Hi

Hi – sorry to have been out of touch – the trouble is that the power situation has suddenly got a lot lot worse !!1- officially they are still on the one day on / one day off system but now you really don’t know which day is supposed to be the day with power and the day that is supposed to be without ! – we get about 5 hours in 2 days ( I am being generous ) which of course means a lot of early nights / the children doing their homework by candlelight ( lots of children at the  school are coming to school with candle wax on their books ( I can see how it is done – I have spilt wax on my daughters homework when I looking carefully at it ! )            This means that progress is slow ! – this has been compounded with the fact that the government have suddenly decided d that all schools need to close before July – then they are going to give training to the grade teachers all over the region of Oromo ( they were going to give training to the KG teachers as well but realized that they didn’t have the funds ! ) – this means that our exams are suddenly brought forward by 3 weeks and our graduation show by the same ! – this has meant that I have been racing to write the exam papers !!! ( they are still aren’t finished but I am writing them and sending them day by day with someone on the bus who is going to Nazareth and then someone from the school meets them at the bus station ! – not the best way – but what else can you do ? Every weekend we are racing on Friday evening to Nazareth and getting the kids in on the Saturday morning to practice the show – then spend the rest of the week trying to make the costumes for them ! – not sure how it will turn out but keep telling myself that since they are young they have “ cute factor “ so hope that if they go all wrong then at least they will look sweet !           In our personal life I have decided that I cant continue at the school where I am working – however, it is very hard to find a school which will pay enough both to keep us going and English Alive going ( I would say that at least ½ my salary goes to the school at the moment and without it then the schools would definitely close ) I have had job offers here but it isn’t enough – thus we are looking at making the hard decision of leaving the country and for me to work abroad. The UAE seems the best bet thus far – if I got a good job then Dawit would be able to come back every month or so fro a week or so and I could continue to make all the plans  and send them over – so the schools would stagger on ! – it is not easy to think of this option but at the moment we cant see any other alternatives – however, haven’t as yet even managed to get a job in the UAE ( although I have a masters in education so hope that something will turn up !!!! )  so nothing is for sure !!!