Learning 2.014 Africa

It's amazing to me that this is a school campus - it's so green and is very low rise and in tune with the nature.

We started each day with Ethiopian coffee.

On the Friday evening we were taken to a traditional Ethiopian restaurant.  There were 2 different sorts of "plates" (vegetarian and non vegetarian - vegetarian food was called "famine food" as it grows wild).  All this was placed on a sort of large bread plate.  The idea was to break off bits of the "plate" and use that to eat the food.

Red Terror

On my second day in Ethiopia I had some time in the morning before my Upper Elementary cohort meeting, so I decided to walk down to the Red Terror Martyrs Memorial Museum which was about a 15 minute walk from the hotel.  The "Red Terror" occurred in 1977 and 1978 and was a period of bloodshed, torture and mass murder of Ethiopians by the military junta known as the Derg, led by Mengistu, following the deposition of Emperor Haile Selassie.  Around half a million people were murdered and mutilated under the guise of building a "better" Ethiopia.

On the way back to the hotel I walked past the UN building.  I'd previously been told I wasn't allowed to photograph government buildings, but I managed to get this photo through the railings.

Green, gold and red

Rastafarians worship Haile Selassie (who is buried in this church) as the reincarnation of Jesus and believe that Ethiopia is where paradise will be created.  Green, gold and red are the colours of the Ethiopian flag, as well as the Rastafari movement.

Ethiopia

If like me your image of Ethiopia is around 40 years old, with memories of the famine of the 1970s, you will be pleasantly surprised by Ethiopia today.  I flew to Ethiopia for the Learning 2.014 Africa conference that was held at the Inter-Community School of Addis Ababa and my first impressions were of a green country with plenty of space.  On the first day I arrived very early in the morning so I had some time before my first meeting.  I checked into the Hilton and had a walk through the gardens to the pool and then took a taxi to the National Museum.  This museum is famous for Lucy - the skeleton of the oldest human which dates back 3.5 million years and which was discovered in Ethiopia in 1974.  About 40% of the bones of this skeleton were found.

On the way back to the hotel I went to the Holy Trinity Cathedral.  It was built to celebrate Ethiopia's liberation from the Italians and is where Emperor Haile Selassie is buried.  Another famous person buried here is the suffragette Sylvia Pankhurst, who was an anti-Fascist campaigner and who lived in Ethiopia for the last years of her life.  She is the only foreigner buried in front of the cathedral and is in the section reserved for patriots of the Italian war.

Colourful Chennai

The weekend after Singapore I was on the move again - this time to Chennai to do a school verification visit on behalf of the IB.  This was a huge experience, because again it was the first time that I had done such a visit, and because I could see the whole school was very anxious to be authorized to offer the PYP.

I had a little time in Chennai so went for a tour of a couple of temples in the city itself, and then to Dhaksin Chitra, an open air museum outside of the city where buildings from around the south of India were reconstructed.  There were a number of craftspeople who were also making and selling their products.

3 Days in Singapore

Almost as soon as I was back in Mumbai, I had to leave again for Singapore as I was doing an IB Continuum workshop on Flipping Classrooms.  I was quite nervous about this since it was the first time this workshop had ever been offered, and because almost all of the teachers in the workshop were DP teachers.  We didn't have a lot of free time in Singapore, but one evening I managed to get down to the Marina Bay area and watched the Sound at Light show which happens every day at 9.30pm.

Year 3 begins

After a wonderful summer in the UK and the USA it was time to fly back to India.  This year I have a new job - Director of Educational Technology - and tech integration coaches to work with.  This photo was taken at Heathrow Airport as I was boarding my flight to India.