Ethiopia
by Alex
2nd - 19th October (Moyale - Yabello - Arba Minch - Awassa - Addis - Debre Zeit - Addis - Debre Berhan - Lalibela - Gonder)
Ethiopia - where do I begin? When asked whether we were enjoying Ethiopia whilst in the country, we typically slipped the word "rollercoaster" somewhere into the answer. I had read a number of blogs by travellers in Ethiopia, quite a mixed bag. After just 3 days in Ethopia we had had enough - we couldn't wait to leave - we were angry and fed up; but I'm happy to say that we perserved, and checking out 2.5 weeks later we will look back on our time there with some satisfaction.
For Kathy and I, having lived 2/1.5 years in southern Africa, the journey up until now had been reasonably easy, with a few obvious exceptions (er, see Tanzania...). We usually had enough of the local language (at least Kathy did), and there are more similarities than differences between the Bantu peoples of Malawi, Tanzania, Kenya etc. By contrast Ethiopians are very different bunch, and suddenly we had no common language with 80% of the people we came into contact with. Whilst East Africa was a comfortable bubble for us, Ethiopia was a culture shock.
I don't think that it's unfair to describe rural Ethiopians as 'aggresively curious' of foreigners. For much of the drive from the Kenyan border to the capital, Addis Abbaba we felt quite uncomfortable, particularly being in our own vehicle. Stopping in towns and villages along the route became something of a chore, with kids and young people crowding the windows and doors, some begging, some wanting to see what was in the vehicle, but all shouting "You! You! You!" endlessly and pointing at us. We are used to being singled out, kids from Malawi to Kenya shout "Mzungu" as we pass, but in Ethiopia it took on a whole new over zealous tone. At first we countered by mocking, shouting "YOU!" back with as much ferocity as we could muster. This soon got tiring though, and we just settled into quiet acceptance. The other major annoyance being a foreiger in Ethiopia is begging. There is a bigger culture of begging in Ethiopia than in any country I have visited, despite it being significantly better off than many of those. It was the incessant begging that got to us I think. I estimate that on average, every day 50 people would ask us for money, and after a while you realise that a lot of people view you as a walking ATM which makes you feel a lot less welcome, and sometimes angry. When walking up an alley towards some playing children, we watched the mother (standing in front of a reasonable concrete house) coach her children to say "give me money" as we walked past. We exploded at the woman sparing no expletives. She may have only known 3 words of English but she got the message. At one point I was walking along the street on my own and I heard "You! give me money!" I was tired and fed up, this must have been my hundredth "interaction" of the day, so I just showed him the bird (google it, Dad) without even turning to look. Feeling a bit ashamed I glanced back are realised I'd just flipped off a kid of about 6. Whoops.
OK. Enough about begging, and the negativity, I had to get that off my chest but now I can move on and talk about what we actaully did, which was quite a lot since we spent 2.5 weeks in Ethiopia - the longest we expect to spend in any country on this trip. There were plenty of good things about Ethiopia, although it took us a week or so to get used to being there.
Driving into the south to the country the only evidence of the famine we saw was the motel car park over brimming with UN vehicles. The country side was very pretty - rolling hills grazed by cattle and camels, beautiful birdlife everywhere. We didn't realise at this point, but it would be the most mundane landscape we would encounter in Ethiopia. If Rwanda is the land of 1000 hills, then Ethiopia is the land of 10000 mountains. We spent a pleasant night in the Nechisar National Park. We bush camped on top of a hill between two sweeping valleys, an incredible view. I woke in the night to the sound of hundreds of hooves shuffling past both sides of the tent. A huge heard of zebra was moving down to the lake shore for a midnight drink (to avoid the now drowsy crocs I suppose) and moved right around our tent and landy.
The highlight of our time in Addis was meeting up with another Link colleague, Michael Ambetchew. He and his wife took us to Asqual, an Ethiopian restaurant in Addis probably a little orientated towards tourists, although patronised mostly by ethiopias. We watched and heard traditional song and dance, drank honey wine and shared a single huge plated of delicious ethiopian food. It was a lovely night - Kathy and I made a mess of everything that we even looked at - not being hugely experienced at eating using Ethiopian bread (injera) as the only utensil. I'm sure we provided entertainment for our hosts...
On from Addis we visited the spectacular rock hewn churches of Lalibela. Dating back centuries, these buildings are quite something to behold. I think I was more taken from a civil engineering point of view than a cultural one, but that's me. The area obviously receives a lot of tourists, and correspondingly we found moving around much easier than in other similarly rural areas of ethiopia.
Our final drive in Ethiopia took us along a fabulous mountain road with breathtaking views to the east and west. Our final destination was Gonder, hailed as Africa's Camelot. We had a great couple of days relaxing and eating some great ethiopian food. I was so relaxed in fact that I let my cullinary guard right down and ate some Kifto - a kind of raw minced meat. Mistake. Oh well, it was bound to happn sooneror later...
By the last week in Ethiopia, we were really enjoying our time there. We met some lovely people, and saw some great things. Funny to think how negative were our opinions 2 weeks previously. Onwards and downwards (topographically speaking) to Sudan, the true home of beaurocracy.
by Alex
2nd - 19th October (Moyale - Yabello - Arba Minch - Awassa - Addis - Debre Zeit - Addis - Debre Berhan - Lalibela - Gonder)
Ethiopia - where do I begin? When asked whether we were enjoying Ethiopia whilst in the country, we typically slipped the word "rollercoaster" somewhere into the answer. I had read a number of blogs by travellers in Ethiopia, quite a mixed bag. After just 3 days in Ethopia we had had enough - we couldn't wait to leave - we were angry and fed up; but I'm happy to say that we perserved, and checking out 2.5 weeks later we will look back on our time there with some satisfaction.
For Kathy and I, having lived 2/1.5 years in southern Africa, the journey up until now had been reasonably easy, with a few obvious exceptions (er, see Tanzania...). We usually had enough of the local language (at least Kathy did), and there are more similarities than differences between the Bantu peoples of Malawi, Tanzania, Kenya etc. By contrast Ethiopians are very different bunch, and suddenly we had no common language with 80% of the people we came into contact with. Whilst East Africa was a comfortable bubble for us, Ethiopia was a culture shock.
I don't think that it's unfair to describe rural Ethiopians as 'aggresively curious' of foreigners. For much of the drive from the Kenyan border to the capital, Addis Abbaba we felt quite uncomfortable, particularly being in our own vehicle. Stopping in towns and villages along the route became something of a chore, with kids and young people crowding the windows and doors, some begging, some wanting to see what was in the vehicle, but all shouting "You! You! You!" endlessly and pointing at us. We are used to being singled out, kids from Malawi to Kenya shout "Mzungu" as we pass, but in Ethiopia it took on a whole new over zealous tone. At first we countered by mocking, shouting "YOU!" back with as much ferocity as we could muster. This soon got tiring though, and we just settled into quiet acceptance. The other major annoyance being a foreiger in Ethiopia is begging. There is a bigger culture of begging in Ethiopia than in any country I have visited, despite it being significantly better off than many of those. It was the incessant begging that got to us I think. I estimate that on average, every day 50 people would ask us for money, and after a while you realise that a lot of people view you as a walking ATM which makes you feel a lot less welcome, and sometimes angry. When walking up an alley towards some playing children, we watched the mother (standing in front of a reasonable concrete house) coach her children to say "give me money" as we walked past. We exploded at the woman sparing no expletives. She may have only known 3 words of English but she got the message. At one point I was walking along the street on my own and I heard "You! give me money!" I was tired and fed up, this must have been my hundredth "interaction" of the day, so I just showed him the bird (google it, Dad) without even turning to look. Feeling a bit ashamed I glanced back are realised I'd just flipped off a kid of about 6. Whoops.
OK. Enough about begging, and the negativity, I had to get that off my chest but now I can move on and talk about what we actaully did, which was quite a lot since we spent 2.5 weeks in Ethiopia - the longest we expect to spend in any country on this trip. There were plenty of good things about Ethiopia, although it took us a week or so to get used to being there.
Driving into the south to the country the only evidence of the famine we saw was the motel car park over brimming with UN vehicles. The country side was very pretty - rolling hills grazed by cattle and camels, beautiful birdlife everywhere. We didn't realise at this point, but it would be the most mundane landscape we would encounter in Ethiopia. If Rwanda is the land of 1000 hills, then Ethiopia is the land of 10000 mountains. We spent a pleasant night in the Nechisar National Park. We bush camped on top of a hill between two sweeping valleys, an incredible view. I woke in the night to the sound of hundreds of hooves shuffling past both sides of the tent. A huge heard of zebra was moving down to the lake shore for a midnight drink (to avoid the now drowsy crocs I suppose) and moved right around our tent and landy.
The zebra in this park are known for herding over 100 in number. I couldn't tell you how many there were just then however, I was scared that if I took a peek I would startle them into stampeding over our tent!
Addis abba leaves all the previous african capitals in the dust. At 7million people, it is big, vibrant and colourful. It is also extremely noisy. I'm already used to being woken up at 5am by wailing imans calling the faithful to prayer, but in Addis the Ethiopian Orthodox christian priests don't just call the faithful to prayer, they broadcast the whole ceremony over their public address system. You can see this in 2 ways: either it turns all of addis into one giant prayer meeting, or it encourages laziness - why get out of bed and go to church when church comes to you.
Our time in Addis was marred by The Horror. These are the words I will use to remember our days wasted at the sudanese embassy in Addis. I don't want to delve too deep into this one, but in summary the embassy was the most unpleasant beaucratic experience of my life. I can only summise that Sudan maintains such a dreadful mission abroad to filter only those souls who really want/need to go there. I hope to soon forgot the week we spent coming and going, caling copying waitng and paying. Luckily I have a memory like a seive....
The highlight of our time in Addis was meeting up with another Link colleague, Michael Ambetchew. He and his wife took us to Asqual, an Ethiopian restaurant in Addis probably a little orientated towards tourists, although patronised mostly by ethiopias. We watched and heard traditional song and dance, drank honey wine and shared a single huge plated of delicious ethiopian food. It was a lovely night - Kathy and I made a mess of everything that we even looked at - not being hugely experienced at eating using Ethiopian bread (injera) as the only utensil. I'm sure we provided entertainment for our hosts...
On from Addis we visited the spectacular rock hewn churches of Lalibela. Dating back centuries, these buildings are quite something to behold. I think I was more taken from a civil engineering point of view than a cultural one, but that's me. The area obviously receives a lot of tourists, and correspondingly we found moving around much easier than in other similarly rural areas of ethiopia.
Our final drive in Ethiopia took us along a fabulous mountain road with breathtaking views to the east and west. Our final destination was Gonder, hailed as Africa's Camelot. We had a great couple of days relaxing and eating some great ethiopian food. I was so relaxed in fact that I let my cullinary guard right down and ate some Kifto - a kind of raw minced meat. Mistake. Oh well, it was bound to happn sooneror later...
By the last week in Ethiopia, we were really enjoying our time there. We met some lovely people, and saw some great things. Funny to think how negative were our opinions 2 weeks previously. Onwards and downwards (topographically speaking) to Sudan, the true home of beaurocracy.
posted by Alex at 08:29
1 Comments:
You have got to love injera - it's both crockery, cutlery and a staple all-in-one and no washing up! There is an Ethiopian restaurant somewhere near King's Cross where we could recreate your time in Ethiopia (begging optional - we won't do it if you pay us not to).
Post a Comment
<< Home