For
all the news and special documentaries reporting from Africa, they all do
little in showing what it is really like to be there. A camera only catches
what it is aimed at and only presents visuals and sound. To be there, and sense
it all in 360° from a rackety old Russian Lada, is an entirely different
experience.
I
was picked up, along with another volunteer, from Bole International Airport by
a Projects Abroad coordinator and given an orientation of the city in a taxi
hired for the purpose. As we exited the
airport we turned left onto a small road well over its capacity teaming with
loud and congested traffic. Looking to
my left, I saw children in dirty clothes splashing water from a bucket over the
tires of a minibus and begin cleaning it in such a way that told me they have
done it over a million times. Then, I saw a boy standing up from behind a bush,
grab a leaf to wipe his behind and pull his pants up. It was 8:15. School begins in 15 minutes. As Freweini
was saying something about Ethiopia being different, a man walked past holding
up the front legs of a sheep on either side of his hips as the animal trailed
behind, clumsily on its hind legs.
I
began reading Dracula by Bram Stoker
on the plane and I can’t help but feel an eerie parallel that can be drawn with
one of the novel’s most famous quotes, “We are in Transylvania; and
Transylvania is not England. Our ways are not your ways, and there shall be to
you many strange things”. This would follow me the rest of that day and quite
possibly the rest of my time here.
Volunteer Ken taking me to the shared taxi stop |
However,
this encounter outside the airport hardly captures Addis Ababa in its
entirety. We were brought to a café for
a quick breakfast and had lunch at a restaurant that might as well have been on
the Malaga beach promenade. Both places were filled with the new Ethiopian
middle class there on business, with family and friends or on a date.
The
food is cheap. An omelette at the café
was 35 Birr, approximately €1.50. A large beef stir-fry with
spaghetti cost 85 Birr, just €3.15 (the exchange rate is around €1 –
27 Birr). While there was a blackout
towards the end of our lunch, I was surprised to see a reaction that probably
would have happened in Sweden. Everyone
took out their smartphones, some putting them on flashlight mode, so that they
could continue eating until the problem was fixed about 5 minutes later.
The road where I live |
After
driving around town all morning, we were heading to the Projects Abroad Office.
On the way, a torrential rain began to violently bear down on us. After weaving
our way through the chaotic traffic of a construction site for a new road, we
arrived at the office… only to find it flooded with water pouring down from the
ceiling like a breach in the lower decks of a ship. Minassie, director of Projects Abroad
Ethiopia, was there barking madly into his phone, probably at
maintenance. We began to use everything we could find to get the water
out. We used brooms and mops to push,
pull and whack the water down the stairs or out onto the balcony. 4 buckets were
collecting the incessant rain. Water was everywhere, in
every room of the office. In some places it made puddles that would swallow
your shoes and soak your socks. When the skies finally calmed, it took us
another half hour at least to clear the office of water. For us, the new volunteers, the whole situation
was so crazy that we just laughed about it. “What a reception!” joked Minassie
when we finally had a chance to meet him.
Children playing football on the asphalt in front of the communist monument |
After
being introduced to Projects Abroad, our volunteer programs as well as the
country and her culture, we would meet our host families and get settled in our
new homes. And how different a European home is from an Ethiopian one! You
enter the house into a courtyard of sorts.
Straight ahead you see a sheep tied to a tree baa-ing at your arrival. To
the right is a path that takes you around to the entrance of the house.
However, houses are not organized the same way as in the West. The central
building is only used for bedrooms as well as the living and dining rooms. The
kitchen, office and other working areas are all in separated rooms outside the
main structure. Walking in this path
that separated house and working rooms, one comes across curious new smells
emanating from the kitchen, leaving one interested in discovering what it could
possibly be.
However,
at this point I was utterly exhausted. I was tired from lack of sleep, I was
finding it difficult to breathe because of the thinner air at 2500m and was
overwhelmed by a completely new people and way of life. It is at these times
when one wonders what one is actually doing. I have never felt this far away
from home and Stockholm is a little more than a weekend trip away. However, I
do believe that in time I can learn to like and enjoy this place. It will take
time and it will be difficult. But if I
begin to enjoy my placement as a journalist I think I might just be realizing
my African adventure.
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