We all arrived safely in Addis Ababa on 25 February 2010. (Of course, this statement must be taken with a grain of salt, for Ethiopia did not drop the Julian calendar in favour of the Gregorian calendar when the rest of the Christian world did so and so here it is 2003.) Jeff’s flight arrived in the wee hours of the morning, enabling him to settle in the Ghion Hotel for a brief nap before making an initial exploration of the city with Kinde, our amiable and very competent guide on days we are not in meetings with our Ethiopian colleagues at Addis Ababa University. Marlene and I arrived late in the evening, allowing us time only to clear customs in the elegant new airport of Addis and get to the hotel for a night’s rest.

Yesterday we had a full day. The University was closed for a holiday, so we took the opportunity to meet with Shirley Lewis, an energetic and resourceful Canadian woman who runs a foundation to support girls and young women in education, and who is currently working partly with the NGO Ethiopia Reads. Shirley has lived in Ethiopia for about five years in various locations: Jimma, Gonder, and more recently Addis. She spoke of her important and varied projects, which have included locating quality children’s books in Amharic for libraries and schools, automating a library system in Gonder, and more recently arranging for the networking of eight computers in a local school. It seems that when Shirley gets an idea for–or is presented with–a valuable literacy project, she works tirelessly to find possible ways of seeing it through.

Later today she will introduce us to an individual who is presently running a book fair at Addis Ababa University, and who is an excellent source of knowledge about books for children in Amharic. On this topic of books for children, Shirley spoke of the challenges organizations such as Ethiopia Reads face in regards to what she terms “open access.” For those with an interest in things digital, this phrase may bring to mind matters having to do with intellectual property and copyright law in relation to the Internet. These are not, however, the matters to which Shirley was alluding; rather, she was referring to the simple matter of giving children physical access to the few books already in their local reading rooms. Books are so precious here that their preservation is a matter of utmost import. The policy is that librarians are personally charged for lost or damaged volumes, and so it is understandable that lending is not always practiced, and that in some cases books are even barricaded behind rows of desks to keep them safe from readers. In such cases prospective readers may ask to look at a book, but as there are no catalogues they cannot know what there is that might be read–nor can they browse the collection and stumble upon a wonderful volume serendipitously. Access to knowledge is a truly complex matter here.

After our meeting with Shirley, Kinde took us on a city tour by van. This is a vibrant and bustling city that is almost beyond description in its diversity. (Jeff is compiling pictorial documentation and we may upload some images in due course as our Internet connectivity allows.) We drove up to Mout Entoto eventually, which is covered with Eucalyptus trees that were imported from Australia when the native vegetation had been exhausted from cutting for firewood and building. Eucalyptus grows quickly and needs little water, so the tree serves a useful purpose here. Fallen branches (the trees must not be cut) are collected, bundled, and carried down the hillside into the city by women for use as firewood.

We were invited into a residential compound in the hills that is shared by several families, and there spent some time with a family in their home before returning to the city. This gave us an amazing glimpse into the everyday familiy literacies, a subject to which I shall return later. Shortly we meet with the Dean of Education at Addis Ababa University, and so it is time to bring this long entry to a close.

Posted: 02|26|10 at 9:45 pm. Filed under: Uncategorized.
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