20 of us arrived in Addis Ababa from Heathrow in the early hours of the 12th September to be met by 3 welcoming and cheerful volunteer representatives. We were taken to the Red Cross training institute which would be our home for the next 10 days of ICT. This is a delightful complex like a small college campus with several different sized training rooms, an accommodation block and a catering block, some offices and a smal IT room. The gardens are immaculate with manicured lawns and flower beds. The trees hosted a range of colourful birds which intrigued several of us. Over the next 24 hours or so were joined by further new volunteers arriving from different parts of the globe. In total in September 2010, 34 new ISO volunteers arrived in Ethiopia to work in the 2 country programme areas, Education and Health. We join the 65 currently here, which makes Ethiopia one of the top countries for VSO activity.
The training was fast paced and relentless and necessary. A lot was covered in a short space of time. We were bombarded with information, exercises and activity from early in the morning till sometimes quite late in the evening. Language learning was a major tenet of the ICT and that was very intensive. After a few days we were sent off to Addis on a 'scavenger hunt' with instructions to carry out a list of activitied and we had to negotiate local public transport in order to achieve this and negotiate a local language (well sort of!) to buy items as instructed. This was a lot of fun and a good learning experience.
We had most interesting talks from various incited experts on topics such as geopolitics, the Ethiopian development context, culture and customs. We were hosted by the British Embassy one evening where we were plied with generous selection of alcoholic drinks, and as the nationalities of the volunteers are various, other Embassies also extended a warm welcome to their nationals during the 10 days. Our nationalities include as well as British; a large Irish contingent, a Ugandian, Canadian, 3 from the Philipines, India and Australia.
However the time comes for us to move onto our placements and to scatter to the different and distant parts of the country to take up our various roles and responsibilities ant make a contribution as best we can as a member of the ever growing VSO family.
