Rich and his trusty stead

By Richard Clowes

Starting on Sunday 1st June I’ll be cycling 1,000 miles from Lands End to John O’Groats (the southern tip to the northern tip of Great Britain) to raise money for Addis Ababa Safe House.

Every £150 Pounds I raise pays for an Ethiopian child to be brought in off the streets and given basic housing, food and education for a year.

You can read more about the project and see daily updates and photos of the trip at: http://richardclowes.blogspot.com/

Any sponsorship you can give will be matched by Projects Abroad so all will be greatly appreciated. Thanks to Peter for Projects Abroad’s support.

Rich in Ethiopia

Young Ethiopians Celebrating (Source: AP)

Hasn’t the millennium already happened? Well for most of the world you would be correct but not in Ethiopia. Ethiopia heralded in the 21st century on Wednesday, September 12th. It celebrates the millennium seven years after the rest of the world because it follows the Coptic calendar instead of the more common Gregorian.

Happy Millennium to all our staff and volunteers in Ethiopia! Enjoy the celebrations!

By Sarah Milnes, Programme Advisor

As my first time to Africa, I was more than a little excited about heading off to Ethiopia, home to the roots of modern man! Ethiopia certainly didn’t disappoint. Despite it being the peak of the rainy season in Addis Ababa, which combined with the altitude of over 2400m, gave the capital a distinctly ‘British’ climate, the warmth and friendliness of the Ethiopian people more than made up for it.

Sami, our Ethiopian Director and his Assistant, Abe, became my guides for the week, showing me round all our various host families and placements in addition to some of the cities attractions. At first the Ethiopian capital can seem quite disorientating, with no definite ‘centre’, but once you get the hang of using the shared minibus taxis, everything soon slots into place. It is also a surprisingly safe and un-intimidating city, although being one of relatively few ‘feranjee’ (foreigners) you do stand out and attract a fair bit of attention!

View of Addis from the office

experienced Ethiopian hospitality on many occasions and was regularly ‘force-fed’ mounds of injera (the local staple –grey ‘pancake-style’ bread made from fermented grain) and tibs (fried pieces of beef) whilst visiting local host families alongside delicious coffee or macchiato. I was also fortunate to witness traditional coffee ceremonies and cultural dancing, which seems to basically involve lots of rapid shoulder movement, something which all Ethiopians seem to be able to do, but I and fellow ‘feranjee’ were hopeless at!

Ed,a volunteer, with some children

Volunteers mainly spend their time in Addis either teaching or doing care work in orphanages or drop-in centres, although there are also opportunities to do journalism for one of the private English language publications ‘The Daily Monitor’. As it was the school holidays, I visited volunteers teaching adults in small language schools, as well as working on a holiday teaching programme.

With a diverse mix of different peoples, the vast majority being either Orthodox Christian or Muslims, Ethiopia is a fascinating country. I was lucky enough after my time in Addis to spend 10 days in the South of the country, visiting the tribal peoples of the Omo valley, a truly mid-blowing trip. 80 % of the population of Ethiopia are farmers, a fact that becomes blindingly obvious when you have driven through the 10th herd of cattle or goats crossing the road in the same number of minutes! I saw some stunning and varied scenery from the mountain peaks and fertile valleys to the dry scrubland of the lowlands.

Sarah in a Mursi tribal village

It was incredible to see people ploughing the fields with oxen and living in small grass and mud huts, having to walk for miles each day to fetch water, which involved digging a hole in one the dried up river beds. Despite the economic hardships many people face, I found the Ethiopian people proud and resilient and will certainly never forget my time there.

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!