Richard Clowes and Samson Workneh, our Country Director, at an orphanage in Addis

Our Desk officer in Mexico, Jery Lee, will be spending a month in Addis Ababa supporting our staff at one of our newest destinations, Ethiopia, where we had our first volunteers in February. She was kind enough to send along some of her initial thoughts after first few weeks there.

Well here are my first impressions……

The program is very well set up here and there are no problems with finding work for the volunteers. There are plenty of great orphanages and schools for our volunteers to work at.

Concerning the city, Addis Ababa is a great place to be. Although it is a bit polluted like most big cities, it is pleasant in general and surrounded by mountains. The view is amazing. It is very different from the other side of the world, especially Guadalajara! Volunteers will easily adapt in one week, but the beginning is a bit difficult because everyone stares at you out of curiosity and tries to speak with you which takes some getting used to for our European or North American volunteers. But as soon as you adapt there is no problem as it is a safe place and you can get around the city very easily on minibuses or public taxis that take you everywhere. You can learn the routes in a few days or so. All the people in the schools and working placements are really happy to have volunteers including the host families. The overall reaction towards us is very positive from everyone so I hope many volunteers apply to come here soon as there are lots of things to do and the people are excited to have them.

The food is spicy and very hot sometimes but good. You can also get food from all over the world as there are many restaurants and cafes with good food so volunteers can always go and have a meal out if they want a break from Ethiopian food as it won’t cost more than 3-4 dollars.

Overall, I really like the place and it will be a very good experience for the volunteers coming here. I hope many more will come here in the future!

The Orozco Family

We at Projects Abroad would like to send hearty congratulations to Chava, who is part of our great design team based in Guadalajara, Mexico on the birth of his second daughter, Emma!! I was able to work with Chava when I visited Guadalajara this February and not only is he a great designer but also an avid “Little Britain” fan. In the photo you can see Chava, his lovely wife Angela, his daughter Renee and baby Emma. What a good looking family!

For the volunteers in Mexico or who are about the go to Mexico, make you ask Chava to see some more photos, especially as Emma starts getting bigger.

We wish the Orozcos all the luck in the world and welcome the newest member to the Projects Abroad family!

A view of Brasov, Romania from the tram

As a former volunteer in Romania, the country has always had a special place in my heart and I have followed it closely since then. Consequently, it was a momentous occasion when Romania joined the EU earlier this year so I have asked our Country Director, Mircea, to comment on this and how it will affect Romania’s future and our volunteer’s fine work there.

With mixed feelings on the part of the populace and huge official parties in the central squares of the country’s biggest cities, Romania joined the European Union on the 1st of January 2007. Some of us Romanians expect things to get better financially, some to lose some of our freedoms. The general consensus though is that it’s a step ahead for our country. We don’t need visas for Europe now, the legislation pertaining to certain business ventures is more relaxed, there will certainly be a lot more foreign money coming into the country. This is not to say everything is now peachy, and Romanians are a rich, happy nation, with nothing left to learn. Personally, I think this is where the hard work starts. Joining the EU has placed responsibilities on Romania’s shoulders. We need to sort out the Gypsy integration problem, the still rampant corruption, education reforms etc.

Romania still needs help, in expertise, material and in terms of manpower, and therefore, we at Projects Abroad, still need volunteers. Archaeologists who receive our volunteers on digging sites love working side by side with Western young people who have a passion for this field instead of hiring workers who do not care about valuable artefacts. Although the orphanage system has been reformed and the children do not live in horrible overcrowding conditions anymore, the local staff still does not have enough time to give all the attention they deserve. So our volunteers provide a relief to the staff members and engage the children in educational and fun activities through games, excursions and participation in the daily chores. The Brasov Visitor is still the only publication in English in Brasov, and in a country where the true importance of ecological conservation has just started to become understood, there is plenty for volunteers to do. As for Teaching, there will always be a need for native speakers to help our local teachers. And in Roma (Gypsy) communities, our volunteers might actually be the perfect incentive to attract children to school, and through alternative, fun ways of teaching, to make them enjoy their classes.

The crowd walking to the Jan Meda raceground during the Ethiopian Epiphany celebrations in Addis

Jo was able to send along some of her observations about one of our newest destinations, Ethiopia. Enjoy!

I spent two and a half months in Addis helping set up our projects there, and I’ll admit I was really surprised by Ethiopia. Before I went, my only vision of Ethiopia was that of starving, wide-eyed children in a drought prone dusty wasteland, and I half expected that Addis would be similar, and I couldn’t have been more wrong! Addis Ababa has to be one of the most welcoming places I’ve ever had the pleasure to live in.

The city itself feels like a challenge at first; there is no discernable city centre, few known street names, and a huge sprawling expanse of suburbs, many of which appear to begin right in the centre of what you thought was a business district – but once you find your way around (which took me about a week, but which takes volunteers a lot less time with our help!), you get that special sense of achievement that you always have when living as a foreigner overseas, of “I know where I’m going, I use public transport, and I’m one of the masses”. People who see you on buses stare in amazement, since they are only used to seeing white faces behind the wheel of huge white SUV’s, and I’m sure they imagine that people don’t use public transport in the west! I love surprising people, and changing their ideas, so every short trip to meet friends or go for coffee brought a smile to my face.

Addis is set in the central highlands at an altitude of 2500-3000m – the main benefit of which is that the whole city is surrounded by mountains covered in beautiful alpine forests, so sunsets are stunning, and if you ever get the chance to get to the top of a tall building, the view is amazing! The other benefit is that short day trips for picnics or to visit churches in the hills are really easy to do – perfect if you love the great outdoors and can’t stay too long in a bustling city!

The altitude also makes for lovely weather. Ethiopia claims to get “13 Months of sunshine” – and it’s almost true – the sun really does shine everyday! During the day it’s warm enough that you can get away with just wearing a shirt, but without being so hot you break into a sweat, and once the sun goes down at around 6pm, it turns cooler.

Learn more about transportation around the city, using two different time systems and Jo’s favorite things after the jump!
Transport in Addis Is superb. Everybody in Addis owns either a donkey, a Lada, or minibus. Being a westerner, I don’t think the novelty value of crossing the street next to a heavily laden donkey will ever wear off!

All the Lada’s and minibuses are painted white and blue, designating them as taxis, and the minibuses are by far the cheapest and best way to get about. They cost as little as 65 cents (about 0.01 USD), run all over the city, and you never have to wait more than a few minutes for one to come along – it makes public transport in England look shameful!

One amusing aspect of life here is the use of two clocks - Ethiopians (quite rightly) argue that the day doesn’t start at midnight, rather the day starts when the day starts, i.e. when the sun comes up. Thus, 6am is 00.00, 9am is 3am, 4 pm is 10am, and so on. As you can imagine, this makes it somewhat impossible to meet anyone without an obligatory ten minutes of confusing discussion about whether you mean 4pm Ethiopian, or European time! In the annual sense, Ethiopia also has it’s own calendar, which is 7 days shorter out of every year than the Gregorian calendar we use in the west, making January 13th 2007, actually 5th May 1999! They’ve got some amazing millennium parties planned for about 7 months time if anyone fancies it….!

My two favourite things about Addis though, are the people, and the coffee. Ethiopian people are so welcoming, generous to a fault, and absolutely fascinated by westerners – having a ‘ferenje’ (foreigner) friends here is considered quite “cool”, so I had offers of meeting up for coffee coming out of my ears! People here love laughing and dancing, so there’s always a celebration around the corner.
We’ve had an amazing response from locals about the projects we’ve set up, and there’s a huge variety of work on offer.

Teaching English is really important here, since the lingua franca, Amharic, hasn’t developed sufficiently to adapt to the wealth of new words used in fields such as Science and Technology, which is why all subjects are taught in English from grade 7 - so it’s especially important in Ethiopia that children get a good grounding from an early age.

If you chose to do care work, there’s plenty to be done, and again, a huge variety – you could chose to work with babies, toddlers, under-privileged or disabled kids in day care centres, or even join in with our new public health education campaign to teach kids about personal hygiene.

I truly loved Ethiopia, and even though I’ve only been back a week, I miss her dearly. Now all I need to do is convince my boss to give me about six months off so I can go back as a volunteer…..!!

We all at Projects Abroad would like to send a belated birthday shout out to the 50th anniversary of Ghana’s Independence!

Ghana was the first sub-Saharan nation to attain independence from colonial rule in 1957 and Independence Day on March 6th, 2007 kicked off twelve months of celebrations to mark the 50th year of independence. Since then Ghana has been heralded as a beacon of stability and sustainable development on a continent plagued by corrupt governance, economic stagnation and civil strife. The Golden Jubilee is certainly a momentous occasion and a great moment not only for Ghana but also for Africa. In the words of Tom Davis, our Country Director in Ghana, “Ghana has been the star of Africa, in championing the campaign for freedom.”

Having read accounts of the celebration of Ghana’s golden jubilee it sounds like it was a rocking good time! For our volunteers, staff members or anyone who was in Ghana, how did you celebrate? How were the festivities? Feel free to comment on your experiences!

Photo from Ghana’s Independence Day Parade

While reading the paper you can find weird news from all over the world and subsequently our threshold for the weird and zany has jumped quite a bit, but the story below definitely grabbed my attention! Although this took place far from our base in southern India, it shows that a Veterinary placement in India (http://www.projects-abroad.org/projects/veterinary/india.php)will never be unexciting!

Associated Press

CALCUTTA, India —

When his chickens started disappearing a few weeks ago, a farmer in eastern India figured dogs or jackals were to blame — until he discovered his calf making a meal of his poultry.

Moloy, who uses only one name, and his 1-year-old calf have since become local celebrities, with the carnivorous cow appearing on television in India’s West Bengal state and hundreds of people flocking to see them in Chandipur, a village 145 miles southwest of Calcutta, the state capital.

“To catch the culprit, Moloy got up very early … and to his disbelief found that it was his calf which came out from the cow shed and was eating the chickens alive,” Debjyoti Chatterjee, a local resident who filmed the calf eating a chicken, said Thursday.

The local veterinarian was at a loss for an explanation.

“I’ve never read or heard about cows turning carnivorous,” said Mihir Tripathy. “They eat grass and other vegetarian food but not fish or other non-vegetarian stuff.”

This Monday (5-3-07) Janou & Laurens from the Dutch office, were present at the opening of World Portraits by Princess Maxima of the Netherlands.

So you may ask: What is World Portraits?
World Portraits is a fair trade photo collection of people from around the world.
The beauty and uniqueness of World Portraits is that the person photographed can share in the profits. Every time a photo is sold, the person in question will receive a royalty.

It is the first, worldwide initiative that ensures that people, wherever they are in the world, receive money every time their photo is published. In third world countries, models receive their money via micro banking facilities or as a cheque.

The people that are photographed are not professional models, but ordinary people that sign a model release contract on the spot.

All World Portraits photos can be ordered and downloaded at the usual rates from www.anp-photo.com or visit the official website: www.world-portraits.com

So you may ask as well: what were Janou & Laurens doing there?
Well, we were present because Projects Abroad made it possible in 3 of our destinations (Mongolia, Bolivia & Peru) to take pictures for World Portraits. These pictures were either shot in our projects, or at places where our colleagues have contacts.

The photographer (Robin van Utrecht) thanked Projects Abroad in his opening speech and particularly loved his time in the prison in Bolivia – normally not open for “public” and he thought it was amazing to be able to photograph some of the unique characters there – and yes the inmates also get money whenever their picture is used worldwide. A lot of his pictures, made because of our combined work, are in stock and for sale through World Portraits.

So again a big thanks to the destinations Robin went to, and already a big thanks for the coming destinations, as Cambodia, Ghana and others are on their wish list to visit too.

Note: Because of our time and effort for World Portraits, the people running World Portraits are now trying to get our “King to be” (Willem-Alexander van Oranje) and his princess Maxima to visit our projects in India, when they will visit India this year. Hopefully to be continued.