Ethiopian Research

As some of you know, I'm an advanced creative writing student through the Open University.  As part of my course I have to write a 4,000 word complete story, or beginning of a novel.  This is a big task, which I work on over 3 assignments.  The first assignment, which is the plot proposal, is due on Valentine's Day.  That is also going to be my youngest sister's 4th birthday.

I thought long and hard about what to write for this story.  I needed it to be something I was interested in, something I could be enthusiastic about, but also something that other people might want to read.  I eventually decided to write about adoption from Ethiopia - in honour of my youngest sister.  It seemed fitting somehow.

Now, here's the thing.  I've not been to Ethiopia.  I was travelling elsewhere when my family adopted my sister.  This means I have a lot of research to do.  To be honest, it might just be easier to try and squeeze in a trip to Addis Ababa before my final assignment is due in mid-May.  A lot of the blogs out there about Ethiopia focus on the famine and poverty.  All of this has a place, absolutely, but I want to celebrate the good about Ethiopia.  Other blogs focus on the adoption process itself, which is important, but that's not what I'm writing about.

I'm hoping that you could help me.  I want to know the details about Ethiopia.  After all, it's the little details that make a story come alive, but that no-one thinks to write about in a blog.  What is the heat like?  Is it dry, or humid?  What are the smells?  What do the market stalls sell?  What did you do during the day?  What was the driving like?  What was church like?  What did the food taste of?  How did you feel during the coffee ceremony?  What did the guest house look like?  The orphanage?  What is there for young people to do?  What do Ethiopian people wear?  And any other details or anecdotes you can think of!

I'm planning on listening to a lot of Ethiopian music, and finding as many photos as I can (lucky I have a photographer for a father).  All this can only tell me so much, though.  It doesn't tell me the sounds, the smells, or the emotions.

Anything you can send me - photos, stories, testimonials, blog posts - would be greatly appreciated.  None of it is going any further than me.  If you could either comment on this blog-post, email me (please let me know that you have via a blog comment though, so I'll be sure to check my email!), or Facebook me, I'd be eternally in your debt.  I need to do this story justice, for my sister and for her culture.

Thank you!
Charli

New Orleans Catch-up

I've been back in the UK for a few months now, and have been applying for jobs like crazy.  To fill the time, I've been helping my Dad at his photography gallery.  I work as his 'social media correspondent', updating the blog, writing press releases, promoting the business on Twitter.  All that jazz.  It's really fun, but has taken my time away from this blog.  I've been blogging a lot in the last 4 months, it's just that I'm over here instead - Steve Oatway Photography's blog.  I even wrote about a touristy visit to York over there!  I realised, however, that I've been quoting this blog in job applications.  I'd better update it then, hadn't I?!

Travelwise, I believe my last update was about my final few days in New Orleans.  From leaving there, I had a severe lack of internet access, so my remaining time in New Orleans, then Philly, and Vermont, has been sadly undocumented.  I think it's time to break out the photos, and write about my final few weeks in America!  So, here I am, wrapped up against the miserably, January in the UK weather, writing about a summer in scorching USA.  I know where I'd rather be right now...

Ok, I'm not actually dressed quite like that...that was me venturing out into the night when we had that sudden cold snap.  But it's a far cry from this, that's for sure -

So, when I last blogged properly about my travels, I was loving life in New Orleans.  I'd been there a day and a half, and I was absolutely smitten.  As I later confessed, I ended up staying for almost a week.  That totally scuppered my remaining travel plans, but I didn't really mind.

I explored New Orleans in the company of two Dutch people, one Australian, and one American (who has the most confused accent I've ever come across).  They were all ever so slightly mad (all the best people are), insisting in playing in a fountain at one point.  I didn't question it, I just photographed it!

They had quite a relaxed attitude to adventuring, and were quite easily distracted.  'What's the interesting looking building over there?  Let's go look at it!'.  I'm quite an organised person, so this was strange for me.  I enjoyed it though!

The interesting looking building turned out to be a European church.  It was bizarre walking into this church (I've been to American churches before), as it was like stepping back into Europe.

Apologies for the photo quality, it was no flash photography allowed.  I don't have a big, fancy camera like my Dad's, so this was the best my little point-and-shoot could do!  I would love to tell you what church this was, but I don't know.  I really needed to keep better notes...

We finally made it to the French Quarter, which we explored for the next couple of days (taking time to return to the hostel for minor details like sleep).  Sadly we had to travel by bus, not by tram.

The bus shelters were like nothing we have in the UK.  So pretty!

We couldn't travel by steamboat either.  Definitely on my future 'to-do in New Orleans' list.

One of my favourite things about New Orleans, was all the people we saw.  The street performers, the buskers, and a whole lot of other people that...well I just don't know!

And of course, there was the music.  The whole of the French Quarter seemed to be moving to some kind of beat.

And the food.  Oh goodness, the food.  Beignets are some kind of heaven.

Potatoes as a starter at Deanie's?  I think I could get used to that...

Tracey's is said to have the best 'po-boys' going.  I have to agree, it was a darn good sandwich!

We also went to a reggae bar, which served food!  I had quesadilla (obvious meal of choice in a reggae bar in New Orleans...).  I thought it was sheer genius.

I think I'll write about Philly and Vermont in separate posts.  So I'll finish up New Orleans with a few random scenery photos -

Hope you enjoyed this picture heavy post!  Sadly, 4 months later, I can't quite remember what it is that I did, or where it was we went.  I mostly wandered around the Garden District and the French Quarter.  There wasn't often a plan, just a lot of 'Ooh, what's that?'.  Either way, I loved New Orleans and can't wait to visit again.  Next time, I promise I'll keep better notes of what I did, and not leave it so long to blog about it!

When Chocolate Nests Go Wrong...

Father Christmas usually gets a mince pie for his snack at our house, but this year I figured it would be a nice activity with the littlies to make him something together.

While I was out shopping the other day, I came across some cheap Mini Eggs.  These aren't normally available other than at Easter, so I bought myself a bag to eat.  Then I decided to buy another two bags (£1 each!), to make chocolate nests with my siblings.  The perfect, easy thing to make for Father Christmas!  They have now been renamed "Santa Cakes" by my 3 year old sister.

Christmas Eve was pretty hectic, so we made them on Christmas Eve-Eve.

For those of you who don't know, this is how you make chocolate nests -

100g of coco pops (or rice crispies, but I prefer it with coco pops - even more chocolatey!)
200g of chocolate
Paper cases
Mini Eggs to decorate (optional!)

- Break the chocolate into pieces and melt (we used the microwave, on low in short bursts, but the 'proper' method is to boil water in a pan, and put the chocolate in a bowl over the boiling water)
- Mix the coco pops and melted chocolate together
- Put spoonfuls of mix into the paper cases
- Decorate the cakes with Mini Eggs

This made 20 chocolate nests, but the kids were pretty generous with the mix.

Now.  I'm not the most qualified baker in the world.  At one point I had an entire blog dedicated to my adventures (and disasters) in the kitchen.  For example, my cookies are tasty, but usually turn into one big, monster cookie.

I've had the same problem with fairy cakes too.  The small cakes are Jam Buns, which I'll be making in the next couple of days :)

But really, how far wrong can you go with Chocolate Nests...?

That, my friends, is what we call a "Dr Pepper" question.  If you've not seen the "Dr Pepper, what's the worst that can happen?" adverts - go YouTube them!

The problem with the Chocolate Nests was that I was working with two young children.  By the time they had mixed the chocolate and coco pops together, then scooped it into the bun cases...the chocolate had set.  Here's a photo of them, you can sort of see how crumbly they are -

They didn't notice, of course.  They merrily decorated the cakes and I managed to delay the realisation by saying they couldn't have any until the next day (it was bed-time).

Once they were out of ear-shot, I explained the problem to my Dad.  His view was that we'd probably had it, better luck next time.  I tried Facebook, same opinion.  Disaster!  Luckily, Dad mulled it over for a while, and came up with a solution.  Re-melt the chocolate with a hairdryer.  Genius!

We'd heard about chocolatiers using this method, surely it would work here too?  I borrowed my other sister's hairdryer, set it on a high-ish heat but a low-ish 'blow', and got to work.

Thankfully it worked.  I had to be very careful, and hold the hairdryer quite high up though, since it had a tendency to blow the chocolate nests out of the bun tin!  I did remove the Mini Eggs first, by the way.

For good measure I melted some more chocolate (I had a 100g bar left) and drizzled that on top, then replaced all the Mini Eggs.

The next day my brother was eating one, and exclaimed - "We're GOOD at baking, aren't we?  These are so tasty!  At look at the bottom, it looks like a REAL chocolate nests.  We're like professionals!"

I didn't have the heart to tell him :)

Oh, and Father Christmas loved his Santa Cake!

Princess Lollipop does Church

Princess Lollipop (my 3 year old sister) is very excited for Christmas.  She absolutely "gets it" this year, and is "bouncing off the wall" excited.  The thought of Father Christmas withholding presents based on behaviour has terrified her into submission for a month.  Mostly.  On occasion we've had to remind her to use her "good listening skills", and then she'd cry hysterically, convinced she wasn't going to get any presents.

We also have an "Elf on the Shelf" this year, which initially freaked her out BIG TIME.  We eventually calmed her down, convincing her Figgle (the Elf) was actually a fairy, who was friends with Peter Pan and Tinkerbell.  She was also confined to the downstairs.  Since then Figgle has been a welcome addition to our family.  Lolli has loved seeing what new "viewing place" Figgle has found for herself.  Figgle hasn't played any tricks this year - we figured that would be a step too far.

Today is, of course, Christmas Eve.  Lolli's excitement has hit an all time high, closely followed by Little Prince, my 9 year old brother.  Ooooh boy!

Now, we're not an especially religious family.  We do attend the Christmas Eve Crib Service every year, however.  This year we took an over-excited Princess Lollipop with us.  I had the pleasure of sitting with her.  Ooooh BOY!

We were given a hymn sheet to share.  She took on the task of holding it.  Mostly clutched to her chest so I couldn't see it.  She would occasionally hold it out, waving it in my direction...

Princess Lollipop was quite perplexed by many of the things happening, and asked a lot of questions.  In a stage whisper.  Some examples of our "quiet" conversations -
- "LOOK!  It's Father Christmas!" (That's not Father Christmas, that's Jesus...)
- "Who are Mary and Joseph?" (They were in your school Christmas play, remember?) "Oh yes! They're Jack and Molly."
- "I WANT TO HAVE FIRE!" (Waiting to carry our candles to the nativity scene)
- "Are you going to see the beautiful things I did?" (She carried figurines to the nativity)
- "That's Baby Jesus up there, which one's Baby Jesus?" (The big one, in the middle) "No, it's not!" (He grew up into a man) "No, he can't." (People grow up!) "But I'm bigger than babies" (No, no, Jesus was born 2000 years ago) *laughs hysterically for 5 minutes*

I was regaling my Dad with tales of Lolli at church, so he called her over to ask about it.  This is her version -
- "I saw Jesus on the flat sword" (the cross) "It was Man Jesus, not Baby Jesus"

Have a very merry Christmas everyone!

Update

Well I've been back in the UK for about 2 weeks now, and what a 2 weeks it's been!

I've been to London, York and Folkestone.  I've applied for hundreds of jobs (certainly feels that way anyway).  I've swallowed my pride and signed onto job-seekers.  This means I have the joy of visiting the soul destroying building they refer to as the "Job-Centre".  All those stereotypes about the majority of people on the dole?  They're not exaggerated...

Don't get me wrong, some people there are hard working people who have fallen on hard times.  Like me.  Unfortunately we're in the minority.  Within minutes I find myself choking on the stench of stale cigarettes, my heart rate is through the roof from stress just from being there...and then there's the people.  If you ever wanted to find the meeting place of the world's ugliest people, just come on down to my local job-centre.  I'm not saying I'm a glamorous model, not by any stretch of the imagination, but at least I have all my teeth.

Anyway!  Moving on from my mini bitch-fest.  My blog is a happy place, sadly it's being tainted by the job-centre which is most definitely NOT a happy place.

I'd love to say that I've been travelling about and exploring my home country for pleasure.  I suppose I could say it.  But it'd be a lie and as an unforgettable professor once said - we must not tell lies!

Nope, it's not been anything so fun as that.  Instead, I've been dragging myself to various interviews.  First I went to London to sign up with an agency who seem confident they can find work for me in schools.  The woman was very nice and positive.  I left feeling good about my prospects - always a pleasant feeling.  I didn't spend long in London at all.  I was in and out of the Big City within 4 hours!

Next up was an interview at a boarding school near York (through this agency).  I was collected from the train-station by a chatty woman in a huge mini-bus.  All that bus from little me?  We drove up through the gates into "one of" their car-parks and parked up with the rest of the buses.  If any collection of buses deserved the term "fleet", theirs definitely did!

You may think it's a little sad, that I was this impressed with a car-park.  To be honest, you'd probably be right.  However, it did set a certain precedent for the rest of the school.  Based on this first impression (in a car-park), I expected it to be a grand, sprawling, high class school.

That didn't even begin to cover it.

This place was huge.  It was gorgeous.  It was the epitome of the "lifestyles of the rich and famous".

On my previous wage (as an admin assistant), it would take me 2 and a half years to simply earn the amount of money that these parents spend on one year's school fee.

The pool (for student use only) was possibly the most beautiful pool I've ever seen.  The school has stables to house your pony, or you may borrow a school horse.  There were multiple sports fields, both grass and astro-turf.  There were so many things for these children to do that they didn't do any of them.

To say I was over-whelmed would be an understatement.

It was amazing and everyone was very friendly.  It would be a pleasure to work at a place like that, especially since it's only an hour away from home.  Being able to easily see my family during time off seems rather appealing!  I was supposed to have heard back from them (via the agency) by Tuesday.  It's now Wednesday and I'm still waiting, but so it goes.  Que sera, sera!

Yesterday was a travel-filled day.  I was at the station just after 11am and on my train by 11.45am.  I had to change in London to get to Folkestone, which meant changing stations.  It wasn't too bad though, only Kings Cross to St Pancras.  Soon I was on the Javelin, a high-speed train, watching the south of England zoom by.

Weather-wise it was a miserable day.  I'm pretty sure there was one rain-cloud that covered the entire of the UK!  Luckily I caught a break in the rain at Folkestone and decided to walk to the school.  It was only 10 minutes away (15 after I got a little lost), and I was almost an hour early.  Following the directions on my not-so-trusty phone, I picked my way across pavements and roads, dodging puddles as wide as cars.  I almost got run over more than once as I was mincing about, trying not to get my shoes wet!

I finally found the right street - hurray!  Now to find the right building...not so simple.  I ended up walking past, looking more than a little lost.  Luckily, one of the staff members was watching out for me and came running to my rescue.  Apparently he remembered how difficult it was to find when he first went there.

I was given the grand tour of the school and its three (relatively small) Edwardian buildings.  It was the absolute polar opposite of the other school.  This school is in it's early development stages (read: it doesn't even have "school" status yet).  They've been an established English Language School for several years and is one of several English language schools run by one company.  They're now branching out and are becoming a boarding school, to add to their many "hats".  They will still run as an intensive school for adults and juniors (14-17 year olds), but the boarding school will be alongside that and will offer the whole GCSE and A Level curriculum.

The man who showed me around was very enthusiastic about the entire project.  He gushed a lot about "how often do you get to be part of starting up a school?" and I have to admit, his excitement was contagious.  He told me that the man in charge of the overall business has never shut down a school and he has high hopes for this one.  They have a school in Oxford which is their model for this school, but I was told with bundles of confidence "we're going to do it better!".  Well, who am I to argue with that?

The school was in a bit of uproar, as the brother of the Big Boss Man was visiting and had brought a new agent with him.  This meant that not only did they have to impress Big Boss Man's brother, but his also guest (who would be responsible for bringing more pupils to them).  The headmistress was entirely caught up with her esteemed guests, and I was left to chat with my tour guide.  We nattered away about summer camp, my teaching aspirations, the summer school he works at, and just about everything in between.  We swapped stories of challenging behaviours and giggled over some of the more bizarre experiences we'd had.

After a while, the "other, nicer meeting room" was available, so I was moved into there.  I sat down as he cleared away mugs, expecting that I'd be interviewed by the headmistress or someone similar.  Imagine my surprise when he sits down and announces that he will be interviewing me!  I think it was to my advantage that I didn't know this earlier though, since I'm pretty hopeless at interviews.  At least this way I was able to put forward a good impression before I turned into a babbling buffoon...!

Overall I felt the interview went quite well.  I don't think I rambled too much, some of my answers even made sense!  I just have to wait until next week now to find out.  I think I would greatly enjoy working at this school.  It would be an interesting challenge, and one I will probably never get the opportunity to repeat.  If only it wasn't so far away from home...

That brings me back up to date on my travels, but not even close to everything else I've been up to.

Since I came back, I've been re-writing my dad's website (which will go live as soon as the web-designer gets back off holiday) and running social media profiles for multiple businesses.  The most exciting venture I'm involved in (no disrespect to any of the others) is Ink Pantry Publishing.

Ink Pantry is run by a group of students (myself included) from the Open University's Creative Writing course.  We're working to publish a commemorative anthology of work from the course, and to date we've received 125 submissions.  With another 4 days to go that's spectacular!  We're currently debating titles for the anthology and trying desperately to rein ourselves in from picking images for the cover.  As tempting as it is, it's a bit difficult to chose a picture when we don't have a theme...ah well!  My dad has offered his services as a professional photographer...once we chose a title.

My role at Ink Pantry is to run their blog (whether that's writing posts or co-ordinating the publication of what other people write), their Pinterest and their Google+.  These appear to be the social rejects of our online presence as I largely end up talking to myself, but it keeps me amused!  The blog is far more popular, having generated a lot of interest on Facebook and Twitter.  We have a long list of ideas for posts, as well as several people lined up for interviews.  Upcoming interviews include published writers, illustrators, photographers and OU tutors.  We aim to provide updates on our progress, as well as topics we feel our community of followers will find interesting - so far we've written about book design and writing for the internet.  If there's anything people want to hear about, please drop us a line and I'll get it sorted!

Anyway, that's my marketing bit over and done with (for now).

Later this week I'll be attending a charity event for the Victoria Cross where Chris Ryan (SAS hero turned author) will be talking about his adventures.  Steve Oatway Photography are the official event photographers and we're very excited.  It's going to be very interesting and a whole lot of fun!

Next week I'll be heading over to York with dad.  He's decided he wants to take a day off to take some photos for fun.  Not for a client, not for promotional material, just for fun.  He has no agenda, no plan, just a camera and the whole of York to play with.  I'll be tagging along and will hopefully be writing a travel-related blog post about it soon after.  It's all well and good being a travel writer when you're a tourist abroad, but the real trick is viewing your home from a tourist's perspective too.

I think that's the main things I've been up to since I got home.  The rest of my time has been filled with settling back in, playing with my siblings and catching up with my family.  Not a bad way to spend my time at all!

All the best,
Charlotte

Tuesday, Blood Tuesday

I keep promising myself that I'll catch up with this blog, but life continues to race away from me! I arrived back in the UK yesterday afternoon after a crazy long journey (1 mini-van, 1 bus, 2 planes, 1 car and a whole lot of waiting around). I've been working at a family resort on Lake Champlain, Vermont for 3 weeks which has been good fun but I'm glad to be home. I seem to have escaped jet lag, but am quite sleep deprived all the same.

I decided that I'd get straight into the swing of things by jumping back into my English life with two feet. This meant that I was up and raring to go today at 7.30am (ok, I was awake...mostly). I took my little brother to school this morning, then headed over to my dad's photography gallery, Steve Oatway Photography, to assist on a photo-shoot. The client is Adele Carrington, an author who needs images to use for the book cover and as marketing material. To be honest, the thought of getting to meet an actual author who was publishing an actual book is the only thing that dragged me out of bed this morning!

We were told that the book is about a female vampire, and the image that Adele wanted involved a lot of fake blood and a white background. She would provide the vampire and the blood if we could provide the set.

Mum and I went to Tesco last night to buy a cheap king-size mattress sheet (background) and a kid's paddling pool (to catch the blood...). Fairly innocuous purchases, put to a slightly disturbing task!

After a few false starts, we were able to hang the background onto the crumbling brick wall (picture hooks – a photographer's best friend!). Our photography assistant, Lana, seemed to have a lot of fun decorating the set, though she complained that the blood was sticky and cold!

Just as we were finishing up, in walked Adele with her vampire, who was looking remarkably normal in jeans and a black top. No fangs or gothic dresses to be seen anywhere. Adele later explained that she didn't want to pander to stereotypes, and she had purposefully created a “Romany gypsy vampire” to escape the Hollywood clichés.

We all had a lot of fun on the set, especially giggling over the faces the vampire (Tina, a friend of Adele's) made as she was gradually covered in more and more fake blood. Apparently some of it was peanut butter, and she was quite put out that it was crunchy. I guess smooth peanut butter would have been more acceptable?!

There were several costume changes, liberal amounts of fake blood and a whole lot of laughs. Tina was a great sport and agreed to try almost all suggestions, most of which involved spreading blood across her face and hands! She drew the line at getting any in her hair (thus rejecting the idea of “let's just pour the jar over her head”) since she had a “very important, serious meeting to go to after this!”.

I was sent to the shop to buy some baby wipes (what better way to clean up blood?!) while everyone else had a coffee break.

On my way back, I paused outside our gate to see what it must look like to a passer-by. It was looked amusingly strange, but I suppose it could be worse, right? Somehow...? Though to be honest, I'm more concerned by what the black bin bag full of bloodied sheets and a paddling pool will look like to the bin men...!

In between shots I amused myself by taking some photos of the detail, such as of the vampire's blood-spattered diary and the mason jars full of blood!

All in all, this was a highly entertaining re-introduction into life in England as a photographer's daughter and some time gallery manager. If anyone reading this decides they need photos of vampires, please get in touch – we'd love to repeat this bizarre experience! Any challenge is welcome here.

I can't wait to see what will be thrown my way next, especially if all my upcoming projects involve this much fun.

All the best,

Charlotte