Ethiopia: Addis Ababa Part 1

One of my main reasons for heading to Ethiopia was to catch up with some old family friends, the Mengistus, that I haven't seen for several years but have known me since I was a baby, and now live in Addis where they started Beza International. I arrived in Addis late Thursday night and was picked up by my Buddy Zeb and shuttled to a guest house run for some people working at Beza, where I met my fellow housemates (Sammy, MC, and David) before calling it a night.

I spent my first couple of days in Addis lounging around and reading 'King Leopold's Ghost', and but got rolling on Saturday when MC invited me to have Waffles with her and her friend Nebiu after which she and I headed to the 'Piassa' part of town, so named due to the Italian influence, where we wandered around for a while before making our way back to the guest house. We were walking back towards the house around 7pm and were about 50 yards from the gate when three guys came up behind us and said 'dont move'. By the time I had started to turn around one had grabbed MC and the other two grabbed and threw me down, punched me in the face, and rifled through my front pockets, making off with about $50US and a small notebook with some notes and contact info. The whole experience was certainly a bit harrowing, but I was very fortunate and got off fairly easily with just a slight black, sore eye for a few days. I figured something like this would likely happen somewhere along the way and if that's all that happens I'll be happy. I'm certainly a bit more paranoid now.

I spent the next few days doing a lot of reading and lounging around trying to figure out where all I wanted to go out of the city. On Wednesday another traveler, Malcolm from DC, arrived which gave me a good excuse to get out. Malcolm, MC and I went tooling around town first visiting the Indian Embassy to check on visa requirements, then to the 'Garden Cafe' where we met MC's friend Tamara and an Ethiopian man asked us if we thought he looked like a monkey, then to the ToMoCa coffee shop to pick up some strong, Ethiopian coffee. While Malcolm went inside to buy his coffee Tamara, MC and I sat and waited on the steps outside. Before too long a beautiful little girl, dressed in filthy rags, came and sat by us...a bit of a strange occurrence considering all of the other children tend to shy away or run away screaming. While she sat with us, MC went and bought bread for a the street kids and mothers that began to congregate. In Tanzania and Kenya I had dealt with plenty of beggars asking me for money but this was the first time I was really confronted face to face with young kids asking for nothing more than a roll of bread which was heart breaking.

That night MC took a big group of us to 'Fasika', a traditional Ethiopian restaurant with great food and an array of different traditional dances from around the country. From there we headed to, of all places, a jazz club...not exactly something I was expecting to find in Addis. We had a great time listening to some quality music.

Photos: Addis Ababa