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Update - 11th November 2005

FUN FROM THE FIELD 14:

Hi all you guys!
Well as you can imagine we are all 4 rushing around to get thing finished before we leave on Sunday. Kerry and Barry to London and Canada for a well earned break, Helen a long route home arriving in Adelaide on Thursday am and me directly home arriving in Adelaide early on Tuesday am. We have a lot to share with you all.

The Disability Booklet is almost ready to go to the printers - it is directed to donors and policy makers - has 12 case studies and photos - put together with much huffing and puffing and very much a joint effort. Barry has made a really good job using his expertise with the various software and the final product looks very professional. We are paying for this with funds raised by Friends of interPART.

Tonight the ORSA staff are giving a party for us and we will be entertained for the next couple of evenings. Last Sunday we were invited to the home of Romane (Bureau Chief for Dept of Women’s Affairs) for an evening meal and enjoyed that and chatting with her husband who is in charge of capacity building for the township of Mekelle - now over 200,000 people - he told us that 60% of people live below the poverty line and 40% are unemployed - over a third are studying either at school, training college or at university. A most interesting fellow - in the past he was Ambassador to Sweden but Romane did not take to the life of an ambassador’s wife and came home!

Domestically we are in a routine of bringing water home from the BOLSA office each day and decanting into various containers. We have had no water from the main supply for 2 weeks. We have now run out of gas and have a small electric one plate ring for heating water and cooking. Fortunately we have had no more power black outs. Yes, we are all clean and tidy with acceptable clothing! Hair washing is a bit of a problem though.

An important event happened yesterday when Kerry signed a Memorandum of Understanding with 4 Bureau (Dept) Heads - BOLSA, Health, Education, Public Service, witnessed by Finance and Economic Development, on behalf of interPART and Associates, for a period of 3 years with a review in one - and we have photos to mark the occasion. The preparation, drafting, editing etc took less than a week. We could not help but wonder how long it would have taken in Australia to get this organized and signed - ?6 months perhaps! Kerry will give details when she returns home but basically it is an agreement for all 5 parties to seek donor funding for the implementation of the Integrated Regional Development Strategy for people with disability that Helen as been working on for the past 4 months.

Barry has been working with REST (originally supported through CAA) and it seems he will have an ongoing involvement with them over the next few years in the environmental and conservation, and documentation and communication areas.

We have not really had any international news other than snippets and are somewhat intrigued by reports of rioting in France and the lack of welcome and respect given to Mr Shrub in South America! As for Australia? Where is that! Locally things have settled down, at least for the present, in Addis and we do not anticipate any problems flying from Mekelle on Sunday nor getting away from the International Airport the following day.

Email has been a real problem - tricky and unreliable - you get connected (occasionally) and then it drops out and you have to start all over again. We have been using Internet facilities in various little shops downtown.

We have all kept well - except for colds previously mentioned and only Barry has suffered any gastric problems - recovered now.

Have been trying to think of some fun/amusing bits to report - there are many but my mind won’t focus on such things at present. We were all quite manic last night trying to finish the booklet with the help of some local wine and beer and repartee flying around!

Until we all catch up again in the next few weeks.

Best wishes to you all from the fearless 4 (no we do not wish to emulate Enid Blyton!)

Ursula.
11 November 2005