Harrar

It has been a long time yet again Although many of you have undoubtedly heard me complain about the masters and the workload being crazy etc etc.
My Fabulous school had the full 3 weeks, yes eat your heart out Belgian teachers, but off course two of those were spent in my pyjamas with greasy hair in front of my books or laptop. Yeah =(
The third week however I allowed myself a break and Mika and me went to Harrar, a muslim city in the east of the country. There is a friend of his living there, her name is Sylvie and she’s ½ Ethiopian1/2 Belgian. She was raised here in Addis, left when she was 16 to Brussels studied there a multitude of things amongst which philosophy and has now returned to teach French at the university of Haramaya. Trust me I’ve seen Haramaya town and it’s not big, like 1 street, so she decided she’d live in the nearby Harrar. It was great staying at her place! We cooked talked about French music, Brussels, life and of course about teaching. Besides Harrar is a great place, It has this Arab feel to it and the old walled city is a labyrinth of alleys. The houses are painted in white or something very bright such as green, pink etc. The people are also colourful in every sense of the word. These Muslims are known mainly for their use of “Tsjat” a leaf that if you chew it for long enough is supposed to give you a certain buzz. Judging from the red eyes some have it certainly does something to you but I am not a cow that likes endless chewing so I haven’t really had the Tsat experience yet. I tried it once, it’s food like, what did you expect??? But it tastes awful so that was it for me, I’ll drink some Amarulla to have a nice taste and buzz, thank you!
Anyways 10-year-olds carry the leaves around in the breast pocket of their school uniform. WEIRD!
Some of the highlights of the trip? Feeding hyenas on the outskirt of town with Pepe Yosuf who has been doing so daily for the last I don’t know how many years. I counted fingers and toes and he amazingly still has them all! Besides the “doro wot” the Ethiopian dish although I don’t really get what they like about it so much , is considerably better there. They cook it longer in Harrar which makes the onion caramelise and gives a certain sweetness to the taste, furthermore I had an esprice,( several layers of fresh juice which equals heaven in a glass, it even beats the Amarulla _almost!) with a new fruit called ambeshock or something!!!!! We actually had that juice after a very extraordinary afternoon. Throughout the city I had seen colourful girls with strange make up. They were not Harrari I was told but Argoba. We had decided to go to the bus station that day and ask for a minibus to an Argoba village. The bus was extremely packed and everyone around us spoke Oromo leaving Mika and Sylvie as much in the dark as myself. After an interesting very much nauseating ride we arrived in a dusty area and were told the village was just up the road. This was about noon the sun was burning down on us and the up the road turned out to be an hour walk or so. It was well worth it, don’t get me wrong there was hardly a village but all the kids didn’t know what hit them 2 whitish ‘ferenj’(=Foreigners) in their village. Soon we were surrounded by curious eyes and as we had gone there to watch people in the first place it didn’t bother us at all those were watching us back. It’s very refreshing not to be asked for money for a change. Some spoke a mouthful amharic or 4 words of English but most communication was nonverbal. They were fascinated by my sunglasses, so I took them off to let the kids try them on. Very funny pics of these cute kids with my big shades on. The fact that I have blue eyes really freaked them out and the little ones hid behind their friends and only dared to take a sneak peek. After sitting for about an hour or 2 on a tree trunk in the “centre” of the village and attention we decided to return… All of them came behind us waving us goodbye. Very strange feeling to be treated like a celebrity. Sylvie told us her guard had told her he was raised in what she believed to be a similar village and how he had said with much enthusiasm “ and one day ferenj came!!!” What an experience, remind me to show you the pictures this summer, uploading them with Ethiopian internet is really impossible. Furthermore I discovered camel meet is tender juicy and tasty and Ethiopian movies are really crap! On the bus they entertained us with what could have been a Shakespeare tragedy. Full volume through the speaker: the most annoying thing ever: can’t understand the movie, can’t sleep (too loud), can’t listen to your MP3 ( still too loud)… grrrrrrr.
No honestly the overall experience was great, I have 2 colourful enormous scarves draped over my single armchairs to remind me.
Back to school and in the lasts weeks of module 1 was tough! Especially since some books still hadn’t arrived and were therefore brought back for me by my colleague Anna who went home for X-mas. This did mean still tons of reading to do. It hasn’t been an easy couple of weeks, I’ve been absent from school twice , what a great thing that my 2 teaching assistants can then take over, I feel so lucky! The assignment is due tomorrow I’ll reread it one last time in the morning (Sunday) and that’s it. 6 weeks later they’ll let me know the verdict, on Monday I start module 2.
A New Zealand friend told me that what I do is illegal back there, doing 4 modules a year for an MA of 8 is considered full time studying and you are not allowed to do that on top of working full time. Did I mention the 2 Dutch schools I teach at, So yes it is still busy. And I want to take part in the vagina monologues again this year and rehearsals have started last week (I had to cancel but will go next week!)
On the brighter side my tutor did say the next module involved less reading so I am hopeful. The books have now all come so that can’t hold me back this time…
Big hug to you all!