A pottery vendor at the market
A little boy who gave me flowers
A woman carrying goods to market for miles down a mountain
Flora -- teaching us about climate changethrough song and dance
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Faces I'll remember
A little boy who gave me flowersA woman carrying goods to market for miles down a mountain Flora -- teaching us about climate changethrough song and dance
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
A few photos -- Addis Street Scenes
Street lights in the city haven't worked since last winter. We saw only4 or 5 that did
A typical street
Returning from the market after shopping. Everyone walks in the street
Returning from the market after shopping. Everyone walks in the street
One of the many vendors selling a few vegetables on street corners
Near the main tourist market
A side street near our hotel
Long flight home
We are on the last leg of the flight home, sitting in Dulles waiting for the shuttle. Security has been amazingly tight all along the way. Several layers of security at Addis Ababa Airport to go through--not all that surprising, really. But, when we landed in Frankfurt, the plane was on an apron that seemed to be miles (literally) from the terminal and we were bused to the terminal. The buses are pretty common in Frankfurt, but this was really far out and German police were at the plane to check the ID of everyone before we disembarked. It clearly felt like they were looking for someone.
Still more layers of security within the Frankfurt airport to clear before we caught our connection on to DC. Now it's home to sleeeeeep.
Still more layers of security within the Frankfurt airport to clear before we caught our connection on to DC. Now it's home to sleeeeeep.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Addis Ababa University Library visit
Posted by Heather Ross for Helen via email
We visited AAU today. It is by far the largest of the libraries we have seen so far. The University itself has 40,000 students. The main library is the John F Kennedy Library, and there are 12 branch libraries spread around the central campuses and at campuses scattered around the city and surrounding areas—up to 25 km away. Some are special mission campuses, such as the Medical School; others are more general such as the campus that caters more to the science faculty.
The director comes from an IT rather than a library background, which seems to be the pattern here. Perhaps that isn’t an entirely bad thing. Their libraries do need a lot of updating the in the area of technology – and they are working very hard to do that.
AAU still has a card catalog, and they showed us the tech processing unit where they were producing the cards to distribute to the branch libraries. It is a central processing operation with a “union catalog” for the entire system at the main library. They are in the process of automating and moving to an ILS using the KOHA system. They hope to make the transition in 3-4 months.
They provide a wide array of services and resources to their students. There are 30 electronic databases available including many of the ones we have (or want). They get their databases through a project called Perii-INASP http://www.inasp.info/ that provides resources to developing countries. These are resources that are available to all universities in Ethiopia. Ethiopia, as a country, pays a single fee. These include resources like JStor, Project Muse, T&F journals, and a bunch of others. It also includes document delivery service from the British Library. So they are building resources, the challenge seems to be getting the word out to researchers that these resources are available (sound familiar?)
They also have 3 computer labs in the library. Most impressive were the services they have for the visually impaired students. They have a lab with equipment to read text and other software, special reading rooms, and Braille collections. It’s clear they are investing quite a bit of time and energy in this service. They have about 200 or so visually impaired students, including quite a few graduate students. We met and spoke briefly with a visually impaired PhD student working on a degree in English as a Foreign Language.
Other initiatives included electronic texts and reserves services, wireless service throughout the libraries, and electronic theses and dissertations. All-in-all, we were impressed with the work they are doing. They have limited resources and yet they are providing excellent services within the limits of those resources.
After we finished at the library we were able to visit the Ethiopian Studies Institute on campus. It is housed in the Emperor Haile Selassie’s palace which is part museum (the best in Ethiopia by far), houses an excellent library with strengths in Ethiopian language and culture, and the university administrative offices. They are building a new facility that will house the library, and a separate facility for the admin offices leaving the old palace as a museum.
The visit was a good end to our trip to Ethiopia. Now back to the hotel for a few hours rest before we head to the airport and a long flight home.
We visited AAU today. It is by far the largest of the libraries we have seen so far. The University itself has 40,000 students. The main library is the John F Kennedy Library, and there are 12 branch libraries spread around the central campuses and at campuses scattered around the city and surrounding areas—up to 25 km away. Some are special mission campuses, such as the Medical School; others are more general such as the campus that caters more to the science faculty.
The director comes from an IT rather than a library background, which seems to be the pattern here. Perhaps that isn’t an entirely bad thing. Their libraries do need a lot of updating the in the area of technology – and they are working very hard to do that.
AAU still has a card catalog, and they showed us the tech processing unit where they were producing the cards to distribute to the branch libraries. It is a central processing operation with a “union catalog” for the entire system at the main library. They are in the process of automating and moving to an ILS using the KOHA system. They hope to make the transition in 3-4 months.
They provide a wide array of services and resources to their students. There are 30 electronic databases available including many of the ones we have (or want). They get their databases through a project called Perii-INASP http://www.inasp.info/ that provides resources to developing countries. These are resources that are available to all universities in Ethiopia. Ethiopia, as a country, pays a single fee. These include resources like JStor, Project Muse, T&F journals, and a bunch of others. It also includes document delivery service from the British Library. So they are building resources, the challenge seems to be getting the word out to researchers that these resources are available (sound familiar?)
They also have 3 computer labs in the library. Most impressive were the services they have for the visually impaired students. They have a lab with equipment to read text and other software, special reading rooms, and Braille collections. It’s clear they are investing quite a bit of time and energy in this service. They have about 200 or so visually impaired students, including quite a few graduate students. We met and spoke briefly with a visually impaired PhD student working on a degree in English as a Foreign Language.
Other initiatives included electronic texts and reserves services, wireless service throughout the libraries, and electronic theses and dissertations. All-in-all, we were impressed with the work they are doing. They have limited resources and yet they are providing excellent services within the limits of those resources.
After we finished at the library we were able to visit the Ethiopian Studies Institute on campus. It is housed in the Emperor Haile Selassie’s palace which is part museum (the best in Ethiopia by far), houses an excellent library with strengths in Ethiopian language and culture, and the university administrative offices. They are building a new facility that will house the library, and a separate facility for the admin offices leaving the old palace as a museum.
The visit was a good end to our trip to Ethiopia. Now back to the hotel for a few hours rest before we head to the airport and a long flight home.
Playing tourist
Posted by Heather Ross for Helen via email
Last night Sylvia and I played tourist. Our friend Maese took us out to an Ethiopian "cultural" restaurant for dinner and to see traditional dancing. The food was wonderful, served traditionally, communal style on injera flatbread. While the "fasting" foods are usually served only on Wednesday and Saturday, the kitchen was able to accommodate us and we had a wonderful meal. While I like the meat dishs, like Sylvia, I think the Ethiopian cuisine really shines when it comes to vegetarian foods.
The dancing was amazing. How do they make those moves! I was dragged up on stage to dance. Those photos will never see the light of day
Last night Sylvia and I played tourist. Our friend Maese took us out to an Ethiopian "cultural" restaurant for dinner and to see traditional dancing. The food was wonderful, served traditionally, communal style on injera flatbread. While the "fasting" foods are usually served only on Wednesday and Saturday, the kitchen was able to accommodate us and we had a wonderful meal. While I like the meat dishs, like Sylvia, I think the Ethiopian cuisine really shines when it comes to vegetarian foods.
The dancing was amazing. How do they make those moves! I was dragged up on stage to dance. Those photos will never see the light of day
Monday, October 25, 2010
UN ECA
Posted by Heather Ross for Helen via email
We had a chance to visit the UN Economic Commission for Africa today. The trip to the UN compound alone would have been worth a trek across Addis. That side of town in many ways is different. Lots of construction going on; large shiny new buildings going up, which is perhaps a good thing in a city that clearly needs development. But, why do they all seem to be banks? Along the way though, you still see people trying to do their laundry in the broken water mains. It is still tough to survive on the streets of Addis even in the high rent district. Lots of security at the UN gates but we pass through to the library easily enough.
The library itself is in rather modest quarters, though they seem to have enough space for their needs. They serve the diplomatic and UN office staffs first, but also reach out and try and serve other constituencies like NGOs and national government policymakers. They also reach out to university students and scholars in Africa to make their resources accessible. For the UN this is a fairly broad view of what their mandate should be.
They have some fairly aggressive programs in place to digitize materials as well and are actively working on a digital repository that will be open access. There is clearly a desire to make their materials more widely accessible. In Africa this is difficult because the limited availability of broadband means electronic is not necessarily the best solution. Yet paying for both print and online is enormously expensive. They are doing a lot in difficult circumstances and like any big organization it takes time to get things done when you fight against a bureaucracy all the time.
We had a chance to visit the UN Economic Commission for Africa today. The trip to the UN compound alone would have been worth a trek across Addis. That side of town in many ways is different. Lots of construction going on; large shiny new buildings going up, which is perhaps a good thing in a city that clearly needs development. But, why do they all seem to be banks? Along the way though, you still see people trying to do their laundry in the broken water mains. It is still tough to survive on the streets of Addis even in the high rent district. Lots of security at the UN gates but we pass through to the library easily enough.
The library itself is in rather modest quarters, though they seem to have enough space for their needs. They serve the diplomatic and UN office staffs first, but also reach out and try and serve other constituencies like NGOs and national government policymakers. They also reach out to university students and scholars in Africa to make their resources accessible. For the UN this is a fairly broad view of what their mandate should be.
They have some fairly aggressive programs in place to digitize materials as well and are actively working on a digital repository that will be open access. There is clearly a desire to make their materials more widely accessible. In Africa this is difficult because the limited availability of broadband means electronic is not necessarily the best solution. Yet paying for both print and online is enormously expensive. They are doing a lot in difficult circumstances and like any big organization it takes time to get things done when you fight against a bureaucracy all the time.
A few more conversations
Posted by Heather Ross for Helen via email
We have met so many Ethiopians who have relatives in the United States it gives you a sense of the brain drain that must be happening in the this country. We’ve been befriended by a woman, Maese, who has two sisters in the United States; one has a husband who is a doctor at the Cleveland Clinic another is a PhD engineer working in Maryland. This country needs people with high level skills so badly. We talked to an Ethiopian in State College who spoke about how many of his countrymen had left Ethiopia and how badly they were needed back home. Here’s one real example. Maese and her husband have stayed here. He runs and engineering company, she’s an accountant.
We spent some time with the Librarian at the UN ECA today. More about the visit later but the part of the conversation that struck me was her perspective on Addis Ababa. She’s new to the city—here about 4 months, having transferred from UN Regional Offices in Santiago, Chile. She commented on the huge disparity between the rich and the poor in Addis, particularly noting how different life is for those in the international community in Addis compared to locals. She said she pays more in rent here, as an international employee, than she pays for her mortgage on her house in Kansas. When we told her that we had been to Makelle she also commented on how different that city was from Addis and that there was actually a middle class there that you didn’t see in Addis. On some level it was nice to have my own reactions affirmed.
And then, there have been the conversations our guide. I haven’t decided quite what to make of him. I’m grateful for all the help he’s given us. It’s allowed me to see parts of Ethiopia that I wouldn’t have seen otherwise. But he’s always looking for an angle, a way to make a little extra money off his interactions with us. On one level, I can’t say I blame him. We are a job for him and he has a family. You have to hustle to make a living in this country. But I don’t get the feeling when I’ve talked with him that I have gotten to know him and his family. He talks about wanting to set up a business but can’t give any clear idea of what that business is. He says he needs someone to sponsor his two young boys (age 3 and 4) in school. But I can’t really get a feel for his family. What is the truth? I’d like to help but I'm not sure how the money would get used. Right now I think I will probably go back home without making any promises And, I feel a little guilty about 2 little boys who might not get the education they deserve.
We have met so many Ethiopians who have relatives in the United States it gives you a sense of the brain drain that must be happening in the this country. We’ve been befriended by a woman, Maese, who has two sisters in the United States; one has a husband who is a doctor at the Cleveland Clinic another is a PhD engineer working in Maryland. This country needs people with high level skills so badly. We talked to an Ethiopian in State College who spoke about how many of his countrymen had left Ethiopia and how badly they were needed back home. Here’s one real example. Maese and her husband have stayed here. He runs and engineering company, she’s an accountant.
We spent some time with the Librarian at the UN ECA today. More about the visit later but the part of the conversation that struck me was her perspective on Addis Ababa. She’s new to the city—here about 4 months, having transferred from UN Regional Offices in Santiago, Chile. She commented on the huge disparity between the rich and the poor in Addis, particularly noting how different life is for those in the international community in Addis compared to locals. She said she pays more in rent here, as an international employee, than she pays for her mortgage on her house in Kansas. When we told her that we had been to Makelle she also commented on how different that city was from Addis and that there was actually a middle class there that you didn’t see in Addis. On some level it was nice to have my own reactions affirmed.
And then, there have been the conversations our guide. I haven’t decided quite what to make of him. I’m grateful for all the help he’s given us. It’s allowed me to see parts of Ethiopia that I wouldn’t have seen otherwise. But he’s always looking for an angle, a way to make a little extra money off his interactions with us. On one level, I can’t say I blame him. We are a job for him and he has a family. You have to hustle to make a living in this country. But I don’t get the feeling when I’ve talked with him that I have gotten to know him and his family. He talks about wanting to set up a business but can’t give any clear idea of what that business is. He says he needs someone to sponsor his two young boys (age 3 and 4) in school. But I can’t really get a feel for his family. What is the truth? I’d like to help but I'm not sure how the money would get used. Right now I think I will probably go back home without making any promises And, I feel a little guilty about 2 little boys who might not get the education they deserve.
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