Truth is Stranger than fiction – Ethiopian Journey – Blog Post No – 42

The questions that I posed in previous blog post have been answered by quite a few readers. Most attempted in bits and pieces and only two readers, Ms. Snigdha PV and Ms. Sneha PV, sisters and my students at Siva Sivani Institute of Management attempted and answered all the questions.

I have christened Snigdha and Sneha as “Apoorva Sodarimanulu” or unique sisters. They are the first to read my articles or blog posts and give immediate feedback. Their feedback is quite elaborate, thought provoking and analytical. Sometimes the analysis is almost half the size of my post.

Snigdha and Sneha come from a family that has deep rooted belief for Indian culture and Ethos. Their Father P. Ramachander is the MD of SL Diagnostics and also a dedicated philanthropist who runs four hostels in Hyderabad for under privileged meritorius boy students. These hostels are run completely by the trust and not a single paisa is charged from the students. May your tribe multiply, Ramachander garu!

The questions asked about Oman were

1)         What is the type of terrain? – The most common answer given - Desert

2)         What is the most available resource? - The most common answer given - Petrol

3)       Comment on the country (Rich or poor) - The most common answer given - Rich (who has heard of poor people in Middle East!)

4)         Languages spoken - The most common answer given - Arabic

5)         About Omani people - The most common answer given - Arabs

6)        Religion/s followed (Take a clue from Saudi Arabia) - The most common answer given - Islam and Wahhabi Islam

7)         Climate - The most common answer given - Very hot and very dry and mostly no rainfall

8)        The ruler and his stance taken about India - The most common answer given – They tolerate Indians as India provides cheap labour and Oman is friendly with Pakistan.

9)         Anything about their dress that you can comment? - The most common answer given - wear long clothes

10)      Type of jobs that Indians do? – The most common answer given – Indians do mostly menial jobs and work as labour and also as maids.

11)       Availability of water? - The most common answer given – Water is very scarce

12)      Technology or production practices in other words do they have any indigenous methods of production or do they simply import everything - The most common answer – No indigenous technology and mostly products are imported.  

  

HERE COMES THE SHOCK! Most of the commonly given answers are wrong. Most of it is stereotyped into our minds by movies, media and our own perceptions. Let me give you the real facts.

1.What is the type of terrain? – The most common answer given is Desert but the entire country is not a desert. Most of the country’s terrain is arid plains and with rugged mountains both in the north and in the south. One of the mountains Jebel Shams (Mountain of the Sun), raises to 3,000 metres (around 9,800 feet). It is the highest point in the whole of eastern Arabia.

2. What is the most available resource? - The most common answer given is Petrol. Even though this answer is correct the most abundant resource that Oman has is Natural gas.

3. Comment on the country (Rich or poor) - The most common answer given is Rich (who has heard of poor people in Middle East).  Not all Arabs are rich. There are many poor people in Oman. In fact Yemen, also a middle Eastern country is very poor and its per capita income is only 2,400 US Dollars!

4. Languages spoken - The most common answer given is Arabic. Again correct but as 43% of the population is expatriate. Hindi and Urdu are very popular as is English.

5. About Omani people - The most common answer given is Arabs. Factually correct, but there is significant difference among them. One sect of Arabs are the original descendants of Oman. The second set are called Zanzibaris. Zanzibar was ruled for a long time by Omanis.   Zanzibari Omanis have African features and the third set of Omanis are Baluchis. They are from Baluchistan and they can speak very fluent Hindi and Urdu!

6. Religion/s followed (Take a clue from Saudi Arabia) - The most common answer given is Islam and Wahhabi Islam – Most Omani Muslims follow the Ibadism School of Abd Allah ibn Ibadh Islam, which is quite different from the stricter Wahhabi Islam. The Ibadan form of Islam is very tolerant of other religions and there are Hindu temples, Sikh Gurudwaras and Christian Churches in Muscat!

7. Climate - The most common answer given is Very hot and very dry and mostly no rainfall.  Mostly correct but it rains in Oman and there are thousands of check dams built which get filled with water but may be once in 4-5 years! The southwest monsoons reach Salalah the southern part of Oman. This part of Oman is as lush and as green as Kerala!

8. The ruler and his stance taken about India - The most common answer given is – They tolerate Indians as India provides cheap labour and are more friendly with Pakistan. Not correct. India and Oman enjoy very close ties and Sultan Qaboos Bin Said is a close friend of India. Believed to have studied in India, Sultan Qaboos Bin Said can speak fluent Hindi.

9. Anything about their dress that you can comment? - The most common answer given is wear long clothes. This one is correct. The long white dress that the Omanis wear is a Dishdasha and this dress is quite unique to Oman.

 

10. Type of jobs that Indians do? – The most common answer given is – Indians do mostly menial jobs and work as labour and also as maids. It is no longer true. Omanization is catching up fast and most Indians are being replaced by local population which is desperate for jobs. Indians continue to work in specialized areas where the local expertise is not available.

11. Availability of water? - The most common answer given is – Water is very scarce. While this is true there is a twist. Omanis have developed a unique system of water management that is 5000 years old called, Aflaj. Using Aflaj, water is lifted from a lower gradient to a higher gradient, without using any mechanical device or an electric pump.  

12.    Technology or production practices - The most common answer given – No indigenous technology  and mostly products are imported.  Actually not totally accurate. Omanis are masters of ship building and their wooden ships called Dhows are world famous for their strength and durability. Sindbad the sailor hails from Sohar, a port city located 200 kilometres from Muscat.    

             I have elaborated all this, just to show that unless we visit another country and stay there for a reasonable period of time, we will not be able to get the exact picture. So travel and become wiser.  

Acculturation – Can you do the small exercise and give me the answers? – Ethiopian Journey – Blog Post no – 41

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One of the advantages of being a teacher is that we can enlighten students and tell them how to avoid the mistakes committed and pitfalls encountered. “Wise are people who don’t commit the same mistake twice”!

My Management Theory Professor had once wryly said “Marriage is like a closed door. People inside want to get out desperately and people outside are equally desperate to get in”. The class roared their approval by clapping and having a hearty laugh. Our Prof let the laughter die down and said “even though people like me, enlightened and well experienced, tell them that there is nothing very exciting about getting inside, not one Mard ka Baccha (son of a man, a popular saying in Hyderabadi Lingo) listens to me. Everyone wants to have a personal experience. Once you get in, there is no getting out”.

Similarly many of us make judgments on limited knowledge, assumptions and worst of all, on hearsay. Nothing can be more dangerous in life. What we all indulge is called stereotyping. Stereotyping is the term given to the human tendency to make over-simplifications and generalizations about lands, cultures, people or objects, based on limited experience.

I teach both International Business and Strategic Management. Both deal with a topic called acculturation. It can be defined as the cultural modification of an individual, group, or people by adapting to or borrowing traits from another culture.

Most people think of their culture as being superior to another. I think, it is the biggest mistake that we are all committing. The latest order of the Delhi Metropolitan authority to mask all non-vegetarian food on the streets as it is offending the sensibilities of the vegetarians, falls into this category.

There is an assumption made, that people eating vegetarian food are in some way superior to people eating non vegetarian food. If the sight of non-vegetarian food on display is offending the vegetarians then, should the bandis having display of cut fruits, salads and pav baaji also cover up their wares as their display is offending the sensibilities of the non-vegetarians.

The solution lies in Acculturation. Respecting our culture and learning and respecting other cultures and their way of living is the only way out. To drive in the point of stereotyping and wrong perceptions about a different culture, I give the following exercise to my students.

I tell them to think about Sultanate of Oman, a sovereign country in Middle East. Without allowing usage of the omnipresent Google Mata, I tell them to answer the following questions as honesty as possible. I also assure them that it is not a test and that there are no correct answers. (All questions pertain to Sultanate of Oman)

1)         What is the type of terrain?

2)         What is the most available resource?

3)         Comment on the country (Rich or poor)

4)         Languages spoken

5)         About Omani people

6)         Religion/s followed (Take a clue from Saudi Arabia)

7)         Climate

8)         The ruler and his stance taken about India

9)         Anything about their dress that you can comment?

10)       Type of jobs that Indians do?

11)       Availability of water?

12)     Technology or production practices in other words do they have any indigenous methods of production or do they simply import everything.

Why don’t my readers do the same exercise? Be as honest as possible and I will give out the answers tomorrow. If you are giving answers on Facebook do not post your answers in the comments section. Give the answers in my inbox. Let the cat remain in the bag! 

40 - Washing Dirty linen in public - The case of the Masi Gudda - Ethiopian Journey - Blog Post No - 40

As discussed in my previous post, Bahirdar was full of Indian teachers. I will attempt to classify these Indians into categories, so that the readers can understand their behaviour.

1) The Desperates: Desperates are Indians who have come to a foreign country as a last resort. This set of Indians tend to be very low in confidence and have managed to come abroad based on various dubious methods which can include fake credentials, fake certificates and even fake experience. They constantly live in a state of fear.

They could have even come on recommendations, by bribing concerned officials or even could have just come on pure luck. Their low inferiority complex can lead to lots of problems for all other Indians. Desperates tend to be average or low level performers and are constantly on the look out to make their own life safer and better.

They would work for unnecessarily long hours, pamper and pander to every whim and fancy of the locals and tend to drive the salaries southwards (downwards). They also throw lavish parties for the local teachers and tend to snitch on Indians. For example, it is quite likely that some Indians could have gone to Addis Ababa on a private visit of their own, only to know the Desperates have squealed on them to their Dean. The Desperates are despised and tend to survive only on the goodwill and generosity of the local teachers and administrators.

2) The No Choicers: These are people driven to a foreign country as they have limited career prospects in India. They are good workers and tend to do a decent job. As they have no chance of getting regular and lucrative employment in India, they tend to be loyal and do multiple contracts. It is quite common to see many Indians who have done 8-10 contracts or have spent 16-20 years on their own in a foreign land. They earn money, but their personal and family lives become affected and it is often seen that the family and the person grow apart over a period of time.

3) The Regulars: Regulars are Indians who want to have a fling of a lifetime. I would consider myself a regular. Regulars go to a foreign country to take in as much of the country and the culture as possible. They lead a normal life and might not save much even at the end of many contracts but carry with them experiences that are worth a life time stay.

4) The Scroungers: Scroungers are the extreme people. They come to a foreign country just to save. This saving inclination can take extreme forms. For example, a faculty who was earning 1000 dollars in Bahirdar saved up to 975 dollars a month. This person survived only on 25 dollars which is 200 birr or an unbelievable Rs 1000/- rupees per month.

This extreme saving habit would mean that they literally survive only on rice and dal and are always on the lookout for freebies in the form of parties that are thrown by more generous fellow Indians. In a way the scroungers are good at their business. They help the Indian family in hosting the party. That would not only ensure a free meal but could also mean take way of the leftover food that would easily last for two to three days. Luckily for them, the lovely cold weather in Bahirdar ensured that the food would not get spoilt very quickly.

5) The extremos: Extremos are Indians who can’t be classified in any other category. This type of Indians come for unexplainable reasons. Many come to a foreign country just to tell others that they have worked in a foreign country or ‘are foreign returned’. They suffer as they generally come alone and spend lot of time moping and worrying.

Extremos also tend to be extreme in behaviour. One extremo faculty in Bahirdar came to our house and asked a bewildered Padma an article to borrow that almost made her faint. Any idea what he asked? He wanted to borrow ‘a masi gudda’. A masi gudda is any old cloth that is used to dust and clean any dirty surface or mop anything that is spilled on the floor. Any old cloth in the house automatically becomes a masi gudda.  

The same person once came up and asked “Anil Saab, do you think that I could marry my Ethiopian maid”. My heart melted, I was touched at his generosity. The very practical Anil in me woke up “Hello hello dear Anil” the inner voice told me “He is already married and has a wife waiting for him in India”.

I said the same, the extremo sighed and said “so tho hai (that is true), I am married and my wife will kill me if she comes to know that I married an Ethiopian girl”. “They why marry?” I asked quite stupidly. “Anil Bhai, there is a proposal from an Egyptian university inviting papers for an International conference and the invitation says that it is only open for Ethiopian Teachers”. My mouth fell apart almost by two feet. This crazy professor wanted to marry an Ethiopian girl only for sending an article for an International publication.

Padma pooh pooed me when I recited the incident to her. She said “how gullible of you. He wanted to marry his Ethiopian maid. His maid Ebolu is quite a stunner and a very pretty girl”. Finally, sanity prevailed and this person could not marry his pretty maid.

Secretly I think that he was quite disappointed. But our guy did have his final laugh. He went to a government hospital at the end of the contract and had a HIV test conducted on himself.  Luckily he tested HIV negative! I asked him the reason for the test “Anil Saab (as he was fond of calling me), I wanted to assure my wife that I am pure and loyal to her” we gave him tea and bade him a farewell.

Padma remarked “hats off to his wife. I don’t know how she managed to stay married to this character and still remain sane. She should be given a Padma Sri!”

Teachers, Teachers and Teachers - Teachers in Ethiopia - Ethiopian Journey - Blog Post no - 39

  

The fulcrum or the kingpin of any teaching, learning process is the teacher. There were four categories of teachers in Bahirdar University, Ethiopia. Category one teachers are the Ethiopian teachers, well educated and possessing master’s or even PhD qualification.

These categories of teachers were very few in number and occupied very senior academic and administrative positions. The second categories of teachers were like me who have been picked up from various countries and given two year contract to work in Ethiopia. At that time in 2002 they were paid between 900 to 1400 US Dollars per month, depending upon their qualifications, experience, especially work experience in Ethiopia. They were given free housing and all utilities were provided.

The astonishing part of any foreign assignment is the exaggerated claims made by the agencies involved about the quantum of money that can be saved in each contract. This talk is so convincing that many including me were mentally hypnotized and internalized, the amount of money that can be saved. The reality is very far from the painted picture.

The savings get whistled down as many teachers make unscheduled visits to India and travel expenses can be daunting. And then, there is the fluctuation in dollars vs birr exchange value. It is said that when two strangers meet in England the most common ice breaker is the query about the weather.

The icebreaker in Ethiopia for any two Indians is “what is the today’s exchange rate of Birr vs the Dollar”. There are animated discussions about when to change Birr into dollars. And there are whoops of delight when the exchange rate of the Dollar appreciates against the birr and groans of dismay when the dollar depreciates.

The funny part was in 2002, we were getting 50 Indian rupees for a dollar. And the rupee started appreciating against the dollar the minute we landed in Ethiopia. It steadily dropped to 49, 48 and so on. By the time we returned it was doing 42 against the dollar. So in real terms our salaries actually dropped by nearly 20% from 2002 – 2006!

And on our return, the dollar started appreciating against the rupee and it’s now 65 rupees to a dollar! That is the way the cookie crumbles! The well-known Telugu writer, Aarudra said “nenu ekkalsina railu oka jeevita kaalam letu” meaning ‘the train I want to board is late by a life-time’. We never get what we want and what we get, we don’t want!

The third category of teachers is the volunteers who predominantly came from western countries. In PEDA we had teachers from UK, Holland and even USA. They were picked by voluntary organizations and had all the facilities that were provided to us except that their salary was nominal. In 2002 the volunteer teachers were paid only 100 US dollars that is 850 Birr (equal to 4,250 rupees). Volunteers come for the love of teaching and tend to be work oriented and regularly indulge in research and philanthropic activities.

One such teacher was the physics teacher from Holland who worked on a combined project with students of Holland and Ethiopia, who were assisted by Ethiopian teachers. Their collaborative work was stunningly advanced at that point of time. The faculty and students of Ethiopia and Holland were working on a dual observation project of celestial objects and were learning their subject in real time! This aged professor was a bundle of energy and was an inspiration to  all of us.  

The fourth category of teachers were the young Ethiopian graduates who were picked up as instructors and junior lecturers from reputed universities like the Addis Ababa university and other older universities. They were a vivacious and energetic lot. They lacked teaching and practical experience but made up on their limitations by their bubbling energy and a zeal to learn. They were paid 800 birr or roughly 100 US dollars per month.

Many of the young teachers who joined during that time like Addis Gedefaw, Latenah, Sewele, Adonios Jimma, Mesalu,  and others have grown by leaps and bounds and have exceled in their  fields and are occupying very respectable positions in Ethiopia and in other countries.

Addis Gedefaw

Sewale Abate 

Adonias N. Jimma

Letenah Eigu Wale 

Mesalu Alamnie
mulugeta

Just today I was reading an article which said that Telugu is the 3^rd most spoken language in the USA after, English and Spanish. Telugu has a whopping 3,20,000 native speakers in USA. This does not come as a surprise. Telugus both from Andhra Pradesh and Telangana are very enterprising when it comes to going abroad. They are crazy about Phoren countries (Indian way of saying foreign).  R. K. Laxman nailed it on the head with his cartoon which shows an ophthalmologist saying to a Telugu patient “You have a foreign body in your eye, as it is a foreign body would you like to retain it?!”  

Where ever I worked including in Oman, the Middle-east and even in Ethiopia, Indians were the dominant work force and even in that, Telugus stand out as a significant majority. Telugus are everywhere. They do all types of jobs, be it sales and marketing jobs, working in the super markets, working as labour in construction sites etc.  Even among the teaching community of Ethoipia they had an unassailable majority.

Among the foreign teachers numbering around 55 to 60 in POLY and PEDA, nearly 40 were Indians. Among the 40 Indians, around 35 would be from south India and among this 35, give or take, 25 would be Telugus. Global Placements (the Indian placement company authorized by ministry of Education to source teachers for universities of Ethiopia) headquarters being in Hyderabad could be one of the reasons as to why so many Telugu teachers end up in Ethiopia.  

But that argument does not hold much water as interviews for Indian teachers are held in all the major state capitals and all other candidates have the same opportunity as Telugu teachers to be selected for Ethiopian assignment.

Mansoor Ali Khan

Dr.T.N.Murthy

We had four foreign teachers in our Management department. All four were Indian teachers. Among the four three were Telugus, myself, Mr. Mansoor and Dr. T. N. Murthy. The only non Telugu was Mr. Chidambaram who was from Tamil Nadu.  

Accounting department had four foreign teachers. All four were Indians and three among them, Dr. Srinivas Inguva, Dr. Radha Krishna and Ms. G. Rajani were Telugus and again the single non Telugu teacher was Ms. Annie Clara, a Tamilian. There was no dearth of Telugus and Indians in Bahirdar. 

Dr.Srinivas Inguva 

Ms. Annie Clara

Dr. Radha Krishna 

5th P - Silent Salesman - Making teaching, learning fun - Ethiopian Journey - Blog post no - 38

Packaging the Silent Salesman 

Marketing was in very rudimentary state in 2002 and it was quite obvious that here are many opportunities for upcoming entrepreneurs. The introductory stage of the market also meant that there was very little by the way of teaching aids. I told my parents and got lot of packages of FMCG products like tooth paste tubes, soap wrappers, detergent wrappers and many other packaging materials like the boxes of Kellogg from India. I used these as aids and vividly explained the students the concepts of packing and packaging.

Attractive Packaging material 

One of the Ethiopian students recently told me “Dr. Aneel you told us the difference between packing and packaging. You said packing is for protection and packaging is for marketing. You also said something that I can never forget”.

He told me that I had said “Packaging is the 5^th P of marketing and it is called a silent salesman. When all the other Ps falls silent it is the humble packaging that has to facilitate the selling process. It has to lure, seduce, cajole, plead and make the customer pick up the product. Once the product is in the hands of the customer the possibility of a sale goes up. In the modern supermarkets, decisions are made in a flash of a second and in that flash, each micro second matters”.

He said that this particular lecture of mine was etched in his mind and that he tries to implement what was told. He was fascinated by the word ‘Silent Salesman”. What a paradox!

He was musing - ‘Salesman and Silent’ how can a salesman be silent? Salesmen are thought as walking talking parrots or people who keep on blabbering. But some of the best sales people that I know are excellent listeners. They talk less and listen more. When a salesman listens to a customer the chances of finding out the real need increases.

God too agrees. That is why he has given us two ears and one mouth. Talk less and listen more. Examples like these made me touch the hearts of my students’ and made me occupy a special place.

I feel that the teacher has to excite and make the student read the subject by himself. Don’t be a kindergarten teacher and try to explain everything. Excite and propel the student into a path of self-discovery.

One of my extension students (extension students are part timers who attend classes on Saturdays and Sundays) used to come late to my class. Being a stickler for punctuality, I hauled him up and demanded an explanation.

Blue Nile River 

What he told me, made me speechless. He told me that he was swimming through the Blue Nile river. He was getting delayed as the currents were too strong for him to swim. To make this easier let me explain. PEDA campus of Bahirdar University was adjacent to the Blue Nile river and this student’s house was on the other side. Coming to PEDA by land would mean a journey of more than an hour and would also cost him at least two birr (2 birr was lot of money back then in 2002). 

Trying to cross

To save time and money he was literally cutting through water! What he was doing was very dangerous not only because of fast moving currents but also due to the presence of a colony of hippopotamuses. These gentle giants are usually placid but could become violent once they are enraged and try to protect their kith and kin.

I was shocked out of my core, the hunger for knowledge and degrees were really unparalleled! It is this competitiveness that has propelled Ethiopia out of its hard time and made what it is today, the fastest growing economy in entire Africa.

Cyclostyling and preparing reading material for the students - Ethiopian Journey - Blog Post no - 37

Cyclostyling Machine 

Teaching in Ethiopia was a new experience. From a cocooned School of Management Studies, CBIT India, I was thrown into the deep end of an ocean of education – Bahirdar University. It was a university so big that teachers travelled by bicycles to go from one block to another. And in 2002, if a person was not in his seat it was very difficult to trace him/her as there were no dog chains (oops Cellphones) around the necks!

The University was lush green and there was lot of wildlife to be seen. It was very common to see white Colobus monkey called mountain Guereza. One of which was a frequent visitor, to one of my classes. This enormous monkey would perch himself on the window sill and would take in all that was taught! 

He would sometimes munch on some leaves and just look like an absent minded student pondering on a problem for which the solution could not be found. He had a permanent perplexed expression on his face! Once the class was over, he would gracefully jump into the foliage of the tree and disappear. Sadly with the expansion of the university such memorable sightings were lost by the time I left in 2006.

All the teachers had to offer a course. Frequently students would come up in the market, introduce themselves and say “sir, you offered us a course in Introduction to Management and so on”. All teachers had to prepare a course outline which corresponds to an Indian syllabus sheet. This prepared course outline, had to be approved by the Dean and the HOD, cyclostyled and then circulated among the students.

I had also noticed that many teachers were giving one or two page handouts, which the students gratefully accepted. A visit to the library confirmed my thought process. There was very limited availability of books and even those books were quite outdated.

Within a month I hit upon an idea. I started making quite elaborate notes in each chapter and got them cyclostyled. I would offer these notes to my students who were delighted to get printed reading material. I had an ace up my sleeve. I was cyclostyling 25 sets more than my students’ strength.

This notes built up into a very nice reading material and in no time the semester was over. I had a cover page made, clubbed it with the study material and got it nicely bound and presented the entire set to the delighted librarian. Sometime later, I was called into the Vice President‘s office (Vice President is like our Vice Chancellor).

I was not very overtly worried as I was getting good feedback from all my students. But some lingering doubt remained – “why was I called in?” I was ushered in and the VP said without any preamble “I was told that you are giving study material to the library, whose idea is this?” “Mine” I said “Any problem sir?” “no, no” he assured me “No problem at all, it is a great initiative. During my visit I found many students referring your notes. How much did it cost you to make the 25 sets of reading material?”

“Not much sir” I told him “I must have paid around 100-125 birr for the binding”. The VP was beaming “I am very happy that you are taking so much effort to educate my students. From now on you don’t have to worry, get them bound in the university press and I will see that you are not charged anything”. I thanked him and left.

By the time I finished two contracts I had contributed 16 sets of different reading material to the library. I had taught sixteen different subjects in four years and thoroughly enjoyed teaching each of them. Even though I taught many subjects, in hearts of hearts I loved teaching Introduction to Marketing, Sales and Distribution, Marketing Research and Strategic Management. My Ethiopian students still remember me as a ‘Marketing teacher’. 

“Google! What the heck is that?” - Ethiopian Journey - Blog Post no – 36

Terms like ‘The only constant in this world is change’ and “where are we?” “Oh at the beginning” “Where is the beginning?” “At the start” might be very good opening statements in India but would fox and bemuse Ethiopians who would take things literally.

Idioms like “steps to be undertaken to solve the problem, Paradigm shift, trying to pound square pegs in round holes’” would confuse them. I learnt to use simple language and be as graphical and pictorial as possible. I would give them both Indian and Ethiopian examples which were highly appreciated.

Whatever I said, I would write the same on the board. Most of the class rooms had two boards and I would totally fill up the entire two boards and would not erase them. This was an advice from an Ethiopian colleague. The matter on the board would be copied by many other students including many who were not even remotely connected with management education. That was the hunger for information and knowledge that the Ethiopian students had in 2002.

Back then, Google was still a new medium and not many students have heard the word!  I am told by Dr. Elefachew Mossisa that I took the entire class of B.A in Accounting to the computer laboratory and told them in a stern voice to open the internet browser and type in the word ‘Google’. He told me in an awestruck voice that it was his first experience with Google and it is still etched in his memory. I had unwittingly introduced the magical world of Google to an entire batch of accounting students!

My very neat, crisp and clear handwriting was highly appreciated. Indian teachers were very much liked by the Ethiopian students as most of them had no accent at all and were easily understandable. But the same can’t be said about the accent of the Ethiopian students. Their English was very difficult to understand and they would pronounce ‘Fifteen’ as ‘fifty’. This led to lots of confusion.

Once I grandly announced “you will have an exam tomorrow at 8.00 a.m”. There were groans and slightly loud ‘Ahs’ but I thought that they got the message. The next day I gulped my breakfast, rushed to the department, got my exam papers and went to the exam hall. There was NOBODY there, except a very forlorn looking puppy, which was horrified as I ushered it away from the class room.

I waited for half an hour and went to Ms. Addis Gedefaw in a huff. I was irritated. I reported the exam boycott to Addis. Addis was frankly exasperated and said, “Anil, get used to our timings, you said 8.00 a.m and the students have understood it as 8.00 a.m, Ethiopian Time” (which is 2 p.m. according to European Time). I was flabbergasted.

Dr. Neelima Ramakuru from the Physics department had sent an e-mail to her husband. Sending an E-mail was a minor coup in BDU at that time. E-Mails would take upto to 10-15 minutes to get transmitted. As she was heaving a sign of relief, her husband shot a reply “What are you doing in the university at mid night (1200 p.m.)” Dr. Neelima was totally nonplussed. Then it struck her. Her husband would have got an e-mail with the time stamp as 1200 hours and immediately assumed that it was 1200 in the night. Actually it was only 6 p.m. in the evening and there was light everywhere, including the University.

Working hours at Bahirdar University were a breeze. Most Indians would be allotted a load of two subjects per semester and they would be given subjects which could not be taught by the local Ethiopian teachers. Once a class was taken the faculty was free to go. So it was up to the faculty to stay in the campus or go home. As Indians had been accustomed to staying on the campus for eight hours most of them preferred to stay in the campus and work on the internet that was maddeningly slow!