On the Friday night I was taken to a doctors’ dinner. It is for people (doctors, nurses, midwives etc) who want to improve their medical knowledge (and also have a bit of a meet up), as I don’t think improving your knowledge through little courses etc has as much emphasis here as it does in the UK.
The doctor that set it up has Armenian ancestors so it was held in the Armenian club. The first toilet I have visited with all relevant equipment! (Seat, working flush, paper, lock, light, running water, soap and something to dry hands on). Apparently Ethiopia was very kind to the Armenians when they faced persecution about 120 years ago, and lots of them escaped Armenia to come to Ethiopia. The king even adopted 40 Armenian children!
We started to set up the projector ready for the 2 talks of the evening. There was a lot of faff with different cables and plugs etc. Then there was a lot of tooing and froing re where to put the tables and chairs. But all was settled by the time people started arriving! It was quite an international bunch – Americans, Japanese, Europeans, Ethiopians.
Whilst we were eating delicious Armenian food (little fried samosa things, yoghurt dip, kebab meat and flat bread), two of the doctors did a small lecture each. We had one by an American doctor on the coronavirus, which concluded that there was a lot we didn’t know, and one by my colleague on leprosy, which is always good. She’s an excellent speaker, even if I have heard most of it before!
Upstairs in the Armenian club there was an art gallery with loads of enormous abstract paintings with quite a bit of sparkle on them, and some beautiful (but quite pricey) leather handbags. There’s a lot of excellent leather here, one of the very odd accommodation guests runs a leather business in Kenya and he says it’s more developed here! I was very surprised. Mostly Kenya seems wealthier, with better infrastructure.
The next day I decided to check out Sana’a – a very popular Yemeni restaurant in a part of town I’d never been to before. It was heaving, apparently it’s very popular with Addis’ Muslim population (I think about 20% or so) and also Christians too. There were no tables left so they took me down a few corridors to some rooms with height-less sofas on the floor, and asked did I mind sitting on the floor. I said yes, no problem, so put my shoes in the scattered pile outside the room and sat down. I was very glad I had worn a loose skirt!
Immediately the Muslim lady next to me offered me some of her food! I declined, as I was just about to order. I got lamb and rice, which came with different sauces and a little soup that you put fresh herb/chilli mix and some dairy based sauce into. It was delicious! Easily the best food I have had since arriving, but the portion was enormous! I couldn’t finish it, and the waitress told me I had ‘barely eaten anything’. 30 seconds later, a Muslim lady on the other side of the room (she was a guest too) asked me if I was pregnant. I replied, no, just food! She then apologised profusely! I can’t win!
After Sana’a I went to unity park which I had heard was a nice spot. What I hadn’t heard, was that it is $20 to get in! It’s just been renovated and is in beautiful grounds – it was the emperor’s palace. I got an ice cream and snuck in the back for a peep before it closed. Might come back again later.
Decided to pop into the Hilton on the way back for a glass of Ethiopian wine (my first, and not necessarily my last). It was nice to sit in the shade over looking pool and flowers and not have people shout ‘China’ or ‘hey you!’ At me for a while!
On my return taxi journey home the taxi driver told me all about Teddy Afro, Ethiopia’s hottest pop star who was playing in Meskel square that night. All the roads were blocked off so we had to go a funny route. He had really good English and explained that Teddy Afro had the best voice and had been around for 15 years. He had a small backing band and sang traditional as well as modern songs, and always kept it fresh! He is now even more popular, as a couple of years ago he criticised the government and was thrown into jail for doing so. He spent 2 years in jail, got recently released and is now more popular than ever. I get the feeling this government is not particularly popular. Will be interesting to see what happens in the election in August. Fingers crossed it calms down – there are already some skirmishes down south, which are apparently election related.
The next day I went to a ‘rotary day’ in one of the schools- they were raising money for polio, but all the merchandise said ‘cancer sucks’… never got to the bottom of that! They had little stalls of information, games, food and gifts to buy, including some very reasonably priced leather. The band was starting up as I left, but I decided to go on to the Addis Ababa food fair. It was in the Ghion hotel, which is always nice (that’s the hotel everyone has their wedding photos in) and consisted of an awful lot of beer stalls and some food stalls, as well as some gifty stalls. I had some jerk chicken which nearly blew my head off and had fortunately just finished it by the time a big gust of wind blew my table over! I then pottered around the gifty stalls, and had some ice cream. One of the stall owners looked slightly affronted when I politely declined his wares. He was selling roses with inscriptions of vomit inducing expressions of love printed on the petals. What do you say when someone asks you why you don’t want one? It’s really flipping tacky?!
I then moved to a nice shaded bit with my ice cream. Unfortunately there was a very persistent man who ‘loved me’. I ignored him for a full 10 minutes before he left, only to come back and ask me for money! He was a member of staff at the event! I stalked off.
I went to sit by the fountain (free of weird lecherous men) and got chatting to a German couple who are in Addis for 6 months. We had a really long chat and they invited me for pizza, though sadly I had to decline as I was moving accommodation the following day and had to pack. Shame I didn’t get their numbers, they were so nice! They also gave me lots of tips about restaurants and other bits of Ethiopia.
Anna’s adventures 