Addis Ababa: A Retrospective I

"Rain? Why do I care about rain here? Is it raining in America? Canada? That's where the wheat comes from."
-- An Ethiopian farmer discussing weather

Hi All. Apologies for elusiveness recently. I've been out in the East African countryside, less than 100 miles from the Somaliland border. The countryside changes from very green and well inhabited to dry, full of cacti and Somali nomads. Dire Dawa even looks and feels like Mexico in architecture, flora and weather. Well, except for the Somalis with camels, Kalahnikovs and contraband.

Hyenas
In the walled city of Harar that Richard Burton (the explorer, not the actor) entered as the first white man in 1854, I fed wild spotted hyenas last Wednesday night. 16 circled myself and the man who feeds them every night behind his house. Spotted hyenas are more unpredictable than striped hyenas, but the soldier with the AK behind me provided some reassurance...

Golden Arches
Ethiopia has no McDonalds. Funny that. The golden arches are everywhere. People pee in public quite without shame. Facing traffic is a favorite way to pass the time while the bladder completes its duty. Sometimes women in the country face the highway.

Ferenji
Foreigners are called Ferenji here. When I am seen anywhere outside of Addis, I am harrassed by children's cries of Ferenji! Ferenji! Sometimes the cries are happy, sometimes hostile. But in any case, I create a wake of people behind me. When I stop, they stop. When I write something in my field notebook, twenty sets of eyes are on the paper. If I look at something, so do they. I am tempted to jump up, maybe do some pushups, just to see if they follow my lead. Maybe I can start a mass religious movement, with myself as prophet. It worked for the Reverend Moon in Korea.

I am impossible to miss in public. You learn to either joke about it or stay in hiding.

Flies
An unenviable part of life in Ethiopia outside of the Hilton is the massive population of flies that live everywhere, but favour cafes. I counted more than 40 flies on just one pane of glass in a cafe I was in for a macchiato last week in Dire Dawa. I didn't count the flies on the other panes of glass or the tables, chairs, ceiling, and floor.

When I eat, I seem to be under some spell from a voodoo doll: sometimes my arm shoots out wildly towards the food to shoo away the flies. Since local food is eaten with the right hand and a squishy local bread, my hand has to move from hand to mouth very quickly to keep the flies off. But from the outside, I appear to be possessed or not able to control certain random spasms of my arms. While the Ethiopians I travel with are used to it, I think that I must be disconcerting to other diners. They might feel sorry for the poor afflicted ferenji.

Once, at a tourist class restaurant in a town that looked like it had been built yesterday with too much concrete and sheet metal, I went into the room that should have housed a toilet. The hole in the floor toilet wasn't a problem, the fact that fewer stars are captured by the Hubble Space Telescope on an average night's viewing than there were flies in this five foot square space was a problem. There were so many of them buzzing around that I thought I had surprised a bee's nest. Nope. Just flies. Covering everything: walls, ceiling, door. Flying right out of the hole in the ground. Right towards me. I'm glad I'm not a girl.

I am seriously considering starting a company that specializes in flypaper importation. If the price is right, it might become the hottest product in the country.

Hotels
I looked like Michael Flatley of Riverdance. No, not because I wanted to. Every night in Harar I would switch the light on in the hotel room and step on everything that moved. Since the little buggers were fast, I missed a lot. The jumping and twisting and stomping -- cursing the very existence of anything with an exoskeleton -- gave the impression of a spastic performance of legs-only dancing.

I have a version of this story that involves my hands lashing out at unseen mosquitos at night, but I can't think of anything as silly as Michael Flatley for hands. Any suggestions?

Once I turned on the water faucet to brush my teeth and found myself sharing the handle with two roaches. Don't put your head too near the sink: note to self.

Sports
Ethiopians win long distance running events with the same regularity that fat men go to Dunkin Donuts. Scientists have run tests on the genetic makeup of these people, trying to pin down an elusive marker that destines them for running domination. But scientists are sometimes ignorant. A simple trip to the countryside here would have solved the equation within half an hour. Not deterministic genes, but Pavlovian training are responsible. Every child in every village has a single objective when a truck passes by: run very fast and jump on the back of it.

You see, when long distance runners begin their marathons, a truck with a camera is always at the front of the pack. Simple physics explains that the Ethiopian sees the truck and runs towards it. The truck driver then accelerates, causing the Ethiopian to run even faster to catch it. Soon the two are at cruising altitute. But the Ethiopian must catch the truck. Result? Lots of Ethiopians win very long races. Years of practice in the mountains is hard to shake.

Nose-picking is the second sport of Ethiopia. People will talk to you with a finger two knuckles deep wriggling and rooting around the nasal cavity. If they find something interesting, they look at it, then at you, then back at it. Then they dive in again. Even government officials during business conversations. I watched the woman head of the export promotion office in Dire Dawa move between nose and ear for the better part of ten minutes. She was talking or being talked to the whole time.

Driving and Roads
No guardrails, lots of landslides, abrubt changes in asphalt grade, road collapses, road obstacles, different surface materials and grades mean that even with perfect drivers, wheeled transport would be an awkward business in Ethiopia. But many drivers here are deeply subobtimal, risk-seeking actors. In a small box-like minivan stuffed full of humans, with potato sacks, plastic bottles, luggage and maybe a case of coke on the roof equal to the truck's own height, drivers slalom down mountain roads, passing on corners impossible to see around. Brakes squeal frequently. I don't know if the people do too.

These drivers were probably made crazy by the worst part of mountain roads: being trapped behind a large 18 wheeler truck carrying rocks at 20 kilometers per hour uphill, vomiting deep black smoke into your open window just behind it. With no way to pass on steep, windy roads, you must breath through clenched lips. People working on the side of the road wrap their heads and faces in long pieces of cloth to protect against the dust and exhaust. I wanted to wrap my head in my clothes, dirty or clean wouldn't have mattered.

The dust gets on or through everything on long drives. Open windows and unpaved roads only add to the effect. When another truck passes you on the road (especially the unpaved roads), if you haven't gotten the window up quickly enough, then you are showered in dust, from your lungs to your hair. You can taste it, feel it on your gums and teeth. It is very fine, seemingly able to bend the laws of physics to penetrate even clothing. You can't get it out of your eyes either. It is a marriage arranged by a local god for personal amusement. It may even be a sacrament.

Animals
Monkeys, Goats, Cows, Dogs, Cats, Camels, Steer all have equal rights with cars on the road. In fact, most of these animals have more rights than cars because should you be unlucky enough to hit and kill one, you must either pay for the animal and all of its imputed offspring or face death yourself. The nomads here do not allow you to even photograph their camels. Killing one is probably a worse offense than slapping the nomad's mother.

Last week I saw a goat in the back window of a station wagon taxi.. Another taxi stopped in front of the hotel a few days later. A man got out of the back door, walked to the truck and retrieved his goat. Apparently goats count as carry on luggage.

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I have even more stories, but this is probably enough for now. Here are two pics: 1) a local, very common house type & 2) my tres chic hotel room (note the large heart on the bedspread)

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Thanks to everyone who has written me. It is not easy to send or receive email here, so please keep writing. I will reply when possible. Best wishes to you all...
Shaun