The second word I learned in Poland was niegazowana, ‘not gazzy,’ as in not-fizzy water. The Ethiopian equivalent is just one brand, Ambo. Ambo Wuha, bottled in the otherwise dry and dusty town of Ambo (of course). The site of Peace Corps Ethiopia’s G5 Education IST.
35 or so fizzled, dirty, frustrated Americans assembled in one hotel’s stuffy fortress room. We vented about Ethiopia; this was good. We were supposed to be sitting through presentations; this would have been good had we not been so irritable.
“This is our new 8th-grade English textbook, produced by USAID. What do you think ‘turn and talk’ means?” someone would make the mistake of asking us after lunch. A PCV would then catch a pause and ask if Ethiopian teachers received this same powerpoint presentation.
“Yes.”
“Ok cool. Do they have problems with students understanding this textbook?”
“Um…”
“Because our 8th-grade students can’t understand this much English. They can’t even get through the 2nd-grade level. What suggestions do you have?”
“Um…this builds on the 7th-grade book so they shouldn’t have problems.”
“But they do.”
Another PCV would chime in: “Yeah! Their English is so far below this level!” and soon we would all be on our feet, informing the presenters about the state of Ethiopian English education outside of Addis.
Mitch introspects
The best part of IST was being able to escape Ethiopia for 2 weeks. The Center for Creative Leadership came in and acted out our frustrations as easy hour-long introspective team-building challenges. How is leading your blindfolded counterpart like your work at site? How did the blindfolded people feel? I kept the blindfold; it later became a key piece of gear for our hike at Lake Wenchi.
