People who work in development sometimes say things that are bleeding obvious and pass them off as profound without really exploring what they mean or what the implications are. I may not be immune to this practice. Saying that “context matters” is one that particularly gets my goat, perhaps in part because as a sometime-geographer my job used to be about trying to understand/explain which aspects of context matter in what ways.
Thursday night – Christmas Day – was the night of the long-awaited Teddy Afro concert in the grounds of the Ghion Hotel. I went with a bunch of people from the Embassy. There were big crowds. To explain … Teddy Afro is very popular in Ethiopia (Addis?) in part because of his music and in part because at the time of the last elections he released some songs that became the focus of anti-government and pro-democracy sentiment.
Spot the Teddy?
It’s Christmas Eve here in Ethiopia. In this deeply religious country Christmas is a very big deal, but a big deal in a rather different way than in the UK.
I was pleased to manage to get out of Addis this morning, a little bit at least. Shimeles, one of the DFID drivers, picked me up at 9am and we drove north past Arat Kilo and Siddist Kilo through Shiro Meda – where there are countless stalls selling textiles – up into the hills of Entoto.
Unfortunately not a commentary on the quality of governance in Ethiopia, or on the effectiveness of DFID’s efforts to promote “good governance” here, but a link to a reasonably straightforward description of the sort of thing I’m up to and a longer description – a report – for any keenies out there.
Imagine the scene: A meeting with senior British civil servants in Whitehall and an audience of 40 people. Thirty-five of them have English as their first language, but are able to speak a different language – let’s call it Amharic (a language with a totally different script) - to varying degrees of proficiency. Five of the audience - let’s call them Ethiopians – are apparently there to help the British government. The Ethiopians have Amharic as their first language and struggle to get beyond basic greetings in English. Despite the fact that only 5 of the 40 have Amharic as their first language, the meeting is conducted in Amharic, leaving the English speakers – the hosts – at a distinct disadvantage in understanding what is going on and making their points. You wouldn’t believe it would you?! What would the Daily Mail say?
Work has begun to get busy this week, after last week’s easing in to things. Lots of interesting stuff. Other than work … thursday night I went out with a couple of folks from DFID and the Foreign Office in London, for some Lebanese food and then friday night went out with the bloke from DFID. He used to live in Ethiopia in the earlyish 1980s, at the time of the Derg, so was excited to be here. continue reading…
