Update

HI – hope that all is going well there – not much is happening this week for the blog – the children have al finished their exams – we were pleased with the results – the standard really does improve every year – which is a really good thing !! It was hard to get the exams ready with such a limited time scale and fighting against the power – the good news is that rains are sort of here but not as heavy and prolonged as usual which is a worry – they should be in full by now and should have been full on for at least three weeks !  - thus there is no end in sight for the power situation which is getting worse each week – 2 hours every 2 days is good nowadays !!!

        Rushing to get ready for the graduation which takes place on Sunday – I am not really sure if the kids are ready but we are relying on “ cute factor “ to try to get us through it !!

   The good news is that we now have 3 volunteers – the first from Belgium is coming on the 2^nd July , the second on the 16^th from the Uk and the third on the 18^th from Australia. The 3^rd one is our first man !! – we have never had a man before since the accommodation we offer is hared and in the society it is not acceptable to mix man and women ! This all looks like being a successful summer school this year and hopefully increase the numbers of students for next year !!

     No news on my own job for the next year – still looking around both in Ethiopia and abroad – quite a worrying situation really since I really feel that I cant stay at the job where I am but need to earn enough to keep the schools going !! – still in the process of trying to the make the school a charity – our initial application seemed to have a positive response in that they didn’t reject us but asked for a mountain of additional information ( easy to provide if there is power and you can type out the answers ! but with 2 hours to do it all every 2 days you cant spend all that time on one thing !! ) – being a charity will help a lot since then I think we would stand more chance of getting grants etc !!! – so fingers crossed !!

    Well must dash since racing against the power ! – many thanks for all your help – Stephanie and co

 

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 !!!

Preparations are carrying on for the end of term graduation – we will try to get some of last years photos so you can see more what it is – basically it is an end of year show with songs and dances etc then at the end the KG 2 pupils ( the 3rd year of school ) dress up in little graduation gowns and hats and get a certificate to say that they have finished KG school and are now off to the big school ! 
WE are still looking for volunteers for the summer school !!
We are still worried about Tsion ( the girl with Downs Syndrome ) since not sure what she will do next year – she really isn’t progressing. 
We have joined a new internet place - http://www.easyfundraising.org.uk – you can set it as your home page and then receive ½ pence every time you use it to search rather than using Google – in addition – you can use it every time that you make an internet purchase – it might not be much but if the message goes out to a lot of people and everyone is using it then all the little bits will add together. !
Still no news on being a registered charity although they wrote to say that we should know by 10th June so we are on tenterhooks awaiting the results !
The power is still horrendous – one day on and one day off ! – it is caused a bit of a problem in the city of Addis and even spreading to Nazareth since many factories are unable to function so things are starting to be in short supply ! – still no real rains have come yet which is a bit worrying for the farmers !
 The corn season is now in full swing – this is a fascinating time of the year when the streets are full of ladies with their piles of corn ( they tie the leaves together and stand them up like little teepees ) which you can buy raw to cook yourself or they all have a little charcoal fire next to them where they are roasting them – thus you can buy a nice hot roasted one ! – yummy !!
Once again many thousands of thanks – Stephanie and co