lunedì 24 settembre 2012

Making budget calculation is good!

This blog was written two days ago

Third day in Arba Minch. There are several naturalistic attractions to visit here such as the Nech Sar national park with its zebras, gazelles and, if you are lucky, elephants and ostriches, the near-by highland Dorze villages, the highest lying at more that 3000 meters, famous for their tall houses and cotton weaving, and, of course, the two lakes Abbaya and Chamo. The second is visited by tourists because is its rich population of crocodiles, some of which really big and 'prehistoric', and hyppos. There is also the so called 'crododile farm', where they breed crocodiles and sell the skin to the international market. There is no tourism in the Abbaya as far as I know.
I could have organised some visit. Instead, I spend the whole day, 12 hours, in doing budget calculation and accountancy for the project. It is something I hate and postponed as much as possible. At a certain point the other members of the project asked me to do that otherwise we where stuck. In Addis I was attracted by other organisational things that put the calculations at the background of my priorities. It is only here that I found the peace of mind to do it.
I have to admit that, however, having a clear picture of the money that you have in proportion with the things you want to do is very useful. It helps to plan and be realistic. It is still very difficult because the project is complex, involving four researchers who do intensive fieldwork and another one coming to the field for shorter stays and aiming to the documentation of two languages. And I have to repair to budget mistakes I made at the moment of the application. The biggest one it the underestimation of the costs for the boat to go to the Gidiccho island. I did not have any complete information and I misunderstood how to elaborate the proper budget. Now, for the first fieldwork we are already going to spend almost half of the whole budget for internal transport. It is a problem because I cannot increase the budget of this voice more that 30% taking the money from the other voices. This is possible because we are going to spend less for personal contracts. 30% will not be enough. I really do not know for the moment how to find a solution. Better thinking about the research. For the first year we are fine.

Ciao!

venerdì 21 settembre 2012

From Addis to Arba Minch, at last!


After one month in Addis Ababa, today, at last, I flew to Arba Micnh. Our 50-place Fokker departed on time form Addis Ababa Bole Airport at 13.50. A first passengers' stop in Jimma after thirty minute and than, at 15.35, we safely landed in Arba Minch.
It was nice and sunny, nothing to do with Addis Ababa, where the rainy season in hitting heavily and it is cold and humid (for those who do not know Addis Ababa lies at an altitude between 2300 and 3000 asl. This can make it quite chilly in the evening).
At the airport I was waiting for the luggage while sending sms and emails. Time passed, the luggage of all the passengers were waiting outside and nobody was there to put them on the rolling band. I do not know who started, when and how, everyone went to collect its own piece of luggage outside. I did the same. Airport people around there were not happy, but they did not stop us. May be someone paid for this.
Outside I expected many minibus-like taxis proposing me to go to the center. Instead, there were only the cars of the hotels, private cars and so-called Bajaj, a Ape Piaggio-style tricycle motorbike used as taxi. I had no choice than taking one of those, but I did not want with all the luggage I had. Moreover, they asked me 100 birr. I activated my circle of people I know in Arba Minch. I called Samuel, an ex-student of mine, who said would come with a taxi. In the meantime a guy I knew, Mamo, came to me. He works for the Catholic Mission and was there with a car collecting two dutch visitors. I went with him.
I knew that car very well. I drew it during the fieldwork period among the Ongota in which Robert Weijs and I made some shootings for the documentary we plan to finish on the death of this language. The trailer is on youtube (search for Graziano Ongota). This is one of the many examples of help that I received from the Irish priests of this mission. They are special. No priests devoted primarily to evangelisation. Their main aim it to help concretely and help everyone, also researchers like me.
I am staying at the Forty Spring Hotel, opened two months ago by Oliver Ryan, an ex-priest of the mission. Wonderful guy. I had some good time chatting with him. Samuel joined us. He came to visit me. We talked about my stay and I could help him with his corpus of a variety of the Gamo language spoken in the area. The documentation of this language is the topic of his PhD thesis. We'll meet tomorrow afternoon to talk about that. The main problem he wants to solve is the synchronisation of audio and video recordings. Using a video and an audio device together is crucial to guarantee good and uncompressed audio quality. So far I have used ELAN to do that, but not always I was successful. Working on the problem with Samuel will help me understand better how it works.
Samuel also gave me a good news. The local authorities, including those of Mirab Abaya, the small town hosting the municipality to which the Bayso and the Haro belong to, will be coming to an open meeting on Sunday in Arba Minch. They will talk about language and culture diversity in the area. It is a good occasion to let myself known both as a specialist in the issue and as the responsible for the project. I got letters of introduction from the Institute of Ethiopian Studies that I look forward to show to get support and assistance.

This is already getting very exciting! But the best is still to come....Follow me!

giovedì 20 settembre 2012

Better connected, still in Addis...until tomorrow


Nowadays in Ethiopia it is possible to have mobile internet connection by usb modem. I do not know if it works nicely in the field, I hope. I just reactivated my old device here in Addis. I am still here, finishing the very last things. Today I'll meet for the last time the other members of the team who are in Ethiopia and tomorrow I'll fly to Arba Minch. In principle the two Ethiopian PhD researchers were supposed to come with me. We just came to know that they have to wait until their contracts are done before they start the first fieldtrip. This will hopefully be at the beginning of ocbober. This is the period in which also the German PhD candidate comes. She signed the contract yeasterday.

More from Arba Minch!

venerdì 7 settembre 2012

From Addis Ababa, getting ready for fieldwork...

This is long time that I did not add a note on this blog. In the mean time I took the DoBeS training in Nijmegen and organised by trip to Ethiopia. This note comes from Addis Ababa, where I arrived two weeks ago. Things are going slowly but smoothly for the organisation of the fieltrip to Bayso and Haro. I will go with the two Ethiopian PhD candidates of my project until October 21. They will stay two full months. In the mean time, two other researchers, German anthropologists, will join us.

We had a problem with the equipment because of a silly shop that did not delivered it as promised. I will hopefully get what I could not bring with the two Germans will carry them. We're are sufficiently equipped anyway in terms of audio recorders, microphones and solar panels. As far as we work together there is no problem. At a certain point we'll separate and conduct our own researchers in selected places.

The languages are spoken on villages around the lakes and on an island in the Lake, called Gidiccho. The plan is to spend some time in the villages and ask for research authorisation at the local administration showing the research permits issues by Addis Ababa University Institute of Language Studies and Institute of Ethiopian Studies. One the first anthropologist comes, we'll go together to the islands. The local University in Arba Minch has promised to give us a motor boat engine and to find us a boat to rent for a good price. In one village we can stay in a kind of hotel room, while in the others we have to camp. We are using these days in Addis also to get camping equipment. Some we'll buy in Arba Minch. We cannot carry too much because we'll fly to Addis Ababa to Arba Minch and wight allowance is 20 kilo plus 5 hand lagguage.

More to come in the next days!

CIAO