First Impressions

Lorena (aka "Gooty") walking through our neighborhood in Addis.

It’s been ten days since we landed in Ethiopia with a bad case of jet lag and horrific head colds that knocked us out for the first four or five days of the trip, and now that some time has passed and my head has cleared, I figured it was high time for a blog post. Cramming a week’s worth of content into one post is difficult, but trying to fit everything from our first week of impressions into one is nearly impossible.  That said, I’m afraid this post will be low on substance but will lay out a blueprint for future posts which, I promise, will be far more in-depth!

Before I start jotting down this short list of future blog post topics based on my first impressions here, I need to stress that everything I write is just that – a list of first impressions – and is not meant to offend anyone living here.  Verily, like so many first impressions in life, there is a good chance they will be off the mark, and only time will reveal how true they actually were. With that said, below are some quick observations about Addis Abeba. Stay tuned for posts about each topic:

• Holy old cars, Batman! – Thanks to extreme taxes on vehicles here (even used ones), a 40-year-old Russian car with two million miles on it could cost up to $7,000 USD! The majority of the cars, and just about all of the taxis, are early 1970s model compact cars kept running thanks to aftermarket parts and plenty of people that can fix them. There are some great SUVs here too, but when you start looking at a 1986 Toyota Corolla as a new car, well, I guess that says it all.

• Don’t drink the water and Don’t breathe the air – I remember a song called “Pollution” that featured this line and, as truly beautiful as Addis is, I think I have a new appreciation for the term.  Obviously, bottled water is the only safe option here, but we also are heeding warnings to not eat any raw washed veggies, not using ice, and showering with our mouths closed. Besides the water, the air on the streets of Addis can be very tough to breathe, mostly due to the aforementioned decades old cars and vans as well as the many diesel trucks that belch black smoke onto the road. Fires on the street for cooking ears of corn, among other foods, affect the air quality as well. Lorena and I jogged to the (very modern) gym the other night and, with the smoke, elevation (over 8,000 feet) and her asthma, we almost didn’t make it!  Lorena and I were talking about the call by some in the US to repeal Clean Air laws, and we both decided that with our newfound appreciation for pure air that we will emphatically fight that cause when we get back!

• Sir, your donkey is in the way of my goats – While I have been all over South America, I’ve never seen street scenes as amazing as what we’re seeing here in Ethiopia.  Everywhere we turn, on main roads and backstreets, there are donkeys grazing or carrying packs, chickens and roosters crowing, and herds of goats and sheep invading the city, especially with their place in the New Year holiday (September 11th) and its annual family feasts.  It’s been a little tough to watch the goats, after being purchased, hobbling frantically while being carried by the front legs (rope leashes seem to be in short supply) to their new “home”.  In a reminder of where food comes from, Lorena and I looked out the window last evening to see a goat in a back yard below us, and this morning watched children skinning it in preparation for the family feast.  As I look out the window now, I can see the head in the yard.  The heavy rain has driven the family’s dog inside, but just a few moments ago it was enjoying gnawing on its new fleshy and hairy toy!  Lorena, not surprisingly, has become at least a temporary vegetarian.  Forever a carnivore, and a loather of lamb and goat meat, I have yet to be swayed, but time will tell how long I can hold out!

• Laughter is the best medicine – Simply put, everyone we see and meet on the streets is happy.  Everyone.  As an aggressive and impatient driver, the experience of riding in taxis here is maddening for me.  Drivers have to dodge pedestrians, goats, donkeys, horses, other (oblivious) taxi drivers, and the numerous circa-1980s Toyota minivans that serve as mass taxis and, like the Red Devils of Panama, answer to no one.  Needless to say, in the cacophony of street sounds, the blurt of automobile horns rise above all others.  In the US, horns usually precede the extension of middle fingers and the shouting of profanities, so it was a huge surprise to learn that here in Addis, the horn is usually a precursor to smiles, laughter, and friendly mocking.  People here are calm, happy, and don’t sweat the small stuff.  Hopefully, their attitude will rub off on me (and, in turn, my new attitude will rub off on my more psychotic driver friends like my brother Phil and roommate TJ)!

• 4 channels and nothing on – While dealing with our head colds and jet lag, and confined by the heavy downpours of the rainy season here in Addis, we’ve stayed up on current world affairs by watching CNN international in between viewings of spectacularly horrible movies on the two movie channels here, MAX and MBC Persia.  The TV has a rabbit ear antenna, though it’s not functional, and our four channels are a humbling reminder of how spoiled we are by programming in the United States.  I am keeping a list of the movies, and plan to post a full blog on it in the future, with a graph of star ratings by IMDB, so stay tuned!

• The best part of waking up – We are very lucky that our Guest House has a great cook and a free breakfast of pancakes, pastries, toast, fruit juice, and eggs every morning, but the best part of waking up is most definitely the motor-oil-colored Harar coffee we get every morning.  I like dark liquor (e.g. single barrel bourbon), dark beer (bourbon stouts, porters, etc.) and dark coffee, so the fact that this coffee is thick enough to stand a spoon up in makes me smile when I open my eyes in the morning.  I think I’ll be shipping a duffel bag full of the stuff home in February!

• To a sloth, a tortoise is high speed – Before arriving, Paul at the Carter Center in Atlanta warned me that the internet in Addis was “devastatingly slow”.  Based on first impressions, I think he was pretty close to the mark!  “Broadband” here is a relative term, in that it’s certainly broader than dial up, but not near the speeds some of us in the developed world are accustomed to.  Here in the Guest House, our ethernet cable provides speeds ranging from zero kb/s (when it’s offline), through bites/second, to about 20kb/s.  To put this into perspective, back in the 1980s when faxes and modems came out, they were 56kb/s.  That’s OK for posting a Facebook status update or comment, but crippling for downloading unlocking software for Lorena’s iPhone!  As someone who believes the internet has a unique power to accelerate the spread of knowledge and pace of economic development in lesser developed countries, I have been disheartened by the lack of reliable connectivity here.  I’m anxious to purchase my “EVDO”, or 3G wireless card for my laptop and see if it lives up to the promised speed (3.1 MB/s) and reliability of US 3G cards.  If so, perhaps it won’t be long before those speeds hit cellular phones in the cities and open access to a world of news and information for all of the people here.

• Noah, is there room on your ark? - I’ll end with this one, because as I write this, I am listening to the pounding of the rain in what is surely the last throes of the Ethiopian rainy season.  We have seen daily bouts of heavy downpours, some so intense as to produce hail, and at times the rain has literally turned us into prisoners in our apartment.  Today, though, hope is in the air, for it is the Ethiopian New Year, or Enkutatash, which means the “gift of jewels”.  Dating back to the days of the Queen of Sheba, it is perhaps the most important celebration in the annual lives of Ethiopians.  After three months of heavy rain, the Spring ushers in a time of “a beautiful clear fresh atmosphere in Ethiopia”, where “the highlands turn to gold as the daisies burst into flower, gifts from nature to Ethiopia…the Ethiopian New Year marks the end of the rainy season” as people look forward to “drier days ahead”.  Amen to that!

Heavy rain and hail at Kuriftu Resort, Ethiopia

After seeing the CNN coverage of all the tropical storms and rain for the Northeast, I’ll sign off by wishing you all drier, and with 9/11 remembrances today, happier days ahead!  Oh, and Happy Birthday, Barry Jordan!

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Tags: Ethiopia