Small steps

Tuesday April 23, 2013

Yay for small successes! Today was the 2^nd week of the High School English club with two classes of about 25 students each. In honor of Earth Day I gave it an environment theme. (Emily was gone so I did it all solo-eeek). Thank goodness we decided to limit the number of students. I don’t know how the teachers here do it with class sizes of roughly 50 students. On a side note I also learned that the classes are only 40 minutes so I can only imagine how hard it is to teach and learn like that. Although I guess it has been a while since I was in high school so I forget how long my classes were….

Anyway I asked the students three questions; 1) What is your favorite thing about the environment, 2) What is important to you about the environment and 3) What idea’s do you have for protecting the environment. I then gave them time to write and decorate their paper with markers and colored pencils. Next came the scary part- they had to present to the class and read aloud in English what they had written. For many this was the first time they have ever had to speak in front of their peers in English (or Amharic for all I know). I felt kind of bad because some were really scared but they all did it and did it very well.

I was very impressed by their knowledge about the environment and the problems they face in their community. Trees and deforestation were the big topic and I was happy to hear many of them talk about the value of planting a diversity of trees. “If you cut a tree down you must plant two in its place” was the motto. This makes me excited to help start a tree nursery and tree planting projects with the students. Another reoccurring topic was how important nature is for their peace of mind. As one girl said “if you are angry you can go into the forest and then you wont be so angry”.  This also makes me want to help establish more parks within Goba and to lead some nature hikes. In fact yesterday I discovered a sort of park where there is a building for preparing food and buna ceremonies that overlooks the river. I intend to find out who owns this and help increase its use and to make it even more beautiful. Fun!

So in a way teaching this class was a selfish success because I was able to learn some of the local views and knowledge on the surrounding environment. Good inspiration which is helpful because working with the Agriculture office is quite the opposite. I had buna with my friend Mihret this weekend and got some confirmation on my suspicions about government work from her husband. He was the head of the land and water department for five years but left because he was discouraged with the lack of motivation and the constant waste of time in political meetings. At work I have noticed that people are either always in meetings or “out in the field”, which mostly means BSing with farmers. Sigh. So much potential, but so many obstacles. As I’ve been told it’s all about finding the right motivated people. Which I think I am starting to meet so I have hope that things will unfold.

Well at least I can work with the students on some level…

Cheerily signing out from a dark rainy Goba (power is out again). Chao!