Addis Ababa

Sightseeing from Addis

As I mentioned in earlier posts, to travel in Ethiopia at the time we were there was very difficult. To the long distances to be travelled, the war situation demanded the “infamous” travel permits that were not easy to obtain. It was for these reasons that our plans to visit Axum and Lalibela as well as the Omo valley were not viable.

We did manage some travel although more restricted and this is what I will describe in this post. I present you with brief descriptions of the various trips we did.

Around Addis

Apart from exploring the city itself, we visited a few churches such as the Entoto Maryam and the Kiddus Raguel, two of the best known.

We found the Entoto Mariam (Mary’s) church in the northern part of Addis, in one of the highest hills around the city. The area was still well forested and densely populated and we could see lots of people walking about as well as the ubiquitous pack donkeys moving teff straw to feed their domestic animals.

Entoto Mariam (Mary’s) church.

The church was built in 1877 by Emperor Menelik II. His wife (Empress Taitu) is buried there and the tomb is known as “Shera Bet”. Eucaliptus trees are quite common in the highlands of Ethiopia and it was near this church that the first one was planted!

There is a museum right next to the church where some of the personal belongings of Emperor Menelik II and Empress Taitu are displayed for visitors to see. Some of the historical items include traditional clothes, crowns of Emperor Menelik II and Empress Taitu, their royal bed, different jewels owned by the royal family, and a mirror presented as a gift from Queen Victoria to Empress Taitu.

We visited the octagonal church on a Sunday but refrained from entering it or visiting the spring that produces “holy water” nearby where sick people go to get cured with the assistance of the church’s priests for respect to the believers present there. Unfortunately, the museum was closed. We walked about the church grounds and caught sight of the remains of Menelik’s palace that looked rather unimpressive!

Although we inspected the various eucalyptus trees present around the church none, in our judgement, could have been the first one. This tree was brought directly from Australia and planted there. Another interesting item we missed!

After enjoying the view of the city below we continued our tour and went to another church, the Kiddus Raguel, also well known and it too found on the Entoto Hills about 2.5 km away. This church is the oldest church in Addis, also built by Emperor Menelik II, who also founded Addis Ababa, about 140 years ago. This church, unlike the octagonal style of the previous one, is hexagonal, the same as many other Orthodox churches found in Ethiopia.

Kiddus Raguel church.

We were able to enter the building as, by the time we got there, mass had ended. There, the inner part of the church,where mass is celebrated was secluded by curtains and a few panels decorated with well preserved hand paintings that were centuries old.

  • Hand painting at the Entoto Mariam (Mary’s) church.
  • Entoto Mariam (Mary’s) church.

The Nile Gorge

The Abbay River originates in Lake Tana, about 500 km and a ten hour drive (today) to the northwest of Addis. The river runs through Ethiopia and it becomes known as the Blue Nile when it enters Sudan on its way to join the White Nile -coming from Lake Victoria- north from Khartoum area. These two are the major contributors to the Nile River that ends in the Mediterranean Sea in Egypt and, interestingly, both originates in lakes.

The road to Lake Tana and the Blue and White Niles. Map of Nile gorge: Credit Nicolás Pérez, CC BY 2.5 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons

As mentioned earlier, travel restrictions did not allow us to visit Bahir Dar, the city located at the southern tip of Lake Tana but, as a consolation, we could see the Nile river at an area known as the Nile Gorge.To get there we took the road to Bahar Dar road and drove for over two hundred kilometres through the highlands (over the Entoto mountain range). At about two hundred kilometres the scenery opens up and you have a most magnificent view of the river that, shining blue, runs about one thousand metres below!

The Nile Gorge.
The winding road down the Blue Nile gorge.

Over millions of years the river has carved this deep and wide valley through the mountains that many people compare (as usual!) with America’s Grand Canyon. Although I have not been in the latter, what we saw was a truly vast canyon that run for as long as the eye could see and through which, for the first time in our lives we could spot the amazing bearded vultures, also known as lammergeiers (Gypaetus barbatus).

A bearded vulture or lammergeier. Credit: Richard Bartz, Munich aka Makro Freak, CC BY-SA 2.5 , via Wikimedia Commons.
A great close-up of a bearded vulture. Credit: No machine-readable author provided. Else assumed (based on copyright claims)., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

We watched the birds for a long while as they caught the thermals to climb high above us as we had seen vultures do very often. However, the gorge also allowed us to see them glide below us while they gained altitude and then climbed quite close to us on their way to great hights. A truly magnificent sight.

Spotting the lammergeiers was almost as amazing as spotting a stretch of road ahead of us that luckily we did not take! It was a true road to nowhere, part of an attempt at climbing the mountains gone wrong that ended abruptlly, allowing you to take the jump to the bottom of the gorge! I am not sure what happened there but I took a picture to prove it.

The road to nowhere!

The Ethiopian Rift valley

The trip from Addis to Shashamane through the lakes.

From Addis to Debre Zeit (Bishoftu in Oromo) was 47 km following the A1 road. It was a very popular recreation for day trips or weekend escapades from Addis at it offered warmer climate by being lower (1900 m). It was surrounded by several small lakes of volcanic origin such as Bishoftu, Babogaya, Hora, Magarsa and Kuriftu where some hotels offered decent accommodation. The Veterinary Research Laboratory was located there as well as a field station belonging to the then International Livestock Centre for Africa. The latter sited at lake Babogaya, green and volcanic.

Debre Zeit still had trees -a rare sight in Addis- as well as many interesting water birds and from there we could continue driving south and then take the A7 that took us to a number of interesting larger lakes located in the Rift valley. As you drove you would first come to the 180 km2 Koka reservoir (also known as lake Gelila) that was in fact product of a dam built on the Awash river. From then on, a string of lakes that reminded us of those in Kenya, followed.

The freshwater lake Zway or Lake Ziway (Oromo: Lake Dambal) came first at just over 100 km south of Debre Zeit. The lake is fed primarily by the rivers Meki and Katar, and is drained by the Bulbar river which, in turn, enters lake Abijata further south. It is believed that the Ark of the Covenant was housed at a monastery on its shores during the 9th. century. Although we did not find the monastery, we had a good time watching birds such as pelicans and the numerous hippos that inhabited the lake. It has an estimated area of 440 km2 and 30 km long (three times lake Naivasha in Kenya).

Further south there were lakes on both sides of the road: Langano on the left and Abijata and Shala on the right. The latter was alkaline and covered 205 km2 and a maximum depth of 14 m. Like Magadi in Kenya it hosted a soda ash operation in its shores (the same as in Shala and Chitu lakes nearby). We saw lots of flamingoes there but nothing in the level of Nakuru or Bogoria further south, in Kenya.

A satellite view of lakes Langano (pale brown on the right), Abijata (green) and Shala (blue). Credit of NASA / Public domain.

Lake Langano, located to the east of Lake Abijata at an elevation of 1,585 m is of similar size but filled with fresh water to a maximum depth of 46 m that it catches from a basing as large as 1600 km2. It is drained by the Hora Kallo river which empties into Lake Abijatta. Lake Langano is the only freshwater lake in Ethiopia free from Bilharzia (Schistosomiasis) and therefore a popular venue with tourists and city-dwellers that ignore the possible crocodiles!

Although fresh, its water is not clean looking but rather brown because of the high mineral content that many believe gives its waters healing properties. As expected, there were a few resorts around the lake that had increased in number today and from where water sports were practiced. Some wildlife was present there including hippos -not seen often-, monkeys and warthogs and numerous water bird species.

On one occasion, while walking along the shore we saw that the waves broke through water full of flotsam. As we had not seen this in a lake before, we came close for a better look that revealed that, in fact, they were pumice stones, very much like the ones we buy in the chemist to rub our heels with! Of course we collected a few that we still keep. When writing this piece I learnt that pumice is created when very hot rock is violently ejected from a volcano under intense pression and the foamy structure of pumice takes place because of concurrent rapid cooling and loss of pressure. It is infact volcano solidified foam!

An unexpected find in the journey to the visit the Langano-Abijata-Shala lakes were the crocodiles. These were not seen basking at the shores of the lakes or swimming but crushed on the road while trying to move between lakes! It was a real road hazard as some of them were really large and occupied the whole width of the road!

Shala lake, with a surface area of 329 km2 is the deepest of Ethiopia’s Rift Valley lakes reaching 266 m. It is surrounded by sulphur hot springs boiling away and smelling like rotten eggs. The land around the lake is criss-crossed with cracks due to erosion and earthquakes. Pelican island in the south host a colony of the beautiful great white pelicans and other birds such as lesser and greater flamingoes.

More lakes are found further south and east of the Bale mountains. These are Awassa, Abaya and Chamo and, further south lakes Stefanie and the Jade sea, lake Turkana. We never reach these lakes but stopped at Shashamene Zuria, an interesting place as you will see.

Shashamane Zuria [1]

Driving towards the lakes we were quite surprised to find Rastafarian-looking people walking towards the South. Then we learnt that their goal was a place called Shashamane that, for some reason was the Mecca for these people. We decided to pay the town -located 22 km from the southern tip of lake Shala- a visit.

We did not find the town anything special, apart from the community of Rastafarians that resided there as it was regarded as a “patch of Jamaica” in Ethiopia. It was more an issue of learning its history.

In the 1950s the then Emperor Haile Selassie I donated about 200 hectares to African Americans who were victims of racism and injustice after being exiled and forced into slavery in the USA. Jamaicans learnt about this and they a started coming so the Rasta movement started. The name Rastafarian derives from “Ras Tafari Makonnen”, the title of Haile Selassie I before he became Emperor and the latter still plays a major role in the Rasta culture [2]. The red, green and yellow colours of the movement are those of the Ethiopian flag.

Gladstone Robinson was the first Rastafarian to settle in Shashamane in 1964 and when we were there, there were a few hundreds residing there although their land had been reduced to just over 10 hectares by the Mengistu’s regime. It was an interesting visit that increased our knowledge of the Rastafarian movement.

Awash National Park

An eye catching sign on the way to the Awash National Park.

A couple of times we headed towards the East of Addis in search of the Awash National Park, located in the southern part of the Afar region of Ethiopia. At 225 km from Addis the park was quite easy to reach and enabled us to visit it over the weekends.

Entering the Awash National PArk.

Much further North is the Danakil depression, famous for being 100 m below sea level, one of the lowest and hottest places on earth. The Danakil area was explored by Wilfred Thesiger that wrote some very interesting books about his esploits there [3]. Unfortunately, this interesting area was out of reach at the time so we could not visit it and remains one of the places I would love to see.

Sketch of the Awash National Park (as I recall it).

The park, set up in 1966, is at the southern tip of the Afar Region and it has an area of about 800 km2 and an average altitude of 900 m. The south boundary of the park is formed by the Awash river which swings North soon after leaving the park and eventually disappears into the Afar (Danakil) region. In the middle of the park is the dormant Fantale, a dormant volcano reaching a height of 2007 m at its top.

It had large areas of Acacia woodlands with patches of grassland. The Addis to Harar road divided the park and separated the Illala Saha Plains to the south from the Kudu Valley to the north. In the south of the park the Awash River gorge had amazing waterfalls that, together with the Awash River gorge are the dominant features of this part of the park.

We stayed in bungalows located near the park headquarters but I fail to remember the name. The place offered a most magnificent view from the park headquarters. We thoroughly enjoyed watching while on the other side of the gorge cattle people were going about their business, going out of the kraals in the morning with the bells of their cattle sounding loudly and returning in the evening to spend the night under the protection of the thorn enclosures. Again, a sight that brought me back to my time with the Maasai in the Transmara.

The spectacular gorge of the Awash River as seen it from the park headquarters.
An enlarged view of the gorge to show a settlement and a cattle kraal from where the animals will go in and out on a daily basis.

There were not many roads at the park, but we managed to go for game drives during which we spotted a few animals such as East African oryx, Soemmerring’s gazelle, Salt’s Dik-dik, Lesser and Greater Kudus, Warthogs and Olive Baboons. We also saw interesting birds that included the North African ostrich and the Abyssinian ground hornbill and Abyssinian roller to name some of the rarer ones.

Of great interest were the Hamadryas Baboons (Papio hamadryas) [4] that are rather unique and present in large groups. These baboons are native to the Horn of Africa and the southwestern part of the Arabian Peninsula. The most striking feature of these baboons was the silver and white mantle that the males had while the females do not have it and they are brown all over.

  • Hamadryas harem (group of females with one male). Credit: beggs, CC BY 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons.
  • Male Hamadryas baboon. Credit: LadyofHats, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
  • Hamadryas baboons. credit: Dick Mudde, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

During the drives we caught sight of the nice waterfalls and in one of our visits the river was running fast and this added a touch of drama to the sight. We spotted a few crocodiles but we needed to work hard for them and the same happened with the hippos that were there but more often heard than seen.

  • One of the falls at the Awash Nationa; Park.
  • The Awash river in flood. A spectacular sight.

We also visited the northern part of the park that consisted of a 30 km drive from the main road to reach the Filwoha area and its well-known Hot Springs. This is Afar country and during the drive we saw a number of herdsmen with their beautifully looking cattle.

  • Afar cattle on the way to the hotsprings at Filwoha.
  • Great Afar cattle from close.

On arrival we met the Afar (also known as Danakil) people that resided in the area and that offered their services to guide us to the springs that we declined. They were truly fierce looking, a fact that concurs with their warrior reputation. As usual, for respect (and fear this time!) I refrain from taking pictures of them.

An Afar (Danakil) warrior. Credit: Élisée Reclus, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

The springs looked beautiful and refreshing in the severe heat. Their water was of an amazing turquoise and they were framed by doum palms. I must say that they were very inviting but they were not as refreshing as we thought. They were very hot, particularly one known as the “Emperor pool” in which it was almost impossible to keep your hand inside it for more than a few seconds! If it was used by an Emperor, it must have been a tough one!

[1] There is a movie called “Shashamane” produced in 2016 for those interested in following up the subject.

[2] The term “Ras” means a duke or prince in the Ethiopian Semitic languages; “Tafari Makonnen” was his personal name.

[3] Thesiger, Wilfred (1998). The Danakil Diary. Journey through Abyssinia 1930-34. Flamingo publishers. 240p.

[4] For more on this species see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamadryas_baboon

The smell

This did not happen to me (although it could have done) but to an FAO colleague that spent time in Ethiopia doing consultancy work. I repeat the story as he told it to me a few years later, when I was working in Rome.

The fellow had just completed his work and, as it is customary in Ethiopia, he was given a good farewell party and he was presented with a few gifts. As he was returning to Rome for debriefing, he was also asked to take a few letters and small parcels to Ethiopian relatives living in Italy.

The protagonist of the story also stayed at the Harambe Hotel like us. As it happened to us also, he was given a room that he found smelling too strongly and asked to be moved to another one. After checking a couple of rooms, he picked the best available and decided to go for dinner to be ready to get up early the following morning as getting through the “necessary” procedures at Bole Airport demanded time and lots of patience.

The guy came back to his room after dinner and he had the impression that the smell in the room had increased but he could not be bothered to ask the reception to give him another room so he opened the windows to the chilly Addis air and went to sleep.

The following morning, he took a taxi to the airport, happy to leave the smell behind as it was still strong in the room. The taxi was one of the blue and white Lada cars that were probably imported “en masse” from the then Soviet Union years before. Most of them were in some degree of deterioration. The one he took, apart from a worn upholstery and dirty floor mats, it also smelled bad!

Without any problems he got to the airport and went through all the required moves until, eventually, he could relax and seat at the waiting lounge for a while, until he could feel the same smell again! At first he thought it was still in his nostrils but soon he realized that it was not and that it was coming from somewhere at the lounge. Before he could do much about it the flight was called and he boarded, found his seat and literally passed out until he was woken up for breakfast, a couple of hours from his destination.

The plane landed and, while removing his bag from the overhead compartment he felt a wet patch in it and when he smelled his hand, trying to identify the cause of the spill, he recognized the familiar smell that had followed him throughout his journey. So, as discreetly as he could, he inserted a hand into the bag and soon contacted the wet culprit. It was one of the parcels that had given to him by someone in Bedele!

He disembarked and, as soon as he could, he removed the stinky packet and -to his horror- discovered that it was a chunk of an Ethiopian bovine that had kept him company while making its presence felt all the way through his journey!

He immediately contacted the airport authorities in Rome to hand over the smelly meat to be destroyed. This took quite a while and afterwards, to add insult to injury my friend, a veterinarian, was given an ear full about the dangers of bringing beef into Italy as well as not travelling without checking what you carry with you. The latter, an issue that has become critical nowadays!

We travel to Addis

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.

Credit: Wildlife Israel Yuval Dax. I recommend that you watch it with at least 720p.

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

Ethiopia arrival

After my mission in Bedele I accepted the FAO offer, not without trying, fruitlessly, to negotiate a better contract with my employer, the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE), a last ditch attempt to stay in Kenya.

So, it was just a matter of a few weeks before this new life experience would start. I would travel to Rome for a two-week briefing session in order to get information on the technical approaches as well as the more boring administrative procedures as well as to finalize my contractual arrangements.

In Nairobi, I gradually disengaged from my activities with regret as our work in northern Kenya on the selection of cattle for tick resistance was going well. Mabel resigned to her position at the Commercial Office of the Argentinian Embassy and was now in charge of our own administrative arrangements regarding our future life “out in the sticks”. She started by having meetings with our architect friend who, kindly, drew a house plan following which she ordered the needed appliances and the additional and tailor-made furniture to complement what we had bought for our Nairobi flat. She also put together a “camping pack” that would be sent immediately so that we could have the essentials to live in Bedele until our main shipment arrived. Mabel would also organize the latter while I was briefing in Rome.

We decided to take our two cats with us as we were rather attached to them. Both were neutered when we got them, Inky, a talkative Siamese female and Tigger, a lazy and rather fat marmalade. They got on well as long as the latter did not challenge the authority of the smaller but tougher Siamese. They required a number of health certificates to enter Ethiopia and this also took some of Mabel’s time. The animals also needed to be carried in a cage of certain dimensions that needed to be made as the current plastic ones were not available in Kenya at the time.

  • Tigger.
  • Inky.
Our cats.

It all sounds complicated, but we were young and enthusiastic at that time!

The next task was to order a personal vehicle and we chose a short wheelbase Land Cruiser (short ambulance type) that we ordered through the United Nations system. It would arrive in Assab (then still an Ethiopian port in the Red Sea) with an approximate delivery time of three months. Luckily, keeping in touch with the Veterinary and Economics Unit of the University of Reading (where I was a student in 1981), yielded more fruits. I followed their advice and ordered the latest available laptop, the revolutionary Zenith ZWL-183-92 with one 3.5-inch floppy disk drive of 720KB and an amazing hard disk drive with a capacity of 10MB! This was the latest in portable computers at the time and I was very pleased to get one although I paid the equivalent of the best laptop of today!

I already had some experience of briefings in Rome but this time it was more comprehensive and time-consuming. I learnt that the project I would be leading was funded by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and that I would need to have close contacts with them, apart from the Government of Ethiopia and the FAO. I also learnt about how to keep accounts and how and when to submit them as well as when and how to write the various kinds of reports required.

The briefing done; it was an Alitalia flight that took me to Addis Ababa (Addis). The moment I landed I realized that Mengistu’s communism was much farther from Moi’s capitalism than the physical distance that separated Nairobi from Addis. Bole International airport was really a military base used by civilian planes. Military planes and camouflaged “machinery” parked there were certainly not for agriculture development! There were armed soldiers all over and the natural good natured Kenyan welcome was totally absent. “Not a good start” I thought and had a shade of regret at having left Kenya.

Gratefully, finding people waiting for me at the airport lifted my spirit. The atmosphere was not only tense at the airport but throughout Addis, and I learnt that a curfew was in place in Addis between 23:00 and 06:00 hours. I realized that it would demand considerable adjustment to enjoy our new country. Two years could be a long time if you did not like the place.

The Ethiopian dynasty started in the 2nd century BC and together with Rome, China and Persia, the Aksum Empire was regarded as one of the four great world powers of the 3rd century BC. Additionally, Ethiopia and Liberia were the only African countries that were never colonized and that retained their sovereignty as recognized independent countries. Ethiopia was also one of only four African members of the League of Nations.

This history forged a nation of proud people. Apparently, or so they told me themselves, when God created mankind it prepared its clay model and put it in the oven to bake. Unsure of what he was doing he removed before it was ready and thus the white race was created. Aware of this, when he baked the second model, he left it too long with the consequence that it got over-cooked and created the black race. It was only during his third attempt that God got the timing right and created people of the right colour: the Ethiopians!

Mengistu Haile Mariam had overthrown Haile Selassie in September 1974 and he had masterminded the Ethiopian Red Terror of 1977–1978 that killed hundreds of political opponents and secure him in power. From 1987 he had been the President of the People’s Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, the country we had arrived to. It was a country undergoing a civil war with the province of Eritrea that had separatist intentions. This would be our first experience at living in a country at war and ruled by a ruthless leader!

I returned to the Ghion hotel to started work while waiting for Mabel that, together with our cats, was arriving from Nairobi in a couple of days. I negotiated with the hotel to be able to keep the cats (in the toilet!) and proceeded with introductory meetings and project reviews to prepare for the work that was expected.

Eventually Mabel arrived and she took over the arrangements for the trip to Bedele as there was pressure for me to move there as early as possible. She also kept the cats under control as agreed and made sure that they did not got lostin Addis. Commercial cat food as we now see all over was non-existent and we had to do with cooking rice and some meat for them, courtesy of the hotel.

We walked in Addis to get a feel for the place and noted a few new things. First, the white and blue taxis most of which were Lada (like the Fiat 124) and very numerous, as well as the shoe-polishers that congregated around the public offices. At that time, we were told that the “Bedele people” meaning Jan and Janni (our Dutch colleagues) always stayed at another hotel called Harambe so we moved there and this hotel became our centre of operations from then on although it had some shortcomings as I will describe later.

Addis from the window of our room at the Harambe hotel after a heavy hailstorm.

Although the name of the hotel meant freedom in Ki-Swahili it did not go well with the atmosphere in the country at the time. However, being a commonly used word in Kenya, at least the name reminded us that we were still in East Africa! The change also meant a repeat of the negotiation of our cats’ stay while we prepared our trip to Bedele. The negotiations were tougher than in the Ghion but eventually we reached an agreement, they could stay for free, provided that they remained inside our room. Although we got the permission, this time without the option of a garden as we were several floors up.

At the Harambe we eventually met Jan, the other FAO worker with who we would be sharing our stay in Bedele. He was coming to Addis at regular intervals to get food and other issues related to his project work. We compared notes and I appreciated his advice but also decided that I would keep an open mind and see by myself how the stay there would be and handle it accordingly.

Although I immediately got a project car, we decided to walk as I needed a few days to “adjust” to driving on the right-hand side of the road. We did walk a lot as it was very safe to do so despite the overwhelming attention we got from the multitude of beggars that will constantly surround you and follow you all the time in the streets, particularly near the hotel areas.

Poverty in Addis at the time was extreme, a lasting consequence of the most severe famine that affected Ethiopia from 1983 to 1985. This sad event took the lives of 1.2 million people, internally displaced 2.5 million and left 0.4 million as refugees and 0.2 million orphans. The beggars were so insistent that, as soon as you were spotted leaving your hotel on foot, they will swarm around you asking for food but also holding you from your arms and clothes.

The situation almost invariably developed in the appearance of a youngster that would take it upon himself to chase beggars off by brandishing a stick, hoping to get a tip from you! At first, we refused such service but soon we noted that it was impossible to stop it so a boy self-appointed himself as our guard and he will wait for us outside the hotel and join us as soon as he spotted us.

Although the majority of the people dressed either in European or traditional Ethiopian clothes, we noted that many men worn kaki or blue uniforms (Kaunda suit type). These were Government workers although, interestingly, women did not wear uniforms or at least we did not see them.

A few men dressed in darker blue suits with a “Mao-style” collar. These were the senior political authorities that were clearly feared. We were always treated with the outmost courtesy, but it was clear that we were dealing with people belonging to a proud nation and proud themselves almost to the point of arrogance.

Looking for sources of food to take to Bedele, we realized that markets were our main hope although private shops were in evidence in the Kazanchis area, near the hotel, where there were private shops, particularly one that we called “Solomon’s” that was a well stocked and expensive store where we could get what we needed.

The humongous “Mercato” was also an option that we explored and immediately realized that it would be a good choice for the future but not for the present as it was an unknown area for us, and hygiene was not top of the agenda. In fact, Mabel made a mental note to return to it wearing rubber boots!

Both, Kazanchis and Mercato offered amazing jewellery shops that never failed to call our attention, particularly the gold and silver trinkets. Among the latter, the variety of crosses to be worn as pendants was incredible. We decided to leave those more superfluous items for later and to focus on accumulating the necessary items to survive in Bedele.

Ethiopians are very proud of their traditions and they like to share them with you. Among these, food, drink and dance are important. So, before too long we were invited to dine at one of the traditional restaurants in Addis Ababa: the Addis Ababa Restaurant, on the road to Sidist Kilo from St. George Church. In Addis the location of places was described as street numbers were not used.

This restaurant was a large and popular place with lots of tables and little light, served by women clad in traditional dress and where our hosts guided us through the menu as it was all new to us.

Ethiopian cuisine [1] mainly involves spicy vegetable and meat dishes, usually in the form of a stew known as “wot” (or wat) served on “injera“, a large rounded and flat pancake-like sour bread of about half a metre in diameter and accompanied with rolled strips of injera of about 10 cm width. Injera is made of “teff” (Eragrostis tef) an annual grass native to the northern Ethiopian Highlands, similar to millet and quinoa but with a tiny seed of less than 1 mm diameter. Teff is thought to have originated in Ethiopia between 4000 and 1000 BC. It grows in harsh environments ranging from very dry to waterlogged soil and its best production takes place at about 2000m altitude. The grain is rich in minerals and has a has a high protein content with an excellent amino acid composition.

Injera oven. The dough is poured under the top cover.

We sat around what looked like a small hut replica made of straw, colourful and tightly woven. We were informed that this was a “mesob“, where our food would be placed. I could not help wondering how this would happen with such a shape. Once seated, the appearance of a basin of water and soap for handwashing anticipated the importance of our hands for eating and, watching our hosts, the right hand was the one to be used. If we needed more information to confirm our suspicions, there was no cutlery!

The mesob now “topless” to show where the food is placed.

While we waited for the food to arrive, we sought some advice on eating techniques, but, before we got an answer, food arrived on a large tray, a very short time after ordering. The top of the mesob was then removed and the food placed on the flat top that had been hidden below. It was spectacular: a large rounded tray covered in injera with a several mounds of different foods, smelling of spices and steaming. “This is doro wot ” said Ibrahim pointing at a large portion in the centre with some obvious chicken eggs in it.

We learnt that several kinds of “wot” exist, depending on the area, ingredient availability, etc. The most common being the chicken stew we got known as “doro wot“. In poorer places where there are no chickens “doro fanta” (doro: chicken; fanta: instead of) was served. It contains the egg, but the meat is mutton, a cheaper substitute. This, I would learn later, was the staple food in Bedele.

They had also brought “kitfo” and “kocho”. The former is a dish of minced raw beef, marinated in “mitmita” (powdered seasoning mix orange red in colour that generally contains ground African bird’s eye chili peppers, Ethiopian cardamom, cloves, and salt). Kitfo cooked lightly rare is known as “kitfo leb leb“, that became our favourite. Kitfo goes with Kocho a grey paste prepared from chopped and grated Ensete [2] pulp that I believe is buried for a while to mature.

We were informed that the way food was presented was mainly for tourists as traditionally such dishes would not be served together very often.

We watched the Ethiopians cutting small pieces of injera with which they would envelop the stew and any suitable side dishes and then placed it in their mouths. A simple procedure in the able hands of our hosts but full of failures and accidents in ours, accompanied of some polite remarks on how to improve and even laughter from those Ethiopians that had a Latin influence from Cuba. The best help came in the shape of a “goorsha“, an expression of friendship through which a person would strip off a piece of injera, roll food in it and then place it in the other person’s mouth. Although the procedure took us by surprise, we truly appreciated it.

Food was rather spicy and some of it rather hot, so we needed to drink a lot. Although a number of excellent local beers and some wines existed, local brews were very popular. “Katikala” and “araki” are inexpensive local spirits that are very strong and illegal but that night we tried “Tej“, a rather potent honey wine with an alcohol content that ranges from 7 to 11 %. and another local drink: “Tella“, a home-brewed beer with a smoky flavour due to the addition of bread darkened by baking and the use of a fermentation vessel which has been smoked by inversion over smouldering wood. Tella had a lower alcohol content, between 2-4%. Both tej and tella were good, provided that clean water was used in their preparation. Later on, during our stay we would, sometimes, suffer the consequences of the use of unclean water…

Regarding the work, I attended several meetings with my organization’s representative, UNDP and the Veterinary Department. It was clear that the work was behind schedule and very urgent reporting was essential in order for UNDP to release the funds needed for the work to continue. This meant that my work baptism was to spend long days with Ibrahim, the Director of the Bedele Laboratory writing various reports on a project I did not yet know! The assistance of the Director was invaluable, so we managed to persuade UNDP to release the funds. Despite this, it was evident that the project was already considered as a “problem” by UNDP, a fame that remained till the end!

After a week in the Harambe hotel we learnt that our accelerated shipment including camp beds, bedding, crockery and other essential stuff had arrived so we could now travel to Bedele carrying not only the cats but all the gear that would enable us to camp in our bungalow until our larger consignment arrived.

Enquiries on our main shipment with the rest of our personal effects (also handled by the government’s cargo company) revealed an undetermined delay and, worse news, I was informed that I needed my own arrangements to take the stuff to Bedele as they did not offer that service. Luckily, another FAO project had a lorry that was authorized to take it all the way to Bedele.

Finally the time for our journey to Bedele arrived but I noted that the planned date did not match the one my colleagues referred to. Eventually I understood that the Ethiopian (Ge’ez) calendar was based on the older Alexandrian or Coptic calendar and it was about seven years behind ours. The year had twelve months of 30 days each plus five days (six days on leap years), which comprise a thirteenth month. Finally, we agreed on a departure date and agreed to get a conversion calendar. This was, fortunately, easy to buy and it became indispensable as also all official correspondence was not only in Amharic but dated following the Ge’ez calendar!

Before leaving, we got our Government petrol coupons (as petrol was rationed) and our travel permit that I was (again) unable to read, started with the title የጉዞ ፈቃድ (Tavel Permit) and all the rest! We loaded the car with our camping gear, food to last us for a month, our two cats and the following morning we headed west where, if all went well, we would spend two years of our lives.

[1] As an example I point you out to  https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Cuisine_of_Ethiopia but many pages cover the issue.

[2] Ensete ventricosum, known as false banana.

To Ethiopia!

As mentioned earlier [1] it was 1987 and we were still enjoying our work and life in Kenya. However, it was becoming evident that our modest savings would never secure our future, so we started looking for better opportunities. Regrettably, we could not find suitable work in Kenya, otherwise we would probably still be residing there today!

In mid 1988 a great opportunity with FAO appeared in Ethiopia at a place called Bedele of which neither we nor most of our friends had ever heard of before. Most but not all. Jim [2] however, had and immediately told me that Bedele was in western Ethiopia and also that it was “out in the sticks”, not a very encouraging start!

Later on I learnt that Andy, a tick expert from Zimbabwe -working in Nairobi- had just been in Ethiopia for a consultancy that included a short visit to Bedele itself. He confirmed that it was far from Addis Ababa and rather remote, but an interesting place where not much work on ticks and tickborne diseases had been done although the need for it was there.

When I asked him about the living conditions, he mentioned that he had stayed at the station where I was going to live -if I accepted the offer- for two years and mentioned that the area was very beautiful. “Do the bungalows have a garden” I asked, “the whole of Ethiopia will be your back garden!” was his reply. That left me rather concerned!

As the need for my services was rather urgent, before accepting the long-term position and while we prepared to leave Kenya, I offered to travel to Bedele to familiarize myself and to supervise the on-going work. I also carried the “Family terms of reference” that included the evaluation of our future accommodation, availability of supplies and other critical issues to survive in a remote place. Regarding the house, I was to draw a plan that, back in Nairobi, would be submitted to an architect friend so that we could take the relevant furniture and appliances.

So it was that I arrived at Bole airport in Addis Ababa on a two-week consultancy mission. The change between Kenya and Ethiopia was very dramatic as I was entering a country where a civil war had been raging from September 1974 when the Marxist Derg removed Emperor Haile Selassie from power and Eritrea had started fighting for its independence.

Bole looked like a military airport being used by civilian flights, mainly Ethiopian Airlines. There was no “yambo” welcome or smiling faces anywhere but armed soldiers with surly faces! I had arrived to my first communist dictatorship led by Mengistu Haile Mariam, a ruthless leader.

  • A (bad) view of Addis Ababa.
  • Addis Ababa from the window of our room in the Harambe Hotel.

Realizing that things would be different I was very happy to be greeted by people from FAO. They took me to the Ghion hotel where I would stay until I traveled to Bedele, a small town in Western Ethiopia where FAO had built a Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory with a focus on trypanosomiasis and tickborne diseases.

So it was that, after the necessary protocol meetings that took a couple of days, I had the necessary travel permit that would allow me to travel to Bedele. The letter was written in Amharic and I could only hope that it gave the right information about my trip as the only thing that I could understand was my name! However, when I realized that the country’s Chief Veterinary Officer and the Director of the Bedele Laboratory were traveling with me, I relaxed.

We left early in the morning and traveled very slowly in a westerly direction. Getting out of Addis Ababa was indeed a complex operation as there was no clear exit road and people used the tarmac to walk to their destinations with their livestock, sharing the road with the motor vehicles. Our speed increased somehow once we left the city as the people numbers decreased for a while (only to increase near every populated area!). Despite this, almost permanent hooting was required in order to advance.

Driving from Addis Ababa to Bedele on a Sunday required patience!
There is a donkey somewhere under the leaves!

The trip took us through rather barren land dominated by teff fields [3] and the occasional trees, very occasional. The latter were really what remained of them after most of their branches had been chopped for fuel and only a green tuft remained, something I had not seen before.

Teff with yellow meskel flowers (Bidens macroptera or pachyloma?) in the forefront of the picture.
  • Goin through the Woliso area in Gurage country.
  • Houses in Woliso.

Near Jimma, the capital of the large Kaffa province and about 350 km from Addis Ababa, the landscape became greener and trees became more abundant. That coincided with the end of the tarmac and the start of a consolidated but very rough and dusty road, from where we continued towards Bedele, located in the province of Illubabor. We reached Bedele after a long 140 km journey from Jimma and, by the time we got there, presented our travel credentials for clearance by the local member of the Government and found food and accommodation, we were really tired and we slept soundly!

The following morning was cool and sunny and this enabled me to appreciate that Bedele was mainly a one street town set up in a rather well forested area. Bedele, also known and “Buno Bedele” was reputed to be the origin of the coffee and you could easily see the beautiful flat-top acacias with the coffee bushes growing under their shade.

During my visit I learnt that the work was mainly following an already on-going routine that required the collection of ticks from cattle at different locations both to get to know the species and to understand their population dynamics. The study was led by a scientist that had suffered a severe health problem and needed to be evacuated and unfortunately was unable to return.

I realized that I could handle the proposed work and hoped to stimulate other research activities and, hopefully, attract more funding to continue the work beyond the two years planned.

During the visit I met the Ethiopians that would work with me and I was impressed about their dedication as they had kept the work going despite having remained on their own for a few months by now. I accompanied them when they went to their study sites and I realized that Ethiopia was a really special place, difficult but full of new things for me that I judged we would enjoy.

During that time, I also leant that Jan and Janni, a couple from The Netherlands working on trypanosomiasis also lived at the station and we would share our time there although they were on holiday during the time of my visit. Our house was next to theirs and when I saw it I understood fully Andy’s remarks that my garden would be “the whole of Ethiopia”!

Our two-bedroom bungalow, the same as the remaining seven others, had a small kitchen, a sitting area and a toilet that included a shower two bedrooms. I duly measured all rooms and made a floor plan that hoped it would be useful to plan our future house. Supplies, however, looked a more complicated affair. Petrol was rationed and, apart from good coffee, food was available at a basic butchery and the Saturday market. Clearly we needed to prepare for “importing” our foodstuff from Addis Ababa at regular intervals.

Although the work offered both positive and negative aspects, after the visit I judged that the former outweighed the latter and I decided that we should give this new adventure, both professional and personal, a try and our adventures there will be the subject of the following posts.

[1] See: https://bushsnob.com/2015/09/29/harvesting-from-the-effort1/

[2] See: https://bushsnob.com/2019/11/13/pythons-and-social-life/),

[3] Eragrostis tef, native of the Horn of Africa, is a cereal grass with tiny seeds of less than one millimeter of diameter. It is cultivated for its tiny seeds “injera“, a sourdough-risen flatbread is made and also for its straw to feed livestock.