Ethiopia - Addis Ababa - Welcome to Africa. It's Just Like The Movies.

When my puddlejumper plane landed on the tarmac at the Addis Ababa airport at 4am, I had no idea what I should expect. Let’s face it... most of my knowledge of Africa derives from The Lion King.
Mehr had promised to pick me up at that unfortunate hour of the morning, and I was greatly relieved to spot her sleepy but cheerful face awaiting me in the arrival area. We followed the dirt path out to the parking lot, a gravelly square filled with dozing pack animals, wandering goats and antelopes and motorcycles. Mehr whistled at one gossiping driver who disdainfully looked our way before rallying our three camels. Oh my goodness. Holly on a camel at 4am sounds like all kinds of trouble!

Just kidding. Our driver actually brought a rickshaw around to take us home. And I can already tell you that Africa will be a whole different kind of travel experience on this trip. It’s everything you might have imagined it to be... For example, Mehron’s dad lives in a traditional but large mud hut just outside the capital city on the school compound, closer to a village called Mbutu than to Addis Ababa. There is one big communal room that is the kitchen/dining room/living room, two smaller bedrooms off the sides, and a scary, dark outhouse in the yard (thankfully not too close to the encroaching jungle... we all know how good I am with wildlife!), which is also home to the bucket shower stall. This will require some getting used to, to say the least. As a bonus, we are serenaded to sleep at night by the shrill neighbourhood zebras who I am told are participating in the Great Migration south to Kenya. At least it isn’t hyenas, I guess. Because zebras and other typical African animals are endangered species in Ethiopia, Mehr’s dad isn’t allowed to try and scare them along their way. They should be all migrated and gone by next week, I’m told.

There is a wood stove in the big room to do all the cooking, which turns the house into a bit of a giant oven when combined with the hot African sun beating down on the roof. We eat almost only Ethiopian food because Western food imports are crazy expensive here and can only be obtained via the black market. Ethiopian food is great, but they are very proud of being the origin of coffee.



This pride results in the use of coffee grounds as seasoning in the dishes, such as coffee-marinated chicken, coffee rice and coffee-sprinkled pizza. I cannot say I enjoy the coffee pizza, and I got more than a few strange looks when I asked for my pizza “buna alfelegim” (I don’t want coffee). I better not tell them I don’t drink coffee...

Many people thought I would get bored here, but it turns out we have tons to do. I first had to be presented to the local neighbourhood community at a formal ceremony presided over by the village elders. It was like a scene out of a movie. They gathered in front of our house at sunset and I was introduced by the chief in a very elabourate speech in Amharic, the main language of Ethiopia, which referred to my ancestry and accomplishments. I was careful to be especially polite to the local witch-doctor, a very small and wise old man whose only English sentence is the Nike slogan “Just Do It”. He gave me a nyala (antelope) horn for good luck. I don’t think it’s going to fit in my backpack. I was later told that he liked me so much that he privately sacrificed a goat in my honour that night.

Mehr took me out to the current hotspot, a club called Tropicana, to relax after the evening’s formalities. Turns out that Tropicana is also the favourite hang-out of the slightly sinister men of power in Ethiopia who wear sunglasses at night, the flamboyantly dressed nouveau riche here and the khaki-clad expat community. There were really great African beats playing though, so we stayed for a good while just to listen and people-watch. And just when I was least expecting it, a birthday cake was brought out with my name on it and the entire bar, including Ethiopia’s top sniper (a woman a year younger than me!), sang me Happy Birthday. Mehr and her dad were looking very satisfied with themselves and rightly so... who expects a surprise party a week after their birthday?! Well played, Torrans family, well played.

I awoke hot and sweaty the next morning to the scarlet fireball sun burning holes through my eyelids through the open window of our room. Mehr and I trekked across the hot and dusty school compound to the school building, a giant sweltering gymnasium with a grass and sand floor. There are some computers and other everyday technology available in Addis Ababa, but the school is far enough outside that it does not have reliable electricity so the teachers and students work with chalk and slate, or even sticks and sand. When we weren’t helping the kids do their math problems, we were the unofficial lunch monitors, patrolling the yard to make sure the kids didn’t fall in the well and chasing off the grabby monkeys who hassled the kids for their lunches.

So there’s a little slice of living in Africa for you... As for what’s next, we’ve had plenty of invitations we’re keen to take up, so in the next few weeks we will be going on safari on the savannah plains to try our hands at spearfishing, warrior campfire dancing, camel herding and elephant tracking.

Okay, not really. April Fool’s! Nobody expects an April Fool's prank in October...

Actual Africa

After a long day on and off of planes between Vienna, Cairo and Addis Ababa, I finally arrived to Ethiopia at the early hour of 3:30am. Even though I was one of the first people off the plane, I was definitely the last person out of customs and immigration. This was because I couldn’t find the visa on arrival office and was redirected by the immigration officer to a broom closet with a paper sign taped up on the door listing the prices of tourist visas, where the man behind the desk ever-so-carefully copied my information onto the visa sticker, peeled and inserted it into my passport, decided it wasn’t tidy enough and redid it. He was this thorough with each passenger, so thankfully there was only one woman in front of me, with him dedicating twenty minutes to each visa.

Mehron’s sleepy and cheerful face was indeed there to greet me at that absurd hour with her father’s favourite taxi driver in tow. Both of whom were exhausted having mixed up the dates and gone to pick me up at that same time the night before as well!



All the taxis here are blue and white, with no working seatbelts, a maximum speed of 40km/hr and their drivers face the incredibly difficult task of not hitting the pedestrians who waltz around the roads like they own the place. The penalty for killing someone in a car accident is a minimum of 15 years in prison even if it is not the driver’s fault, so there is plenty of motivation to drive safely and slowly.

Addis Ababa is high in the mountains of Ethiopia at 2,300m elevation, and is incredibly lush and green and unseasonably torrential with rains and cold weather thanks to El Nino. I have been living in my sweater, jeans and scarf every day. We have a fire in the stove of her dad’s house most days to warm ourselves up. Mehron’s dad does live on the Sandford International School campus, a swanky complex with six gate guards (every house has a gate and a guard here despite the lack of violence in the city) of many buildings housing an elementary, secondary and night ESL school for Addis. The biggest danger here is pickpockets... there is very little violent crime in Ethiopia.

Our house is like a really comfortable cottage, decorated with Persian rugs, Native Canadian art and Syrian furniture from their family’s many travels. Mehr and I share a bedroom with an ensuite Anne of Green Gables decorated bathroom, with a shower with plenty of hot water down the hall by the kitchen. Mehr’s dad is an excellent cook and makes a wide range of incredible meals with everything from prosciutto to litchi thanks to the slightly pricey but well stocked local grocery store, and the assistance of the refrigerator, stove and oven in the kitchen.

The only thing he has not made is Ethiopian food, which was made for us by Mehron’s grandmother, whose mother used to cook for Emperor Haile Selassie, the idolized deceased king of Ethiopia. Ethiopian food and coffee are excellent but served completely separately and I assure you that coffee pizza is yet to be invented here. Rather, they eat delicious meat and vegetables in yummy very spicy sauces with injera bread for dipping.

I have been informally introduced with more conventional hand-shaking to most of the city already since Mehron’s dad knows EVERYONE. I must have met fifty people this first week alone. The local hang out is Three Bees, a front porch bar opposite the school campus. Further afield are the Hilton and Sheraton Hotels and Bole street, where the drinking and eating happens away from home. We went to a great Motown show at the Sheraton where my surprise birthday party unfolded on Friday night.

And while the stereotypes about Africa may be exaggerated, there is a certain air of ridiculousness afoot. For example, when we asked our taxi driver to take us to a fruit stand, he abandoned the completely empty and paved road to drive along the crowded pedestrian sidewalk for a block and a half. There is also a state-of-the-art park that has been built with tantalizing playgrounds galore that it is completely forbidden to enter because some clever city planner put it too close to the palace. Better yet, today I watched two men holding hands with a goat (holding hands with the goat’s front legs, not with each other) to cross the road, all three bipedal. Plus, Ethiopia’s best sniper really did come to my surprise party at the Sheraton and sang along to my Happy Birthday chorus.

I like it!