[J] We spent a lovely few days in Addis Ababa after our trip round the North. Of course it mostly revolved around food.
We decided to brave mercato. Apparently one of the biggest markets in Africa. We'd heard mixed reports from people we know but decided we should check it out anyway. We got a line taxi up there and jumped off when we couldn't get taken any further. It's an amazing place with loads of stuff going on. All the stalls selling the same kind of stuff; clothes, hardware, sewing stuff etc are all grouped together so once you find the right area of the market there's lots of choice. We wandered around and hardly bought anything - a reel of cotton I think was everything! Oh and a couple of t-shirts for the kids in our compound. It was quite fun just wandering around and being able to be cheeky back to the vendors who were shouting out to us. Helen and Dave had very kindly offered to take us for lunch at the Sheraton Hotel that afternoon so in order to make the most of it (it's a buffet) we started to head back in that general direction. On the outskirts of the market some guys tried to pick-pocket Dave. It was a slick operation. There was a young boy shouting at the rest of us for money who we suspect was part of the act to distract the rest of us, then a guy bumped into Dave and started apologising whilst his buddy's hand slipped into Dave's trouser pocket for a rummage. Luckily Dave's money was in a different pocket with a zip and he caught on to exactly what they were doing so they scarpered. Now I said it was slick but they're obviously not that smart because two minutes later they tried exactly the same thing again - with Dave again! This time we all started shouting at them which drew attention and scared them off. So no harm done and no pockets picked successfully.
We walked rather a long way round, but luckily the Sheraton is a big building and visible from most parts of the city centre so we knew which direction to head in.
We finally arrived and Neal and I were so excited at the thought of the buffet we were practically running through the doors. And thankfully the buffet lived up to expectations. There were delicious salads, with a choice of dressings, freshly baked wholemeal and granary bread and best of all a cheese board, it had cheddar and brie and a blue cheese and soft cheese oh I was in cheese heaven. It's funny what you miss. These things might not sound that exciting to you but we haven't eaten any of these things for the six months we've been here. The main courses were mainly meat - you picket a cut and they cooked it for you - but there was a nice veggie curry. However I decide my tactic was to concentrate on the starters and ........DESSERT! The dessert table was fantastic, there was cheesecake, chocolate cake with truffles on top, little biscuits that melted in your mouth cakes with strawberries on, crepes, creme caramel and a dozen other things too. We quaffed a couple of bottles of Ethiopian white wine (recently discovered by us and quite palatable - well compared to the Gouder red wine!). We ate until we could eat no more and felt very sated. Have you noticed how food has become even more of an obsession than it was before!
That night however our feast at lunchtime became our undoing at teatime. Ben and Franca were catching the same Lufthansa flight as Helen and Dave. Ben had a UN car to take us to the airport for an early check in and then we went back to his house for tea. Ben has a house just off Bole Road in Addis Ababa. It's a lovely house which he shares with Timor from Azerbaijan who works for the UN, also on a de-mining program. Their serategnas had prepared a delicious spread with salads and pasta which had a rare treat of brocolli in the sauce.
It was a really nice end to a fab holiday with Helen and Dave and after dinner we went to the main road and said our goodbyes as Helen, Dave, Ben and Franca got a taxi to the airport and Neal and I the opposite direction back to the hotel.
Luckily when you go to Addis Ababa you are almost guaranteed to bump into half a dozen other VSOs there. So it was really nice for us to have some friends around to stop us feeling sad about H&D leaving. Deb and David arrived at the same time as us and have a great house in Addis Ababa. They work in the Ministry of Education and are writing a higher diploma course. This course is intended to be taken by all teacher's teaching teachers in Ethiopia so in the teacher training colleges and institutes and the Universities that do teacher training too. From all reports it sounds as if they're doing a fantastic job and are becoming infamous throughout the country!
After Helen and Dave returned, we spent a couple of days in Addis buying some stuff for the house which we can't get in Awassa and catching up with some other VSOs. We went round to Deb and David's for dinner. They are the proud owners of a new oven which can run on both electricity and gas so no problem if there is a power cut. We had baked potatoes and veggie chilli and garlic bread and a delicious salad. You can definitely get more choice of veggies etc in Addis, we even had some cheese too. We chatted with Deb and Dave and also Les who also arrived with us and a new programme officer on secondment from London called Lynsey. The piece de resistance had to be the dessert - ice cream - Hmmmmmmmm. Okay I'll try and stop talking about food now....
For the first time since being in Ethiopia we had to face the ordeal of getting public transport back to Awassa. There are many horror stories about the buses in Ethiopia. The main problem is that you are not allowed to open the windows. This makes for a very uncomfortable journey when the bus is crammed full of people on a hot day. This is exacerbated by the fact that many women use kibey in their hair to condition it. Kibey is butter but in order to keep in a hot country where fridges are not widely owned it is made slightly rancid. Well I think that's why it is made rancid. The only thing is it absolutely stinks - like rancid butter. This is one of the biggest culture gaps I have come across. Ethiopians just seem to love it, they can't get enough of it - and as I just said, even put it in their hair. So are you beginning to get the picture. A bus crammed full of hot sweaty people, a prevailing odour of rancid butter and you can't open any windows. This is because there is a general belief that germs are spread by wind that gets in through the windows. Often if any attempt to open a window is made, there is much shouting and arguing and the offending glass is usually slammed shut shortly afterwards
Most buses leave early in the morning and they leave when they are full. The general suggestion is to get to the bus station at 6 am. So our first pleasure was to get up ridiculously early and argue with the taxi driver about the ridiculous price he wanted to charge. Lori was also heading back to Awassa so we had company. The bus station is near mercato so we arrived and were immediately surrounded by folk wanting to know where we were going. We got pointed towards the bus to Awassa, paid our 25 Birr and got on. The bus was quite empty which isn't a good sign as it won't leave until it is full. But the bus was quite new - by Ethiopian standards. Lori was very impressed and told us how lucky we were to be on such a plush bus on our first trip. We finally set off at 7am and I started thinking "hey this bus thing isn't so bad after all" and after getting up so early thought I'd just drop off to sleep for a while. I was snuggled up between Neal and Lori and tried to get comfy. Then the next worst thing about public transport started. Ethiopian pop music, full blast, for the whole journey. As Lori pointed out, the two things that make the journey so unbearable could be avoided, the windows could be opened and the music turned off. Unfortunately this opinion is not shared by the rest of the bus-taking population and the man in front certainly didn't appreciate Lori's comment! Oh well, I resigned myself to not sleeping and slouched grumpily in the seat instead. At least we are very very lucky in Awassa in that the road from Addis to Awassa is tarmaced all the way and in really good condition (paid for by the EU apparently!)
We then apparently made bus-travel history as the bus sped down to Awassa in a record 4 hours. We didn't make the usual stop at a town called Zwei. In fact we didn't even stop in Awassa. The bus pulled in to a petrol station on the main road at the turn off to Awassa and there was much shouting and we were commented to each other that it was a bit annoying that the bus decided to fill up 5 minutes before getting to the bus station. The bus then started up again and then there was more shouting including the word ferenji. The bus stopped again and someone asked us where we were going. When we replied "Awassa" we were told to get off. But we were still a good 2 km to the bus station which itself is on the edge of town. It seemed that this driver was on a mission and wanted to carry on south in record time without bothering to stop in actual towns or other such trivial matters that might waste time. Then the man who seemed to have taken offence at Lori's earlier comment turned round to us and said in a very patronising way "If you didn't know where to get off, you should have asked someone when we got to Awassa". Cheeky git. We live in Awassa, we know where Awassa is and this isn't it!! Anyway we got off and trudged back into town carrying our bags.
We weren't back in Awassa for long before we were whisked off for a language course arranged by VSO. A two week intensive Amharic training course was taking place in Furra college in a town called Yurgellem. It's not far from Awassa, so the three of us going from Awassa met up with the rest of the volunteers taking the course at the Lewi Hotel in Awassa. We had some lunch and then carried on to Yurgellem. We were pleasantly surprised at the high standard of accommodation at Furra college. We had an en-suite bathroom with a flush toilet and a hot shower. Our teachers for the course were Fikado and Aster who had the unenviable job of teaching us the basics during our in country training when we arrived.
The course was really good. We were split into two groups and Neal and I decided to try the intermediate group as opposed to the beginners group. Each day Fikado and Aster swapped groups and we were in lessons from 8:30 am till 5 pm every day. We did have the weekend off though in the middle. We learnt so much Amharic and even attempted to dabble in the grammar at places too. We also started learning Fidel script which is th