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.
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| Addis Gedefaw |
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| Sewale Abate |
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| Adonias N. Jimma |
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| Letenah Eigu Wale |
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| Mesalu Alamnie mulugeta |
Just today I was reading an article which said that Telugu is
the 3rd 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.
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| Mansoor Ali Khan |
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| 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.
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| Dr.Srinivas Inguva |
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| Ms. Annie Clara |
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| Dr. Radha Krishna |
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