As for now, I am really trying hard to finish up well here. I was recently (Friday) blessed to hear that the most experienced (i.e. she’s worked three contracts supervising HDP at the university, regional and national levels) HDLs on Ethiopia is excited and willing to come take over my role as HDL here in Sodo. Wow, how lucky the candidates, the university, and I all are! Now, I am just letting folks know about my departure—they are all taking it differently, but it is tough to discuss a lot of the time. Most understand I need to be with and support Jillian and pursue some really good opportunities there, but there is so much good momentum here, and the bonds are so deep at this point. But, the calendar keeps rolling on, and this weekend is house packing and cleaning. More on all this soon (probably from Addis after leaving Sodo), but I wanted to make the official announcement.

What? Don't you always put your chickens in the back of your open pickup bed tied by the foot to an untethered spare tire, too?

Dilla University Moderators (from right): Misganaw, Abiyot, me, Girma, and the Dilla Univ TDP driver at the WSU staff lounge

The group is participatory, engaged, and ready to move forward.  They have been watching and hearing stories from their Batch 1 & 2 peers for years now, and are really amped up to do some strong, original work of their own.  I feel really lucky to get started with this group, even knowing I won’t finish with them.  They are a driven bunch and make me smile when they arrive at sessions (mostly on time!!!) and ready to go.

In other HDP news, this weekend was the long-awaited, much anticipated graduation of Batch 1, the original HDP group ever to begin at WSU. These candidates worked over a period of almost 2 years, and as they love to put it, “suffered through so much.” They really like to milk that phrase.  They joined with the Health Officer BA student graduation, and were honored by hundreds of guests at Wolaita Gutara, the same fine community gathering spot where they presented their action research two months before.  There were TV cameras there, and newspaper photographers there.  As someone who was giving a diploma to (among others) the vice president, the dean, and the registrar of WSU (some who did not speak English had no idea what more these guys could achieve than being officers of a university until their friends translated), and being the only white person in the premises, I got more than my share of camera time.

There are so many challenges there.  One main issue is that 90% of teachers there have had no training on teaching methodology, assessment, classroom management, etc. training since their BA “this is how to give a lecture” training.  Here, teachers don’t even need a BA in education or a license to qualify to teach, just three BA years of say undergraduate Biology (in the case of a future bio teacher), then a one year crash course (often, in past years, with little or no actual practical time in a classroom) in lecturing and reward punishment management techniques, and bam–you’re ready to teach for a lifetime with no on-going or in-service training! Not to mention that taxi drivers are paid more than teachers with MAs here, and you only go to teacher training college to teach biology if you fail to qualify to join the applied, “real biologist” track at university and make a livable salary.  Aaaahhhhh!

Well, that was a whole ranting paragraph of problems, but I’m here to apply/inspire/grow solutions   SO, Teddy (the HS Geography teacher) and I developed a plan, which we just submitted and received a grant for, to co-facilitate 2 weekend-long trainings for teachers who are hungry to learn active pedagogy and ongoing/summative assessments theory and techniques.  We facitlitated them with the help of the enthusiastic principal and another senior teacher, to great reception.

You wouldn’t think that one would need a grant for such a thing, since Teddy and I are both volunteering.  At a US school, the school would host and provide any paper/pens/whatnot and teachers would be on their own for transportation and food.  However, teachers here only come on off days if the trainers provide: free refreshments, breakfast and lunch allowance money, free pens, notebooks and other materials, and both AM/PM coffee and snack service.  This is not a local issue, but a national one.  All larger, multi-day conferences here are expected to provide (from the conference provider’s budget) a per diem (money to cover transportation, food, hotel, snacks, office supplies, etc). The funny (ish) part is that many people sleep and eat with loved ones during this time and then pocket much of the money, walking away with profit. Whereas in the US, one who was offered a free training or workshops would go to great ends to make the time free and get themselves there, here the reaction to a workshop/conference invitation is usually, “how much per diem will you give me and which café is providing the coffee service?  Will we get Chinese-made pens and notebooks or US-export quality? Oh… you’re not giving per diems… sorry I’m busy that day.”

But, somehow we convinced the HS teachers to allow us to give them a free training for which we won’t have to pay them too much for privilege of volunteering.  Of course, it was a big lesson for me in cultural differences and sensitivity.  The paradigm of getting yourself to training and not expecting anyone to provide any materials to you some from a US perspective of plenty.  In an environment of lack, where the government has a tradition of paying for all education and giving trainings with all materials provided and costs paid, it is totally normal to expect these perks.  So, I discussed the issues I was having with the matter with my co-facilitators over lunch and they laughed so hard.  They said I had to tell the story of US teachers being excited for free training to the trainees at the HS. I did, and we finished with uproarious laughter and a little better understanding of one another.

The two of them have been coming back and forth from France to live, work and do research here for almost seven years, spending months at a time (up to a year) each time. They even go married here on one stint!  After getting hooked by the rich history of education in Wolaita, Pierre decided to change/specify his thesis title to History of Education in Ethiopia’s Wolaita Zone.  It was wonderful to have a few foreign friends, especially two who are totally fluent (Pierre conducts his interviews in Amharic and takes notes in Amharic, too!) and who love this country so much, but also have a good sense of outside perspective, as well.  It was also amazing to practice speaking and listening to French for hours at a time in Ethiopia, where so very few people do.  So, we will stay in touch with them and Jillian and I intend to visit them in France (at the Sorbonne and at Marion’s organic, “bio” in French, family farm out in the country near Nantes).

The team is really coming together, and kids run up to me randomly in the compound to ask me if we can do more than the two days a week (Tuesday & Thursday), so we have started playing on weekends and occasionally other weekdays, too.

A really touching moment was last week.  Abuyeyh came up to me on the way to the field and held out his hand.  He had a gift, he placed it in my hand smiling and saying, “your, your,” and pushing toward me.  It was a steel pendant of the United Nations logo with three silver colored circles surrounding it, each the size of a dime.  It is awesome.  What a gift.  After asking Biru to translate, I found that he doesn’t know what the UN is or means, but that he found it in the dirt on his way home from school some months back, and has been saving it in his room since before I arrived as one of his prize possessions.  He wanted me to have it because he appreciated my working so hard with him and trusting him (one of the younger guys on the team) to be his captain and playing so much with him.  Whew.