This March, I’m going back to school. In this instance, it’s a former convent called Nazareth School for Girls, built on one of the many hills of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital city.

It’s 40 years since I ran along the hallways and corridors of the U-shaped building, played volleyball in the tarmaced playground and shared my sandwiches in return for some injera (unleavened bread) and watt (spicy curry) with my school friends. That’s a long time missing the handshakes each morning and the ‘tanasterling’ greeting from classmates and the teachers.

Today is a lifetime away from the grandeur of the Rift Valley and lions roaring in the night by Lake Lagana, where we often camped. It’s a clink away from the sound of the local Omeru women’s beads, knocking together as they walked down from the mountain to collect water at 6am.

It’s also a long echo away from the prayers of the local shopkeeper outside our house who faced Mecca 5 times a day; a sigh away from the sound of picks on the road wielded by prisoners; a rainbow away from the hundreds of worshippers following the shimmering, multicoloured velvet umbrella of the priest celebrating Epiphany each January..

After living in South Africa for 6 years during the apartheid era. I returned to the UK in 1972. I have spent 30 years working in corporate communications in mostly large, often multinational companies. In that time, I’ve worked with literally hundreds of people listening to them and then telling their stories about how they’re helping their organisations succeed. Their tales have been told via company magazines, presentations, web sites, exhibitions and videos. Sometimes I’ve been fortunate enough to win awards for the work I’ve done telling these stories.

But I discovered that what I much preferred hearing about, (and what people took very little persuasion to retell) were anecdotes about their families and upbringing: the university years and friends, warm tales about weddings, and sporting achievements, stories about the birth of their children, and how they cope with elderly parents. Also reminiscences about the passing of a family member or close friend ß (Shakespeare described these rites of passage very well in his play “As you like it” in which he talks about the 7 ages of man.)

As people talked to me about their life outside work, their faces always lit up and looked happy, sad, upset and jocular by turns. Some even had tears in their eyes as they related the details of a special event. This story telling skill has been passed down from generation to generation, and is fundamental to our culture: the simple, everyday habits that make us who we are and enable us to belong to a group.

I have also had a series of powerful, prophetic dreams over the past 30 years, which have become more frequent as I got older. In April 2000, I dreamt I was back in the foothills of Addis Ababa, with some friends, feeling the poor, dry soil and knowing that I was there to help provide water for the poor farmers. I awoke, not knowing how I would achieve this. I didn’t even have any Ethiopian friends ………..

After being made redundant from a very good job just before Easter 2002, (the 3rd time in 10 years) I decided enough was enough, and to give up on corporate life, and to help the developing world. Somehow, working with directors to make their companies more profitable was no longer meaningful to me.

So I’m returning to Addis Ababa to write the stories of 7 of my class mates: Kathy, a lively, ginger haired American girl; Phoebe, a studious Egyptian with a mellow laugh and a plait of thick curly black hair, Selina a graceful half Portuguese, half Indian girl, Sumitra whose arms tinkled as she walked with all her gold bracelets and her handkerchief always tucked in her cardigan; Sonja, an Armenian whose father was a jeweller and Fanai an Ethiopian who was always kind to me when I was feeling homesick. Lastly there’s Princess Mary, who is one of the Emperor Haile Selassie’s grand daughters and her sister, Princess Sihin, whom I sat beside in grade 5A, my first year at Nazareth.

My aim is to discover how they’ve spent the intervening 40 years. What did they do after they left school? What kind of career did they have – or were they not allowed to work? Did they marry and how did they celebrate the birth(s) of their children? What of their children today; how does religion play a part in their lives; what are their aspirations for the future as they enter the “third age”?

I am also eager to hear what impact major world events have had on them, for instance, the £millions pouring in after Band Aid in 1985 to help relieve the famine in Ethiopia. How was their day to day life affected by the end of the Ethiopian/Eritrean war in 1999? What are their views on 9/11 and the recent Iraqi war?

This book will be an introduction to international culture, and the seven ages of man. My goal with book 2 is to have people from every country in the world contributing – with the age of the internet, that’s no longer a tall order! I would like to help create much better understanding between different cultures and break down the, often imaginary, barriers that exist between us.

As culture is so precious and unique, and the reason why most of us travel abroad, I will be giving a % of each book’s profits to an appropriate cause – in this instance, working with Wateraid to provide permanent sources of water for Ethiopian farmers as agriculture still makes up 85% of their economy. I do hope the book will sell really well, so that we can generate £millions for this purpose, but that will depend on it capturing people’s imagination, my story telling skills, and the willingness of my former classmates to tell their stories. It would be wonderful to think that ordinary Ethiopians are less likely to go hungry again, helped by sales of the book. In addition, I will give:

10% to help house homeless people in the UK. People who are destitute and have fallen on hard times deserve our help – and this applies to all nationalities and refugees. 10% to develop Gardens of Peace in war-torn parts of the world. These will be gardens where people from both sides can go and sit, play, talk quietly and hopefully begin to form lasting friendships. I would like the first one to be in Jerusalem, as I don’t think we can begin to build world peace until we have peace in the Middle East.

As in corporate life, I will be asking questions and editing material. What’s important is that the integrity and emotion of the original tale shines through. No opportunity for acting up for the webcam! Local Life and culture is just too profound to be mucked about, or as one Ghanian lady told me at Easter “My culture is very special to me, I would die for my culture”

© Annette Allen August 2003

a.allen@netcomuk.co.uk