Freely Thinking Beings

Honk! Honk!

I'm not sure if people drive crazy here because of the road construction or if if they drive crazy because the laws provide them with that flexibility.  One thing is for sure, they drive hella crazy.  From what I've seen I'm surprised they aren't more accidents.  One thing that struck me as odd what there are no seat belt laws in Ethiopia, so no cars have them. I'm not sure where these cars are coming from when they are purchased but I would think that there would still be seat belts.  I even saw some taxi cabs that had the band in the back of the car but didn't have the actual part that clicks in.  It seemed as if they had them taken out. As a topper all you have to do to get a license is get in the car with an instructor and prove you can drive. If you have a license from another country all you have to do is trade it in at the equivalent of a DMV and you're golden.

I tried to wear my seatbelt as much as possible but really the option wasn't there all that much.  In some of the other ICS teachers' cars there were seat belts available and in Carli's friend Aki's car there was one, but otherwise you were pretty much shit out of luck.  Sometimes when you are driving through certain areas of the city the road construction will have torn up one side of the road but not the other.  So you have to stop at a break in the center divide and slowly turn into one lane that would normally be used for traffic going the opposite direction.  If no one is trying to turn into that lane then cars going the opposite way will still use it.  This leads to some very interesting traffic jams and lots of honking.  There is place called confusion square. I'm not sure if it got this name because it's damn confusing or if it is being built by the Chinese and that's something they named it.  It has been under construction since before Carli arrived here and I guess there's been progress but you'd be hard pressed to find it visually.

Honking brings me to the use of the horn in Ethiopia.  It gets a little annoying for someone like me who isn't used to hearing a horn 20 times in a 20 minute drive, but it seems they actually use it quite efficiently.  Since there are no sidewalks for people to walk on most of the time, people walk on the edge of the streets, if it is an unpaved road, a very narrow road, or otherwise traveled much less often by cars people will walk all over the street.  When you turn down a road like this the driver will start to honk.  At first it almost seems at random but gradually you start to realize that the drivers are honking at the pedestrians to let them know a car is coming.  During the day this seems to be over excessive but at night time when you can't see any of the people walking down the street it helps them be more aware of cars.

There are mini buses, which is basically thier public transportation.  It costs around 2-4 birr to ride a mini bus, and although the mini buses appear to have no rhyme or reason they actually do.  They have assigned stops that they go to.  But picture 20 of these mini buses all at one major hub in the city and each one has a guy (sometimes a kid) yelling in amharic. I assume they are trying to convince people to get into their mini bus as opposed to another one, but it is an amazing thing to watch.  I don't know if they have to lower or raise the price to gain customers but it is definitely a free for all.  Generally only locals ride the mini buses because it is much cheaper and firenji's can generally afford taxis.
Taxis are amazing here.  For starters there is no standard starting rate like in the states.  I think San Francisco is 3.85 before you go anywhere.  Here you begin by telling the driver where you want to go and then haggling over a price.  There are so many taxi's that it is really easy to just walk away and ask the next guy if he will charge you what your willing to pay.  The major point here is always begin bargaining before you get into the cab and agree on a price. Otherwise they will charge you through the roof because why? You're a firenji.  But it is so much better because you can haggle over your price, you might get a great deal.  Plus, if your willing to pay a little extra birr then you can.  Plus, and this is the best, they will usually wait for you and then take you somewhere else.  One day Carli and I were out.  We went to Lime Tree for lunch around 1:30 pm.  Carli called Girma, one of her taxi drivers.  He picked us up and then took us to the restaurant.  We asked him to wait for us until we were done.  It was roughly an hour and half until we were done with lunch.  After that he took us to the Asni Gallery, which is a really cool art gallery at the foot of the Entoto hills. We mis-timed our trip there.  We were 2 hours early for the art exhibit that we wanted to see.  We wandered around the art exhibit grounds and checked out these statues made out of steel that is found around Addis. I got tons of pictures of these statues because I really like them. Since we didn't want to wait so long to see the art exhibit and one of the workers gave us a flier for another art exhibit put on by Asni we went back to Girma and told him to take us to the National Theatre.  Once we arrived there  we realized the National Theatre itself was closed. it isn't a place you can just walk in and check out, there has to be a performance going on for them to be open.  The building itself was nothing short of crap to look at so we continued on to the Asni art exhibit.  We originally couldn't find the gallery building and asked two gentleman for directions, which they gave to us very quickly.  At the art showing there were 2 paintings I really liked. I inquired about buying the since I figured things were os much cheaper in Addis, but I was wrong on this account.  Each painting was 20,000 birr.  Which is about 200 dollars. A little expensive for me for a watercolor painting even if if was awesome.  So from here we caught our faithful cabbie Girma once again and he took us to another restaurant called Blue Tops which saved us from the rain.  It began hailing uncontrollably while we were in eating.  Joe and Nettie came in right after we did to eat and they joined us with their child Luka.  Joe is also a teacher at ICS and Nettie is her husband. Luka their eldest son is in Carli's pre-K class at ICS.  After a late lunch/early dinner we split from Joe and Nettie and went around town and did errands.  They had invited us for tea at their house later in the afternoon after our errands if we wanted.  So after our errands we had our cabbie drop us off there and we enjoyed some tea and bread with them for a few hours and then our faithful Cabbie Girma drive us home.  His entire work day was spent driving me an d Carli around the city of Addis.  I can't remember exactly what Carli ended up paying him but compared to a cab in America it was nothing. I was astonished. I loved it. Alright, I'm going to wrap this one up; Carli and I are flying to Cairo, Egypt in 4 hours and I need to call my dad for Fathers Day.  I don't know for sure if I will be able to continue posting in Cairo.  We are on a tour for 8 days and computers will be scarce. Enjoy your computers.

I’ll trade you an empty for a full

The other day Aki and I went to the beer factory with a crate a beer to re-fill.  A crate a beer has 24 beers in it.  At the beer factory they charge you 78 birr to re-fill 24 beers.  That is an awesome price for 24 beers.  It’s about 8 dollars.  Unfortunately the beer factory was closed for the day.  Instead there was a guy who was standing next to the entry who didn’t look like he worked at the factory.  He spoke to Aki in Amharic and then we parked. We walked up and down the street talking to different vendors.  Eventually we settled on two ladies that were sitting inside what looked like a cargo crate.

Inside the crate was a radio and then stacks and stacks of plastic crates of bottles. Some of the crates were full of soda and some beer.  Outside the factory they will sell you crates of beer for 109 birr.  Even though they charge you 31 birr more outside the factory your still only paying 11 dollars for 24 beers.  We took the deal and switched our empty crate for a full one.  This entire process made me smile.  I enjoy getting beer, especially when it is cheaper than what you would expect to pay.

This story leads up to one thing that annoys me, trading bottles.  Bottles are very important resources here for stores and vendors.  Most of the time if you don’t bring a bottle with you when you go to a store or vendor for soda or for beer they won’t sell you anything.  I was at a supermarket with Carli and I wanted to buy a Fanta for the road.  The lady at the register asked if we had a bottle to trade.  We didn’t, and so she wouldn’t sell us the Fanta.  This annoyed the shit out of me.  Luckily Carli has two crates full of beer and one crate half beer and half soda.  But you have to bring the bottles with you when you go out if you want to trade them for a full one wherever you find a vendor.  My question is simply if you can’t buy a bottle or a crate of bottles because you don’t have any bottles and they won’t sell them to you even if you leave a deposit on the bottles then how in the hell do you get any bottles to begin with?  I think it has something to do with being a firenji than anything else.  I’m sure that Carli’s guards or Aki know people who will sell them bottles because they trust them, but they don’t trust the firenji’s.  I guess I can’t blame them but the system makes no sense to me. Especially when I only want one fucking soda to drink while I walk around.
There are bottles all over the place.  Little vending stands are all over the streets of Addis.  Some are painted in all Pepsi colors and others are painted in all Coke colors.  Apparently the government supports Pepsi and people only drink it if they support the current government.  Coca Cola is the people’s drink.  I was made aware of the possible statements I would be making by drinking one soda or the other.  I personally prefer Pepsi over Coke but coke is more widely available.  Frankly, soda out of a bottle is better than soda out of anything else and Coke tastes better out of a bottle so it isn’t that big of a deal. 

Did you know that when I landed in Addis Ababa I became almost 8 years younger?  According to the Ethiopian calendar it is the year 2000.  They just had their millennium celebration earlier this year. I went from being 25 years old to 18 years old during a really long flight across the Atlantic.  I’ll give you a little history; in 1582 the Christian world as a whole dropped the current Julian calendar in favor of the revised Gregorian calendar.  Ethiopia decided not to make the switch, and due to that they are 7 years and 8 months behind the west.  The Ethiopian calendar has 13 months, 12 of them are 30 days long and 1 is 5 days long (6 days long during leap years).  The first month in the Ethiopian calendar (our January) is the last 20 days of September and the first 10 days of October. The Ethiopian New Years Day is, naturally, September 11th.  So September 10th is their New Years Eve.  Carli's guidebook explains it well.  The west’s 2006, in Ethiopia will be 1998 from January 1st until September 10th and 1999 from September 11th  until December 31st.

Learning this tripped me out to the max.  Huh? It’s only the year 2000. Wait, no it’s not…confusing as all hell.  I thought it was funny when I first thought about it.  Most institutions that you would need to use as a tourist go by both calendars.   So it doesn’t become a big problem for tourists, but it is an amazing concept.

All over the city they have these lights hanging off streetlight posts and buildings.  They look like Christmas lights.  On each strand there is about eight lights, they are all different colors.  These are the millennium lights that were hung up to celebrate the year 2000.  Since they are all still hanging and turned on every night some people get pissed off because of the way the government is rationing their electricity.  Regular people Have to deal with two days a week of no power but the millennium lights are on all night every night.  It is cool for Carli, she got to celebrate the millennium twice in her lifetime, not very many people can make that claim to fame.

Massive, muddy, wet water

It’s thundering right now.  For all of you who think Africa is the hottest place on Earth, you’re wrong.  Actually parts of Africa probably are the hottest places on Earth.  But Ethiopia is not one of them.  Ethiopia has a rainy season; it just started right around when I got here.  Ethiopia’s winter/rainy season begins when America’s summer starts.  This happens I think for obvious reasons. 

The rainy season reminds me of Florida’s tropical weather.  The day will be sunny from around sun-up until around 1 pm in the afternoon.  Around 1 pm it usually starts to downpour.  When I say downpour, I mean torrentially.  The good thing about the rain, it usually only lasts for about a half hour really hard and then it will mellow out and you can walk around with an umbrella. 

Carli and I went to a restaurant titled Blue Tops.  It is a really good restaurant.  They serve all sorts of food.  The first time I went (was this time with Carli) I ordered fried chicken and French fries.  I thought this was awesome because I came all the way to Africa and at a decent restaurant I ordered fried chicken and French fries.  While we were inside eating it began to rain.  It slowly began to rain harder, and harder until finally hail began to fall.  It hailed for a half hour strait and when it finally began to slow down there was piles of hail outside the door and covering most of the planter boxes outside the window. 

The rain isn’t so bad.  It’s all about planning ahead for the rain.  It will rain for at least a few hours every day.  People just hope they don’t get stuck in the hard rain.  When it begins to rain really hard most people just stop what they are doing completely.  The rain itself isn’t the bad part.  The bad part is that only half the roads are paved and Ethiopia doesn’t have adequate sewer drainage.  They overflow in about 10 minutes of raining and then the water begins to flow down the half paved, half unpaved road.  This creates massive muddy water that runs down streets.  Add in the lack of sidewalk and you have a giant, wet, muddy mess that people have to walk in.  

I took a cab to Tewodros Square and began walking down towards the Ethiopian National Theatre on a rough route that I decided on by looking at a map of Addis and a walking tour that Carli’s tour book recommended.  It had just begun to rain when I hopped out of the cab.  It didn’t take long for the rain to pick up.  I took some pictures of the cannon that is in the center of Tewodros square.  I walked around for almost four hours all over Addis.  I actually got confused during my walk around the National Theatre and veered right instead of passing the theatre on the left like I was supposed to.  This led me to Mexico Square and then I continued walking and walking.  In the beginning of my walk the rain wasn't so bad.  It was consistent, but it wasn't falling that hard.  I was able to keep my hands dry, which made taking pictures much easier.  I had my camera and my wallet in my rain jacket pockets in hopes of keeping them dry as long as possible.  Which for the most part worked.  I was amazed at how fast the roads flooded up and forced most cars to come to a near standstill while driving through huge puddles.  Thankfully they had to slow down so much because walking along the side of the road with not much sidewalk, if any at all makes a human a great target for puddle splashing.  Ethiopian people that were huddled in bus stops and under overhangs in front of shops looked at me like I was crazy.  It never gets that cold when it rains, so most people are still dressed really nice. I saw older woman in nice dresses with plastic bags over their heads and umbrellas in their hands.  At one point I walked past a guy who was holding an umbrella in his hand standing in the street. He had no shoes on.  When I passed him he looked at me, which many of them do.  After I had passed him by maybe 8 or 10 feet he yelled "I am going to America!" really loud. I chuckled and just kept walking.  I have been trying to load pictures but I don't think the internet connection is fast enough.   When I got home and looked at the map I realized how far away from where I wanted to go I actually ended up.  A little after Tewodros Square an Ethiopian guy came up to me and started talking to me.  He was nice and we chatted about America.  He referred to America mostly through what you would watch on T.V.  He was talking to me about Angelina Jolie and California’s governor.  It was clear that most of what he knew about America was through magazines or T.V because it was all celebrity based.  I think he knew I was lost and he figured he could help me walk to places and I would pay him.  Which is what happened.  But I didn’t care because I was lost and he walked around with me for 3 and half hours.  He was nice; I never got his name because when he first approached me I was skeptical about what he wanted.  I was leery to pull out my camera and wallet.  I didn’t pull out my wallet but after a while of walking around I began to trust him.  After I realized how lost I was I asked him how to get to Sarbait (or Adams Pavilion, I mentioned I walked to it in an earlier post).  Unfortunately he said it was another 1-hour walk back in the direction we came from.  I asked him how far Meskal Square was and he said about a 45-minute walk.  I decided that we would walk to Meskal Square and then I would catch a cab home.  By now I was completely soaked from head to toe.  I was wearing my rain jacket but had been out in the rain so long that even my shirts had soaked through.  Plus, my shoes and socks and pants and underwear were all wet. I had been walking in the rain for almost four hours with no real rain relief.  I felt bad for this guy, he had walked and talked with me for about 3 hours and he was soaking wet and shivering.  By the time we reached Meskal Square both my hands were numb.  This made taking any pictures really difficult. Also, my camera lens had fogged over, I'm guessing due to being inside my rain jacket and close to my body most of the time.  Because of this the least 10 or so pictures i took look as if they are in a haze.  The pictures actually don't look bad because ti was raining so much and the day was so overcast.  The haze added to the overcast feeling a bit.  When we got to Meskal Square he asked me for money.  He said “now I must ask you for your charity.” I told him not to worry and that I was going to pay him.  I called my taxi from Carli’s cell phone and I gave him 100 Birr (10 dollars).  He asked for 50 more birr but I wouldn’t give it to him and he seemed happy with the 100 birr.  He made a 100 birr for about 3 hours of “working.”  Some people only make a few hundred a month.  Pretty good day's work if you ask me.

Even though I didn’t get to see all the things I wanted to because I went the wrong way and walked around in the rain unnecessarily for a few more hours than I would have, I was happy with my day.  I learned a lot about the city and became much better with directions.  I feel that when I attempt this again I will be better suited to walk around by myself and not get lost.  It was a wild day and I only spent 200 birr. 100 on my tour guide, and 100 on my taxi ride to Tewodros square and then home from Meskal Square. I am going to go get coffee before Carli comes home because then we have to go get dresses that she had made for when we go to Cairo. Enjoy.

Pushkin Square

My first trip out side of the house by myself was a success.  Even though I only walked a few blocks to the Kaldi's right by Carli's house. I felt as if I was inching into the whole process of walking around Addis by myself.  I wasn't worried about not feeling safe or anything dangerous happening, it was more a matter of not knowing where I was and not being able to get back to an area that I recognized.  Plus, I am leery of just hopping into a cab because they will try to charge me firenji prices, which inevitably are more expensive.  Firenji means foreigner in Amharic,  I'm not sure if it's meant to be derogatory or if it's just a simple description.  I stand out here so much that it makes a sore thumb blend in pretty well.  When I was walking around the other day I saw a grand total of zero white people. Not to say that some of the black people weren't tourists, but they don't jump out as a firenji like me.  In Ethiopia there are two types of people firenji (me) or Abasha, which means local Ethiopian.  There are of course many different Ethiopian tribes.  The country itself is broken into eight geographical regions and I was told yesterday by Aki that a touch over 80 different languages are spoken in Ethiopia.  But when comparing Ethiopians and foreigners, it's firenji and abasha. 

Not unlike most poor or moderately poor countries people who think they can get away with charging more money to a foreigner who they assume doesn't understand the language well enough or doesn't understand the way things work they will.  That is how random taxi cabs work.  There is no beginning set price like we are used to in the states.  This is why Carli uses the same three cab drivers all the time.  Girma, who drives  from about 6 am until about 6 pm is her favorite because she been using him the longest.  Seifu, he drives from around 10 am until about 10 pm.  He has a family and doesn't like to be out much later than 9 or 10 pm.  Yohannis, he drives from 7 pm until whenever he decides to stop. He is a student at the university so he is in class during the day and drives at night.  Each driver has their area where they hang out at during their driving time but they will come and get Carli (and me as it happens)  This is good for me because Carli pays them well and she trusts them because she has been with them a year already.  The few times I have been alone with one of them they have always explained where we are and what some of the buildings that stick out are. I appreciate it since my whole goal is to walk alone it helps me orient myself. 

I decided to travel a little further by myself. To a place called Pushkin Square, named for the famous Russian Poet who's wife was Ethiopian.  There is a statue of him in the middle of the roundabout signifying the square.  It was donated by Russia in 2002.  Conveniently enough it is also known as Adams Pavilion and  Sarbait.  Sarbait 's are traditional Ethiopian mud brick and grass roof houses.  People who live out in the country still live in them but no one in the city does. 
Pushkin Square is about a 20 minute walk from Carli's house.  I told Ababa that I was going to walk there and she insisted that Carli's guard Tibiba walk there with me.  I thought I would be fine without him but it is hard to say no.  Earlier that day Carli had called to see how things were going and I asked her how to get there.  she explained it and then I was able to find the route on the map of Addis she has.  I grabbed a coke and my backpack full of my camera, a book, and a notebook so I could write down things to write about in these posts.  We started walking and almost immediately I learned something, there is a short cut to Pushkin square not on the map.  This is something Carli had explained to me, not this particular short cut, but the fact that often times roads have been added or roads that were paved aren't anymore and you can't travel on them.  It seems every month travel routes change drastically in this city.  I'm not sure if they tell people in the city or not, but I know Carli never knows.  She depends on Aki, or Vaha to tell her.  Instead of turning left where I thought we were going to, we took a right and went down past where Carli teaches, which is only a few blocks away.  Then veered left again and walked along a road (if you want to call it that) that had gravel as it's surface.  After about 200 yards of walking I saw three guys digging and shoveling gravel and dirt along the road.  As we got closer there was a pile of gravel four feet high and they were digging around a huge hole in the road.  This hole wasn't just deep, it was probably 8 feet long by 3 feet wide by 4 feet deep.  There was rebar inside of it , which told me they were about to lay cement in the hole.  Right after you passed that hole the rest of the road was paved.  Carli and I walked past it again last night and now the hole has cement in it, so they are making progress towards, I'm assuming, having a paved road there. 

When you pop out on the other side you are on Victory road. So named for when the Ethiopians, with British support, defeated the Italians and eventually kicked them out of Ethiopia in 1941.  A hard left, followed by a hard right and you are on the road that leads directly to Pushkin square.  It was only about another 10 minutes from there and the travel is fairly easy.  Something that took me a little getting used to was since the sidewalks are few and far in between people just walk on the edge of the road because it is always easier to walk on.  This puts you really close to moving traffic, drivers are aware that this is the practice of walkers but it still seems slightly dangerous by my standards.  Tibiba and I talked the whole journey about futbol (soccer), Carli, and his life in Ethiopia.  I was able to learn quite a bit from him in a short period of time. He is 25 years old, his brother plays futbol for a club team in Ethiopia.  But during the Derg, league futbol play within Ethiopia was outlawed.  So, according to Tibiba futbol is dead in Ethiopia.  This has led everyone to choose either Manchester United, The Arsenal, or Chelsea as their favorite teams. 
I decided to go to the Kaldi's at Pushkin square before cruising around the square.  Let me try and describe this to the readers.  This square is one big building with a bunch of different shops in it.  It is a hub for taxi's and minibuses and a roundabout for through traffic to Mexico square or Bole road.  None of it is paved. On the far left side is a huge ditch that is currently being dug out in order to build something.  I'm not quite sure what but the ditch is huge.  It stretches from the square all the way down the road that leads to Mexico Square about a couple hundred feet.  Honestly, it isn't much of a square but it does have a Kaldi's and for my purpose it worked out quite well.  I ordered a tall Caramel Mocha, which I think is going to be my drink at Kaldi's since you can't get them anywhere else. Most places only have coffee or machiato.  I sat and began to read my book when four white people, I assume American, walked past my table.  They were going inside and they stopped to see if their driver wanted some coffee.  He did and followed them inside. The foursome were all much older, in their sixties at least.  Right before one of the ladies walked in the door she said really loud "This is place looks just like Starbucks!" This made me laugh like hell. If you read the earlier post you realize it is just like Starbucks.  I'm not exactly sure why this cracked me up so much but it did and I appreciated the moment of entertainment. 

From Kaldi's I walked around the pavilion.  I tried to go on the internet but they were having connection problems, which is not surprising.  The rest was just shops that I wandered around and looked at but I didn't go inside any other one except the book world.  I am almost done with The Adolescent but Dostoevsky and am looking for a book more Ethiopia specific.  Some of the history is really interesting and I feel like I should attempt to learn more about it while I'm here.  Amazingly enough this book world was really small and actually had more textbooks than books about Ethiopia and pleasure reading books.  They did have a book in the Star Wars series, I can't remember the name but I thought was funny also.  I wandered around and found absolutely nothing that interested me.  The store wasn't very big and half the books they had were in Amharic so my choices were already limited.  It had been a few hours at this point so I decided I would head for home and walk back they way I was originally going to come so as to learn both routes.  When I walked out onto the street a kid came running up to me holding a soccer ball and asked me in English if I wanted to buy it. I said no without really thinking because the second you show interest you are generally bombarded by people trying to sell you shit and I didn't want to deal with it.  About 10 steps later another kid with a different soccer ball did the same thing and I again said no.  later, while walking home I was thinking that i actually would like to buy a soccer ball, but I have to be able to deflate it because otherwise I won't be able to bring it home.

There was a water truck watering the ground to keep the dust levels down and I had to stop to wait for it to go forward.  here, I met a white American named Fred. He had been in country 9 months visiting family.  I'm not sure what part of his family was Ethiopian or if it was American family living in Ethiopia. We chatted for awhile about what I did in the states and what Carli does in Addis and what he was planning on doing with the rest of his time in country.  He eventually ducked into a supermarket and I continued walking home but it was nice after a few days to talk to Someone in English other than Carli. 

About half way home there were a few guys on the side of the road selling fruit.  The fruit looked really good but I was skeptical about just buying fruit and trying to at. Usually you have to soak things in a bleach/water combination for about twenty minutes before you eat anything.  The one guy standing next to the side of the road had cut a watermelon in half and was holding it with this stick he had fashioned two forks on at the end so it fit perfectly in it.  When I walked by him he made a quick movement like he was going to throw the melon at me, I kinda flinched and then looked at him. he smiled, I smiled and kept walking.  The next day Carli bought a watermelon from him and he told her he loves her.  I have to go get in the shower, today is spa day and then we have a teacher party to go to before hitting the wild and wacky night life of Addis...enjoy

The alarm went off, do I have enough Birr for coffee?

Since it has now been a few days for me here I have realized I hate Carli's alarm clock.  One reason is because it goes off at 6 am.  I don't have to get up anywhere near 6 am, in fact I don't have to get up at all if I didn't want to.  When this things goes off, so far, it usually wakes us about the same time.  Carli will roll over and turn it off.  If you define off as the snooze button.  It starts as a "beep" once a second and as the time goes by if you don't touch it the beeps get progressively faster and of course louder until it's beeping four times a second.  At this point I usually want to hit somebody or something.  If this doesn't sound bad enough add the every morning process of Carli hitting the snooze button four times.  Having to hear this go off three times and have her hit the snooze button three times is awful on my ear drums and my soul at 6 am. 

On a side note I just burned the second dish since I've been here.  It was already cooked but I was heating it up on the burner.  I completely forgot and for the second time smoked up the entire kitchen.  Never a good feeling, especially since I'm hungry and can't eat any of the soup I just burned to the bottom of the pot.

Last Thursday, which was May 29th, I think.  I decided to leave the house by myself.  my destination was Kaldi's, a coffee house very similar to our Starbucks.  The logo is even a circle with green on the outside and white on the inside with a design.  The design is obviously different but you get the idea.  Kaldi's is a chain coffee house with options for coffee drinks much like I'm used to.  The size choices are even original or tall.  The lady who owns Kaldi's chain coffee house contacted Starbucks and asked if she could buy the rights to a Starbucks chain coffee house in Addis Ababa.  Starbucks said no.  So she started a chain modeled after Starbucks, the interior of her coffee houses, the logo, the menu. Just about everything is eerily similar to Starbucks.  Starbucks of course shit a brick and sued her.  This part surprises me in only one aspect.  Starbucks doesn't have any stores here in Addis and apparently doesn't want any, so why sue when someone who asked you first comes up with a similar business plan? It's isn't like Kaldi's is taking money from Starbucks because there aren't any Starbucks in Addis to begin with.  But I guess if you have that much money and a huge cock you sue.  Anyhew...Starbucks lost in court and Kaldi's continues to expand as I write this.  I found Kaldi's to be a small reminder of America in Addis and I liked it.  Plus, my tall Caramel Mocha and cheeseburger were only 4 dollars.  Yeah, 4 dollars, thats right bitches, shit is cheap.

The local currency in Ethiopia is the Birr.  It takes 9.7 Birr to equal 1 dollar.  It's easier if you round up to 10 Birr equaling a dollar. I'm not a math whizz and that .7 on the end wrecks my world.  So 10 Birr to 1 dollar.  My entire lunch, coffee and cheeseburger was 38 Birr.  Some quick division will tell you that is actually under 4 dollars.  Last night Carli and I went out to dinner, we ordered two draft beers, a 1.5 liter bottle of water, appetizer spring rolls, appetizer chicken wings, entree philly cheese steak for me and for her a cheeseburger with fries.  Grand total 192 Birr.  Some slightly slower division here tells you the total was a whopping 19 dollars.  Awesome price for all that. 

Now for the bad news about the currency the Birr.  Carli pays her Maid/cook lady Ababa (I've mentioned her already) is paid by Carli 650 Birr a month.  Thats 65 dollars a month ladies and gentleman.  That is a considered a high medium wage here Ethiopia.  So if she had to spend even 38 Birr on one meal she would be flat broke before the month was over and before she knew it.  Think if she spent 192 on one meal! This is not factoring in family members of which I know she has some.  So, the moral of the story is the Birr is great for Americans, or people with a far better currency rate but for Ethiopians it's almost useless.  They have change here as well.  They go by centines.  Miraculously enough they shorten it to cents.   100  cents equals 1 Birr.  10 Birr equals a dollar, does anyone know what cents are worth in the dollar system? The answer...if 1 Birr is a tenth of a dollar then 1 Birr equals about 10 cents in America.  So  anything under that is virtually worthless. in the dollar system. Makes me feel like a king here, it also tugs at my conscious a little bit, as I assume it would/does most.  But then again I can take it as an opportunity to give people more Birr for things they do for me because it still isn't that much money to me.  It is quite a system for someone who uses dollars to try and figure out what to pay for what services, especially when you take into consideration that a lot of people realize your white and you have more money.  This is when they charge you firenji prices. But more on Firenji's later folks...I have a dinner date at one of Addis Ababa's "nice" restaurants.  Enjoy your dollars.

Ethiopia At Dawn

My first glimpse of Ethiopia was at 4 am in a car driving back to Carli's house. Aki was driving, he is a friend of Carli's whom she occasionally employs to take her places outside of Addis.  She also won't go to the Mercato without him.  Rumor has it they sell Kalashnikov's at the Mercato and it can be a hell of an experience.  I actually can't wait to go there, I might try and buy one.

As we were driving Aki decided to take me the "bad way" back to Carli's house from Bole airport.  This meant nothing to me but it was soon explained and I soon smelled what they were laughing about.  Apparently there is a slaughter house that you pass by on the road.  Have you ever smelled death? Well, I think I have now.  It was disgusting for about three or four miles.  A few miles leading up to the slaughter house and a few miles after you pass it by.  Needless to say it was a good introduction to Ethiopia and the way things work here.  I don't know if any slaughter house's smell that bad in the states (I'm assuming they do)  but nothing  should smell that bad.  I guess rotting flesh and old blood can combine for a pretty nasty smell.

Upon, reaching Carli's house I met one of her three guards.  Sammy, was his name. He is the middle aged guard.  I don't know his exact age but Tibbuba is the youngest and Atanafu is the oldest.  Thankfully Carli had Wednesday off of work for a state holiday.  The downfall of the Derg.  The Derg came to power in 1974 as a socialist inspired ruling party.  With disenchantment for U.S support of the previous ruling party and the continuation of a feudalistic economy allowed socialism to spread quickly.  The Derg began its rule by executing 57 government officials and two former prime ministers.  During the Derg rule Ethiopian people would just disappear and never come back.  Carli's friend Aki has a cousin who never came back from work one day during the Derg rule.  As opposition continued to grow the Derg took all the street signs down in the city of Addis to make it harder for people to communicate with each other.  This is something that Addis still suffers horribly from today.

Many streets have many different names.  There is the name the city has given it.  The name it translates to in English, and then the name that locals know it by.  Often times all three are different. This can make it hell when trying to communicate with a taxi driver on the phone about where you are.  In fact street names are used for directional purposes at all.  People use landmarks as the way of figuring out where to meet.  Popular restaurants, embassies, or sight seeing landmarks like piazza's, squares, or shops.  This can also be troublesome because sometimes the taxi drivers know these things by different names, or there is more than one, but it works much better than street names would.

When I awoke at Carli's on Thursday morning I was informed that the power would be off on Friday from 7 am until 9 pm.  Oh, I thought, what do I do then.?  There is scheduled power outagges on Mondays and Fridays from 7 am until 9 pm every week.  The other days of the week the power will just sometimes go out.  It isn't for a full day like on Monday and Friday but still for a few hours here and there.  The phone lines are on a completely different schedule, they are never supposed to be out.  But usually on scheduled power outage days the phone lines are also out for about half the day.  Yesterday was Monday and the phone worked until about 2 pm and then was out until after 1 am.  With the exception of the scheduled days of Monday and Friday everything is completely unpredictable.  This I find kinda funny.  Me and Carli went to the store on Sunday afternoon and while we were walking around the store we kept thinking of things we (or I since I'm home alone) would need when the power was out. I bought batteries for her boom box so i can listen to music still.  It was humorous to me to have to prepare to have your power out that often.

The killer on having no power is that the hot water is heated by your electricity (I think it's the same in the states).  So the power goes out at 7 am you're o.k for your shower until about 10 am.  After that it is ass cold water all day.  I have only been stuck once so far.  When I was I barely showered at all/  I got in and wet my hair by dumping hand fulls of water on my head and then got out.  No soap, no shampoo, no conditioner.  It's impossible to stand under ass cold water that long.  Just  those two days takes a lot of planning ahead.  Ababa (carli's maid/cook lady) can't do laundry on no power days and she doesn't come on the weekends, so anything dirty on Thursday isn't washed until Tuesday. I know that sounds spoiled as all hell and I agree it is, but it is still something to think about.   The blessing in disguise in all of this  electricityness is when the phone lines still work when the power is out because then I can still get on-line. 
It is a very different place, which I'm guessing everyone already knew.  But so far it is much different in real life than anything I could have pictured or imagined.  As a reminder enjoy your constant electricity!

Touchdown in Africa

At the Cairo airport they took my passport because I had a 12 hour layover and that entitled me to a hotel room for the duration, which is and was awesome.  It worried me in the beginning because when I got to the transfer counter they took and kept my passport while they didn't do that to other passengers.  They told me to have a seat and they would call my name.  After waiting for almost a half an hour I went up to the desk and asked again.  They guy explained that they keep the passports while your at the hotel and give it back to you when you shuttle from the hotel to the airport.

This made me feel better and I went back to my seat and resumed reading and eating red vines, which were an absolutely awesome piece of my snacks that my mom convinced me to bring.  The hotel was nice, it was named "La Passage."  I was given two meal coupons for complimentary lunch and dinner but instead slept for almost seven hours in the hotel and never used them. 

Now the interesting part of this step in my journey begins.  I got a wake up cal around 9 pm.  It did wake me up, I got dressed, packed all my stuff and laid back down.  I wasn't planning on actually falling asleep again but I wasn't sure if someone was going to come and get me or if I was just supposed to go down stairs to the lobby immediately.  Well I did fall asleep again, no one ever came or called again,  I headed down stairs just after 10 pm after sleeping again for 40 or so minutes.  I went to the desk checked out, and asked about the shuttle.  He called someone and said 10-15 minutes. 
As I was sitting there and Ethiopian family began to gather across the seating section from me.  They were speaking in English and Amharic, and I gathered they were also waiting for a shuttle back to the airport.  They eventually left and no one from the lobby desk (which I could see from my seat ever came to get me) after almost a half an hour I went up to a different desk and asked again.

The guy at this desk asked me where I had been.  I told him I had been siting over there for about a half hour and that the other guy told me 10-15 minutes. My flight was taking off at 12:30 am so I hadn't begun to worry just yet.  The second guy called someone and told me to wait by the door the shuttle was on the way.  By the door was an Ethiopian bus boy who said "wait for shuttle here, and when you miss your flight, you come back." 

It was at this point I began to worry about actually missing the flight.  The shuttle came and took me to the exact same spot that I had gotten dropped off at.  This gave me some comfort because I felt like I at least knew about where I was.  When I finally figured out which entrance to go into (this took awhile because they have different entrances to the same terminal based on where you are sitting, first class, business class, and economy class.) I had my bags scanned and then went to the terminal entrance.  The security guard asked me for my passport and I told him that I didn't have it because the airline had kept it.  He looked at me for a second and said transit? my answer was yes and he pointed to a desk in a little hallway class by.  I grabbed my bag and shot over there, at this point I had begun to look at my watch much more often than someone who thinks they might miss their plane should.  I was waiting in line at the Egypt Air customer service window behind one person, the problem was there was no one behind the counter.  I probably only waited 8 minutes but it felt like forever.  When all of a sudden a guy came flying around the corner into the hallway and came up to me, he handed me my ticket, boarding pass, and passport and directed me where to enter. 

By the time I got to my gate in the terminal no one had even started loading yet.   I kinda of laughed to myself about being so worried and then reaffirmed my already firmly held belief that you don't need to get to an airport as early as everyone thinks you do. 

The flight from Cairo to Addis went well enough.  3 hours and 45 minutes until I landed and got a hug from Carli and I got a meal.  I slept through most of it which made me happy since i had slept so much at the hotel room.

Once on the ground in Addis I had to fill out a landing card, giving the address of the person I was staying with and why I was visiting the country.  I knew I had to buy a tourist visa once I landed but I couldn't see anywhere to do it so I preceded to the customs gate.  I gave the guy my information and he looked at it for awhile giving me the impressions everything was good.  When he finally looked up he said I need your visa.  I told him I didn't know where to buy it so he nicely directed me to a door to knock on that said "visa" in letters that reminded me of those refrigerator magnets you have as a child. 

I knocked, sat and waited, paid 20 dollars to be allowed to stay in the country for the 21 days already planned. It was a very easy process. After completing this I went back to customs and was allowed into the country. Since only a few of us had to buy our visa's when we landed by the time I got to baggage claim there wasn't anyone in the area, short of a few security guards.  At first I didn't see any bags on any of the belts that carry them through the area.  On the far side of the baggage claim there were bags stacked up.  I thought maybe since I took so long they had stacked up the bags.  By the time I got all the way over there I saw the sign that said bag storage, and figured mine wasn't being stored.  I headed back where I came from.  As I turned around and took a few steps I saw my green backpack cruising around on the belt. A huge smiled covered my face and I jogged over there and grabbed it. Soon after a girl asked me about my bag. She had apparently lost hers because she was told she didn't have to get it in Cairo and apparently she did.  She was from Argentina and I later saw her in a restaurant called "Blue Tops" where we chatted again.

After this last large step I was able to come out to the airport and I saw Carli standing there smiling ear to ear with her friend Aki, a local Ethiopian whom she met and hangs out with.  This was a very happy moment.  Up to this point the happiest in the trip. Not very surprising there usually isn't anything to happy about jumping from airport to airport.  BY the time we got to Carli's house it was almost 5 am, I ate and drifted off to sleep in Africa for the first.