driving we arrived to Ambo Ethiopia Hotel where we are spending the night before heading to Woliso tomorrow and conducting my second school visit. I went to a café by myself and was approached with a man who had elephantitis. He showed me his feet but I did not what it was - and thought he was wearing some sort of shoes or boots. When I realized that his feet had swelled up to the size of an elephants' I was so shocked and saddened that I began to cry. My manager, the nicest man in the world, starting talking to me to distract me saying "do you know where there are the most donkeys in the world? in between sobs and laughs, I said, no, he said  First in china then in Ethiopia!!"  There are few things in the world that can move me or shock me to the point of tears - and that was one of them. And I thought of Karla who before I left said "nawsh you will see a lot of things you need to be strong"-- I thought I was strong..but now I know what karla meant.
 
We then went to have dinner about 30 minutes walk from the hotel where I got a chance to see the town-nothing much to see except a lot of men in the streets, small dilapidated shops, butcheries with open doors and raw meat being exposed. We ended up in a quaint little restaurant run by an Ethiopian woman who had twin daughters -salaat and abinath - which means prayer and faith - and I had tibs (fried beef with chilli peppers) but this one was served in a clay pot with burning charcoal underneath it - of course accompanied by the local beer st georges!! We then took the bajaj home which in ambo they call bajajyeah which means we like the bajaj - and I learnt that the bajaj comes from india and the name too. It's basically a motorbike (but 3 wheeler) covered with all around with plastic and flimsy blue iron sheets.
 
Back at the hotel now it's 830 pm and I am exhausted. Will "have a nice dream" (that's how my manager wishes me goodnight) under my bednet. 
 
On the way back to Woliso the next morning we stopped at Wenchi Crater lake.
 http://www.wenchi-crater-lake.com/highlights.php

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