No Water, No Electricity, No Problem - Welcome to Gonder

On Thursday, Ari and I flew with Alemu, a JDC staff member, to Gonder.  He, along with another JDC staff member based in Gonder, Assefa, are helping us get settled in and finalizing arrangements. When we got off the plane I thought, “Ahha, this is Africa.”  I looked around and aside from the tiny stone airport, all I could see were green rolling hills and blue skies with white cloud tufts. It was breathtaking. The road to Gonder was lined with tall, shady trees and cacti, oddly enough. People trailed along the side, carrying loads or herding goats, cows, or donkeys.

Gonder Airport

Ethiopian Airlines plane we took from Addis

The road was well paved, and our driver Setegn navigated skillfully around the locals, cabs, buses, animals, and garis (horse-drawn carts). As the area became more populated, we turned off the main road and up a steep, dirt street. Once we reached the top, we turned left.  Colorful little shacks lined the street. They appeared to be small businesses, selling fruit, clothing, and other small goods. Rounding another corner, we came to houses walled with gates. According to Alemu, our neighborhood is made up mostly of faranjis (foreigners) like us.

We arrived at our house, and the gate doors opened. Our driver pulled in, and the gate doors were closed. Within our walls, topped with barbed wire, a large house loomed above. I was in a complex, with a driver, guards, and attentive house staff. The official house tour “Cribs: Gonder” is coming soon. The house isn’t fully furnished yet and we’re still unpacking so stay tuned.

View of our house from the street

After dropping off our luggage, we went to the school we will be teaching at, Fasiladas General Secondary School. About 2,000 ninth and tenth grade students attend the school in two shifts, morning and afternoon. It is a small campus of old, decrepit buildings constructed by the Italians around an overgrown grass and rocks quad. The school is actually tearing down a few classrooms to replace them with newer facilities in the coming year. We met the assistant principle and had tea with the head of the English department, Temesgen, in the teacher’s lounge. 

Then we were fortunate enough to sit in on a tenth grade English class and observe. The topic of the class was the relative clause. Remember in high school when you were trying to figure out the difference between “who” and “whom”? Relative clause. While the class size was large, the students were well behaved and more proficient that I had imagined. For most students, tenth grade is the last year of education. Those wishing to attend university enroll in prepatory school for eleventh and twelfth grades.

Buildings around the quad

Science labs

Tenth grade English class

Following class, we were dismissed for lunch. We headed into the heart of the city, the Piazza. We had lunch at the Quara Hotel, which boasts a great view. It did not disappoint.  Then off to the Merkato, or market, we went to purchase groceries and numerous items for the house. It was exhausting! In the United States we could have went to Food Emporium and Bed, Bath, & Beyond and called it a day. Instead we went shop to shop – peaking in, inquiring if they had this or that, checking out the quality, and haggling. Repeat.

Measuring our sugar with a scale 

 Children stopping by outside a shop 

Man selling chickens on the street

The shops are loosely organized by products. However, if we were shopping for garbage cans and realized that we needed dish towels, we would have to travel more than a couple aisles. In addition to all the shops, which really resemble stalls in a barn, there were a lot of women selling produce on the street. Their children napped next to them, ran around barefoot with friends, yelled “you” at us, or played soccer with garbage formed in the shape of a ball. A few begged. Most seemed happy to say hello and have their picture taken.  Our first day in Gonder ended in fatigue. We unloaded our pickup truck full of everything from mops and brooms to sugar and rice to fly swatters. We unpacked our bags and called it a night.

Friday started off a little bumpy, literally. I woke up with bug bites all over my wrists and face. I vaguely remember hearing a mosquito last night and doing my best to swat it away, secretly praying, “I hope I don’t get malaria. I hope I don’t get malaria.” Feeling a little itchy and uncomfortable, I decided to take a shower only to find out there was no water in the house. Later in the afternoon we were brought a couple barrels of water from the JDC clinic to use for cooking, cleaning, and flushing the toilets. Welcome to Gonder.

We started off our day visiting the school again. We met with the assistant principal and Temesgen to discuss our placement. It looks like they want us to take a few periods a week from the regular English teachers to work on listening and speaking. They seemed a little upset that we hadn’t brought our own English textbooks and materials. I think it makes more sense to follow their curriculum and supplement with our own brand of teaching. We just received the textbook and teachers guide to the textbook. I am excited to get it in my hands and start brainstorming lesson plans.

The afternoon was spent visiting the JDC site of a science center under construction and the JDC Health Clinic. We were able to speak with one of the clients. She was twenty-six years old and had brought her youngest child, three years-old, to the clinic for a case of diarrhea. She grew up in a rural community and moved to Gonder with her family to await a decision from the Israeli government about emigration. When she was nineteen-years old, her parents and younger siblings moved to Israel. Because she cares for three children and her husband is in school, her family in Israel sends money to support them. When asked what she thought about the organization running the clinic, she laughed. Maybe she was nervous or maybe she found the question to be silly. She answered simply, “Happiness.”    

JDC site of science center for the community's youth

Outside the JDC Health Clinic

Inside gates of JDC Health Clinic

Mother and son interviewed

Posters, such as this one, of different statistics line the clinic's walls

We ran some errands, stopping at a computer store to have our Internet checked out. In Addis we received something akin to a flash drive. Plug it in your computer, and bam you have Internet anywhere. Then we stopped by a string of supermarkets to pick up eggs.  The day before we had seen eggs in the Merkato but were a little weary of buying them. The sellers sat on the street surrounded by chickens with a pail of small eggs. The supermarkets were tiny and contained mostly imported packaged goods. Still no fresh produce, and the only milk we found were in bags.  We stopped on the way home at a roadside trailer to pick up bananas and oranges.

For dinner we went back to the Piazza and met up with Alemu.  We ordered mango and guava spress (mixed fruit juice), which was very refreshing, and a vegetable platter of authentic Ethiopian cuisine over injera, a local type of bread. It is thin, spongy, and sour. Instead of using silverware, Ethiopians scoop up their food with it. Fasting days, where no animal products are eaten, fall on Wednesdays and Fridays. Our vegetable platters were enormous, and I could not finish mine. I have a theory about the injera. Because of its spongy consistency, it expands once in your stomach, absorbing everything you have eaten and drank with it. You’re full before you realize it.

My authentic Ethiopian dinner

After another long day we headed back to our house. I decided to set up my mosquito net, which resembles a tent over your upper body with additional fabric attached to cover the rest. As I was doing so, the lights began to flicker and darkness engulfed everything.