After a while of being in Bedele and, once the work had progressed sufficiently well, it was time to return to Addis to deal with a number of personal as well as work issues. This trip was repeated a few times over the couple of years we were in Ethiopia, an average of once a month so, probably we visited it about twenty times and we got to know the road quite well.

As I already mentioned, travel was a slow affair that required great care because of the abundant pedestrians you would meet all over. It was a day trip to get there and we would then install ourselves at the Harambe Hotel, quite an experience. The hotel was a rather basic eight-floor cement and glass building [1]. I tried to check how it was today but I could not find a web site for the hotel. It does appear in Tripadvisor though but what it says there is not too good. It has only one review: “Terrible”!

Clearly, today we would not stay there but at the time, being the base for the “Bedele people”, compelled us to accept the system that was in place and we decided that we were able to survive there, a decision we questioned every time we visited it!

It would be unfair to dwell only on the problems as the hotel had a few good points. The absence of communication facilities between Addis and Bedele meant that we always arrived without a booking but we always found a room. Whether this meant that we were given some kind of priority treatment or that the hotel was half-full most of the time I will never know.

Being the base of the people from Bedele meant that all messages would be delivered to us there. It was also well sited and it became the fourth angle of my work square, the UNDP and FAO offices and the Ministry of Agriculture being the other three.

In addition, it had the advantage of being within walking distance from the few shops that offered the food we needed and, immediately after our first arrival, a young boy (with a small stick) appointed himself (or it was placed by the hotel) as our “beggar-chaser” and waited for us to come out to walked with us all over the place [2].

Entering the hotel the dampness and the smell of carpets in need of a good cleaning hit you hard but, luckily, you adjusted to this rather fast. The receptionists were nice and the situation improved once we became known and we even got access to fridge and freezer to store our food, after some protracted negotiations.

Several times we rejected rooms because of various reasons such as strong urine or damp stench, doors that did not lock or lumpy mattresses. At first, we rejected a couple because of the cockroaches but soon we discover that they were part of the hotel perquisites and that a certain population level was to be expected.

However, there were some rooms that were truly cockroach breeding grounds and these became Mabel’s worst nightmares. I recall it vividly getting up at night, turning on the lights of the bathroom and seeing hundreds of them rushing back to their hideouts! Soon, after uselessly trying to find a cockroach-free room, we made a list of our “liveable” ones and we requested these at the reception. This was an important breakthrough!

The breakfast was another sad affair, served on the rather dark and stinky first floor restaurant with a very poor service and rather plain food. For this reason, we made the point of -as far as possible- not having luch or dinner at the hotel. In this way, provided that we kept the midnight curfew in mind, we got to know a few places to eat out.

“Why did you keep coming back to it?” you may ask yourselves and I could not really give you an answer as we often ask the question ourselves! However, we kept coming back and it added more experience to our lives.

Work in Addis meant various kinds of meetings that, at least, were not equally monotonous. Those with UNDP meant constant defensive statements while the ones with FAO, naturally, were more helpful. The Director of the Veterinary Services was a tough cookie, arrogant and authoritarian and neither the Director of the Bedele Laboratory (an extremely kind and nice man) nor myself (or both combined) could do much to score points with him.

However, the really difficult meetings were those that took place every six months, the tripartite ones. As the name indicates, these involved the donor (UNDP), the implementing agancy (FAO) and the recipient government. The only advantages of these was that they brought the Veterinary Department closer to FAO to defend us against the incisive questions of the donor. Luckily, we survived these meetings and the funding was maintained as originally planned.

On the first journey, apart from work problem solving and getting food, we needed to get a 220v to 110v transformer for our printer as I had bought it from the US without realizing its voltage. We were pointed out to the Merkato as our best option and on a Saturday we set off to get one as well as a drill chuck key as the one for my drill had disappeared during the move from Kenya.

To say that the Merkato was large would be an understatement, it was humongous and incredibly crowded and dynamic. Despite this, there was no apparent danger despite seeing very few policemen and we felt quite comfortable walking about, some of the very few “ferengis” (foreigners) we saw at the time.

Italy, under fascism, invaded Ethiopia in 1936 and two separate markets were planned to segregate the Italians from the Ethiopians. The Arada would be for the former while the Merkato was developed for the rest of the population and, naturally this is the one that still survives as a very vibrant place and reputed as the largest open air market in Africa, no mean feat!

It will be impossible for me to describe the Merkato and I present you with one of the videos that I found interesting to give you the dimension and dynamics of the place. Although it is a more modern Merkato, I believe that it still maintains its character. There are other videos on the subject also worth watching.

Needless to say that I easily found my needed hardware items before our attention got diverted to the countless craft shops offering the most amazing silver and gold as well as beautiful baskets and Ethiopian textiles. I will go back to these on a later post with more details.

After walking for a while we heard some shouting and, curious, we went to see what was up. We arrived at an open area with lots of rubbish accumulated where a goat, sitting on its haunches and sporting a rather large “beer belly” was enjoying a beer straight from the bottle. Unfortunately, I could not find a video of this particular customer but there is one of another drinking a soda [3]. Times definitely have changed!

The first visit to Addis soon came to an end and it was time to return to Bedele and, as usual, once we got there and a week later we learnt that our new car had arrived so we needed to get back to Addis to get it but that is another story!

[1] For images of the hotel see: https://www.google.co.zw/search?q=harambee+hotel&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj505uihsPrAhUmK7kGHRz-Bg8Q_AUoAXoECBoQAw&biw=1280&bih=598#imgrc=2DrjOr18N62w0M

[2] This may sound unacceptable for many today but I can assure you that the famine and poverty in Ethiopia at the time were such that people asking for food and/or money were in such numbers that they would stop you from walking!

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5VCuFyatAk