Bahir Dar to Gondar
5 March. This morning we were somewhat pressed for time. Jeff must connect with a flight to Vancouver from Addis tomorrow. His flight goes from Gondar, not Bahir Dar, and so we must travel overland to Gondar, an distance of 180km that we hope to make in 3 or 4 hours if the roads are good.
Our driver will pick us up by 9:30 am, and so Marlene had time only for a telephone meeting with Ato Tesfaye Telehun. He and his colleagues had reviewed our proposal in respect to potential collaborations. Ato Tesfaye was very satisfied with the direction of the project (schooling in multilingual settings and mixed-mode approaches to instruction in graduate and teacher education). He reiterated his interest in mixed-mode education as a first step in capacity building for online distance education. Although the infrastructure is not adequate to support online education as of yet, evidently it will develop at some point, and mixed-mode delivery via the LAN will be a first step in preparing for that eventuality. (In the proposal Jeff and I offered UBC as a model of how mixed-mode, distance, and online education are interrelated, and how development in one area builds capacity in the others.)
The trip to Gondar was fascinating, offering a view of the activities of the vast majority of people in this beautiful country: farming. As this article indicates, “agriculture in Ethiopia is the foundation of the country’s economy, accounting for half of gross domestic product (GDP), 83.9% of exports, and 80% of total employment.” To even begin to understand the Ethiopian context, one must make a point of getting out of the cities. I shall return to this notion in the next posts.
Gondar itself is a place of immense historical import. We had a few hours before dark after our drive during which we visited Fasilides’ Castle, Fasilides’ Bath, and Debre Birhan Selassie Church. These are utterly remarkable monuments in a magical setting. During this Lenten time in the Orthodox Christian calendar, the city rang out with the prayers from 44 or more churches. At dusk we sat atop a hill on the edge of the city, hundreds of birds riding the evening thermals above us in a sky painted brilliantly by the last rays of the sun. We were mesmerized by this city’s accoustic and visual beauty.
