Fun with Ferenge and Abasha

The last couple of days we have been doing workshops with the kids in the charity, part english learning, part music, part ridiculous fun. I am finally starting to learn some of their names, Kindi is an upbeat fellow, who seems to be a leader of the group. His english is excellent. He has no front teeth and is always smiling. Mahalet wants to be a poet when she grows up. She writes in Amharic and I have asked her to write a poem about the project that I can then set to music. She has written one already but today she lost it so she is writing another one. Maset wants to be an air hostess, she is very kind and courteous with excellent english so I am sure she'll make it if she wants to.

Today we taught the kids the chorus of a song that I have started writing for them about them and the project, they really seemed to enjoy it, especially when they taught me the amharic words for brother and sister and we put them in the song. They spent a long time laughing at my appalling pronunciation.

When the rain started to fall on the roof it was like being inside a thundercloud. The corrugated iron rattled with such ferocity that everyone had to shout to be heard, consequently nothing cold be heard at all but it didn't stop the kids from singing songs they all knew.

It's so interesting wandering through a place where you can hear Eminem coming out of a stereo in one house and in the next one there is a man killing a chicken. Manda said she was having difficulty describing the place in words, and it's certainly a difficult task, because you can't describe the place without the people. It is a vital city, an absolute paradox, fresh and clean after rain fall, then filthy and messy again within seconds. Some of the toilets are the most evil smelling things you'll ever some across, little more than a hole in the ground, some are just as lovely as those you'll find in a posh restaurant in London. I'm not really going to try any more than that. To really get a sense of it you have to come here. And not in the Ferenge areas. We went to a restaurant where we discovered where all the other white people had been hiding (next to the museum). Go and see the Merchato (the largest market on the African continent), try getting out of a minibus at piazza (if you thought the tube at rush hour was awful, you should try this).

It's the weekend tomorrow and we will be taking the opportunity to see some of the country before starting work again on Monday.

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