Ethiopia Twentieth day - 16/10/13 otherwise known as 06/02/2006 in Ethiopia!

Today I met a little girl (about 5 years old) having her first day at English Alive Academy. She was very nervous to do anything having never been in a classroom before. The boys were playing with the cars and the garage on the mat and she just picked up a car and looked at it - having never played with toys before, she was shown by the teacher how to roll it along the floor. The teacher then took her outside (before the rest of the kindergarten class arrived en mass) to show her how to go down the slide - which she did and ended up with her skirt and jumper over her head, sideways at the bottom, when she finally stood up, the smile on her face was priceless! Then when she went to wash her hands to eat and she used the taps for the first time, she had to be told to stop washing as she couldn't believe the water was still coming out. running water is a new concept at the far school because the water truck comes on a Monday and all of the people rush out of their houses with the biggest container possible to fill and use for the week. KLM sponsored a massive water tank for the school, so they will not run out! When Dawit fitted it, he saw a child standing with their hands under the tap (off!) making the washing motion in the air, but not knowing how to turn it on! It is truly amazing what we take for granted, I can't imagine not having held a pencil or played with a toy for the first five years of my life but these children don't get that opportunity until they come to English Alive Academy. They are also about to open an Autism unit so that children from the neighbourhood don't have to make the two hour journey each day to Addis Ababa to the only other Autism Centre in the country. 
Well done Stephanie and Dawit - your achievements astound me!

After the morning spent at the Far School showing the little ones how to do jigsaw puzzles and spread glue for the first time, I went back to the guest house to work on a Volunteer Pack and the EAA Website and then went for dinner! Last night was a special treat, Dawit made pizza with tuna, cheese, tomato and mince meat - he put a little too much Worcester Sauce on for my liking but it was a great side dish to my injera and shiro. Azeb (Dawit's mum) has arrived from Addis, so all of the rest of the adults (myself, Mike, Dawit and Stephanie) went out into the town to look for hyenas. Dawit turned into some sort of Urban Hyena hunter - and by hunting I mean, driving around in the dark with the lights off and going quite fast when you see a hyena - and we saw lots of them. Then as we came back into the town, we came across a rubbish dumping spot and there were more on the side of the road eating the foul smelling meat leftovers. Unfortunately, my camera isn't made for night photography so they don't do it justice, but we had a great time and a mini adventure on a Wednesday night, off to bed now, got to catch up on my beauty sleep as me and Mike stayed up til midnight last night watching England beat Poland on his slingbox!