After 25 hours in transit through Toronto, Frankfurt, Khartoum (Sudan) we arrived in Addis to find my guitar and several of Jim, the camara man’s bags remained in Frankfurt and won’t join us again now until the end of the trip. So today was partially spent getting some camera gear, a guitar and clothes for Jim.
Addis is a city of about 3 million and we are staying in an older hotel in the center of the city that is built in the former palace grounds. The hotel is not much to write home about but the grounds are gorgeous. Outside the compound is a rambling city that at first glance seems to be a large field of rubble with buildings growing haphazardly out of it. – Lots of goats! It turns out that today is Ethiopian Christmas and folks buy and skin goats on the spot for this evening’s festivities. One can see high piles of freshly removed skins in the middle of the sidewalks.
We didn’t do much in terms of site seeing, we slept in of course – went for lunch at Sam and Cathy VanderEnde’s. Sam is the regional rep for the Canadian Foodgrains Bank and will be our guide and companion for the whole week. We’ll now take a walk about the neighbourhood and get back for a traditional supper and some Ethiopian music and dance.
Ethiopia is one of the poorest countries of the world and that is evidenced by the sprawling slums and crumbing roads and sidewalks – but the people are very colourful, obviously affectionate and quite shy but very smiley. I am looking forward to the coming days.
I seems like I won’t have much access to the internet so I don’t know when I can post again. I’ll journal everyday and post a lot at a time whenever I can.
I wish I was more reflective and descriptive now but the brain is a little fuzzy and jetlagged. I’ll try to be more eloqent in coming posts.
Tomorrow is a travel day to a lowland area on the way to Afar. Apparently the vistas will be spectacular and the temperature will get quite warm as we decend from the mountains.
I’ll sign out – others want on this computer.
Peace.
