A retelling of the last day in Addis

Is there something lost in the retelling? How about the re-retelling? I wrote all this stuff a couple of nights ago, only make some mistake as I was loading the literally last picture to lose the entire post. Thank you for listening to my whining.

Our last day in Addis saw us sneak a last trip out in the city to Shero Meda and frantic packing. Actually, we did really well on the packing. It is just that we thought we had until 6 p.m. to get out of the room, but we really only had until 4 that day. It seems that there is no definite check out time. So we had to rush, but it all worked out. I’ll get to the mad dash out of Addis later, but now I’d like to tell you about Shero Meda.

Julia had read about Shero Meda in the in flight magazine on Ethiopian. It is the large textile market in the north of the city. Julia inquired about the possibility of us going there early in the week and it was some doing for us to go. Finally we got a line on a cab driver and there were two other families that went with us. Now our man Fanta really isn’t a cab driver. He came in one the ubiquitous blue Toyota vans with a driver and a young man to open the door for us. Fanta was more of a guide, or so we were led to believe. We drove through the city and Fanta gave us a pretty good tour. Many of the sights we had seen before, but we hadn’t heard the entire story. Mexico Square, for example. Named in honor of the Mexican advisors who came to Ethiopia at the end of the Italian Occupation (end of WWII). The Mexican helped with many public works projects and Fanta said the Ethiopian people were grateful to this assistance.

The Lion of Judah was a long sought picture. We had driven past the rear of the statue many times. Now there are many “Lions” in Addis. Many of the roundabouts have statues in them and I would say the Lion is the most repeated symbol in the city. The Lion of Judah is so named because the Queen of Sheba herself traveled to Judea where she had a tryst with King Solomon. Upon her return to Abyssinia (now Ethiopia) she gave birth to Menelik I, the first Solomonic king of Abyssinia. The line ended with Hailie Selassie. The Lion was the center of the flag before the Derg (Marxists) took power in 1974.

We also learned about why the Rasta love Hailie Selassie. Not just because he is a descendant of King Solomon, but also when Hailie Selassie visited Jamaica the island was suffering from a seven year drought. As “Jah” was there, it rained for seven days straight. Fanta also told us that there is a colony of Rasta in Ethiopia that started with 10,000 and continues to this day. He said they are part of society and intermarry and carry on as any other Ethiopian.

Back to the day’s travels. We were able to cut through traffic and get in front of Addis’ big lion for a photo op, stopping right in the middle of traffic to do so of course. I really felt a bit of closure getting the picture of the Lion. We had literally driven right past the back of it at least twice. I remarked the I wanted a picture, but our previous drivers weren’t too accommodating. This is my only complaint with them. If a person travels 8000 miles to Addis, seeing the Lion should be on the itinerary.

After we snapped the pictures of the Lion, we drove past the Sheraton, the premire hotel in all of Africa. One of Addis’ many points of pride. One the way we drove past the Empirial Palace, which is a no photo zone due to the Prime Minister living there. We also drove past the African Union and Parliament. It felt a little weird to take a picture of a hotel. It is really impressive and it was also nice to know at $269 a night, I at least had something in common with the average Ethiopian, I wasn’t going to be staying at the Sheraton any time soon.

Shero Meda is a section of town on the same road as the US Embassy. We were only about a mile away from it the Tuesday before. Totally different than the Mercato. For one, safe. We went to a part of it that is kind of fenced off from the main road, but I don’t think we would have had any problems in any of Shero Meda. The shops we went into were tiny. From what I gathered, people actually rented the spaces from the city and square footage was at a premium. You could barely get four people into one of them. With the baby backpack, I had a hard time turning around. On our way there, Fanta had emphasized how he wanted us to stick together and he would help us get the right price. It was hard to stick together in such a small store, and since it was pretty secure, the other two families went off by themselves, in the same vicinity of course.

Julia was very interested in picking up some scarves for gifts for family and friends. As we were kind of short on Birr, we had to wheel and deal. We were unable to come to a 4 for 100 deal at one shop and we moved to another. Then it hit me that we had $20 US with us. Julia then had that capital to negotiate with us. When we were in the 4-for-100 place, I had thought the shopkeeper was very tense and not pleased, but just put it as her not really wanting to give any price break to Westerners. I know there is a ‘Westerner Tax’ when you buy things in Ethiopia, and I am fine with it. But I could live without the attitude.

There was one scarf that pained Julia to have to leave at that shop. As she was negotiating with her $20, I went back to shop to buy the scarf. The shopkeeper was a totally different person when I entered by myself. Before I could say what I wanted she said. ‘I give you the 4 for 100. That man you are with, he is a businessman, asharäkä (I think this is the word).’ Seems we were with a man who was part of that part of Ethiopia that has the Italian influence, and I’m not talking pizza. She hurridly told me that he would come back to her shop if she sold things in his presence and extort from her. Five Birr per scarf and I’m sure more for other things. I quickly picked out three other scarves and dashed out of the shop after thanking the woman in order to not draw the attention of Fanta. I put the scarves in the backpack of another couple, just to get them out of my hands. (Thank you Kevin and Emily). I went back to the shop Julia was in told her that I didn’t get the scarves. Actually I told her that I did, but that I “didn’t,” she just heard the didn’t part. She made a very good deal with her $20, seven scarves and a dress for Ella Mesay. While she was wrapping that up, I went back to that shop and gave the woman an extra 10 Birr. Something told me that Fanta would be calling on her. I told her to give him that 10 if he did. She was very grateful. I’m glad I did that. I wanted her to know that we weren’t part of any shakedowns. I told the rest of our travel group what was going on as discreetly as possible; they seemed none too pleased. There was part of me that expected this kind of thing, but the reality of it dimmed my enthusiasm a bit. I’m really quite bummed it turned out like that. I liked Fanta to that point.

We got back into the blue Toyota and headed back to the guesthouse. We had to hurry to make lunch, which you cannot be late for. Fanta was trying to draw us into more travel time (more of a fee, I’m sure), but we had (at least Julia and I) enough of Addis for the moment. We did drive through the Piazza, a higher end-shopping district of the city. On our return trips, I would like to explore it more. We saw several Westerners on the street there. We did have to circle every monument on the way back, though. We had some pictures of them from earlier trips, but I felt obligated, just trying to be polite. The cannon (wooden) you see here has an interesting story. Seems during one of the many European invasions during the colonial period, the Ethiopian built a cannon like this, packed it by hand over several mountain passes (Fanta said it took 10,000 to complete the task), loaded the thing and fired it once. Of course the thing blew from here to kingdom come, it’s wood, killing 1000 in the process. Ethiopians. And now it is part of a monument in a roundabout. There are many things to ponder in that story. Failure, monuments . . . building a wooden cannon? . . . It is good to see that every nation has something in its history that confuses.

Fanta was a bit disappointed when we got back to the guesthouse and we only tipped him 50 Birr (on top of the 150 fee). The way we figured, he’d gotten his tip with his business practices.
Julia and I spent the afternoon leisurely packing, jotting down notes on the guesthouse computer for future visitors, and hanging with the other travelers and Ella. I took one last stroll down our street. I picked up another pair of Ethiopian foam sandals for myself and Julia a couple pair. It was nice to walk the street one more time, but I was feeling ready to come home.

Ella was exceptionally well behaved while we were packing. It was amazing all the room we had in the luggage, with the donations gone. Around 4 p.m. we were asked if we were out of the room by Herrot, the cook. Well that put us in a scramble. After our “10 more minutes” turned into 45, we got our stuff out of the room. I was feeling bad that it had taken so long, but when I saw other’s progress, I knew we were ahead of the game. We had our soup at 5:30 and then a meeting with Asnake at 6. I thought we were going to leave by 6:30, but we were all in Asnake’s office where we watched one of the life books and got ours (everyone else did too). I was starting to get nervous.

After our experience at Bole earlier in the week, I was worried about getting through the security, immigration and all those things that can go wrong with travel. When we came out of Asnake’s office, all of our luggage was gone, loaded into one of the blue Toyota vans. We had our carry-ons . . . some of them. With my general tension with the travel in general, being separated from my luggage was a bit unsettling. Then we did what we always did while in Addis, sit around and wait for the drivers to get coordinated. I could tell I was a bit nervous, my stomach wasn’t feeling all that great, and the waiting was bothering me . . . I was really concerned about making it through the airport.

You have to put your entire luggage through the checkpoint, which is right at the door. I was really happy that we were down a piece coming back. I didn’t need the stress of thinking I had forgotten another bag. All this was complicated with the fact that I’d lost around 10 pounds, so I’m trying to corral this luggage while holding my pants up with one hand, Julia is trying to calm an overwhelmed baby, my shoes bouncing around in the mix. A photo-op I was glad passed everyone up. I had a real panic when I thought I had lost the bag with the cameras in it, but it was there, flopped at my feet. After we got out of that, we went to the ticketing counter. Again Cloud Nine (Business Class) paid dividends. We walked the red carpet, literally, and, as we were the line, we checked in with no problem. We actually had gotten an airport porter when we had come into the airport. It was worth what money we gave him to have someone else push the cart, even for just a little bit. He got us all the way to the immigration check out, where we had to fill out a card with all our information on it. As we were all worried about time, I took a batch of the cards back to our fellow travelers who were all still in line. Julia was having a hard time writing on our forms while she was holding Ella, so she took back round two of forms for the rest of the group.

We got through the imigration check to leave Ethiopia quite easily and headed up to the Cloud Nine lounge. When we got there, I took off to locate some water for the return flight. On our trip over, we didn't even come close to having enough to drink. I don't know if I had ever been more dehydrated. It took days for us to recover, and I wasn't going to go through that again, plus having Ella and her formula needs. Well I should have waited, no more did I get out the door, did Ella have a "blow out." It took me a while to find some place to buy the water on top of everything. When I returned, Julia was none too please, and I can't blame her. It was a disasterous way to start our adventure, but foreshadow nonetheless.

After Julia got Ella cleaned up and changed, we rested for a bit and headed to wait to board. We got on the plane after a pesky delay checking in, but in retorspect, I think my complaint here is just tired. We got settled in our seats, but the flight attendent arranged for us to move to different seats that would allow us to have a basinette.

Now the flight that ensues is one of those experiences in life I have to rank in the top five for miserry. I got sick, I tried, unsuccessfully, to vomite during the first half of it on numerous occasions, and I could bearly stay cohearent. Ella is inconsoluable and the only person who can attempt is Julia. Julia, bless her, has to hold Ella almost the entire flight. I believe there was a two hour streach where Jules could actually put her in the basinet. Ella would scream if anyone else held her, including myself. I've never felt more worthless in my existance. I couldn't stay awake from the illness and then when I was lucid, I couldn't do anything but sit there and be stupid. I did hold Ella a few times so Julia could just use the bathroom. Man, did that little girl scream. Of course there are people who want to help, and I'm sure they were well meaning, but Julia was at her wits end and she knew that there was nothing these others could do. She did a great job of being kind and respectful to those people. I don't know how.







I’ll finish later and put on some pics . . . too late to do all that now.

I’ll finish later and put on some pics . . . too late to do all that now.