Long Way from Adi Ghehad a Biography of Dr Teame Mebrahtu I

Long Way from Adi Ghehad A biography of Dr Teame Mebrahtu i STAN HAZELL SHEPHEARD-WALWYN (PUBLISHERS) LTD © Stan Hazell 2017 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without the written permission of the publisher, Shepheard-Walwyn (Publishers) Ltd First published in 2017 by Shepheard-Walwyn (Publishers) Ltd 107 Parkway House, Sheen Lane, London SW14 8LS www.shepheard-walwyn.co.uk www.ethicaleconomics.org.uk British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978 0 85683 518 6 Typeset by Alacrity, Chesterfield, Sandford, Somerset Printed and bound in the United Kingdom by Short Run Press, Exeter Contents List of Plates vii Foreword by Professor Malcolm Johnson ix Introduction xiii Eritrea xvii Maps xxii PART ONE 1 1 Early Life 3 2 Mule Journey 14 3 The Village 22 4 Back to School 31 5 Prison 43 6 Tutoring – Teacher Training 51 7 Teaching 60 8 Teaching Teachers 68 9 Beirut 74 10 Annexation 80 11 Malcolm X 88 12 Teacher Training Institute 96 13 Student Strike 109 14 Marriage and Family 117 15 Bristol Masters 126 16 Director 134 17 Mengistu Coup 143 18 Student Death 149 v vi CONTENTS 19 The Academy 155 20 University and the Death of a Friend 169 21 Leaving the Country 178 PART TWO 185 22 Return to Bristol 187 23 Refugee 195 24 Rowntree Trust 203 25 PhD and University 211 26 Sudan and Refugee Schools 219 27 University Teaching 228 28 Student Adviser 241 29 South-North Conference 257 30 Extracurricular 264 31 Development Education 275 32 Multicultural 282 33 Zero School 290 34 Working with Refugees 308 35 Community 323 36 Independence Beckons 335 37 Independence 345 38 Building Anew 358 39 Badme War 372 40 Father’s Funeral 384 41 Living with a Difference 396 42 Dreams of a Global Educator 408 Acknowledgements 419 Index 421 List of Plates Between pages 90 and 91 1 Haile Selassie Secondary School, Asmara 2 Graduation, Asmara Teacher Training College, 1960 3 Beirut. Eritrean students with maids they taught to read 4 Teame supervising teaching practice in Asmara 5 Teacher Training Institute student outing to Massawa 6 Teame at the Asmara Teacher Training Institute 7 Addressing an international conference in Caux, Switzerland 8 Teame interpreting at a public meeting at the Cicero Stadium in Asmara 9 Pupils in Asmara during the student unrest in Eritrea 10 Emperor Haile Selassie deposed in 1974 11 Regional dances at the Teacher Training Institute 12 Teame with Mohamed Omer, the first student he tutored 13 Teame and Teblez shortly after their marriage in 1968 14 Teame’s father-in-law, Medhane Sahle 15 Members of staff at the Teacher Training Institute 16 Presentation of a ceremonial shield as Teame left the Teacher Training Institute in 1975 Between pages 298 and 299 17 International students from the Graduate School of Education 18 Drama at the Graduate School of Education 19 An expression of Teame’s philosophy on his door at the Graduate School of Education vii viii LIST OF PLATES 20 Teame posing with one of his successful students in Bristol 21 The Zero School in Eritrea, during the liberation war with Ethiopia 22 A class at the Zero School 23 Post-liberation conference, Asmara 24 In-Service programme participants in Asmara 25 The In-Service training team at the home of Teame’s Uncle Ghebremichael 26 Teame at Yemane Ghebremichael’s grave in Asmara 27 Eritrean graduates from the Graduate School of Education in Bristol celebrate in Asmara 28 Teame with his father, Mebrahtu Beraky and Aunt Azieb 29 Participants in the In-Service programme celebrate in Asmara, 30 National Service conscripts working on road widening 31 10th anniversary celebrations of Eritrean independence at the Bristol Graduate School of Education 32 Eritreans in national costume and university staff at the 10th anniversary celebrations Foreword outstanding people, who overcome great adversity, Stories of encoun ter almost impossible odds in rising from humble beginnings in remote villages to become noteworthy citizens of the world, form part of the most uplifting areas of literature. Such individuals and their life experiences in following a powerful mission to improve human - kind, provide exemplars of how to live a truly good life. This account of the life of Teame Mebrahtu is undoubtedly part of that pantheon of biographies. As a colleague at the University of Bristol, I first came to know Dr Mebrahtu twenty years ago as a respected fellow academic who led postgraduate courses in Education, directed principally at students from the developing world. As we became better acquainted, it became evident that his commitment to the students was both to inspire and equip them to be knowledge leaders in the often poor but proud countries of Africa and South America. He also saw it as his duty to care for them as individuals, who were studying in an unfamiliar culture, at a prestigious university with high expectations. His own experience was fundamental to the time and concern he gave them, which often extended to representing their interests to governmental agencies, to support when there were deaths in their families, to meals at his home and all too often to giving his own money to aid them. This level of humane engagement was well beyond the expectations of the University, and no doubt it was seen by some of his colleagues as unwise and a diversion from his obligations to research and publish, to ensure career progression. It was only as our friendship slowly ix x LONG WAY FROM ADI GHEHAD developed, that fragments of his personal encounters with the prob - lems afflicting some of his students emerged. As this powerful account of his life reveals, Dr Mebrahtu is profoundly modest, routinely dismissive of praise, generous to a fault and genuinely selfless. So, it was a long time before the detail of his origins in the timeless hilltop village of his birth, his struggles to gain an education, the impact of political upheavals in Ethiopia and Eritrea, and his ultimate enforced asylum in Bristol were revealed. In more recent years we have talked a good deal of his love of Eritrea and desire to play a part, again, in its development. Only then did I learn of his remarkable father’s determination to give his firstborn son the education he was denied. The story of the mule journey (recounted in Chapter 2) made a deep impression on me. It has biblical resonance. Like Abraham and Isaac, it tells of painful partings, self sacrifice, great vision and a lifelong honouring of the gift. The author of this splendid book, Stan Hazell, has also known Teame for a long time. We shared a view that the full version of this story should not be left untold. Our individual and joint repre sent - ations to him to ‘write it all down’, resulted in reluctant agreement, wrapped up in the overwhelming modesty that ensured its progress was small. Stan, a journalist who learned his craft as a writer for newspapers in South Wales and later for many years with ITV in the West of England, went a crucial stage further and offered to write down Teame’s telling of his past. What we see in this volume is the result of an impressive partnership of skill and trust. Once Teame agreed to the project, he and Stan met every week for two and a half years, to unearth this personal and professional biography. This extended dialogue, with Stan as the systematic interlocutor, released a wealth of recollections that may have lain silent without his professional capacity for searching out a good story and making sure the facts were all there. FOREWORD xi In my own research on ageing, I have conducted many biographical interviews with older people. Such studies require the interviewer to gain the confidence of the life-story teller and to assure them that you are ‘a safe listener’ who will maintain absolute confidentiality, even if parts of what they say are used in reports, articles or books. In these circumstances the interviewer is an ‘interested stranger’. The oppor - tunity to tell your own story is a rare one for most people and as a result it produces recollections deeply buried and not infrequently elicits personal accounts which have never been told to anyone. Even when the experience has unearthed difficult aspects of their past, people who are interviewed are almost always grateful for the experience. They see your careful non-judgemental listening as a rare gift. In the case of Stan Hazell, he gave a gift of immense magnitude to Teame. Not only was he an outstanding listener, who provoked him to dig up his past and talk about it, he translated it, shaped it and wove it into a coherent biography, week after week after week. With great respect for what he heard, Stan has produced an honest and highly readable book which honours the subject but does so as an intelligent reporter. A signal achievement. As a reader of Long Way from Adi Ghehad, you will discover the life- story of a man of intellect, deeply held values and a believer that education can transform human institutions and societies. At the same time you are introduced to the troubled political situation in the Horn of Africa during the second half of the twentieth century, which led Teame to leave his beloved homeland and seek asylum in the United Kingdom. There will be many in the widely dispersed Eritrean diaspora who will know of Teame Mebrahtu and want to read his story.

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