My Ethiopian Adventure
When I was first offered a place on an International Girl Guiding trip I couldn’t believe my luck, I realised this was a great opportunity and I couldn’t wait to accept my place on the trip. However after my first wave of excitement doubt inevitably began to appear. The cost of the trip was a total of £2500 and there were undoubtedly going to be other expenses on top of this. How was I going to manage this fundraising on top of my A-level studies? Would I even raise the full amount? If not, how would I pay for this trip? How would I cope in Ethiopia, over 6000 miles away from my family for 3 and a half weeks? All of these questions appeared, yet I simply couldn’t ignore what a great experience this was going to be. So after receiving full support from my parents I embarked on my journey towards Ethiopia.Fundraising seemed daunting, as £2500 is a colossal amount for a 16 year old! Yet with the support of my family, friends, girl guiding network and my local community it was done with bag packing, cupcake sales and raffles all going towards the efforts to fundraise. I also received many kind donations and for that I am very grateful, as without that generosity my attempts to fundraise would have been a great deal harder. Despite a lot of early mornings, long days and lots of planning I quite enjoyed the fundraising aspect of my International experience as it allowed me to explain my cause and really helped me raise awareness not only of Link Ethiopia and the work they were doing, but of Girl guiding and the investment they were making in helping girls all over the world get the best opportunities in life. Fundraising took up the large part of 9 months and in this time I also met the rest of the girls involved in the trip. This was also another hard part of the experience as the girls I was going to be spending 3 weeks in Ethiopia with, I’d only met them 3 times.
Before I knew it the trip was just on the horizon and many preparations had to be made before I could go. This included many vaccinations, a kit list and materials for our project such as paint, paper and pencils that had to be collected. Our project whilst in Ethiopia saw us working with a school in a local suburb of Gonder, a town in the north of Ethiopia. It involved a six-day summer school that our group constructed to teach the children of the school some English. In addition we created two gardens at the school and painted one of the buildings with an educational mural. The money raised for Link Ethiopia also went towards building two new classrooms for the school, which were safer for the children and the staff to use. This was because in the summer the ground became dry and dusty meaning that any ground kicked about became a breathing hazard for the children in the confined spaces.
After arriving in Ethiopia it was quite easy to adjust to the routine of our trip and the lifestyle of the cities we stayed in. This was in part due to our supportive leaders on the trip as well as the other girl guides who were taking part. Despite having met only a handful of times before we worked together as a team very well. The long days and early starts did make me weary as we had a lot planned for the trip and only a short space to fill it in, despite being in Ethiopia for over 3 weeks. Some of our nights were spent relaxing and it was amazing to experience some of the food and culture of Ethiopia, even if it was a little too spicy for me!
We started our journey in Addis Ababa, the capital city of Ethiopia and then moved to Gonder. The capital city was very vibrant if slightly run down and it was on my first night there that I ate some authentic Ethiopian food, it was set out on injera (a sour flatbread which is a staple in the Ethiopian diet) and on the injera were portions of meat and vegetables such as potato, cabbage and beef. This traditional dish is eaten by hand and consists of a portion of meat or vegetable wrapped in injera like a parcel. One of the great things about visiting the capital of Ethiopia was the trip to one of the cities banks, where we discovered that the Ethiopian calendar is 7 years behind the one we have in Britain. So by coming to Ethiopia we had essentially travelled back in time!
Our next destination was Gonder and it was here that the majority of our community work took place and where I began to truly see the consequences and depths of poverty that grip countries like Ethiopia. The highlight of this trip for me had to be the Summer School in which I helped teach English to school children; our group covered topics like the human body, animals, colours and clothes. The smile on their faces as they learnt the alphabet was truly humbling and it was such a great feeling that I was contributing to their education; an education that is vital for them to gain the best future in life.
Whilst at the school we also painted a mural on one of the school buildings and constructed two gardens. We were unable to do some construction work during our trip as there was a cement shortage in Gonder. Also we wanted to ensure the best quality of building for the school, considering this we left the job to the professionals!
On our last day at the school a leaving ceremony was organised where we donated any remaining goods to the school as well as three laptops that were donated to our cause. Other items donated were jumpers, woolly hats and personal gifts from us, the girl guides. Leaving the school was one of the hardest parts of the trip but we left with the hope that our work would impact the children at the school and many more children to come.
I would just like to say a big thank you to everyone who helped me on my journey to Ethiopia, including my family, friends, girl guides and my local community as I couldn’t have done any of it without you. Through your generosity and kindness you have helped give a child one of the best things in the world, not just an education but a chance of a better future.
Thank you.
Megan Clifford
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