I agree... So spend some money doing so...! And run a spell-check while you are at it...
Natty outfit worn by Haile Selassie, past Emperor of Ethiopia...
Not to be confused with “A Weekend in Paris”…!!
The three days I spent in Addis with Lukas and Annette van Deventer seemed to fly by… On Friday, I convinced Annette to accompany me to the National Museum, which she had not yet visited. We walked a short distance from their house and then caught a rundown taxi to the Museum. The bonnet of the taxi opened and shut every time we went over a bump, giving me a close-up view of the engine each time it did so…
The Royal Throne...
The Museum was a disappointment to us both. Perhaps the sight of hundreds of school children visitng the place put us off from the outset… It is housed on four separate floors, and contains very little of any great interest… Various costumes worn by Emperors long gone, are displayed in dusty glass cases, the labels often too dirty to read…
There is an interesting display of our Hominid Ancestor, “Lucy”, who dates back about 160 000 years, give or take a month… She was discovered in 1997 in the eastern part of Ethiopia towards the Eritrean border, on a site that has become world renowned for its paleontological value… The Sterkfontein Caves and Makapansgat of Ethiopia, as it were…
Other than that, it is a tired old example of a Museum, and unless the Minister of Arts and Culture spends some of his annual budget on the place, it will slide further into “rack and ruin”… Outside the museum there was mayhem, as children ran around trying ti find their teachers… The teachers meanwhile were picking flowers from the gardens surrounding the building in the same compound where the museum was located…
Our next taxi to the Hilton hotel was as memorable as the first, but this one did not have enough fuel, so we free-wheeled down any street with even the slightest downward gradient… The Hilton Hotel is the next best thing after the Sheraton of Addis Ababa… I would have stayed there, but the reportedly $2600.00 p.p.p.n. was just a touch beyond my budget… The Hilton is set in beautifully laid out gardens, and we sat out near the pool and had a laid back lunch, while we watched the locals going about their business…
This was the closest I was going to get to the Reception Desk at the Sheraton Hotel...
There were at least six European couples leading Ethiopian children around, and try as I might, I can’t get me head around the fact that both here and in Kenya, American and European couples come to adopt children… Why can’t they visit orphanages in their own countries and adopt children there? Why take an African child back home where they will have to adapt to a culture completely foreign to their own? And regardless of what the well-meaning parents might think, they will face racial prejudice and a host of other difficulties that they are ill-equipped to understand and deal with… If they feel the need to help the orphaned children of Africa, and Heaven knows they do need all the help they can get, these couples should rather fly in and help build schools and clinics, or fund meals etc…
Maybe it has become a weird fashion statement of sorts, in which case in my humble opinion, Angelina and Madonna have a lot to answer for…
Addis Ababa is getting another modern high rise building...
The “big” rainy season comes to Ethiopia in June, July and August, and clouds covered the sky for most of the day, until late afternoon, when it rained on and off for a while… I wanted to avoid rain as much as possible, and the only way to to this was to get into Sudan before the rain arrived in earnest… On checking the yr.no website, I saw that Khartoum was enjoying a mild day of just 41° Celsius… Maybe getting a little wet wasn’t so bad after all…
On Friday night, Lukas and Annette were invited to a bash at the South African Embassy, so I had the house to myself and spent this valuable time catching up on my blog, and planning the days ahead. Due to the fact that they only arrived home at 2.30am, you can understand why Saturday morning in the van Deventer home was a fragile affair…
You have to know where to find the local stuff...
Later that afternoon, Johan “G.I. Joe” arrived, and together with Philip the Factory Manager, we watched The Bulls and the Stormers play themselves into the Super 14 Final. It was just like any other day in South Africa… The braai was going, beer flowed and the shouting must have had the neighbors thinking that fights had broken out next door…
You have to admire our county-men who have chosen to earn their livings in these far flung places, where their skills are much needed, and highly sought after… There are apparently only 34 registered South Africans in Ethiopia, and 24 of those work at the Embassy!!
Despite the obvious height, the scaffolding is simply a spider's web of wooden poles...
On Sunday, Lukas drove us around Addis to see the sights… We passed the abattoirs, where Vultures and Marabou storks lined the roof tops, waiting for the offal to be thrown onto the large dump behind the buildings. Business in Addis on a Sunday, is only marginally less than on other days, and the streets were still clogged with traffic in places… They were also clogged with herds of sheep! It is a strange sight to see sheep being herded past modern glass fronted building, on one of the busiest streets in the capital… Their owners paint pink and red stripes on their coats to identify them, and down by the bus ranks, a thriving livestock market is almost always in progress.
You can do far worse than live here in Addis Ababa, I think… An attempt is made to keep the streets clean and the city is being modernized at what seems to be a frenetic pace. High rise buildings are going up in downtown Addis, and although the “Shopping Mall” as we know it has not yet arrived here, it can’t be too far off…
We met with Johan and Philip on Sunday evening and went to the Greek club for dinner… It had been drizzling all afternoon and the clay tennis courts were in no state for a game… Another chance to practice my base line strokes went a-begging…
Lukas and I went out with a empty drum later that evening to find petrol for the Big Fella, and after filling him up by torchlight, and using a combination of hosepipe, bucket, and funnel, I was ready to leave the next morning…
I spent the rest of the evening downloading posts and emails and then around midnight, fell into bed, dreaming of the ruined castles and churches of northern Ethiopia, and the deserts of Sudan that lay beyond them…
Not long now…
This cannon dates back a few years, to when the Italians once again showed they had more "bark than bite"...
©GBWT 2010
I cannot agree with you more about the adoption of African children. We see it here in Australia as well and they are so conspicuous. Real care happens when we go to the children in their environment an work to improve their life. The rest is tokenism and I am saddened by this growing trend.
Enjoying your Ethiopian experience tremendously. Thank You !
have to ask you – the Philip you met – is his surname Gane – if so he is a friend of ours from PE – what a small world!!