Kate Fereday Eshete is a unique woman, having chosen to live not near her parents in Devon but near the Simien Mountains, in the northern Ethiopian Highlands.

Apart from being headteacher of Empress Mentewab School for poor rural children and manager of Sebkana Farm, an organic horticulture and eco-tourism business, Kate also helps needy animals and is an independent campaigner for change on social and environmental issues in Ethiopia. On a rare trip to Plymouth, David FitzGerald spoke to possibly the only Western woman to make the mountainous Ethiopian region her home.

She said: “I have popped back to Plymouth to see my parents. I lived locally for 12 years but you can now find me way up in the Simien Mountains, a very important National Park and absolutely beautiful.”

When most people think of Ethiopia, they think of desert, famine and devastation...

“Totally wrong! When I think of Ethopia, I think of lush valleys, rivers and miles and miles of rolling hills with flowers and masses of butterflies. It is a beautiful country to walk in, hundreds of paths cris-crossing the land and unspoilt views. There are parts where deforestation has taken its toll but it is now a stable, well-run nation.

“I live in a small village, in a mud hut, which is ideal for the location. We have a great climate, nine months of sunshine and three months of rain, and the hut is perfect for the weather. I have a mass of animals around me that I have rescued and my husband and I have two adopted children.

“Being below the mountains, we have the cold air drop down on us during the night and it is warm during the day and thus no malaria in the region. However, I have had malaria seven times when I lived elsewhere and hope never to have it again.”

Going to a supermarket or restaurant, turning on a tap….does any of that come into your life?

“My nearest shop is a ten-mile hike away and it is at the top of a one kilometre escarpment. We do have electricity, that came to the village about a year ago, and of course water runs off the mountains.

“We do have a school, I set it up and we are building a proper school building which is going up right now. It will be the first purpose-built school in that part of the country. If you can imagine an area the size of Devon with a million people and no pre-school education, something had to be done! There are state primary schools and further education, but this will be something very different and will be taking in 60 or so children very soon.”

Is there tourism in Ethiopia?

“Yes, in fact they are very proud of the latest figures. Some 400,000 visitors have gone through the country and indeed my school is part of the tour. But let’s just put that into perspective, I have just visited my sister and went to the tiny St Magnus Cathedral in Kirkwall in the Orkneys and I noticed the building attracts a million people a year, so we have some way to go. Wireless web access has replaced dial up technology here, so don’t make assumptions about the country, we are getting there.”

Have the locals accepted you and what do you miss from Devon?

“Yes, well My husband is local and I suspect the locals see me as their ‘golden goose’; they are very kind to me and treat me as a ‘precious’ person. I do love walking on footpaths; I must admit I do miss that! I don’t miss the roads however. Britain is covered with cars, those tons of metal whizzing about all over the place. I once walked from Addis Ababa to Gondar, which is about 500 miles, across an area where few white people have ever been and I really loved the trip. Walking is precious to me. You just can’t do that in Britain.”

The images of famine will always remain with us.

“The country will always have dry spells but the early warning systems are now in place and the country can now react to those warnings.”

Your website points to a local Devon charity.

“I rescue baboons, monkeys, dogs, cats and donkeys. The Dinkenesh Fund in Plymouth rescues captive primates and tries to deal with birth control among animals, the health and welfare of creatures and the release back into the wild if need be. You can find out all about it at www.kateferedayeshete.net.”

Something then struck me… you walked 500 miles through Ethiopia?

“With a donkey,” she says in her defence, “I would love to do it again if I were a bit slimmer.”

I had to say goodbye to this remarkable, matter-of-fact woman who has been to places that few westerners would go and has achieved so much. By now she will be back in her mountainside village and past her main dread of the trip home – going through Heathrow.