Happy New Year!!!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!! This week saw the arrival of 2003 last Saturday. New Year is one of the biggest celebrations of the year where everyone cooks dora wot ( chicken sauce ) to go with their injera. This is made by slow cooking a mountain of onions for a few hours, adding very hot sauce and chopped up bits of chicken – sounds strange but is in fact fantastic !

School was due to start directly after the new year on the Monday ( the 13^th ) however, it was suddenly announced that for the first week of school no teaching could be carried out. Instead , it was to be a week of activities, with parents supposed to be joining in with them ! With no notice at all, this was rather unrealistic and as a result, many schools decided to simply not bother getting into trouble by not providing the range of activities required and start the school a week later ( our school included ! ) Thus this week has changed into training week, with the new addition to the team – Dawit's relative who is a secondary school teacher – giving the training.

In the meanwhile, Dawit has spent the week frantically having a last minute dash for the van which will be used to transport the children to and fro from the school. Although he has been looking for the whole summer, nothing suitable turned up and we are now down to nail biting times ! One suitable van turned up – a Volkswagen – although there was a little doubt about this since there are no garages in Nazareth that know how to fix a Volkswagen thus there is an element of risk if it suddenly stops ! However, whilst we were deliberating about this, the owner changed their mind so this option was off !

The only other option was a minibus which was way out of our price range at a whopping 3,000 pounds ! However, nothing else turned up and so we collected all of our personal savings and borrowed from family and friends and as long as we didn’t encounter any unexpected things then we would be fine until my next pay cheque! However, after all of this effort the man turned round at the last minute and put the price up by another 250 pounds ! – a seemingly small amount but when we were stretched the limit then it is impossible !

Thus as it stands at the moment we have no van for Monday and the start of school ! – we are hoping for a miracle over the weekend since at the end of the day we have done all that we can do – so we are just leaving it in Gods hands !!!!!

The summer school finished with a blast last Friday and there is now a lull for the pupils before the new year on the 11^th( next Saturday ) and the restart of school on the 13^th !

It’s not the same for us however, since there is still a mountain of things to be sorted out ! – it is amazing that however early you start to get things ready and how many lists etc you write, there is always a mad rush at the end !

We are still finishing off trying to get a new van – which has proved to be much more expensive than we anticipated ! Still, it is essential since we are unable to control the fees that outside agencies ask for !

Student numbers aren’t too bad for this time of year – ( Culturally, Ethiopians are not planners and with the very relaxed pace of life in Nazareth then many don’t register their children at the school until the Friday of the first week of school ! ) a modest fifty four – so hope that we will have record numbers this year !

Two of the three volunteers have now left and Marianne ( the lady from Belgium ) is on holiday with Azeb ( the manager of the school ) down in the South of the country where the rainy season has minimal impact during the daytime. She leaves however on Sunday.

The good news is that we have another volunteer – Suzanne – from the UK who is coming on Friday to visit here friend in Addis Ababa and then will make her way across to Nazareth for the start of school on the 13^th. Although she is only staying for two weeks, she will make a difference and we are now searching for someone to start at the beginning of October ! – a few people have enquired but nothing concrete as yet – still, I’m sure that someone will turn up !