CUM ON FEEL THE NOIZE! AND THE SIMMONS' GO VIRAL(ISH)

Hello all

Who sang Cum on Feel the Noize? See end of the blog for answer and down a bit for the reason it's there

Anyway, firstly to our oldest son Alex and indeed to one or two others no doubt, I am sorry that this is not just mum's photos but you have to let the old man enjoy himself a bit. Just skip the verbiage if you must

I should mention that our two years anniversary of working abroad was on 25 July. Incredible eh, and of course we went to a 5 star resort to celebrate

Air conditioned cottage with all mod cons

Infinity pool with stunning views

Meanwhile back in Addis we have a splendid view from our apartment of the airport flight path (of which more later). Recently Manda and I were on our balcony looking at a beautiful rainbow. How romantic. We saw a plane approaching and lo and behold when I checked with my binoculars it was Air Force One, President Obama's plane. Manda grabbed her camera and snapped away. I innocently posted up on Facebook a picture of AF1 passing across the rainbow. 500 plus likes,many shares and over 100 comments later we realised we had hit a nerve. The rainbow is the symbol of the gay community, Obama had been outspoken on gay rights in Kenya the day before and the Ethiopians aren't exactly tolerant of the gay community. Whoops.

Amazing - the symbolism of this picture

Anyway, onwards and sideways. I am not a person to complain. Well actually I am a terrible moaner and Manda thinks me the epitome of a 'grumpy old man'. I blame it on the diabetes.

Dear reader, you will remember that we ended up based in the red light area of Addis where the loud thumpy music went on till 5.00 in the morning. The good news is that we now live in a suburb called Gerji in a 4th floor apartment (no lift so good exercise, especially at altitude) near to the airport. I can cope with planes taking off and landing as they are pretty infrequent. Bole International is hardly Heathrow, Gatwick or any other London airport for that matter.

 With advance apologies to any Ethiopians reading this, the problem is the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. At the risk of sounding 'anti -religious' which I am not , just anti-noise , there is no respect for those who might want some peace and quiet at night time. Where the red light area noise stopped at 5.00 in the morning, the Church has now taken over. On many mornings, especially on Thursdays and at the weekends, services take place beginning between 5.00 and 5.30 in the morning and they use a very loud sound system to broadcast the singing and prayers. You can hear it clearly from half a mile away and it drives us nuts. They also do late night sessions. Ear plugs are on their way from the UK as we speak. Thank you Debra Levy!

From our balcony. Lovely church but noisy neighbours

True this all sounds like frying pan and fires but actually the apartment is really nice and comfortable and we are well settled. But this is a blog to highlight the moaner in me, so for those of you with your first world problems of train strikes and complaints about rubbish British summers here are a few things we love about Addis and the authorities (not!!!). The people are great, the food is good,the culture is fascinating- but:

1. Addis is a building site. Literally hundreds of new buildings are springing up making the Spanish building boom (and bust) look anaemic in comparison. This and a new raised train track (Chinese built of course) have left the roads and pavements a complete mess
2. Addis has hardly any green spots and of the few that do exist some are ugly and one even has barbed wire all over it.
3. There are constant power cuts. Candles and/or torches are a must
4. There are frequent cuts to the water supply. Buckets and barrels of water kept at home and work
5. The internet is state controlled and can be very slow and they can see all that you do online. Hold on a minute what is that banging at the door? I may have to finish later, in about 3 years time when I get out of prison. Only joking sir....Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh............................................
6. Professional beggars. The best Amharic word we have learned is 'Yellem' which means 'I have nothing'. We are constantly pestered, especially with our expensive white skin but the truth is most of the beggars we are told are bussed in from the countryside. Impossible to tell who are the really needy.
7. We have only been able to get a 30 day business visa so every month we pay $60 each and queue at the immigration office for the honour of another stamp in our passport. The paranoid government will allow us to stay till 30 September. Getting a work permit will take forever so not worth trying.
8. Noise pollution. See above.
9. The treatment of charities by the Government . I could write a book on the issue and may well do so in the future. Suffice to say it ain't easy for an NGO to work here and anything involving human rights is basically banned. Why was Obama here then? Well look where Ethiopia is. A very strategic position surrounded by unstable countries. Nuff said but see 5. above for possible consequences of this particular rant!!! Is that a police helicopter outside our window Manda?

The good news is that getting my hair cut costs just 40 Birr. (£1.30) and I now have a bit of hair left. You may laugh but I notice when my hair is getting scruffy.

Work is very busy but I have finally recruited a finance person and an HR person so may have the chance to actually manage rather than try and do everything myself with my two super assistants Tigist and Manda ( my self styled PA!!!). Any other spouses that you know working in the same room? It is possible to do it without throttling each other. No you don't believe a word of it do you.

The charity is here to see that the donkeys and horses are treated properly but work for me is mainly office bound as has Manda's work been so far. She Still time though for her to do this working trip

In Uganda it is the women who carry the water but here they have some help

At least there are two to bear the burden. The driver better not drop his ciggy as it could get nasty!!

Sing along - Yes I'm happy, clap your hooves and roll around if that's whatya wanna do...........etc

Where did you get that hat ? Spencer and some of the Brooke team hard at work recruiting. Note the file being held to prove it

Yes , they do wear those hats for real

People will pose for a woman so Manda can take such pictures

A bit formal but 3 generations - The lady on the left is a Change Agent responsible for ensuring her neighbours treat their equines well

Great face

We have also had the chance to do a bit of travelling. Firstly down into the Rift Valley, east towards Djibouti, where the temperature rockets to 36C plus and then to Debre Libanos north of Addis where there is a large gorge and great views

A carmine bee eater

A giant tortoise. About 3 foot long

A Kori Bustard posing

Gelada baboon. Sometimes hard to see,but not this time

Not quite the Grand Canyon but still spectacular. Walking across the crack right the end is nerve wracking

The Portugese bridge at Debre Libanos

It's whip cracking time to welcome the end of the rainy season. You just go round cracking the whip for the hell of it. No animals are touched

Well I could go on ,as ever, but I won't. Just to say that we went to a great Ethiopian restaurant last week and now have a large plastic water bottle of the local hooch -Tej, which is an alcoholic honey drink. Certainly has a kick to it, so you are all welcome to come over at any time for a taste.

x

Spencer and Manda

........... girls grab the boys. And the answer is of course Slade - one of my 70s heroes. I had a mixed weird taste in music then and no change since.

IT WAS ALL SO QUIET DURING THE DAY!!

Hello to all and a warm welcome to Manda and Spencer’s continuing mission to seek out new places for adventure whilst hopefully helping out the NGOs we work with and actually working quite hard in the process (believe it or not!!)

A few photos to start with of our new country

Everyday transport but just one horse to pull this load (a light one!!!)

Tea time. One hump or two?

Bird dentist's convention. Say aarr

Of course we know you’ve read every last blog, laughed at every bad joke and admired the photos but just to remind you, after a year in South Africa with WhizzKids and the teen HIV clinic, we moved to Uganda with WaterAid. At the end of the blog there are some photos of the gorillas which was our final trip in Uganda. The gorillas are brilliant to see. We had an hour with them and on the dot of 60 minutes when we were told time was up they melted into the forest and we were alone. Very mystical. Did I also mention that the supposed hours of trekking up and down through dense forest became for us a gentle 15 minute stroll to find them?  Bit of a waste of a packed lunch as we were finished before 10am.

Anyway I ‘m sure you are dying to know where we are now. Of course you are. Within five weeks of being back in the UK we had an offer from The Brooke, an NGO that works worldwide and seeks to teach owners of equines (actually it’s ‘equids’ we are told, but bovvered? Of course you aren’t) i.e. donkeys, mules and horses, how to treat their animals and also persuade governments to make laws to protect the animals’ welfare. The destination -ETHIOPIA. A very safe country surrounded as it is by those jolly countries of Sudan, South Sudan Yemen and of course peace loving Somalia. Isn’t it great that my mum hasn’t got a computer so can’t read this blog.

Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, stuck in the middle with you

So here we are sitting in Addis Ababa with the sun shining, a pleasant 25C, at nearly 8,000 feet in Alpine Africa as the locals refer to it. Well one person did and who are we to argue. 

Now you can’t say you don’t learn some vital bits of information when reading our blog so here goes:

1.  1.     There are 9 million donkeys (and quite a few horses) in Ethiopia and they are the main means of transport for the majority of the 90 million people (yes 9 and 90, not misprints).

2.   2.    In Ethiopia until very recently there were no veterinarian courses that included the treatment of donkeys and horses.

I was going to do a big long list but that will do for now. Suffice to say that the treatment of the animals is in many cases appalling. We were going to put up some photos of dead and dying horses that we have already seen, and who are treated by far the worst, but this is a family blog and the scenes are very distressing. 

Must get my eyebrows trimmed next time!!!!!

We will report later on our work but as this blog is world renowned for its devastating wit and mad stories here is a picture above of me after I made the mistake of getting my hair cut and accidentally getting a number ‘ 0’ instead of my usual ‘1’. When he put foam on my head I thought he was going to wash my hair, not use a razor!!! Stupid me. Manda said it looked OK, whilst doing her best not to wet herself laughing. The cost - 50 Birr which is about £1.60. A bargain?

Now to the title of this blog. Okay, go back to the top if you have forgotten it already and please pay more attention next time. On arrival we were taken to a guest house which is quite pleasant but which we move from thankfully at the end of this week to an apartment in the suburbs. Yes quiet and peaceful by day and walking distance from work in town, but by night you realise you are right in the middle of the RED LIGHT DISTRICT. In just a short street next to us there are at least 40 bars (yes we were a bit bored one evening so counted them) blaring out loud music to about 5 in the morning, numerous massage parlours and quite a few ladies of the night to say the least. Even I was propositioned, which shows that business must be slow.

To sum up the area, when you go to a hotel in most places in the world you will find a BIBLE in the drawer next to the bed. In our room we found a dozen CONDOMS. No, please don’t ask how many are left, you’re better than that!!!

Sorry that we are a bit short on photos this time but we've only been here three weeks and the amazing sights of Ethiopia await us – the rock hewn churches of Lalibela and the Omo peoples of the south (plates in their lips) to name a few.

A few words about life in Addis Ababa and indeed Ethiopia. Where does he get all this rubbish from I here you say???????

Ethiopia is the only country in Africa that wasn’t colonised. The Italians had a go and were kicked out leaving pasta and pizza as their only enduring footprint in the country. Not a ‘ciao’ or ‘arrivaderci’ to be heard anywhere, even in the Italian restaurants.

Amharic is the language which is Semitic and is a bit like Arabic/Hebrew with about 225 letters of the alphabet. We are yet to learn one so as ever will have to rely on speaking slowly and loudly to the locals and wave our hands around.

To get around Addis you can forget street names (the locals have), you have to know areas.’ Bole Bole’ shouts the conductor of a taxi bus, and if you don’t take offence you will board and arrive at the airport. A very cheap and effective way of getting round as long as you keep your valuables well protected. Manda felt someone trying to get in her pocket yesterday. Even on the streets pickpocketing seems to be a national sport.

The food is unique. Injeera is the ‘bread ‘, which to many of you will be like eating a slightly sour face flannel but actually when made well is delicious. They do nice rolls too so all is not lost.

Being stuck between East Africa and the Middle East the food is eaten from a large sharing plate and of course you use your right hand. Left hand is for …….No need to elaborate.

They like their spices and chillies. Coffee was invented here and is like a religion. The coffee ceremony takes forever but you will find literally thousands of ladies sitting in and outside of shops selling ‘bhuna’ a small cup of coffee like espresso. Four cups a day is the norm. The clove spiced tea is also very nice.

Well I’m running out of steam and well done if you are still with me. A lot more to tell but just an intro this time so as promised for those who don’t use Facebook and are not Facebook friends with Manda here are the gorilla photos. Enjoy, and I promise to blog again in a suitable period of time for you to recover.

Ciao and arriverderci

A film from my little camera

Manda in traditional pose. We were very close!!!

Result of Manda's efforts above