Over the next few weeks I'd like to share journal entries from my recent visit to Sub-Saharan Africa.
Addis Ababa: First Impressions.
Less than 24 hours in Addis Ababa and I'm slithering along a mountainside. A creek trickles over boulders in the valley below. Pale gray and green eucalyptus, a quick-growing fuel source for the teeming city below, dots the hillside in plantation-neat rows. Smoke rises from a mud-daubed hut. Rag-tag boys play soccer. In the distance, a church loudspeaker bellows a prayer in opposition to the more sonorous call from a mosque. A herd of goats skitters down the trail. My boots, encrusted in red mud, have lost all traction. "Three's a charm,” I mutter and hoist myself out of the mud following a third fall.
I arrived 12:55 am Sunday morning. Passport duly stamped, re-stamped and then stamped again – the Ethiopians’ love for officialdom and stamp pads showing up early in the game - 18 the final number of stamps during my visit.
Ethiopia hadn't featured on my "bucket list," until my son and daughter-in-law moved there. A keen birder, I thought, "why not", when invited for an extended visit to Eastern Africa. The additional lure of an adorable granddaughter couldn't be beat.
Sunday was a blur of re-acquainting with family. Desperate for a proper cup of tea, I picked my way through goat skulls and condom-strewn alleys to a grocery store in search of milk. Monday morning reality snapped into focus with a hair-raising ride through Addis to the Entoto Mountains. I have no memory of agreeing to hike with the Hash Harriers but here I am, mired in the mud. The runners have long headed into the hills. The three hikers takes pity on me, fabricating frequent photo op stops to allow me to catch my breath and balance. I must say that I had not anticipated a five-mile hike at 7,800 ft. elevation, while suffering from jet lag.
First impressions of Addis: bright orange umbrellas ward off the brutal equator-edge Sun and poke up from a moving dust-gray caterpillar of people like swiveling eyes in a child's drawing. I doubt there is a moment in Addis when someone is not leaning on a car horn. Rather than a bustle of activity, a conveyor-belt of continuous motion reels out. A suffocating relentless crush dominates the streets. From naked man lying in the middle of the road (I was to see him often) to women, many with massive goiters, thrusting emaciated children in car windows.
Toyota Corollas come here to die. The bulk of all Ladas produced in Russia in the seventies jostle with the Blue Donkeys - mini vans crammed with passengers – to take over the roads along with the hefty SUVs of the diplomatic corps. Massive Isuzu trucks, known to the expat crowd as "Al Qaedas", rule for their propensity to crush anything that gets in their way. Goats, sheep, donkeys, cows, people, vehicles, buildings - all are fair game for the behemoths.
In a country obsessed with regulations, the lack of civil order is startling. At Mescal Square, the
size of a football field, traffic hurtles in from all directions. Traffic control systems are ignored. At intersections, lights do their routine. Like jaded strippers playing to an oblivious audience, they keep going. Stop signs are an invitation to join the game I come to dread – "shadowing" – the art of tucking in alongside another vehicle and pushing out into the fray hoping that the car alongside you gets hit, not you. Police cluster on the sidewalk to smoke, sip coffee and to extract an on-the-spot fine, pocketed silently. Accidents are frequent, as are breakdowns. Repairs are made where the vehicle stops - large stones pushed into the road as a warning to other drivers. The streets are littered with these stones, themselves a hazard. Nobody moves them.Addis is the HQ for the African Union. Wedged behind massive walls, embassies from the entire continent do their business. Blue-uniformed soldiers turn supplicants who dare approach away – one morning, three women stand vigil over the body of a shrouded child. The lobby of the Hilton, the place to be seen, hosts a contingent of diplomats. Dressed in stunning batik-printed robes and suits, they air-kiss and greet. The ritual of a coffee ceremony scents the air. At the boutique, women finger strands of gold necklaces, men purchase cigars. Beyond the oasis, the real world staggers on.
My base is in an area off Bole Road where the impenetrable embassies and private homes secure a patch of peace. Small or grand residencies have in common a spill of Tangerine Cross Vine
flowing over walls. Envy strikes this gardener's heart – would that my Tucson garden produces such abundant blossom! Modest best describes my house here, a bizarre mix of Ethiopian chic from 30 years ago. It boasts veneered built-ins, parquet flooring, enormous, solid wood doors and gilded light fixtures crowned with mythical warriors. Verandahs open off rooms to a two-tiered garden. Scarlet bougainvillea snakes up the sides and over the roof. Blue-naped mousebirds, nibble dates and dangle from palm fronds. Electricity is an iffy thing, usually off for two days each week, more often in rainy season, as I was soon to learn.Culture shock hits hard out on the streets. Begging is universal and persistent. I run into a store for mangoes and hesitate before leaving. Bad timing - a goat is slaughtered on the steps - the screech and stench of warm entrails stays with me all day. Averting my eyes, I buy a three-day old Herald Tribune. The dun-brown rag-pile stirring in the filth below the stand is a man without legs. The government has no safety net for the mentally and physically disabled. Private
ownership of land does not exist. The shack that houses fruit stalls and a family's living quarters is bulldozed without warning to create a parking spot for a ranking ministry employee. Co-existing with this misery is a middle and upper middle class. Men and women working for the government and aid agencies impeccably turned out and sophisticated. The contrast is harsh. My daughter-in-law, assigned to a foundation here, tells me of the grim determination of these foreign educated native Ethiopians. They could have cushy lives someplace else but choose to return “home” to make a difference. I wonder if it’s a lost cause.“You can’t come here thinking like an American,” my son admonishes me. Others join in the conversation. I hear from aid workers, embassy officials and Peace Corp volunteers the same refrain. “Africa is different.” In Ethiopia I come to understand that success is not measured in a big picture, the western way. It’s measured in drips. A village is given mosquito nets – the number of cases of malaria drops in that village from fifty in the first season of use to three. Bicycle wheels, salvaged from US throwaways, and donated by a charity, are used to build simple carts. Women, on whom the primary burden of collecting water falls, can haul-in a day’s supply in one trip with this gift. Before the carts they walked three or more times a day to the water source. In another region of the country, distribution of birth control pills has been given to the women. When a regional chief had this responsibility he chose not to “bother” handing them out. In a one- year period, the birthrate has dropped by 30 percent. There is hope.
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