TTT - The Trumble Travels: Ethiopia

From: Dan Trumble
Sent: Sunday, March 04, 2007
Subject: The Trumble Travels - Ethiopia - March 2007

My brief visit to Ethiopia was been a nice experience. The weather is really, really pleasant (not too hot or humid) and the people are very nice. Compassion has a neat bunch of people working in the Ethiopia office.

Ethiopia s a country of about 75 million people and Addis Ababa, the capital, has about 7 million. Addis Ababa sits at about 2400 meters (7400 ft) above sea level. Ethiopia is one of only two African countries to have never been colonized (Liberia is the other) and thus has retained many of its own traditions and customs without the influence that colonizers have brought to most of the rest of Africa. Ethiopia has a different calendar than most (or all) of the rest of the world, has a different hourly system for the day, and its own language (Amharic) with a unique alphabet.

Ethiopia uses the Julien calendar which has twelve 30-day months plus a 13th month of 5 or 6 days (depending on whether or not it is a leap year). In Ethiopia it is currently 1999 and the new millennium comes on September 11, the beginning of the next year. What we think of as 7:00 in the morning is 1:00. You count up to 12:00 (what we think of as 6:00 in the evening) and then start over at 1:00 again (kind of 12 hours for the day and 12 hours for the night…makes a certain kind of sense, don’t you think?). So, if you stay at work until 1:30, you have worked quite late into the evening.

On Wednesday, 28 February, I flew from Kigali, Rwanda to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. It was quite a memorable flight as I was quite sick on the flight. I can confirm for you that the air sickness bags perform admirably. Fortunately, the severe portion of the sickness passed pretty quickly and I was able to function more or less normally for most of my visit.

On Thursday I had Chinese food for lunch. That makes 10 countries where I’ve had Chinese food:

Burkina Faso
Colombia
El Salvador
Ethiopia
Hong Kong
Kenya
Peru
The Philippines
Rwanda
USA

On Friday I went to an Indian restaurant for lunch. The office staff that I worked with on Friday were all very gracious but Friday was a national holiday to celebrate Victory Day – the celebration of the Ethiopians ousting the occupying Italians in 1944.

On Saturday, after some time in the office, Mario, Habtu and I ran around town for a bit. We went to a mall, a supermarket, and for lunch we went to the Top View restaurant (a restaurant on a hill with a view of the city). After lunch we went to a place where there were street vendors. While we were stopped by one of the vendors, apparently there was a guy that was eyeing me with the idea of stealing from me. There was some conversation going on but it was in Amharic so I was oblivious. Habtu told the guy to stop touching me and at some point I was insulted. Suddenly Habtu and this guy are scuffling. Habtu got a busted lip out of the deal and a pretty good kick to the hand. For a bit the other guy was even brandishing a stone or a brick that, had it connected with someone’s head, would have not been good. He spat at Habtu and eventually went away. Perhaps the sunglasses and watch I purchased for 30 Birr (less than US$3.50) was not worth all of that. Thankfully we left in safety. Habtu did report the incident to the police.

There are perhaps a couple of lessons we can derive from this experience:

· If you’re an African going shopping in a street market, it’s better to leave the Great White Target (me) at home

· If you are ever in a fight, having Dan with you is basically no help at all (I don’t know what to do in that situation except hold on to my valuables tightly and don’t respond to the crisis in much of a helpful way – unless cowering on the sidelines counts as being helpful)

Thanks Habtu for being mindful of my safety and for coming to my defense!

After the excitement of the afternoon we went over to Melkamua’s house. Melkamua’s husband, Mario, Habtu, and I took a walk down to the Denver Café where I wanted to get a picture (see below). After we returned we had an Ethiopian meal of injera and chicken. Afterwards some of us had coffee. What neat people and what a special experience!

What else can we say about the time in Ethiopia? That if you’re trying to go to the pizzeria in the Hilton and you’re wearing shorts that you’ll be turned away for a dress code violation (which is true)?

Dan, Melkamua, Roman, and Bamrot. Note the Amharic writing on the Coke bottles.