D-Day Approaches

Hi all,

While not as terrifying as the subject title may imply, the big day is now just hours away. The First Day Back At School. It has been relatively quiet here for the 12 or so days I have been in Bingham Academy, with just the staff, their families and the workers around. Tomorrow we will be invaded by about 220 children, ranging from about age 5 to age 16. Am I prepared? I really don't know. I have a plan, but how will it actually go? You'll have to wait until the next episode to find out. Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself.

On a technical note, I have been notified that people receiving this letter through a Hotmail account have been getting blank messages. This one should be ok. Please let me know if it isn't. One other note is that this one won't be posted on the web site immediately. Internet access other than for email has been very intermittent so far. Apparently TeleCom (the one and only Internet provider in the country) has been hit by the virus plaguing the rest of the world, thus making their service very (very) flakey. But email generally gets through once or twice a day (on average).

Departure from London was fairly smooth, if somewhat more involved than I had been hoping. My flight was scheduled to depart at about 5:20PM, so I gave myself about 5 hours to get to the airport. The plan was to take the train from St Albans to Kings Cross Station, and then change to the underground, catching a Piccadilly line service to Heathrow (Terminal 4). Those familiar with London will know what I mean. For the rest of you, just play along...

After dragging my 40 kilos of luggage the 2-3 kilometres to the train station, I finally boarded a train destined for Kings Cross Station at about 12:45. One station short of Kings Cross, the train stopped progressing. Apparently there had been a 'serious problem' further down the line, resulting in long delays and imminent cancelations. Hmm, I thought. I wasn't keen on dragging my luggage around London, so I waited for about 15 minutes. With no progress in sight, I and a fellow traveler (an Englishman bound for France via the Eurostar train service) headed out and discovered that we could catch the Underground from here. He helped me with my suitcase and a few minutes later I was on a Northern Line service headed for Leicester Square station. Hopping off there, I trundled to the Westbound Piccadilly Line platform where 1 minute later, a service bound for Heathrow arrived. Fantastic, I thought. About 10 minutes later, we were informed that the service would (for some reason I couldn't understand) be terminating at an earlier station - about 5 stops too short. Thankfully, once we all got off, another train came by about 10 minutes later, and I finally got to Heathrow. Once off the train service, there were no further problems. I had finally arrived, just outside the recommended 2 hours before departure. From London it was a quick (55 minute) flight to Amsterdam, where I got off, walked the 25 minutes or so from one end of the airport to the other, and boarded my flight to Kenya. The flight there was quite pleasant (as far as an Economy flight to anywhere is pleasant), and 8 hours later we had landed in Nairobi.

After hanging around in the departure lounge for an hour-and-a half, I was greeted by Geoff Weston, a fellow Australian heading to Addis Ababa who I had met through Stuart and Lucy Bradley a couple of months ago. He is teaching Kindergarten at another school here in Addis for a year or so. Anyway, we finally headed out to the plane, stopping to identify our luggage so that it wouldn't be left in Nairobi and started the 2 hour flight back north to Addis Ababa. The plane wasn't too crowded, so after takeoff we sat together. The other passenger in our row turned out to be a Kenyan Christian named Rose, who was also going to Addis for the first time. She's doing about 7 months worth of aid work as a nutritionalist for the Catholic Relief Fund(?). She's a protestant though, so we may meet at church occasionally. It depends what churches we all end up going to.

Anyway, the flight was pretty much on-time, and I got through customs remarkably quickly. The only slight holdup was the luggage carousel breaking down, resulting in about 75% of the luggage being sent out on the next-carousel down. Welcome to Africa.

Upon exiting, I was greeted by a small crowd - David Hicks, who was the only person there who'd actually seen me in the flesh before, Krisha and Brad Adams (fellow Australians) and Binyam, an Ethiopian guy about my age who I'll be working with in the computer lab at the school. The drive home was...interesting. Defensive driving takes on a whole new meaning in this country. Lane markings are regarded as a guide, usually as the line the centre of the vehicle travels down. Cars (and there are quite a few of them) either drive slowly in the middle of the road, or suddenly zip past you on the inside lane, or both, at random. Pedestrians, donkeys and herds of sheep may attempt to cross the road at any time. Pedestrian crossings exist in a few places, but if you stop to let people cross at them, you are likely to be involved in an accident. The only reason they exist at all is because we have them in the West. They mean nothing. The best policy is to beep your horn at regular intervals and pray a lot.

Addis Ababa (pronounced Ah-dis Ab-be-bah) officially has a population of about 3-4 million. Some of the locals guess that is probably about half the actual amount. People lie, run away or dodge the census here because the results are used to calculate the taxes each house should pay. So the official numbers are unreliable. Either way, it is quite crowded. Because it is the rainy season at the moment, where there is vegitation it is green, and there are regular mud puddles about the place. In the dry season (which goes from September until July) it becomes much browner. Water is a resource that must be used with some care here. During the dry season they have rostered power cuts (hydroelectricity accounts for 98% of the country's electricity). That isn't the case at the moment, although we've had a couple of power outages since I got here. This will probably make teaching computers somewhat challenging at times. We do have a generator and backup batteries, but they can't power the whole compound.

Anyway, after picking up some milk (which is fresh and comes in 1/2 litre packets) we finally arrived at Bingham. I've put pictures up of the main building, and of the inside of my appartment (which is on the bottom floor of the building on the right, if you're looking at the picture). New people are looked after with regards to lunch and dinner for the first week or so, which not only saved me from having to find and cook food, but also gave me a chance to meet some of my co-workers. There are about 14 other appartments on the compound, with a variety of singles, couples and families occupying them. I'd be the youngest expat (or Ferenji in Amharic) working here, with the next closest being about 4 years older (at a guess).

There has been lots of work going on here over the rainy season holidays. With a new year level being added on, there has been a need to create some new classrooms. Previously, each of the teachers had their own classroom and the students came to them. This year, each class gets their own classroom, and the teachers come to them (except for special subjects like computers, art and science, where there is too much equipment to move around). So, for the first time in Bingham history, we have a teacher staff room, where most of the highschool teacher have a desk. It's currently still having curtains and locks fitted, but it's functional. Although, as we discovered, with the corugated tin roof, it gets quite noisy in there during heavy rain or hail storms. The new classrooms have been created by subdividing some other rooms in existing buildings, and the staff room was created from a space what previously was used for hanging out clothes to dry. The new building that Russ Sweetman designed is yet to be started, with the process being bogged down in getting permission from the appropriate government department. That permission could be anything from 1 month to a year away. We are all hoping it won't take too long, but it's fairly comfortable here for this year.

Anyway, this email has already gone on for too long. This past week has mostly been taken up with orientation (which all the teachers have been involved in) and preparation for classes. I will be teaching Kindergarten through to 6th grade for Computers, as well as years 7 and 8 mathematics. Each of the computer classes is two lessons a week, and the maths are 5 lessons each, making a total of 24 lessons each week. Should keep me busy. I've played squash 3 times so far, and although the altitude does affect me, I think I'm getting used to it. I've played at least 6 games each time, although I haven't beaten Tim or David Hicks yet. I'll get there...

For now, however, it is time to go. Lesson plans beckon to be written. God bless.