Alex Little

When I got into work today many of my colleagues have been commenting about the fact that I was on Ethiopian TV yesterday – it’s from when we were interviewed at the Meskel celebrations in Adigrat a couple of weeks ago. Unfortunately, not having a TV at home, I missed it completely and it’s unlikely there’ll be a repeat – so will just have to wait for the DVD to be issued

Slightly less high profile, I was asked a few weeks ago to write an article for the Digital Planet blog site about my experiences of living and working in Ethiopia, at the end of last week my article was posted up on their site, you can have a read at: The hidden issues of IT development in Ethiopia.

Other significant developments this week include:

• Approval of the Mekelle University Elearning Strategy. This was actually much easier than I thought it would be – the strategy is based on a JISC template, geared towards UK universities and other HEIs, but was relatively straightforward for us to adapt for use here.
• Upgrading of university internet connection – to 10Mb. A proposal is underway to double the speed of the connection – but I’m unsure yet when this is likely to happen. With all the new computer labs being built it will be important to ensure that the internet speed is also increased. The cost of this will be huge, an extra 5Mb will cost 10,000 US dollars per month.
• Work has now started on the network installation in the new Computer Science building – the same week that students return to lectures for the coming academic year. Unfortunately though, only 12 computers are currently working for the 100 third year students to use. I’ve suggested that one of the labs currently reserved for training is opened up for students to use. A proposal has been made to get nearly 200 new computers for the department, but is will take some time for the purchase of these to be processed and approved – likely to be several months.
• I’ve been asked to help run a workshop for the University management to persuade then that the university should adopt and open source policy – and that . There’s already been some success in this area, more IT staff are using Ubuntu and also in the Computer Science department.

Last weekend was Meskel – a celebration of the finding of the true cross. Last year I’d arrived in Mekelle just in time to celebrate Meskel so this year we were going to head up to Adigrat as there is a bigger celebration there. Unfortunately all the hotels there were booked up, so we didn’t go in the evening. Instead we stayed in Mekelle and headed up the mountain overlooking town to watch the bonfire being lit and the torchlit procession down into town – much as we had done last year.

Early on Sunday morning, we drove up to Adigrat just for the day to see the daytime Meskel celebrations there, held in the football stadium, a bonfire ready to be lit on the centre spot and the whole town out in their traditional clothes. First a few speeches by some of the chief priests from the region, then the fire was lit and people used the ashes from the fire to draw crosses on their foreheads.

On our way back into town we stopped at a friends family’s cafe for a couple of drinks, where a TV crew from Ethiopian TV (ETV) interviewed us. So if you’re able to receive ETV, we may be on sometime this Sunday. In case you miss us on TV here are a few photos:

Head priest returning after lighting the bonfire

Spectators in the grandstand

Waiting for the fire to die down to collect ashes

One of the horse riders who had been racing around the stadium before the fire

Interview for ETV

Found out today what the Meskel festival is all about… to celebrate the finding of the true cross and we went along too. Just outside Mekelle they’d built a large bonfire, with a cross on top. When the fire is lit, the direction in which the cross falls predicts the outlook for the next year, north = war, east = peace, south = famine, west = (?) – apparently the cross is usually slightly tilted to the east!

About an hour before sunset, we (and most of the rest of the Mekelle population), walked up the hill with bundles of sticks to use as torches on the procession down the hill after sunset and the bonfire had been lit. Once at the top, people were getting themselves into a bit of a frenzy, groups running round in circles and chanting – tribal rather than Orthodox Christian.

Despite the chaos we managed to get quite near to the fire (before it was lit), though this was more to do with the police allowing us (as ferengi/foreigners) to – the police were using sticks to keep people back. Made us all feel quite uncomfortable that we were being treated very differently from the locals – but think that’s just something else I’ll have to try and get used to.

After lots more chanting, pushing, shoving, dancing and the sunset, a few fireworks went off and the fire was lit. Everything became even more chaotic as 1000′s were lighting their torches from the fire. Then the procession down the hill began, a procession makes it sound organised and sedate – it was anything but! Several 1000 people running down a hill, chanting & carrying burning torches – UK health and safety would have a field day! At times it was quite intimidating, being pointed to and shouted at for being a foreigner, plus there we few pickpockets around, a few of us caught people trying to get their hands into your pocket. Apart from that it was a great experience.

Back down in town, after a couple of beers, we headed to a restaurant with some people from Red Cross, though as it was Friday (a fasting day, so no meat) and being a little late (after 9pm is late here), there were only a couple of options left on the menu. This seems quite common, you’re lucky if restaurants have half of what’s actually on the menu!