CAFOD blog

Garden at the Daughters of Charity

Our last week has been a bit crazy. There was so much to be done: tidying up assessments, final grammar tests, preparing for the “Oliver” performance, a night out with the admin staff, buying presents for the sisters…

On top of all that, we have had lots of visitors. Four students and two teachers from Castle Knock in Ireland arrived for two weeks volunteering at the streetchildren project.

 We introduced them to our classes, which they’ll be taking next week, and spent some social time together.

A couple of volunteers from Alitena were also passing through Mekelle, another good excuse for a meal out!

On Wednesday we had a day visiting other projects run by the Daughters of Charity and/or the local diocese.

First we visited the Catholic Secretariat and heard about a massive project in assocation with Mekelle University that is conserving water, reducing disease, reducing erosion and tackling HIV.

We then visited a clinic and feeding centre, an HIV and AIDS testing and counselling centre, an eye clinic and a women’s livelihoods project.

They were all impressive, and it’s quite awe-inspiring how many people they are helping.

At the feeding centre we ran into Clody, a member of Trocaire’s humanitarian team who’s here working on the food emergency. The last time we saw her was at the joint office in Addis.

It was fascinating to hear about her work; she has such a challenging job – I could never do it. 

There seems to be a lot of concern that, while the food crisis in the south of Ethiopia may reduce in the coming months, in the north it could worsen, since the rains were so late in starting.

On Friday morning all the children gathered in the hall for a final farewell. We began, as ever,  with a coffee ceremony and traditional music and dance.

Friday was the Feast of the Assumption out here, and the girls in this region take part in “Ashenda” on this day and for a fortnight afterwards.

They all braid their hair, dress in costume and sing and dance “Ashenda” dances in the streets.

They stop pedestrians and will not let you pass until you give them money – a bit like very insistent carol singers!

The dance team from the project gave us our very own performance, followed by “Oliver”.

Considering we only had an hour and a half to rehearse, the children did very well!

Pauline and I played guitars and encouraged the students to sing, while Janet directed the actors who were miming the story.

After that we gave out a certificate to every student. We also gave prizes for best student, effort and behaviour.

It was so hard choosing between them  – we wanted to give a prize to so many!

We each gave a speech, and speeches were given for us. The children had also written poems and speeches and had touching little presents for us.

The project as a whole gave us an Ethiopian costume each which we changed into for a final dance – much to everyone’s delight. Then it was farewell.

Later on Janet, Owen (an Alitena volunteer) and I went out to watch the Ashenda dancing in the town. We met a dozen of our students who accompanied us as we wandered through Mekelle.

They said they were our bodyguards and I must say, I don’t know what they said to the Ashenda girls, but no-one bothered us!

We took them to a cafe for a drink and it was lovely to spend a bit more time with them.

Outside, the boys asked us to take a group photo and get them each a small print of it.

As we stood around deciding whether the photo was good enough one of the lads handed me my glasses case. 

A pickpocket had lifted it out of my raincoat (which I was carrying), and I had felt nothing.

The lads of course had seen the whole thing, stopped the guy, took the glasses from him and sent him packing. I felt even more safe after that!

One student, Gebremedhin, said: “Oliver was very important for us!”

I can’t believe six weeks has gone so quickly.

Posted by KathleenOB

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