April: I got a pimple in between my butt cheeks I've never been a really zitty person. But since living in the 6th dirtiest city in the world I have d

I've never been a really zitty person. But since living in the 6th dirtiest city in the world I have developed a bit of a pimply back. bacne - eugh. But the zit between my arse cheeks was a new low for bad skin.

Akanksha has left. She has gone back to Turkey to live, there she swims in the beautiful Mediterranean sea and eats delicious food everyday. we are all very jealous, and we miss her a lot. Akanksha has one of those really open and welcoming personalities. It was her more than any of us that got to know the other staff members and befriend them. She put in the work to know Adddis Ababa and enjoy what it had to offer. She is an inspiration, and now she has gone, well, we are kinda deflated.

Darius has taken over Akanksha's classes and We have a new flatmate: Peter from the UK. He's mad. He's mad in a good, interesting, lively way. He gets drunk on weekends, comes home late, breaks into really loud song, brings back stray dogs to the house, fall asleep in taxis and doesn't regain consciousness, that kinda thing. He does really well teaching 3rd and 4th grade though. Every time I walk past his class he is standing on the desk or rolling around on the floor explaining some concept. it's the kind of active teaching methods that are very unfamiliar and really loved here.

We have also had another Peter for the UK live with us. He was a volenteer in the same programme I did in Sudan. we breifly met in Khartoum. He decided to leave Sudan but stay in Africa. Ethiopia is the most logical next country. So he spent 7 weeks awquardly fitting his 6 foot plus frame onto our 5 foot something sofa, hanging out with us, and generally being a flatmate and freind to all. He has gone south for a while, something to do with permaculture, but will be back again soon.

I got trapped in a school toilet for 15 minutes. It took one PE teacher, one computer teacher, two administators a science teacher and the school bus driver to get me out. The smashed off the door handle and lock, it has not been replaced... maybe it never will.

Sarah has the best story of the month. she went on a weekend trip to Ambo. a wee town where they make fizzy water. She and her friend were riding down a street in a horse drawn carriage when the horse went mental (as horses sometimes do... big animals should not be so jittery) and started bolting down the hill that they were on. The driver freaked out and jumped off the moving carriage Sarah took this as a logial clue that they were in shit so she jumped off too.. her freind stayed on right till the end of the hill thinking it was safest to stay with the horse. All of them ended up with minor injurys. Sarah was a mess of cuts and brusies and got a sprained wrist.

Ethiopian Easter is celebrated on some random day that is different (of course) to the random day that the rest of the world celebrates easter (ok, it's not random, it's pagan, it is the first Friday after the first full moon after the spring equinox) we had several 4 day weekends in April. On the easter weekend our lovely bosses phoned and said they were bringing over a chicken curry. our lazy maids (we have two now, we hired another one) sprung into action doing all the cleaning that they should have done throughout the week. something was lost in translation because our bosses turned up with two live chickens and one live sheep. A man also turned up later in the day to kill the chickens, we asked him to come back in a couple of days to kill the sheep. The sheep was cool, we named him Tibbs which is the name for fried mutton in Ethiopia. before his death we got him drunk on a bottle and a half of Ethiopia's finest red wine. I don't know if it made a difference to the meat but he died happy.

I have a new task, I'm the sole editor and designer of the school magazine. I'll let you know how that goes.