Adventure In Ethiopia: Tassel's worth the hassle!

Well I’m back again. First I’d like to say what a great Interview Mannfred did, I think it gives a great source of first hand knowledge about the project we’re helping with, whats being done and what can still be done in the future. There are so many bright students here at JUCAVM who have put an enormous amount of effort into moving forward with career plans. This past weekend Mannfred and I were able to share in the celebration of these students’ accomplishments by attending the graduation ceremony at Jimma University. First I’d like to say that the graduation at Jimma University is broken into two different weekends purely because of the massive graduation class. JUCAVM students were graduating on the second weekend along with the social science, business, and law students at the university. Overall there were approximately 3000 graduates that received their degrees at the ceremony. You think this is a lot but how about picturing 50 000 new university graduates across Ethiopia this year, an astonishing number and a tremendous accomplishment for the country which has gone from a few universities to 31 universities in approximately a decade. JUCAVM has their first ever Post Harvest Management class graduate this year which is an accomplishment for the PHMIL project.

The graduation ceremony was a nice mix of new and traditional elements. The crowd of black gowns, coloured sashes and grad caps was overwhelming initially but with proud parents looking on it was easy to join in with the excitement even though Manny and I didn’t understand a single word of the ceremony. The official sign that you have graduated here is when you can move the tassel from your grad cap from the right to the left hand side. Not every student walked across the stage because that would have taken all day but each program recognized the top academic achievers as well as special awards like the top female academic overall at JUCAVM. It was an eye opener for me with the sudden realization that I’ll be graduating myself next year.

One special element of the graduation ceremony was the guest Gebisa Ejeta who received an Honorary Doctorate from Jimma University. Dr. Ejeta attended JUCAVM many years ago before he moved to the United States to continue his education. He has now become a well known professor at Purdue University in Plant Breeding & Genetics and in 2009 won the World Food Prize Laureate. Dr. Ejeta did a public lecture on campus in the following days about Improving National Development Challenges through Science, Technology and Innovation. Dr. Ejeta has put an impressive amount of work into giving back to his country that gave him his initial start. It was a very inspiring talk and gave many of the graduating students ideas of the possibilities of what they can one day accomplish.

Aside from graduation Manny and I have been going about our usual routines but with a few ailments, Manny had another small bout of food poisoning and I’ve caught a cold. The only other excitement we’ve had is that Manny had a bird poop on him yesterday and I had a bug the size of my fist crawl out of the shower drain this morning which almost gave me a heart attack. There is always something new to entertain our days. Tomorrow we’ll be off again on another adventure out of Jimma but this time to the Northern part of Ethiopia headed to Gondor and Bahar Dar. We’ll keep you posted.

Ciao.

Suze