An old school pal Sean Balfe from Mayo called in recently to tell us that he has been working as an engineer in Ethiopia for a number of years on a number of projects.In Ethiopia the Chinese seem to be the ones that get most of the construction work.Sean comes home fairly regularly and often takes a boat on The Shannon.He finds The Irish Times website wonderful in helping him keep in touch with what is happening back home and great value for around 75 dollars.You can look at it yourself under www.ireland.com