Christmas Update - December 14th 2008

Merry Christmas, everyone! I am writing this, sat in my house watching the lights on my newly decorated tree. Mum and Dad are calling later and I will dictate this over the phone for Dad to upload onto the blog. How great it is to have slaves. As I mentioned earlier, I am indeed, watching the lights on my newly decorated tree. That makes it sound rather grand but the tree is less than a metre tall, and the lights are plastic fruit in a variety of fluorescent colours. Add to that the garish tinsel and the wonderful snowflakes cut out of old newspaper and you really do have a festive tree. A couple of local girls came over this evening and helped to decorate the tree; Luon was rather more interested in dressing herself in tinsel and dancing around the room – some things are the same the world over. Umbaba, very patiently threaded tape through paper snowflakes and now the tree is barely visible behind the tat – wonderful! I think this is possibly the only tree in Segeneiti; it certainly doesn’t feel very Christmas-y. The weather is definitely colder – I wore a jacket and scarf yesterday evening but the afternoon it is still guaranteed to be warm and sunny. It is strange but I’m kind of missing the grey rainy miserable-ness of the Great British December. What I wouldn’t do for a stroll down the high street passing the twinkly lights, advertising and going for a lovely warm hot chocolate in Starbucks.

I’ve been doing a fair bit of travelling lately. Went to Adikeih (south of here) to work shadow another methodology trainer . It was really good to see another sub-zoba working especially as they are so much further along than Segeneiti in terms of organisation. I am now really hoping that we will be able to organise some funding to set up a PRC (Pedagogical Resources Centre ) in Segeneiti. It will be a place where students and teachers can come to read books and papers and watch videos. It will also be a great base for us when our work stops as at the moment were are having to make do with tiny staff rooms in a variety of classrooms. Anyway, whilst there I also had time to walk up the mountains to visit the Axomite ruins at Qohkito. The walk is eleven kilometres scaling the side of the mountain but the view is definitely worth it. The ruins are not much but the views from the mountain top are brilliant. We had two ten-year old boys as our guides and they did a great job pointing out Mt Antasoira (and that’s 3,013 metres tall - the highest peak in Eritrea.) As we scaled the mountainside, having a bit of difficulty but with the boys bouncing from rock ledge to rock ledge, we passed several Saho people, on their way to the market in Adikeih. They were not only scaling the side of the mountain, but doing it with bags, goats and donkeys – truly incredible. Also, when we were looking around the ruins, the ground echoed as some parts of the ground here are hollow – a very weird sensation.

Last weekend I visited somewhere rather different. Lying at sea level, Massawa is absolutely boiling. It is winter at the moment but it was still roasting in the shade. It was great after the chilly evenings here in the highlands. A group of us visited for the weekend. The journey is a hot stuffy bus ride following an impressive road steeply winding its way down the mountain. There is a steam train that runs alongside the road but only on Sundays if there are enough passengers and only as far as necessary usually. Massawa is beautiful; the old town is like stepping into a scene from the Arabian nights and we visited the best fish restaurant in Eritrea called Salen. You choose your fish then go into the kitchen to watch the chef cut it open, gut it and fill the inside with burberry. The fish is then lowered into a traditional oven on a long iron pole. The fish are placed around the outside of the cylindrical oven which is heated by the burning log in the middle. We bought five fish and served them, eating some and then passing the plates around – wonderful. On Saturday we went to the beach and swam in the lovely warm sea, floating easily due to the high levels of salt. On Sunday we hired a boat out to Green Island. The island is tiny – half is covered with a bird sanctuary, and the other half a thin strip of sand complete with beach huts which have certainly seen better days. There is a strange ruin here which looks like some kind of church or mosque and is made out of coral bricks. There are also ruins reduced to foundations, most of which are made up of thousands of beautiful shells. The shells on the island are amazing – apparently a reminder of the time when shellfish were caught and used in perfume (I am not convinced but that is what the fisherman said!)

Work has finally started to pick up. I was beginning to wonder what exactly I was doing here! I am working on a few workshops at the moment. Sami and I are running mini school-based workshops about games and pronunciation techniques this week and then Monday is a big cluster workshop about phonics. Hopefully it will go well as the teachers need a lot of support in this area. I am also currently rewriting the Grade-One Teachers Guide for teachers in our sub-zoba. Often Grade-One teachers have the least English but their book is the worst of all in terms of support and guidance. Lessons here last 40 minutes but one of the lessons I rewrote today had timings that added to just 23 minutes – not very helpful in a room of 80 children!

I can hardly believe that it’s nearly Christmas. At the moment the plan is to go to Asmara on Christmas Eve. Christmas is only a one day holiday here but I’ve asked for a bit longer and it seems to be OK. We are having a Christmas party at the programme office on Christmas Eve complete with Secret Santa. On Christmas day itself, many of us are going to a nice Italian restaurant in the town. Unfortunately it will be pasta and stuff as roast is virtually unheard of here. After Christmas, Rachel is coming out – I can hardly wait. It will be amusing to watch her cope without running water and stuff. We are planning to go back down to Massawa and hopefully sleep out on Green Island. There are no buildings so we will be under the stars (and our mosquito nets) and will bring in the New Year with a swim in the Red Sea at dawn. “VSO - Sharing skills – Changing lives" !

I have finally performed my first coffee ceremonies, roasting and grinding the beans myself and following the traditional procedures. The first was yesterday, when I was supported by Sami’s wife. It went well and the coffee tasted pretty good. Today I had a second go, this time all on my own. It seemed to go fine even if the coffee didn’t taste quite as good as yesterday – still no one has died yet!

I’m going to finish now. I am sending photo CDs home with Rachel so there should be lots of new exciting photos up by mid January. Until then, have a great Christmas and New Year.

Liz XX