It’s not till we get to the airport, and move on to Dubai and India that I am able to reflect back on our time in Ethiopia, fraught as much as it was with our frustrations and acclimatising to travelling with 3 young kids, in a country which is little set up for tourism and food and accommodation options are limited.
A Gentleness
As we enter Addis airport to get our flight to India via Dubai, we are waiting duly in a line to have not only ourselves but all our luggage scanned, not once, but twice, before we get to immigration (I think this is a little over the top, though Ethiopia too has its own fears about terrorism) when about 20 people, other nationalities, barge their way in and overtake us in the queue in an incredibly aggressive and rude manner. It’s quite a shock to our systems and I realise that we have become sufficiently chilled to notice. At no time during our 5 weeks here have we encountered aggression in any shape or form. Not standing in queues, or Addis traffic jams, you can be entangled in a traffic scramble, and no one uses their horn. It’s not till we get to Mumbai and we are crossing the city from the airport to get our night train to the station that I realise how quiet a city Addis was, people and cars moving silently around in a haze of filthy smog. No horns, no shouting, no exclamations. The Ethiopians are gentle, lovely people, who go out of their way to help you, certainly that has been our perception as foreigners.
The minute we arrive in India to meet Felix who has miraculously managed to get us night train tickets to Goa, he reminds us that we should not turn our backs on our luggage at any point, that someone will take advantage, and I realise that we, at no stage during our time in Ethiopia, ever felt anything less than confident and secure about leaving things in the car, or entrusting someone with our belongings. On our previous time in Ethiopia I left a camera in the taxi, which was duly returned to me by the cab driver the following day. I also left a wallet in an internet cafe, which was held for me until my return the following day. (What am I like?) Gabriel fell over on a street, when 3 shoe shine boys simultaneously jumped up to his rescue.
Another thing is rubbish . We are in India. there is a big rubbish problem here. There are piles of smelly, rotting, putrid rubbish everywhere, down rural country lanes, infesting the cities. I am now looking back at Ethiopia with rose-tinted spectacles – we never saw rubbish anywhere, not in the country, not in the city. There were street sweepers everywhere in Addis, with their large straw hats to fend off the sun. In rural areas, everyone’s houses were immaculately swept and looked after.
When we were doing our long drive, our driver didn’t even let us throw organic matter out of the window – bananas were fine, orange and apples were vetoed, we couldn’t just pee anywhere, even if it was in the middle of nowhere, in case it was too near someone’s hut.
Neither were there ever any smells, except when we passed an abattoir on the road back to Addis and the loos, which I almost can’t comment on, as I made a point of never using a loo in a public building!
In India one of us is constantly shouting out “Pongy!” or clutching our noses, as we pass a rubbish heap.
We wandered down dark unlit roads in Addis, never once feeling remotely intimadated.
Ethiopia is only one of two countries (Liberia being the other) who have never been colonised. This is remarkable, considering the rest of Africa and in fact most of the world’s history. The Ethiopians just quietly get on with things, in their own way, without too many signs of external influence, with a tremendous confidence.
So It’s Goodbye for now to a Country we have indelible links with and to whom we have an unusual fondness.
Five Go Round The World 