(Internet service at the hotel is pretty ‘sketchy,’ so I apologize if some of my posts are late. I have to upload everything when I can get service. Please keep watching for updates!)
I had a rough night sleeping. Too tired to sleep, maybe, but I couldn’t seem to fall asleep, then I woke up several times during the night. At about 5:30 am, though I wasn’t sleeping soundly, I was awakened by the early morning prayer chanting from several mosques across the city below. It was kind of interesting for the first few minutes, then became fairly annoying, then downright awful! It went on forever! I realized at some point that I was not going to be able to fall asleep again, and finally just got up. My roomie, Des, too, was stirring a lot in his bed, and we just decided to go have some breakfast. After breakfast, I also began writing a bit, compiling notes to complete the blog from the previous day. I went up to the terrace, where some of our group had now begun to gather for breakfast, and had some more of that great coffee and milk.
We all went back to our rooms to get freshened up for our Sunday outings, and met back in the lobby at 10 am. I took the opportunity also to exchange some more American dollars for ‘bir’. 50 dollars would get me 833 bir. Our primary activity for this day was to walk. We set off on quite a trek, walking from the hotel down into the center of the city. As we walked, we passed big beautiful houses perched on the hills, surrounded by walls and tall ornate gates, all topped with razor wire. We passed colonies of tin shacks: masses of corrugated tin roofs that hovered over tin walls, with patches, and overlays, and often a satellite dish, and the dwellings sometimes had fabric for doors and windows. Children played outside some of the shacks; mothers washed clothes in buckets; men gathered and leaned against some as they smoked and chatted. The smell of sewage seemed to be everywhere. We passed many people walking, lots of them in what must be their ‘Sunday best’, and on their way to church. We passed vistas of tall buildings downtown with beautiful mountainscapes in the background. We passed merchants outside their storefronts of clothing, trinkets, books, souvenirs. We passed men, young and old, waiting and offering to shine our shoes. We passed gnarled and mangled bodies with vacant eyes and hands outstretched, hoping one of us will fill them even one bir. We passed, and were followed by, many children carrying gum or boxes of candy, trying to get our attention and sell us some of their merchandise as we walked. We passed by small lawn areas outside official-looking buildings, where men were lying on the grass, presumably homeless, covered by tattered cloths or blankets. We passed several men who stopped on a patch of grass, or a storm sewer, or just off the sidewalk to unashamedly relieve themselves in full view of the public. We passed one gully, where, in the stream, people seemed to be washing clothes, and even bathing. The city was, indeed, alive and once again, a sensory barrage.
Not far from the hotel, we noticed a bunch of people up on a little hill peering up and over a wall. We could hear music coming from that direction, so we decided to clamber up and see what was happening. I noticed a sign that said something in Amharic (primary language of Ethiopia) and under it was written in English, “Children and Youth Theatre.” Beyond the wall and below, we could see a large crowd of children, many of whom seemed to be dancing, much like some of the tribal or regional dancing we had seen at the restaurant the first night we were there. They appeared to be rehearsing in the parking lot of the theater. We watched for a bit, took some pictures and video, and decided to move on.
We became kind of spread out at times, with some people walking faster than others, etc. Luckily, though, we always walked in clusters or groups. We passed through one area where on our right was one of the tin shack colonies, surrounded and almost obscured by tall walls of concrete and corrugated tin, and on our left was a beautiful city park surrounded by tall fencing and protected by guards, where the middle class leisurely walked and played with their children on colorful playground equipment. Several of us had gotten ahead of the group and were heading across the street to look at the park when we heard this scream behind us. We looked up the hill to see a quick flurry of activity around our friends at the top. and then they seemed to scurry quickly down the hill toward us. It turned out that, at one of the openings to the tin shack colony, and couple of young men had scoped out our group and one of them jumped out and tried to grab Des’ camera off his belt. Evidently, Des sprang into action and successfully foiled the attempt in a matter of seconds. It was probably a good wake-up call for us to help us to be more alert and aware. As a matter of fact, later in the day, Anne felt some pressure or a slight tug at her small travel backpack and swung around to find a couple of boys trying to unzip one of the pockets. She narrowly missed them with her arm as she whirled around, and she yelled at them, “NO!”, and they sheepishly dropped their heads and moved off.
There was a point on our walk that Des pointed out the Imperial Palace on our left. He cautioned us about taking pictures of any of this area, warning that if the security people see you, they will come take your camera. We continued walking, and the palace walls and iron fencing were on our left for the next half hour. We were making and kind of elliptical path, but the palace grounds went on forever! In some places the iron fencing and some of the gates were very beautiful and ornate, and beyond them, glimpses of immense and ornate buildings could be seen. It was very hard not to snap some pictures of it!
We would often stop to take pictures as we went, hoping to record an image we could share back home, that would somehow convey the feeling of this place. As I snapped a few shots of one of the tin shack areas with the tall downtown buildings in the distance, and the mountains as the backdrop, I stood there thinking how disappointing it was that we would never be able to capture two-dimensionally what was before us.
We made a visit to the opulence and monument to capitalism that is the Hilton Hotel. We walked past the large traffic gates at the entrance and were cheerfully greeted by the armed guards there, all dressed in blue camo uniforms. Inside the lobby doors, we were stopped by more security personnel, patted down, passed through a scanner, and our bags were run through a scanner as well. The hotel, of course was very elegantly appointed, loaded with gift shops and kiosks, and surrounded by beautiful gardens. We strolled out to the pool area, through a few of the shops, made a few small purchases, stopped in the gardens for a group picture, then moved on.
We heard what sounded like preaching coming across a loudspeaker as we approached a large church on a hill. We asked someone if it would be ok for us to go up the hill to the church. The church was tall and beautiful, with a belfry, and a large mural over the main entrance of a saint being stoned to death. This was St. Stephen Church, an orthodox Christian church. Low open building surrounded the grounds, and were full of people in various services or perhaps Sunday school classes. Many people sat idly all around the grounds and watched our group suspiciously as we passed through. One gentleman told us that they were between services and one would start again soon. We decided to move on and left the grounds through another entrance. Des stopped and dropped a donation into a box on the way out.
On our way, we passed through what was at one time called Lenin Square, where Des shared the story of the ‘revolution’ when the people of the city toppled a massive statue of Lenin in protest of the Russian occupation. Des showed us through the area where he used to live and work, where his flat was, where he used to go eat, work out, see a movie, etc. His stories are so engaging, and give us all a glimpse of life in Addis Ababa in the 80s.
We stopped at a nice little out of the way restaurant for lunch called ‘Cottage Restaurant and Pub.’ This was one of Des’ old haunts back in the day, evidently. After lunch, we started walking back, but decided to catch some ‘blue and whites,’ since we were running behind in time a bit. At the hotel, we all went off to our rooms to freshen up, and met back in the lobby shortly because Mesfin, Des’ friend, had sent the van back around to pick us up and deliver us to his home to meet his family!
As we headed out toward Mesfin’s we went through some very poor housing areas. When the van slowed to a stop, we were in front of a very tall wall, with large gates, all completely topped off with circular razor wire. Two gentlemen were opening the gates for us, and the van slowly pulled into the driveway behind the gates. (I should add here that Mesfin works for the British Embassy, and his wife, Jane owns and manages her own preschool.) Inside, a very homey ranch style home with a front porch, a lawn, some colorful landscaping...it was Mesfin’s house. In the front yard was a canopy and there were many chairs and a few small tables under it. There were already some guests there waiting. As we piled out of the van, Mesfin and his lovely wife, Jane came out and greeted us and welcomed us in toward the canopy, where they also introduced us to a very nice, and very interesting young couple from Scotland, and their little boy, age 2. It seems they both used to live and work in Addis Ababa, and were back on both business and a holiday. Mesfin and Jane’s daughter, Naomi, a very bright and beautiful 8-year old came out to meet us as well. Naomi was so cute as she made the rounds with her little pad of paper to take our drink orders. At one point, someone made an exclamation as they pointed toward the driveway alongside the house. Lumbering down the drive toward us was one of the biggest tortoises I have ever seen! The family explained that it was their pet, and that it was there when the moved into the house over 12 years before. Being the inquisitive people we are, we all just sort of jumped up and headed toward the tortoise for a closer look. Of course, we obviously overwhelmed him because he immediately turned around to head back! He did stop long enough for a few photo ops before finally leaving us!
After a brief stop at our hotel, we headed out to a nice little Chinese restaurant we had passed on our walk earlier in the day. On our way over there in the van, we noticed a few raindrops on the windshield at first, and then it began to rain moderately. In the Restaurant, we could hear the rain outside as we dined family style on pork, beef, and chicken dishes and steamed and fried rice. Here we were, sitting in Ethiopia, eating delicious Chinese food, served to us by native Ethiopians. It was surreal!
Again, we met on the rooftop terrace of our hotel to talk about our day, and to make plans for the next day’s journeys. This has begun to be one of my favorite parts of the day, listening to everyone’s thoughts and perspectives about what they’ve experienced. Every day, as I often say, is truly a new adventure!
I had a rough night sleeping. Too tired to sleep, maybe, but I couldn’t seem to fall asleep, then I woke up several times during the night. At about 5:30 am, though I wasn’t sleeping soundly, I was awakened by the early morning prayer chanting from several mosques across the city below. It was kind of interesting for the first few minutes, then became fairly annoying, then downright awful! It went on forever! I realized at some point that I was not going to be able to fall asleep again, and finally just got up. My roomie, Des, too, was stirring a lot in his bed, and we just decided to go have some breakfast. After breakfast, I also began writing a bit, compiling notes to complete the blog from the previous day. I went up to the terrace, where some of our group had now begun to gather for breakfast, and had some more of that great coffee and milk.
We all went back to our rooms to get freshened up for our Sunday outings, and met back in the lobby at 10 am. I took the opportunity also to exchange some more American dollars for ‘bir’. 50 dollars would get me 833 bir. Our primary activity for this day was to walk. We set off on quite a trek, walking from the hotel down into the center of the city. As we walked, we passed big beautiful houses perched on the hills, surrounded by walls and tall ornate gates, all topped with razor wire. We passed colonies of tin shacks: masses of corrugated tin roofs that hovered over tin walls, with patches, and overlays, and often a satellite dish, and the dwellings sometimes had fabric for doors and windows. Children played outside some of the shacks; mothers washed clothes in buckets; men gathered and leaned against some as they smoked and chatted. The smell of sewage seemed to be everywhere. We passed many people walking, lots of them in what must be their ‘Sunday best’, and on their way to church. We passed vistas of tall buildings downtown with beautiful mountainscapes in the background. We passed merchants outside their storefronts of clothing, trinkets, books, souvenirs. We passed men, young and old, waiting and offering to shine our shoes. We passed gnarled and mangled bodies with vacant eyes and hands outstretched, hoping one of us will fill them even one bir. We passed, and were followed by, many children carrying gum or boxes of candy, trying to get our attention and sell us some of their merchandise as we walked. We passed by small lawn areas outside official-looking buildings, where men were lying on the grass, presumably homeless, covered by tattered cloths or blankets. We passed several men who stopped on a patch of grass, or a storm sewer, or just off the sidewalk to unashamedly relieve themselves in full view of the public. We passed one gully, where, in the stream, people seemed to be washing clothes, and even bathing. The city was, indeed, alive and once again, a sensory barrage. We became kind of spread out at times, with some people walking faster than others, etc. Luckily, though, we always walked in clusters or groups. We passed through one area where on our right was one of the tin shack colonies, surrounded and almost obscured by tall walls of concrete and corrugated tin, and on our left was a beautiful city park surrounded by tall fencing and protected by guards, where the middle class leisurely walked and played with their children on colorful playground equipment. Several of us had gotten ahead of the group and were heading across the street to look at the park when we heard this scream behind us. We looked up the hill to see a quick flurry of activity around our friends at the top. and then they seemed to scurry quickly down the hill toward us. It turned out that, at one of the openings to the tin shack colony, and couple of young men had scoped out our group and one of them jumped out and tried to grab Des’ camera off his belt. Evidently, Des sprang into action and successfully foiled the attempt in a matter of seconds. It was probably a good wake-up call for us to help us to be more alert and aware. As a matter of fact, later in the day, Anne felt some pressure or a slight tug at her small travel backpack and swung around to find a couple of boys trying to unzip one of the pockets. She narrowly missed them with her arm as she whirled around, and she yelled at them, “NO!”, and they sheepishly dropped their heads and moved off.
There was a point on our walk that Des pointed out the Imperial Palace on our left. He cautioned us about taking pictures of any of this area, warning that if the security people see you, they will come take your camera. We continued walking, and the palace walls and iron fencing were on our left for the next half hour. We were making and kind of elliptical path, but the palace grounds went on forever! In some places the iron fencing and some of the gates were very beautiful and ornate, and beyond them, glimpses of immense and ornate buildings could be seen. It was very hard not to snap some pictures of it!
We would often stop to take pictures as we went, hoping to record an image we could share back home, that would somehow convey the feeling of this place. As I snapped a few shots of one of the tin shack areas with the tall downtown buildings in the distance, and the mountains as the backdrop, I stood there thinking how disappointing it was that we would never be able to capture two-dimensionally what was before us.
We made a visit to the opulence and monument to capitalism that is the Hilton Hotel. We walked past the large traffic gates at the entrance and were cheerfully greeted by the armed guards there, all dressed in blue camo uniforms. Inside the lobby doors, we were stopped by more security personnel, patted down, passed through a scanner, and our bags were run through a scanner as well. The hotel, of course was very elegantly appointed, loaded with gift shops and kiosks, and surrounded by beautiful gardens. We strolled out to the pool area, through a few of the shops, made a few small purchases, stopped in the gardens for a group picture, then moved on.
We heard what sounded like preaching coming across a loudspeaker as we approached a large church on a hill. We asked someone if it would be ok for us to go up the hill to the church. The church was tall and beautiful, with a belfry, and a large mural over the main entrance of a saint being stoned to death. This was St. Stephen Church, an orthodox Christian church. Low open building surrounded the grounds, and were full of people in various services or perhaps Sunday school classes. Many people sat idly all around the grounds and watched our group suspiciously as we passed through. One gentleman told us that they were between services and one would start again soon. We decided to move on and left the grounds through another entrance. Des stopped and dropped a donation into a box on the way out.
On our way, we passed through what was at one time called Lenin Square, where Des shared the story of the ‘revolution’ when the people of the city toppled a massive statue of Lenin in protest of the Russian occupation. Des showed us through the area where he used to live and work, where his flat was, where he used to go eat, work out, see a movie, etc. His stories are so engaging, and give us all a glimpse of life in Addis Ababa in the 80s.
We stopped at a nice little out of the way restaurant for lunch called ‘Cottage Restaurant and Pub.’ This was one of Des’ old haunts back in the day, evidently. After lunch, we started walking back, but decided to catch some ‘blue and whites,’ since we were running behind in time a bit. At the hotel, we all went off to our rooms to freshen up, and met back in the lobby shortly because Mesfin, Des’ friend, had sent the van back around to pick us up and deliver us to his home to meet his family!
As we headed out toward Mesfin’s we went through some very poor housing areas. When the van slowed to a stop, we were in front of a very tall wall, with large gates, all completely topped off with circular razor wire. Two gentlemen were opening the gates for us, and the van slowly pulled into the driveway behind the gates. (I should add here that Mesfin works for the British Embassy, and his wife, Jane owns and manages her own preschool.) Inside, a very homey ranch style home with a front porch, a lawn, some colorful landscaping...it was Mesfin’s house. In the front yard was a canopy and there were many chairs and a few small tables under it. There were already some guests there waiting. As we piled out of the van, Mesfin and his lovely wife, Jane came out and greeted us and welcomed us in toward the canopy, where they also introduced us to a very nice, and very interesting young couple from Scotland, and their little boy, age 2. It seems they both used to live and work in Addis Ababa, and were back on both business and a holiday. Mesfin and Jane’s daughter, Naomi, a very bright and beautiful 8-year old came out to meet us as well. Naomi was so cute as she made the rounds with her little pad of paper to take our drink orders. At one point, someone made an exclamation as they pointed toward the driveway alongside the house. Lumbering down the drive toward us was one of the biggest tortoises I have ever seen! The family explained that it was their pet, and that it was there when the moved into the house over 12 years before. Being the inquisitive people we are, we all just sort of jumped up and headed toward the tortoise for a closer look. Of course, we obviously overwhelmed him because he immediately turned around to head back! He did stop long enough for a few photo ops before finally leaving us!
We spent most of the afternoon chatting with Mesfin’s family and friends, and enjoying their very gracious hospitality. It was a lovely relaxing evening getting to know new friends.
After a brief stop at our hotel, we headed out to a nice little Chinese restaurant we had passed on our walk earlier in the day. On our way over there in the van, we noticed a few raindrops on the windshield at first, and then it began to rain moderately. In the Restaurant, we could hear the rain outside as we dined family style on pork, beef, and chicken dishes and steamed and fried rice. Here we were, sitting in Ethiopia, eating delicious Chinese food, served to us by native Ethiopians. It was surreal!
Again, we met on the rooftop terrace of our hotel to talk about our day, and to make plans for the next day’s journeys. This has begun to be one of my favorite parts of the day, listening to everyone’s thoughts and perspectives about what they’ve experienced. Every day, as I often say, is truly a new adventure!
No comments:
Post a Comment