Things here in Ethiopia are on the up ! – our latest volunteer – Paul has now returned to the USA and the latest volunteer - Iris is due to take the bus journey to Nazareth Sunday for her stay of three weeks . We really are doing very well with volunteers at the moment, with Helen from the UK booked to come at the end of May and two people already booked for the summer school !
Last week we had the school inspectors in – but for the first time ever – we were pleased to see them since they were evaluating us for the Nazareth best school competition ! From the fifteen or so schools in Nazareth , we were rated in the top three and thus to finalise the decision the school inspectors came to assess us ! Not really sure what they were looking for since the educational bureau here doesn’t value the same things as I might, but nonetheless, they looked quite happy and were more than impressed with our library and shelves of resources !
Not sure when the competition result will be out ( or even what the prize is !( if anything ! ) but it is great to be in the top three , especially as we are a disadvantage since our building is only rented meaning that the layout isn’t as we would like ! – So that has boosted everyone and there is a renewed sense of achievement!
On the fundraising front things are going slowly – as Paula our previous volunteer who was an expert always said , to be successful in fundraising you do the small boring things seemingly forever and then suddenly boom – there is a miracle ! – So I suppose that we are at the bottom of the ladder of boring things but need to focus on the miracle which is there waiting for us at the end !!!
Still trying to sort out the website ( not an easy task from Ethiopia ! ) so that we can launch our sponsorship campaign, but plodding on with the facebook. This has been made significantly more difficult however due to the fact that the digital camera was dropped and it is no longer working, meaning that the exciting daily events of the school are difficult to capture !
On the writing front had my biggest job ever ( £ 340 which says a lot for the other jobs I have been doing ! ) – 10,000 words on autism ! It seemed achievable when I started it , however that really is a lot of words and then once you add on references ,contents pages and appendices etc then it all came to about 14,000 !!!! I must say that it nearly killed me and I would definitely think twice about taking on so many words again ( especially in a subject which I know relatively little about ! ) However, the money really will come in handy and will keep us going for another month or two !!!Best to think in the short term these days !!!
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