What Drought?

All of the Ethiopia I’ve seen has been green, lush, and fertile. In fact, it has rained every day I’ve been here! I’m actually quite sick of the rain though I know it’s supposed to be better than the sweltering Sudan heat that awaits us… But as far as I’m concerned, the drought doesn’t exist. Or, it is a superior opponent in this game of hide-and-seek of which I’m an unwitting player! I don’t think there’s a shortage of food anywhere either, at least not in the market, shops, or restaurants. When trying to do a cook group shop, I wasn’t able to buy meat, but fair enough, it was a fasting Friday.

On Food: Food in Ethiopia has been, well, interesting. They have a lot of familiar foods – pizzas, pastas, burgers, sandwiches – but they can be funky. In one restaurant, a pizza with pepperoni for some reason got you a vegetarian pizza with cabbage on it. “Spaghetti with meat” is served as a plate of cooked spaghetti noodles with a serving of Kai-Wat (Ethiopian Red Spicy Stew)-spiced meat on the side. Burgers are hit or miss, as are sandwiches. My club sandwich, although pretty good, consisted of minced meat with egg, bell pepper, and onion in a mayo-y sauce:


I’m very glad I don’t have dietary restrictions and am not too picky with the type of meat I eat because it’s not listed on the menu and the servers often can’t tell you! Usually it’s goat I think. As for local cuisine, Ethiopian food is actually the one African cuisine I had tried in the US before coming to Africa. It’s pretty much the same in quality and consistency as the stuff you can get in the Ethiopia Restaurant in Berkeley. A lot of people on the truck don’t like injera, a sour, dense, flat, sponge-like bread made out of teff, which is served pretty much everything; I don’t mind it. Generally, Ethiopian food is just not something I’d ever really crave, a lesser cuisine than Indian food in my opinion. Most people would say the best part of Ethiopia has been the coffee, but for me, it’s the juice. You can get a glass of banana, papaya, mango, pineapple, guava, avocado, or orange juice for around $0.50. They also do a sprees juice that is a mix of them all. So good!


Addis Ababa: We spent three nights in Addis Ababa at the Taitu Hotel, a hotel that’s been there since 1906 I think. Most of their facilities haven’t been updated since then, but they Did have free wifi :) Although I walked around Addis a lot, I don’t really have an opinion on the city. Not a bad city, but not a great one either. I went to the Ethiopia National Museum that houses Lucy – wasn’t impressed. It’s supposed to be the most complete fossil of that time, but there’s still a whole lot of it missing. The Red Terror museum though was really interesting to visit – I just had no idea the scale of the Derg killings in Ethiopia, or that they even had a relatively recent bloody history there. In other news, Andi was able to secure our Sudanese transit visas ($200 for Americans, $100 for everyone else) but I was not able to obtain a local SIM because they were too demanding in wanting a passport copy, two passport photos, and $3.50!


Bahar Dir/Bahir Dar: I can’t get a straight answer on how you spell the name of this city, and I think it’s because there isn’t one. The Ethiopian alphabet has something like 200 characters that are difficult to translate into roman letters. As a result, cities are spelled at least three different ways. Bahir Dar was another “whatever” city. We camped at the Ghion Hotel that is nice because you are pretty much on the shore of Lake Tana, but not nice because camping space was limited and a lot of tents got soaked in the pretty much nonstop pouring rain. Lake Tana contains the source of the (Blue) Nile but we didn’t go to it. Several of us went on a Lake Tana boat trip to visit monasteries and the source. We were supposed to visit 4-5 monasteries, but the boat was 10 horsepower or something and just took forever to get even to the main island. The monasteries themselves were okay – the paintings struck me as cartoon versions of icon paintings you see in Russian Orthodox churches… There was one painting of Mary punishing Jesus. According to our guide, this didn’t actually happen, but it is a lesson to young children :)


Blue Nile Falls: From Bahir Dar, it is approximately one hour to the Blue Nile Falls. I’m actually really glad I went on this trip, though the water was all brown from the underlying mud/silt. I liked seeing the falls, but the scenery we passed to get there was even better! What I didn’t like was the swarm of children desperate to sell you their crap. They surround you making it hard to navigate the already muddy and slippery landscape. At one point, they swarmed me to where I lost sight of the rest of the group and I had this moment of sheer panic. I would Not be purchasing from those children! Hmpfh!


Ethiopians: Crossing into Ethiopia from Kenya, you can immediately see a difference in features and skin tone from the rest of Africa. A lot of Ethiopian men and women have handsome features and are probably the most attractive Africans I’ve seen so far. I seem to be popular in this country as well, and one guy asked me how long my boyfriend had to pray to get me. He said he thought at least ten years of praying :) Ethiopians also seem to think it is 2003 - they operate on a thirteen month calendar that I don't fully understand. I was, at first, charmed by Ethiopians… always smiling and waving at us… seeming genuinely happy to see us.


(Kids love it when you take their picture and after, they all crowd around you to see it. I thought it was cute until the man with the striped orange hood unzipped my pocket and tried to steal from me.)

Now, I get pretty annoyed by a lot of them: I just don’t want to be followed for half an hour and made to have a conversation with someone who doesn’t get the hint! We drive or walk by and they yell “You-You-You” in an almost accusing tone. It means foreigner/white person or something similar. Sometimes they look at you and stick out their hand and say “money, money.” I always wonder if that ever works, certainly not with anyone on our truck. I think I just got so sick of it all when we stopped for a pee stop on the road and, to get away from the kids running towards the truck, I followed some of the others up a muddy hill. Coming back down, I slipped and fell in the mud and just felt so stupid for having to run up a slippery hill to avoid annoying children. At this point, they can see my white bottom, I don’t care! Really though, with any vehicle that stops, they just come running. What can possibly be so fascinating?! I am also so unbelievably sick of being asked if I am from Japan. What the hell difference does it make if I’m from Japan or not?! Ugh!

(Sorry.)

I was trying to be upbeat, but I’m feeling kind of fed up with Africa at the moment. I’m sitting in an Internet café where the Internet’s not working (surprise, surprise), feeling sick and hoping (and pretty sure) it’s not malaria, and weary of needing to maintain close contact with a toilet because something has upset my stomach. I’m sick of things just not working and never being able to stay clean after a shower!!! So many day-to-day things in Ethiopia are just demoralizing and I know a lot of us are ready to leave, 130 degree whether come what may.

I think I just find myself missing the clean, orderly life I had where I didn’t get asked five times a day if I’m from Japan. *Sigh. I will be more positive in the next post, promise!