I landed back in the U.S. yesterday, so this will be my last post. I've been comparing Ethiopia to the U.S. a lot, and here's a summary of my thoughts.
Favorite things about Ethiopia:
1) 8-cent tea, 15-cent minibus rides, $1.50 meals... the birr-dollar conversion is glorious (at least, it is for Americans)
2) The prevalence of mangoes
3) Textiles (if you haven't been subjected to one of my odes to hand-spun, hand-woven cotton, consider yourself lucky)
4) Shiro
5) The fact that nobody cares or notices if you wear the same outfit more than once a week
6) The scenery
7) The history
8) The fact that heterosexual men are perfectly comfortable holding hands with each other
Favorite things about the U.S.:
1) Fast and reliable internet
2) Pasteurized milk
3) Warm lighting (again, if you haven't been subjected to a lecture on the depressing fluorescent lights of Ethiopia, consider yourself lucky)
4) Food variety
5) English
6) The fact that would not be acceptable for Americans to point and shout "foreigner!" or "Hey you hey you!" at Ethiopians walking around in the U.S.
7) Distinct and varied seasons
8) The fact that homosexual men are perfectly comfortable holding hands with each other (er, in some places...)
Thanks for reading!
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
The Time I Almost Stayed in the Nicest Hotel Room I Would Have Ever Stayed In
I went on a semi-spontaneous trip to Hawassa for work at the end of last week. Since my presence on the trip wasn’t decided until the day before we left, we had some issues getting me a hotel room. Long story short, I ended up in the deluxe suite. Holy smokes. It had one of those big round beds with built-in speakers, a complementary bottle of wine, and a massage chair. I only had time to throw my stuff in the room before heading to dinner. When I got back, I spent 20 minutes trying to figure out the shower with its remote control and 10 spigots, showered, dressed, and walked back into the room. At this point it was about 10:30.
I noticed that there were quite a few mosquitoes on the wall next to the bed. I started smashing them with my guidebook, but it seemed like they were multiplying exponentially. They grew in number from “quite a few” to “swarms,” and I went on a rampage with this guidebook. I must have killed at least 40 mosquitoes, leaving disgusting blood stains and half-crushed mosquito bodies plastered all over the wall. It was a full-out massacre. Then I stepped back to survey the damage more fully and realized that this area of my room was now populated by HUNDREDS of mosquitoes. They carpeted the floor and flitted around the wall, ceiling, and bed in enormous packs. They were everywhere. I can’t overstate how many mosquitoes were in this room. Now, Hawassa is in a malaria-endemic area and the room had no bednet, so I decided to pay a visit to the front desk.
The man at the front desk said there were no bednets or any other open rooms, but he offered to bring the roach spray up. He wanted to fumigate my room. With roach spray. And then have me sleep in it. I said that didn’t really sound safe, and he helpfully suggested that I wait 10 minutes after he sprayed to go back in. He came up to the room, opened the door, and saw the population of mosquitoes that had by that time swelled to plague proportions. He freaked out, realized that this room was uninhabitable, and also realized that the window was open behind the floor-to-ceiling curtains. Aha. I didn’t even know there were windows behind the curtains. After ascertaining that I had not opened the window and didn’t realize that the window was open, he moved me to another room and set about cleaning up the deluxe suite to offer to the guest who would be arriving shortly and had reserved my new room. My new room had a normal bed, no wine, and no massage chair. But it did have a bednet and a lack of mosquitoes, so it won by a long shot. The meaning of this little parable: as suspected, I am really not made for deluxe suites.
I noticed that there were quite a few mosquitoes on the wall next to the bed. I started smashing them with my guidebook, but it seemed like they were multiplying exponentially. They grew in number from “quite a few” to “swarms,” and I went on a rampage with this guidebook. I must have killed at least 40 mosquitoes, leaving disgusting blood stains and half-crushed mosquito bodies plastered all over the wall. It was a full-out massacre. Then I stepped back to survey the damage more fully and realized that this area of my room was now populated by HUNDREDS of mosquitoes. They carpeted the floor and flitted around the wall, ceiling, and bed in enormous packs. They were everywhere. I can’t overstate how many mosquitoes were in this room. Now, Hawassa is in a malaria-endemic area and the room had no bednet, so I decided to pay a visit to the front desk.
The man at the front desk said there were no bednets or any other open rooms, but he offered to bring the roach spray up. He wanted to fumigate my room. With roach spray. And then have me sleep in it. I said that didn’t really sound safe, and he helpfully suggested that I wait 10 minutes after he sprayed to go back in. He came up to the room, opened the door, and saw the population of mosquitoes that had by that time swelled to plague proportions. He freaked out, realized that this room was uninhabitable, and also realized that the window was open behind the floor-to-ceiling curtains. Aha. I didn’t even know there were windows behind the curtains. After ascertaining that I had not opened the window and didn’t realize that the window was open, he moved me to another room and set about cleaning up the deluxe suite to offer to the guest who would be arriving shortly and had reserved my new room. My new room had a normal bed, no wine, and no massage chair. But it did have a bednet and a lack of mosquitoes, so it won by a long shot. The meaning of this little parable: as suspected, I am really not made for deluxe suites.
Ex-Co-Coord Meeting...in Addis
T and Stina came to visit for 2 days last week! Happiness abounded.
Highlights:
One of us (I won’t say who lest she be embarrassed) got a little silly on tej (honey wine) Monday night and sang along to “Wake Me Up Before You Go” rather spiritedly in the taxi on the way home. Our taxi driver took this as a sign that she loved the song and turned the volume up to an absurd level. The juxtaposition of Addis after dark and that song at that volume was amazing.
We went to Entoto on Tuesday. To get to Entoto, you drive up a STEEP mountainside, full of hairpin turns and flanked alternately by a eucalyptus forest and sheer cliffs. Sometimes you have to swerve around donkeys or goats. We were in a malfunctioning minibus, which made the trip all the more amusing and memorable. Every hundred feet or so, this minibus would stall, roll backwards a few feet, stop, and then slowly start to creep forward again. T spent the whole time trying to distract me from visions of our impending fall off the side of the mountain. At one point the minibus pulled over, all the passengers unloaded, and the driver LIFTED THE FRONT SEAT UP to fiddle with the engine. Some boys ran down the hill singing Shakira’s World Cup song while we waited. The kids who had gathered by the road to stare at the minibus thought it was hilarious when I sang along. Eventually we made it to the top safely and saw the sights, yadayada, but the ride was really the best part.
Highlights:
One of us (I won’t say who lest she be embarrassed) got a little silly on tej (honey wine) Monday night and sang along to “Wake Me Up Before You Go” rather spiritedly in the taxi on the way home. Our taxi driver took this as a sign that she loved the song and turned the volume up to an absurd level. The juxtaposition of Addis after dark and that song at that volume was amazing.
We went to Entoto on Tuesday. To get to Entoto, you drive up a STEEP mountainside, full of hairpin turns and flanked alternately by a eucalyptus forest and sheer cliffs. Sometimes you have to swerve around donkeys or goats. We were in a malfunctioning minibus, which made the trip all the more amusing and memorable. Every hundred feet or so, this minibus would stall, roll backwards a few feet, stop, and then slowly start to creep forward again. T spent the whole time trying to distract me from visions of our impending fall off the side of the mountain. At one point the minibus pulled over, all the passengers unloaded, and the driver LIFTED THE FRONT SEAT UP to fiddle with the engine. Some boys ran down the hill singing Shakira’s World Cup song while we waited. The kids who had gathered by the road to stare at the minibus thought it was hilarious when I sang along. Eventually we made it to the top safely and saw the sights, yadayada, but the ride was really the best part.
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