Voluneers' Experiences in Ethiopia

At the end of November 2008, a group of volunteers from Reed Specialist Recruitment went to Addis Ababa to work with Ethiopiaid's projects.

Adrian Dutch, Head of Marketing for Reed in Partnership shares his experiences with us below.

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Day 1 - "Cabin doors to manual..."

First impressions - cramped conditions, a seething mass of humanity living cheek-by-jowl, strange food. Still, enough about British Midland economy class, what about Ethiopia?

Bole airport was the first surprise - a bright, modern, glass structure which immediately embarrasses any visitor expecting a dirt landing strip and a couple of chicken sheds. We were briskly whisked through immigration to be met by a hotel greeter who immediately noticed that within our party was Reading's number one David Beckham lookalike, David Spencer Webb. David was soon to learn that whenever he introduced himself by his christian name, the immediate response would be "Beckham!!!", which demonstrated not only what a global brand he is (Beckham, not Spencer Webb), but that he probably looking for a bit of part-time lookalike work on the side (Spencer Webb, not Beckham). Note to Beckham - if you ever visit Addis and discover to have a reputation for overpaying for taxis, now you know why.

We arrived at the hotel at around 2am, again a modern, clean, glass-fronted edifice with the friendliest staff imaginable. It emerged that the travel agency had failed to pay for the rooms in advance, but the attitude of the staff was "Hey, don't worry, go to bed and we'll sort it out later". Try that in your local Travelodge and see how far you get.

Day 2 - "Do I eat it, or make elbow patches out of it?"

After breakfast, we grabbed a taxi and headed down to the Mercato, Africa's largest market. Our taxi driver acted as a guide, but the sheer insanity of the crowds, plus the fact that we blended in about as well as Colonel Sanders at a vegetarian convention, meant he lost his nerve after about 15 minutes. To be honest, I was quite relaxed - if you're a pickpocket, who are you going to target? Some random fat, bald guy or David Beckham? Still, discretion, and respect for our guide's blood pressure, demanded we left for calmer surroundings.

We ended up at what I would describe as the souvenir district. In Addis, all the competing shops seem to gather in exactly the same place, selling exactly the same things. And every shop keeper wants you to come in for a look around. This is fine for souvenir shops, but a bit disconcerting when we came across a row of coffin shops. I know I'm not the healthiest-looking individual, but they did seem to be targeting me rather than the rest of the team.

Wherever you go, you are assailed but street kids. "You! You!" is the standard opening greeting, usually followed by "I am hungry, give me money". This is a ridiculously friendly city though - wander round with a camera and people wave, or step into shot intentionally with a toothy grin. Wind your car window down and the driver of the bus next you is likely to try and strike up a conversation.

Lunch was a relaxed affair at the wonderful Habesha restaurant where we dined on a variety of spiced lamb and meat dishes served with injera. Injera is pretty much the staple food in Ethiopia, an huge, slightly sour, cold pancake with the texture and consistency of an Odour Eater. It's definitely an acquired taste. However, it's very nutritious and rich in iron, although the rise in food prices has meant that the principal grain used in its manufacture, teff, has risen in price and out of the price range of many families.

I now know danger. I know what it is to live on the edge. For I have sat in the front seat of an Ethiopian taxi. With a broken seat belt. At night. Earlier today I passed a driving school - presumably it's a pretty short course, as driving skills here consist of pointing the car in vaguely the right direction, accelerating and hitting the horn. The horn is the most vital component in any Ethiopian vehicle, acting as a substitute for indicators, brakes, mirrors, in fact pretty much everything except the go pedal. Traffic rules are easy. Everyone has right of way - cars, buses, people, goats, stray dogs. Green Cross Man wouldn't last five minutes.

Day 3 - "Where there's education, there's always Hope"

The Team split into groups, with some going off to Addis Development Vision, and Fiona Harper, Lauren Bartmanis and myself heading to Hope Enterprises. As we entered the city centre headquarters, we could hear the sound of children singing at the top of their voices, which immediately made the hairs on the back of the neck stand up.

These are kids from disadvantaged backgrounds, 700 of whom come in every morning for a breakfast of two bread rolls, a banana and a mug of warm milk. The purpose of the exercise is to encourage them to attend school and to this end the charity has a full-time social worker who visits their homes, meets with their parents, and helps resolve any problems. He has a caseload of over 1000 children all over Addis, and without the charity, these kids would undoubtedly go through life with no formal education and little future.

Hope is an immense organisation, with schools across the country and many other projects (see http://www.hopeenterprises.org for more information). One of these is a soup kitchen, which offers a basic meal to over 1000 homeless people a day. It was perhaps the only time in the entire trip that we saw the pragmatists who run these projects crack a little. The core principle of the Hope programmes is to build for the future, whereas the soup kitchen operates purely to offer basic sustenance to those who have been stripped of everything - hope, dignity, opportunity. We were fortunate to meet a Dutch businessman, who for the last 15 years had co-ordinated the contributions of over 200 businesses to support this enterprise, and we could only stand in awe and the level of commitment that he had shown in both time and money.

Our next stop was the Hope School in Addis. The school offers education from Kindergarten through grade 12, plus up to 3 years of specialized vocational education in areas such as Hospitality, Catering, and Electrical Engineering. This is where we are due to spend most of our week, teaching English and helping the teachers in any way we can.

Our final destination was that site of the Hope University which is currently under construction. This will be and extraordinary complex when it is completed in 2010, designed by a local architectural firm using traditional Ethiopian design forms, and will offer the opportunity for Higher Education to thousands of students who otherwise would not have been able to afford it.

Our guides for the day were Dr Minas and Dr Alemu. These are two hugely inspirational men. Most of the time in the developed world, we only hear about emergency aid requirements, feeding people in dire need but offering no long-term solutions. Hope is attempting to change this, and the future of an entire country through education. It is an immense undertaking, costing nearly £6m to fund a year, and not insubstantial portion of which comes from Ethiopiaid.

Day 4 - "Has anyone here ever heard of Tottenham Hotspur?"

We again visited the street children's breakfast programme. It was a quieter session, as the school kids has exams, and so we had around 20 children to deal with, none of whom are yet in schools. It's hard to write about how lovely they are without coming over all touchy-feely, but they genuinely are great kids, and you don't actually feel any sadness or pity because they are so positive about life. I don't really have the words to describe the feeling you get when a hungry child offers to share their breakfast with you.

We then headed out to the Hope School to sit in on some lessons and help some of the students with their English. Throughout the course of the day, we worked out way up from Year 6 to Year 9, and once the children had got over the novelty of a trio of "Faranji" (foreigners) in the room, and had finished running through every premiership footballer they knew (everyone here either supports Manchester United, Chelsea or Arsenal), we were able to help them with some grammar and spelling. It's a tough job being a teacher here - class sizes of over 50 mean it's hard to identify either talented or struggling pupils, and text books are one between four. This is not due to money but simple availability (state schools get first dibs on text books), and the high cost of printing or photocopying means there's no easy solution.

On the other hand, the school is the nearest thing to normality for a European visitor. You can see some of the same clique-iness and striving for cool as you'd see in the UK, especially amongst the older students. But there is a greater respect for the teachers, and a much greater desire to learn. In the UK, Reed in Partnership is placing an increasing emphasis on the NEET (Not in Education, Employment or Training) group - what my father would refer to as "disaffected youth", and my grandfather as "layabouts". It would be an interesting exercise to bring a dozen of them over here to see what their equivalents in Addis are prepared to go through to get a basic education.

Day 5 - "A whole new definition of the word "busy"..."

An early start saw us reach the street kids' breakfast before 7am to help prepare the meals. A steady stream of children flowed through before making their way to their schools. The project feeds them, counsels them, and tries to persuade them that they would be better off at home with their families. On the same site there is a small craft workshop where two wonderfully talented women produce pots, vases, and tiny clay nativity figures, vastly superior to anything in the souvenir shops. Unfortunately, because Hope is a charity, the government does not allow them to run any commercial enterprises. It's a brilliant piece of red tape which even now I'm trying to figure out a way round. If anyone can work out a way to bend the rules, it's me - just as my finance department.

From high up over the city you can see the corrugated iron roofs of shanty towns everywhere - Addis is where corrugated iron goes to die. The walk to the homeless project was my first opportunity to walk through one of these, and I was amazed to discover a bustling centre of industry - tiny workshops churning out beds, wardrobes, bar stools, you name it. My favourite was a dilapidated shack which seemed to be made out of old food packets and was in a state of imminent collapse. The only sign of activity was a large sign saying "Import-Export". It seemed a bit condescending to take a photo. So I did it really quickly when no-one was looking.

The same kitchen also serves as the location for a soup kitchen for homeless women later on in the day. This runs along the same lines as the men's version we'd previously seen, but with a very different atmosphere. Firstly it was more vibrant. I'm in no way suggesting that women talk more than men, but... well, no, actually I am suggesting that. The presence of children lifted the atmosphere as well, especially as many of them knew from the breakfast project.

I should probably mention that while I was playing at photo-journalism, Fiona and Lauren were working like Trojans in the kitchen, folding up injera, serving food, washing and generally making me look bad. Thank god I've worked in marketing for Reed in Partnership for 5 years and am thus immune to criticism.

From the soup kitchen we hightailed it to the school again. Fiona and I joined a year 10 English class while Lauren went off to teach English to the kindergarten kids. I also met up with the school director to take him through some lesson plans for the art classes. There are no art teachers at the school and so the lessons are taken by other teachers who are obviously disengaged and see it as a bit of a chore, so we're developing some simple lessons which embed their specialist subject, whether it's history, geography, maths, English or music. Tomorrow I have to put my money where my mouth is and deliver the lessons myself.

Day 6 - "Fat, red, hairy and beautiful..."

Before I left for school, I sat down with Dr Alemu once more. He has only just taken over as head of the charity, whilst Dr Minas has stood down to concentrate on the University construction. A nicer man you could no wish to meet. He is very familiar with the UK having studied in Aberdeen in the 1970's. He also introduced me to his daughter Bethlehem, or Betty, who works for the charity and has a Masters in Electronic Media, so we discussed the potential of social networking sites like Facebook, Youtube, MySpace and Flickr to drive traffic to the charity's website - be prepared to be poked very soon.

I reached the school at 10am for my first art class. This was a class of around 50 grade 2 pupils, with limited English, and there was no teacher to support me so it was... interesting. We were doing self portraits and it would seem I managed to get through to about 70% of them. The rest drew me. After 45 minutes, I emerged slightly wobbly and shell-shocked, much to the amusement of the other teachers. I then found Lauren and Fiona who were taking PE lessons. A word about Fiona: she is a superfit Australian who works for International. As far as Fiona is concerned, everywhere is within walking distance - we could probably have saved on her airfare and just asked her to set out a week earlier with a backpack and a pair of stout Timberlands. She had the kids doing drills like the Red army on May Day.

After two periods, I was quite relieved to have another art class or two to recover. Leaving the field, one of the children ran up, rubbed my belly and pronounced, "You are fat!" She then pointed to my head and told me, "You are red!" Finally, she stroked my arm and announced, "You are hairy!" As I walked off, slightly depressed, I heard I say, "You are beautiful." Fat, red, hairy and beautiful. OK so it's not up there with young, gifted, and black but I still think I may get it printed on a t-shirt.

There have been times when I've considered whether I could this kind of work on a more permanent basis. Usually after a six hour local management board meeting. Sitting here tonight, I realise I couldn't. I don't have the resilience or stamina or faith of these people. It is my cross to bear that I was born a genius of marketing, a shallow but lucrative profession, which means my role is only ever going to be raising as much awareness and money as possible for the people who do have what it takes. Which is why I'm sitting in the hotel lobby, half asleep, writing this diary, and why you're soon going to be sick of hearing from me with yet another scheme to raise funds.

Day 7 - "They call me Mister Adrian..."

Once again pitched up at the street kids breakfast, partly to introduce Sam Littleboy and Jo Ashton to the Hope team, but mainly to find out how the exams went (OK, since you ask). Sam is our IT expert, and thus much in demand from the projects here. Jo is a management accountant, and for the next six months is liable to wake up in a cold sweat whenever Peachtree is mentioned (special joke for management accountants everywhere).

Left them to it and headed on over to the school to teach a few more art classes again. It's quite rewarding when the kids see you heading for the classrooms and start shouting for you to come to their class, and then the class you walk into erupts into cheers. I've never felt so wanted in my life. My Amharic is improving every day - I now know "Sit down", "Be quiet", "Brilliant", "Beautiful" and "Do you understand?" which pretty much covers me for all teaching situations. It can be very slow progress in Art, as the kids insist on coming up and showing me their drawings each time they draw another line.

I also join Lauren and Fiona for a PE class. This time, after the usual warm up, Fiona gets them playing British Bulldog, although it should probably be renamed Ethiopian Bulldog because the Brits proved pretty hopeless at it. Damn, those kids are fast.

After another great lunch provided by the catering students, I had to pop out to get some gifts for those who had hosted us. Ethiopians are probably the most hospitable people I've met, and take it very seriously, so I felt it was important to hold the British end up. On the other hand, it did occur to me that they might think the whole concept of wrapping paper to be wasteful and slightly crazy, so I used newspaper. Now I'm worried they'll just think I'm tight.

Day 8 - "I'll be back..."

The original plan for the last day had been to go on some kind of excursion outside of Addis, but when it came down to it I realised I'd rather head of to the kitchen again and do one last stint at the kid's breakfast and say goodbye to the people there. I've never been much of a morning person, but it's been an absolute pleasure to get up at 5 in the morning and see these kids with there big brown eyes, wide smiles, and relentlessly snotty noses. After saying my goodbyes, I went for a coffee and a bit of a debrief with Dr Alemu and Dr Minas, where we had a chat about some of the core issues that the charity faces, and those upon which future teams could have the most impact. There were several areas which I'll stay personally involved with too. It's that kind of trip - you come for a week and end up with a lifetime commitment.

Afterwards, I wandered up into the area of Addis know as the Piazza (it dates from the Italian occupation in the 1930's). I was soon joined by a young "student" who engaged me in conversation. This is a traditional Addis scam - eventually the conversation will lead to an invitation to a coffee making ceremony at his sister's house which you're invited to attend, and at the end presented with a large bill for hundreds of dollars. So we cut to the chase. I could do with a local guide, and he could do with ten dollars. He turned out to be very good company for someone who learned most of his English from the movies.

All that remained was to have a last meal together at the hotel, get our bags packed, and head for the airport. At the time of writing, I have no idea whether the Ethiopiaid Team Challenge will run again in 2009, but I can only hope that it does. It has been a hugely satisfying experience - genuinely life-changing - and one of the greatest experiences of my life, right up there with raising my daughter and saving a penalty. I had the privilege of working with a great team of co-members (I can say that because I picked them, so it still makes me look good) as well as meeting some of the most inspiring people I'm ever likely to come across.