June 25, 2007

Ethiopia's biggest export to Sudan...

...must be domestic labour. All the nannies and mamitas here are Ethiopian.

Monthly wages in Ethiopia - almost nothing ("niece" from the country, local employer) to ETB1,000/US$110 (experienced with lots of references, foreign diplomat employer).

Monthly wages in Sudan - US$350 and up (from what I've heard so far).

"I don't like it here. It is so hot," said one Ethiopian woman I spoke to. "But I am staying."

Posted by aheavens at 6:43 AM | Comments (15)

June 20, 2007

Lunch at the Greek club

Had lunch the other day with TED attendee Ted Kidane (try saying that quickly) and his wife at the Greek Club.

We were in a post-conference African Renaissance high. So the conversation turned naturally to trying to imagine what Ethiopia would be like without poverty. It was short conversation as the answer was obvious. The climate, the landscape, the endless variety, the cultures stretching back into time, the food, the coffee, Haile Gebrselassie. It would be paradise on earth.

Maybe those Rastas in Shashamane are on to something.

Posted by aheavens at 7:53 AM | Comments (1)

June 15, 2007

Mixed Coka

Bernos waxes lyrical about the joys of drinking mixed Coca-Cola in Addis Ababa:

Even yet'eb'er'za Coka had its satisfaction. Whether mixed with water or not I didn't care!! For a long time after coming to the states I still used to water down my Coke.

It took a while to get used to seeing people topping up a glass of Coke with Ambo (fizzy water) or Highland (bottled water). Then, two weeks ago, I was at a friend's house and he offered me a drink – half Coke, half Axumit red wine.

It wasn't quite as bad as it sounds. But where did this habit come from?

Posted by aheavens at 10:46 AM | Comments (7)

June 11, 2007

Bored of the millennium

Some friends here just published the second edition of Abiy Guday - The Big Issue Ethiopia - a magazine sold by homeless people that I am helping with.

Unfortunately we made a big mistake with the cover. I thought Ethiopia's coming millennium would make a great issue for the magazine and designed a cover with the figure '2000' repeated three times in the colours of the Ethiopian flag.

But it turns out that the average Ethiopian consumer is bored to tears of the Millennium. In fact, they associate the hype around it with the government which, if you remember from the last election, is not all that popular in Addis Ababa. So the homeless vendors are having to try extra hard to persuade people to buy this edition.

It is a shame, because inside, there is an essay by an unnamed Addis University student expressing some of their frustrations with the big event. (See the article below.) We are still working on the magazine website. But if you see somone selling it in the street, please look beyond the cover and buy a copy.

I'm trying, but I just can not get excited by ET 2000

By an AAU student

I am sorry to have to say this, just as everyone is starting to get so excited about the dawn of our new millennium. But I have been trying and trying. And I still can not get excited about it.

I know it is unique and I know it is uniquely Ethiopian. I know that it will, technically, mark the beginning of a new era. And I know that it might pull in a few more tourists, and some more millionaires from the diaspora. Maybe we might even get a few more foreign journalists flying in to write some nice things about us for a change.

But, come on. Is your pulse really racing and your heart really beating faster because 1999 is about to turn into 2000 – seven years after everyone else?

Here are my three main reasons for not getting excited about this coming millennium.

Number one: The whole thing is so abstract. If you look at it coldly, it actually means nothing. The second hand on the clock moved forward a few millimeters and one day turns into another day, one month into another month. Nothing has really moved on. Nothing has changed in a real sense. Why not put equal effort into celebrating the transition from 1998 to 1999? Are we really that excited about the arrival of a nice round number?

Number two: Most of the official millennium events are going to be organised by a committee. It might be an independent committee, not a government committee. But it is still a committee. When was the last time you had a good time at anything organised by a committee? Don't bother checking the program. You know what is coming. Huge, carefully orchestrated events. Long, long speeches. Every civic group will have a chance to have its say. Every government minister will have their five minutes speaking on ETV. And what are the chances that Teddy Afro will sing? Zero.

Number three: What do we really have to celebrate at the moment? Trouble is pushing in at us from every border – what are the millennium parties going to be like in Somali region, in Gambella? And you don't need me to remind you about all those terrible development statistics.

How about if, instead of all this effort to mark the millennium, we focus our minds on something else, something more concrete. How about if we work out ways to develop the economy and become self-sufficient by 2010 - another nice round number? We could hold a huge party and make lots of speeches – ‘Thank you Mr UNICEF, thank you Ms Red Cross. You have helped us for so long. And we are hugely grateful. But we don't need you anymore.' That would get them dancing in the streets.

Technorati Tags: ethiopia, millennium, big issue, homeless

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Posted by aheavens at 8:07 AM | Comments (9)

April 27, 2007

Really free at last

Freed Ethiopian captives, Yonas Mesfin (L), Debash Baye (2nd L), Hussain Mohammed (2nd R) and Ashenafe Mekonnen (R), celebrate with their friend Samson Teshome (C) at Bole international airport in Addis Ababa April 26, 2007. Eight Ethiopians made a tearful return to Addis Ababa on Thursday, two months after being kidnapped at gunpoint with five Europeans in the country's remote northeastern Afar region.

Here's the story:

Freed Ethiopian hostages return to Addis Ababa

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - Eight Ethiopians made a tearful return to Addis Ababa on Thursday, two months after being kidnapped at gunpoint with five Europeans in the country's remote northeastern Afar region.

"I am good. I am too happy. The first thing I want to do is have a beer," one former hostage, Ashenafe Mekonnen, told Reuters before being ushered away by government officials who said the eight would make full statements on Friday.

Crowds of cheering friends and family thronged the capital's Bole International Airport long before the eight arrived.

"This is a time to praise God," said Samson Teshome, a close friend of Ashenafe -- who worked as a guide for the Europeans...more

Posted by aheavens at 4:05 AM | Comments (4)

Interesting times

Yesterday was quite a day in Ethiopia. There were the continuing repercussions of the ONLF attack in Somali region in the morning. Around lunch, students started throwing stones at each other - and worse - at Addis Ababa University, both its Sedist and Arat Kilo campuses (see below). Around five in the afternoon, the freed Ethiopian captives flew into town (see above). The poor old ILO conference at the Economic Commission for Africa got a bit overshadowed in all the running around.

Here are some headlines from the ongoing ONLF story.

Ethiopia attack demonstrates dangers of China's Africa push - Apr 26

A deadly guerrilla attack on an oil installation in Ethiopia's remote east has highlighted the growing penetration and perils of Chinese interests in the vast Horn of Africa nation and the continent as a whole.

Ethiopia rebels want to hand over Chinese hostages - Apr 26

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - Ethiopian rebels who killed 74 people and seized seven Chinese workers in a raid on an oilfield said on Thursday they had no plans to hold the hostages or attack other foreign companies.

Ethiopia hunts for kidnapped Chinese oil workers Apr 25

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - Ethiopian troops searched on Wednesday for seven Chinese and Ethiopian workers kidnapped in a rebel attack on an oilfield that killed 74 people in a remote and barren southeastern region.

FACTBOX - Facts about Ethiopia's ONLF rebels - Apr 25

Reuters - A guerrilla attack on a Chinese-run oilfield in southeast Ethiopia killing 65 locals and nine Chinese is one of the highest-profile operations to date of the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF).

Here are key facts about ONLF:

Rebels kill 74 in Ethiopia oil field raid April 24

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - Gunmen killed 65 Ethiopians and nine Chinese in their sleep on Tuesday in a pre-dawn raid on an oil field that Ethiopia blamed on rebels backed by regional foe Eritrea. A separatist guerrilla group, the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF), said it carried out the attack on the field which is run by a Chinese firm.

Posted by aheavens at 3:10 AM | Comments (0)

April 26, 2007

Stone throwing at Sedist Kilo

Students flee from stone-throwing classmates at Addis Ababa university's main Sedist Kilo campus in the Ethiopian capital on Thursday afternoon after two days of unrest.

Armed federal police arrived minutes later to try and quell the violence. Two days of unrest were sparked by rumours of the mistreatment of a dead student's body - and of claims that scores of students had suffered food poisoning at the canteen.

The unrest stepped up tension in the capital and sparked memories of political unrest following Ethiopia's 2005 national elections that started in the same campus.

A student at the university's journalism school Yikunnoamlak Mezgebu did a good report on the violence. You can read the report Death of a student sparks mass protest on the department's website.

More photos on Flickr. Here's Seminawork on the protests and here's a brand new university-focused blogger Roha.

Posted by aheavens at 7:58 PM | Comments (1)

April 10, 2007

Shaft in Ethiopia

Just yesterday a friend was saying that I had to see Shaft in Africa, the 1973 blaxploitation film starring Richard Roundtree as "the black private dick that's a sex machine to all the chicks".

There were two reasons why it was a must-see. First the setting - groovy Haile Selassie-era Addis Ababa. Second the actors. Many of the bright young things strutting around on screen in various states of undress back then have grown up to be some of the city's most respectable and well-known citizens today.

Most prominent among the Ethiopian actors was none other than Debebe Eshetu. Back then he was playing the part of the Emir's right hand man Wassa - sample dialogue:

Wassa: Where did you study stick fighting, Mr. Shaft?
Shaft: Conducting the New York Philharmonica.
Wassa: The Emir will be pleased. Also by the fact that you're already circumcised.

These days Debebe Eshetu is in Addis Ababa's Kaliti Prison alongside around 50 leading opposition politicians facing life imprisonment - or even the death penalty - for a range of charges including "outrages against the constitution".

So that was yesterday. This morning Afrigator pointed me to a new blog by an Ethiopian journalist called Menyelenal. "I was researching movies about Ethiopia," he wrote.

I ran across this Blacula movie, a name of a fictional character that appeared in two blaxploitation horror films produced for American International Pictures in 1972 and 1973, respectively...Both films deal with the character of Mamuwalde [does this sound familiar?], an African prince vampirized and imprisoned in a sealed coffin by Count Dracula, who finds himself released in the 1970s.

There is also another character that makes you go hm??? Rasulala strange character names?

Could this be a new field of study? Ethiopia and the blaxploitation genre.

Posted by aheavens at 5:18 AM | Comments (4)

March 27, 2007

Humility is ...

going for a run round Jan Meda and feeling the rush of air as an endless line of Ethiopians - aged anything from 10 to 30 - pass you at speed.

Posted by aheavens at 6:35 AM | Comments (0)

March 1, 2007

And Ethiopia's first Jobsworth Award goes to ...

... the Bank of Abyssinia.

They have returned two of my cheques over the past few weeks.

The first time was because the recipient signed his name twice on the back before trying to get hold of the cash. The message came back from the bank that 'Regulations say that the cheque only needs to be signed once. Two signatures was ambiguous'. The recipient had to make an appointment at the bank to cross out one of his signatures before the money went through.

The second time was because I wrote out the amount as "Four hundred birr and 34 cents". The message came back that I should have written "Four hundred birr 34 cents". The word 'and' was not mentioned in the regulations, so the cheque was invalid.

I know, life is tough for a fereng with a chequebook in Addis Abeba.

Here is everything you need to know about being a jobsworth by the way.

Posted by aheavens at 2:35 PM | Comments (3)

February 28, 2007

A rudimentary state of construction

Just been re-reading Evelyn Waugh's account of his visit to Addis Ababa in 1931 to attend Haile Selassie's coronation (published in his book When The Going Was Good).

Here's his first impression of the city:

Addis Ababa is a new town; so new, indeed, that not a single piece of it appears to be really finished.

The first, obvious, inescapable impression was that nothing was ready or could possibly be made ready in time for the official opening of the celebrations six days hence. It was not that one here or there observed traces of imperfect completion, occasional scaffolding or patches of unset concrete; the whole town seemed still in a rudimentary state of construction. At every corner were half-finished buildings; some had been already abandoned...

Today, 76 years on, can anyone think of a single block in the city that you could point to and say 'Yes, that's done'?

Posted by aheavens at 6:29 PM | Comments (8)

February 26, 2007

Imperial chic

Today was the Fifth Summit of the Sana'a Cooperation Forum - a body that includes Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia and Yemen - held in the President's Palace in the middle of Addis Ababa.

There was an opening ceremony and a press briefing by Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, President of Somalia; Ali Abdullah Saleh, President of Yemen; Meles Zenawi, Prime Minister of Ethiopia and Umar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir, President of Sudan.

Nothing very newsy came out of it - mutual cooperation etc etc. At the end of the day, one of the most interesting things about it all was the decor.

There was this stuffed lion mounted on a piano in the throne room. Next door in the reception hall there was another stuffed lioness, two elephant's feet doubling up as whisky decanter holders, lots of gilt, lots of carved ivory and, in the next room after that, a tiger skin, complete with roaring head. Presumably they were all from the collection of the last Emperor - or do visiting heads of state still hand out this kind of stuff? See Flickr for more shots.

And here's a quick quiz. Below are the first two questions asked at today's press conference. A huge prize to the first person who can say which one was asked by a state-controlled journalist from a state-controlled news organisation (from Sudan) and which one wasn't.

Q1: This Sanaa Forum, this Cooperation Forum, if we give it a geographical look, or geopolitical look, to what extent do you expect it to give a model to our sub-region of Afro-Arab cooperation?

Q2: To the President of Sudan, what is halting the deployment of a UN peace force in Darfur?

Posted by aheavens at 2:05 PM | Comments (6)

February 24, 2007

Half a house

The price of progress...

...in Aware.

If a house gets in the way of your road - even a rare, nice old house - no problem. Just trim it back a bit.

Posted by aheavens at 12:20 PM | Comments (1)

February 23, 2007

Road building

You've got to admire Addis Ababa's city planners. When they want to widen a road, they widen a road. Nothing gets in their way, whether its a wall, a garden, or the entire front section of a house.

The main road system past the British Embassy, cutting through Aware and past the Ras Amaba hotel, is going through a major face-lift. And in the space of a fortnight, almost everything about 50 yards either side of the new routes has disappeared in a cloud of dust and rubble.

Shacks and roadside businesses have disappeared. Water pipes have been cut without warning. Entire houses have been sliced in two. I walked past one scene (see pic) where a woman in her dressing gown was looking out of her brand new front door as the diggers moved in.

Apparently, people with some kind of title to their properties get some kind of compensation. (The only people who actually own land in Ethiopia are the state and the church.) But there are lots of buildings in Addis that don't appear on any planner's map.

When something similar happened outside our old house in Bole Medhanialem, some of our neighbours woke up one morning with a huge trench outside their front gates, their cars stranded on their drives. That scheme was to widen the road from Bole airport to the junction at Urael. As far as I can tell, that scheme has had quite an impact on the city. The traffic jams opposite Urael are now only twice as bad as they were before the road was improved.

Posted by aheavens at 1:11 PM | Comments (0)

In blood stepp'd in so far

Does this story ring a bell? An aged king is murdered and replaced by a bloodthirsty and paranoid dictator who slaughters everyone who gets in his way. Rebels mass on the border, storm in and topple the tyrant.

Yes - it is the Tragedy of Mengistu Macbeth.

Last week, a newish drama group called Addis Stage got a chance to perform the tragedy in Menelik's Palace, high up on Entoto, overlooking Addis Ababa. I had the small - but key - role of Lennox/Sergeant (you'll remember his three, pivotal speeches).

It was an amazing setting. How often to you get to strut around a historic monument, covered in stage blood and waving a sword?

The Ethiopian Orthodox Church agreed to let Addis Stage stage the play on its property on the understanding that there was nothing anti-Christian in the script. Apparently the thing that they were most worried about was any kissing. The weird sisters, the curses, the blood-letting and the shrieks of tortured souls were clearly less of a problem. After all, the good guys won in the end.

Best Macbeth line by far:

Light thickens, and the crow
Makes wing to the rooky wood.
Good things of day begin to droop and drowse,
While night's black agents to their preys do rouse.

Macbeth Act 3 Scene 2

Posted by aheavens at 12:09 PM | Comments (3)

January 28, 2007

The presidential parade

At the height of it they were coming in every 15 minutes. Gaddafi, Kibaki, al-Bashir, Festus Mogae, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, all piling into Addis Ababa for the 8th Ordinary Session of the Assembly of the African Union.

There was a basic procedure, endlessly repeated. Everyone waited in a corridor in the VIP section of Bole airport (the old terminal now shared with the domestic flights). All the protocol officers and bulky security men bustled around until they formed a critical mass around the door and headed for the red carpet. The executive jet trundled up. The VIP poked his head out of the door, walked awkwardly down the stairs, shook hands with Teshome Toga (Speaker for the Ethiopian House of Peoples' Representatives), took a bunch of flowers from a pretty Ethiopian girl, handed the flowers to an official and headed for the first group of grinning officials.

Then it was a quick right-hand turn to a shaded stand in front of the brass band which gave a one-minute burst of a national anthem. Then a quick about turn back to the second group of dignitaries, another right hand turn along the red carpet, a pause to admire a group of traditional Ethiopian dancers and a final sprint towards another door in the airport terminal.

And that happened at fast-forward speed again and again and again all yesterday afternoon. Presumably it will again today as well.

Each time I was in a little pack of hacks trying to keep up with it all while focusing a camera. The basic motion was a quick sprint to get 50 yards ahead of the VIP and his officials then about 10 seconds of walking backwards or crouching with your finger on the shutter button.

Your ten seconds were up when the VIP's security men told you they were up. I have now been manhandled by mirror-shaded security men from across the continent - the Algerians were the roughest and the Botswanans were the nicest.

There were inevitable moments of confusion. Everyone was waiting with cameras, microphones and notebooks poised for the President of Zambia. Then a plane with 'Botswana' printed down the side rolled in.

Gaddafi won the prize for the biggest entourage - three jets and a smaller cargo - and the best outfit - blue/purple/orange wraparound shares. white and yellow robes, green Africa badge and every military medal you can think of.

Posted by aheavens at 4:32 AM | Comments (4)

January 26, 2007

Getting ready for Gaddafi

Everyone is coming to Addis over this weekend - Colonel Muammar Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi, Romano Prodi, Javier Solana, you name it - for the 8th African Union Summit.

You can tell important people are coming to town because the internet connection keeps crashing, the main streets from the airport are fluttering with obscure flags and the Federal Police's boys in blue are out in force.

They are carrying all the usual batons and guns. But this time, each of them is also equipped with a coil of fluorescent orange or blue nylon rope. I'm still building up the courage to ask one of them what it's for.

Now, all I need is for the Ministry of Info gets me a security pass for the airport, so I can start taking pictures of all these people getting off their shiny jets. I also need to find out how Reuters spells Gaddafi. According to Wikipedia as many as 37 different versions have been listed.

Posted by aheavens at 11:53 AM | Comments (6)

January 19, 2007

Happy Timkat

Or should that be Timket? This year was definitely better than last year. See more pictures from this morning's celebrations on Jan Meda on Flickr.

Timket, by the way, is the biggest Ethiopian Orthodox christian Festival and marks the Epiphany - with a special focus today on Christ's baptism by John the Baptist. There are lots of Tabots - sacred representations of the Ark of the Covenant - and bottles of holy water.

Posted by aheavens at 5:29 PM | Comments (4)

January 16, 2007

Two pictures of little Mogadishu

My two Reuters photos of Addis Ababa's 'Little Mogadishu' district have sparked quite a discussion over at Nazret.com.

Here's the direct link - and here's another one for anyone experiencing the strange "technical problems" that still seem to be preventing all access to Nazret and Blogspot blogs.

In answer to one of the Nazret commenters, 'Little Mogadishu' is basically Bole Mikael - and its a lot safer and friendlier than big Mogadishu.

Posted by aheavens at 4:26 AM | Comments (1)

January 8, 2007

Merry Ethiopian Christmas

Our fereng Christmas on December 25 was pretty much wiped out by the Somali conflict. Lots of chasing around press conferences, little festive cheer.

So it was great to have a second chance yesterday on Ethiopian Christmas Day. As everyone who reads this must know by now, Ethiopia has its own calendar and time system - 7am is 1am, 2007 is currently 1999, there are 13 months in the year and Christ was born on January 7.

In our neighbourhood, the thing to do on Christmas Day is to walk over to Jan Meda - a huge public park - and watch the programme of ancient, traditional sports. There was traditional wrestling (see pic), traditional throwing-a-spear-through-a-rolling-hoop, traditional wild wild horse riding and traditional Gena, a team game with curved sticks, a small hard ball and goals that looks uncannily like hockey.

Capital tells us:

The game has a long but unrecorded history. Oral tradition tells that at the time of the birth of Christ, the shepherds nearby played 'Gena' out of joy...

'Ye Gena Chewata' is usually played by youngsters. In former years, the game neither had specific player numbers or a set duration. The game which started at dawn might continue with the help of moonlight.

I saw the game played the traditional way on top of Magdala - Emperor Tewodros II's old mountain fortress in Amhara - on Christmas morning four years ago. Yesterday, it has set teams, timed play, even referees with whistles.

It was all great, but a little low key. The crowds were relatively small. And everywhere else on Jan Meda, hundreds of young men in Manchester United shirts were ignoring the festivities and getting on with Ethiopia's real national sport - not so traditional football.

See more pics of the sports on Flickr.

Posted by aheavens at 4:30 AM | Comments (4)

January 4, 2007

Waiting for Museveni

What do you do when your VIP is running late?

At Bole airport today, we lay back on the red carpet and watched members of the Ras Theatre group get down to the sounds of the martial brass band practising in the background.

Then the plane swooped down and we were back to work, dodging between the bodyguards, trying to get Meles and Museveni in the same shot, with their eyes open and their shoes included in the frame.

Here's what happened in news land where Meles and Museveni got together to talk about the Somali crisis.

In the end the press photos came out fine. But I prefered the ones I took on the runway before it all kicked off. See more on Flickr.

Posted by aheavens at 5:28 PM | Comments (0)

November 29, 2006

Raw

The first Brit to visit Ethiopia was an 18th Century Scottish gentleman called James Bruce. He came back with so many tall tales that he was ridiculed as a liar for the rest of his life.

His tallest tale was that the country's favourite dish was a plate of raw meat. According to his biographer Miles Bredin in his book The Pale Abyssinian:

Bruce has an undeserved and unenviable reputation. He is generally remembered, if at all, as ill-tempered and a liar... Haughty and proud (the portmanteau word paughty might almost have been coined for him), he once forced a visitor to eat raw meat after the unfortunate man had expressed doubt at it being the Abyssinians' favourite dish.

To my shame, it has taken me two years to present the proof that Bruce was telling the truth. I can also tell you that Bruce's visitor wasn't unfortunate at all. Once you get used to the texture, fresh raw meat is tender and tasty.

The picture shows what I got when I asked for a 'tinnish, tinnish' [small, small] portion at a friend's wedding.

Posted by aheavens at 5:27 PM | Comments (7)

Addis Ababa: The new building site

Welcome to the changing face of Addis Ababa. Every time you turn around these days, a new building site springs up.

This is a view of the road between the Hilton Hotel and the United Nations compound (see the car park bottom right). Once a jumble of shacks and small businesses. In a few months it will be Addis' high rise downtown, packed with shiny new tower blocks. (Will there be enough business to fill them? Probably.)

The building with the curved glass roof in the right of the main group is the already-finished German House - home to GTZ. The skinny yellow one behind it will be the new UNICEF headquarters in a few months. Somewhere behind them is the skeleton of an Irish-funded four-star hotel. No idea what everything else is going to be - and the empty ground in the foreground is up for development as well.

No wonder there a national cement shortage.

The picture was taken from the new site of the Old Milk House at about 6pm - when the harsh light of an Addis afternoon turns into a photographer's dream.

Headline explanation: 'Addis Ababa' means 'New Flower'.

Posted by aheavens at 4:58 PM | Comments (5)

November 26, 2006

Hacks outperform athletes at Great Ethiopian Run

Another November, another great Great Ethiopian Run.

More than 25,000 people ran through the Addis Ababa this morning on the 10k road race organised by Haile Gebrselassie and British marathon star Richard Nerurkar. They were joined by another few thousand street children and some athletics greats including Ireland's Sonia O' Sullivan and Morocco's Hicham El Guerrouj.

But the most impressive performances of the day came from the world's journalists gathered for the event:

1. There was the Chinese film crew who turned up early to get the best view of the start of the run. They hauled their equipment up to the roof of Meskel Square's Siemens building - then pulled up the ladder behind them, ignoring the increasingly angry appeals from the crowd of photographers building up on the floor below them.

2. There was the celebrity Japanese photographer who waited until all the other snappers had politely taken up their position in the media box at the finish line - then strolled in front of the media barriers and squatted down, blocking the view.

3. Best of all was the British BBC presenter who took part in the race, interviewing people as he went. He finished pretty quickly but looked absolutely exhausted, almost pained as he crossed the line. After a few minutes getting his breath back he jogged back a hundred metres or so, and finished the race again, this time cheering, with both arms raised in victory. Let's be generous and assume the camera didn't get him first time around.

Posted by aheavens at 2:59 PM | Comments (8)

November 20, 2006

Gunfire at the Meta brewery

A quiet Sunday afternoon at the Meta brewery. Three adults and one baby boy sitting back having a beer/milk, enjoying the late afternoon sun, watching a wedding party getting noisier and noisier outside the main visitor centre.

Everyone was drinking and singing and clapping and dancing and drinking. About half an hour in, some of the younger men started tussling on the edge of the crowd. Nothing too serious. The bride and groom drove off in a car covered in ribbons and everything calmed down.

People started drifting towards the front of the visitor centre, wandering about on the road that ran along the shaded grassy bank where we were sitting. The guys started shouting again, lunging at each other in packed crowds. Girlfriends in shiny dresses dived in, screaming and trying to drag their men away. Nothing more than you would see in many English towns on a Saturday night.

The screaming suddenly got louder and people started running in all directions, leaving a gap in the middle of the crowd. People started picking up rocks and throwing them at anyone within range. A man in a suit and open necked white shirt stumbled forward carrying a five foot length of telegraph pole. He looked around for someone to hit, saw a 30-something woman in traditional dress, raised the pole above his head and brought it down on her neck.

It was then that I noticed the doddery old guard standing next to our table on the bank. He was pulling down on a lever on his equally aged rifle (so they do load those things). He aimed it into the air and fired off an ear-shattering round.

Three adults and one bawling baby decided to run away very quickly and take shelter in the bar building. Everyone we passed on the way had something to say.

"Chiggur yellem, chiggur yellem" (No problem, no problem) said one of the guests.

"Ethiopian men and alcohol," said another standing close to the door as the guard fired again.

Inside a smartly suited man sitting at one of the tables leaned forward and wagged his finger at me. "Don't talk," he said. "Don't tell anyone."

Posted by aheavens at 4:20 AM | Comments (7)

November 7, 2006

Use Shell or else

Can someone out there translate this for me.

At the moment I can only assume that it says something like - Use Shell or this will happen to your car.

Or could it be anything to so with Ethiopia's scarily high rate of road accidents?

According to the World Health Organisation, Ethiopia has the highest rate of fatalities per vehicle in the world - quite an achievement when you realise that there are only 1.5 vehicles per 1,000 Etihopians.

UPDATE: Thank you brother, abe, Tazabeo and Abebe. Apparently the slogan means something like "A second's patience can save your life and property".

Posted by aheavens at 8:42 AM | Comments (9)

November 2, 2006

Haile and Tirunesh

You think you are a hard-bitten hack who has seen it all - the last person to get excited about the appearance of a mere celebrity.

Then Haile Gebrselassie and Tirunesh Dibaba turn up in their super tracksuits.

And all you want to do is stand behind them and grin like an idiot.

Posted by aheavens at 12:04 PM | Comments (4)

October 21, 2006

Addis Ababa's new Roto roundabout

In any other city it would be a statue of a guy on a horse. Or at least a nice little fountain.

But what does Addis choose to decorate one of its most prominent roundabouts at the head of a dual carriageway to the airport? It is an artful display of Roto tanks, providing a beautiful primary-coloured counterpoint to the curves of the domes of Medhanialem Church in the background.

Posted by aheavens at 9:53 AM | Comments (8)

October 19, 2006

The ferenji debate continues

Vandia takes up the debate on where ferengis come from - not France apparently.

NO- Ferenj is essentially an old word. It predates the French. The French are not the first Europeans for that matter. But Ferenj etymologically is an old Arabic word meaning European. It somehow survived the ages and now has been immortalized in the streets of Addis. So please don't say it is from French.

The above is a comment under the February post Up from the comments section.

Posted by aheavens at 5:07 AM | Comments (2)

October 9, 2006

Alert: British pets under threat

UK diplomats fear Addis leopard - BBC/AFP

A leopard has been terrifying residents in the British embassy compound in Ethiopia's capital. A conservationist has been called in to capture the wild cat, after it ate several domestic cats and rabbits. A resident in the 70-acre wooded compound in Addis Ababa saw the leopard outside her house at 1030 one morning just 10 feet from her door. "It was quite terrifying - especially as I've got young children," she told the BBC.

Of course, it is obvious how this is going to go.

First there will be the catch-the-leopard campaign to save the pets (and small children).

Then there will be the save-the-leopard campaign when they get it in a cage and wonder what to do with it.

No farmer is going to want it released close to their livestock. The last time I checked there weren't many Kenya-style game reserves out there wanting more attractions. And the export of wild animals is prohibited.

Posted by aheavens at 5:09 PM | Comments (3)

October 2, 2006

Ethiopia's mean streets: A survival guide

Ethiopia is easily one of the safest countries in Africa (as long as you steer clear of random bomb blasts and anything that looks like a political rally).

People walk home after dark without incident – try doing that in Nairobbery or Johannesburg. Bigger houses do have guards – but only to have someone to open the gate for visitors. I once accidentally dropped 200 birr on the street in Kazanchis and had a middle-aged woman chase after me to give it back.

Having said all that, I have now notched up my third encounter with Ethiopia's not-so-hardened criminal classes, four years after first arriving in the country as a tourist.

Here is what happened, with some tips on what to do if anything similar happens to you.

Scenario 1

You are standing on a corner of Piazza, a couple of days off the plane with a lost look on your face, a half-open bag on your shoulder and a visible wallet in your pocket (a classic example of the asking-for-it posture). A man comes up and says the friends you are waiting for are with his friends round the corner. You follow blindly. Two other men suddenly crowd around you. One grabs you by the arm and tries to spin you in a clockwise direction to throw you off your balance. The other tries to grab your bag.

What to do

Turn your shoulders gently in a counter-clockwise direction while saying ‘No' in your sternest voice. Your attackers will fly off in all directions then run away looking vaguely embarrassed. Five minutes later, the armed guard outside the branch of the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia about ten yards away will walk up to you full of sympathy, shrug and tell you that this sort of thing never happens in Ethiopia.

Scenario 2

You are walking down Bole towards the junction with the Chinese friendship road, lost in thought. You have the same bag over your shoulder but this time you have learned and the wallet is zipped inside. A young man walks up behind you and shows you a sheet of Amharic newspaper. While you are distracted, another young man runs up to you from the front. He dives at your ankles with the aim of knocking you on to your back, leaving you defenseless while his partner grabs your bag.

What to do

Stand still. Look down at your assailant who is still sheepishly hugging your ankles. Give him a kick (as much as the hug will allow). Watch as the two men run off looking a little embarrassed. Shout the first vaguely appropriate Amharic phrase that comes into your mind – mine was ‘Shifta!' the equivalent of ‘Brigand, highwayman!' Appeal for help from the two armed federal policemen standing across the road. They will look at you oddly.

Scenario 3

You are standing in a crowd in Adwa, minutes after the Prime Minister has cast his vote in the general election. You feel a hand inside your trouser pocket, grabbing a 100 birr note. The crowd is so packed that you can't move or even turn round to take a look at the thief.

What to do

Nothing. If you are a journalist, try and fail to claim the money back on expenses a few days later. Do not even think of approaching the two Land Cruisers packed with prime-ministerial body guards armed to the teeth. They will have other things on their minds.

Posted by aheavens at 6:10 AM | Comments (7)

September 21, 2006

Lucy's baby

How often do you get to name a new national icon?

The icon is the one on the left. It is the fossilised skull of a three-year-old girl who died about 3.3 million years ago in what is now Dikika in Ethiopia's Afar region. That makes her the oldest toddler ever discovered.

She was unveiled yesterday in a lecture theatre in the basement of the National Museum in Addis Ababa by proud paleontologist Zeresenay Alemseged (the one on the right) who led the team that found most of her skeleton about five years ago.

At the end of his presentation, he turned to the audience of journalists and academics and politicians and asked 'So what shall we name her'.

It seemed to be a genuine request. He hadn't decided and wanted us to make the historic decision there and then. He had a few pointers.

The name had to be as good and universally easy to say as Lucy – the name of what, until yesterday, was Ethiopia's most famous early human remain. (They both date from the same era, making them Australopithecus afarensis.) It had to be the name of a girl. It had to be Ethiopian. And he wanted it to express a sense of peace – earlier he had talked about how he had had to employ armed guards on the dig because of ongoing hostilities in Afar.

That didn't really leave us much to play with. 'Selam' (Amharic for peace) said one of the journalists. The Culture Minister made a quick argument for using the Afar word for peace instead. But after few more impromptu speeches from the floor, it was agreed that 'Selam' would mean peace to most Ethiopians without causing any offence.

So that was that. She was Selam – Ethiopia's latest claim to being the cradle of the human race. It was only then that Dr Zeresenay admitted that Selam was also his wife's name and he was relieved everyone had made the right choice.

He also unveiled an artists' impression of what Selam might have looked like – a sculpture commissioned by National Geographic which will be on the cover of its next issue. He asked us not to take photos of it to respect the magazine's scoop. I'll just say that most of the journalists and hardened academics forgot themselves when he pulled back the cover and a huge 'Ahhh' went round the room.

I caught ETV talk show host Tefera Gedamu taking pictures of the members of the international press pack at the beginning of the press conference. "It's the first positive story they've covered for years," he said.

Noone mentioned the odd fact that Ethiopia's international paleontological fame is based on a theory that its main church denies – that is the theory of evolution. And it is not only the Orthodox Christians. An international broadcaster who happened to be a Muslim explained a few months back how he had to suspend his disbelief whenever he wrote a story about Lucy and her contemporaries. "This evolution stuff is nonsense. But I write it because that is what the news desk wants."

Posted by aheavens at 5:19 AM | Comments (9)

September 10, 2006

Fortune's fortune

Someone is already having a very happy new year.

Fortune newspaper just came out with its bulked-up new year edition - a whopping 80 pages thick. And out of those 80 pages, a total of 61 are covered with very lucrative adverts. Ethiopian New Year may be a bad time of year to be a sheep. But it is a wonderful time of year to be a Fortune advertising executive.

There must be some articles in there somewhere. I'll report back when I find them.

An early Happy Ethiopian New Year to everyone by the way. Welcome to 1999.

Posted by aheavens at 1:35 PM | Comments (0)

September 5, 2006

The poor will win

An old man came up to me as I was walking along the back road past the Prime Minister's palace this morning. "In Ethiopia," he said pointing at the sky, "the poor will win". "You tell them."

So this is me telling you. In Ethiopia, the poor will win.

Posted by aheavens at 7:20 AM | Comments (4)

September 4, 2006

Ethiopia 1 - 0 Libya

The team stormed to victory on a green and mud-brown pitch. Fans took to the streets waving flags. Everyone else turned on their TV sets. The electricity pylon exploded. Everything went dark.

That was the view from Arada last night.

Posted by aheavens at 11:09 AM | Comments (3)

September 3, 2006

Misused banknotes, clean-but-not-clean restrooms and toilet wars

Here are some highlights from today's ever-expanding Fortune newspaper.

The National Bank of Ethiopia can't burn old and "misused" bank notes fast enough. (How do you misuse a bank note?) Notebooks out bank robbers:

The vaults of the National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE) are facing a serious overcrowding with the arrival of newly printed Birr notes, supplied by the French company, Francois Charles Oberthur Fiduciaire (FCOF). The old and new headquarters of the central bank, located on Sudan Street, have full vaults, in the basements of the two buildings, because the old Birr notes have been sitting there since they were taken out of circulation. Adjacent to the two buildings, sharing a wall with Artistic Printers, the Bank has storage spaces which are also full.

The excellent but expensive Sangan Indian Restaurant only gets two stars for its 'sanitation' in the paper's weekly review:

Going to the restrooms at Sangam is both an interesting and unpleasant experience. Interesting for the number of sinks, and unpleasant for the general cleanliness. The toilet although not dirty as such, nevertheless gives off an odour of detergent and unaired restroom. Toilet paper is provided, as is liquid soap and one clean-looking towel. According to one of our reviewers, the restroom needed renovation and attention. He mentioned that although the restroom was not dirty per se, it still did not look clean.

An ongoing 'toilet war' between neighbouring developers on Bole Road is affecting business at United Bank:

Two prominent real-estate developers in Addis Abeba have found themselves locked in a vicious dispute over what an observer described as "the toilet war". The right to use sewage lines for two adjacent buildings on Africa Avenue (Bole Road) has caused yet another round of sharp controversy between businessmen Salahadin and Abdulhamid Abubaker, owners of Garad Plc and Getu Gelete, owner of Get As International Plc...None of the tenants of [Getu's] building have access to toilet facilities or running water in their bathrooms. "Our staffs have to walk a distance just to be able to use the toilet," said one of the 30 employees assigned in the United Bank's branch there...One of the senior managers attributed the slump in productivity to this fact.

Columnist Lulit Amdemariam has some great news from the rental sector:

The boom in the construction sector, particularly seen in housing development, has led to somewhat of a decline in the cost of rentals.

So she decided to go on a house-hunting tour outside the city centre:

There were French windows on one side that led to a balcony, which had a glass and aluminium shade, covered in the same dark brown that was on all the windows in the house. To put it mildly, it looked like the inside of a 90s Land Cruiser that was driven in from Djibouti.

Yours for 7,500 Birr a month.

Posted by aheavens at 9:54 AM | Comments (4)

I take it back

The rainy season is not the best time to be in Ethiopia. In Addis it is miserable, miserable, miserable.

Posted by aheavens at 9:51 AM | Comments (1)

Anyone for rugby?

Addis Ababa's newest (only?) rugby club kicked off yesterday. Eight Ethiopians, Brits and Italians ran up and down Jan Meda trying to teach themselves the basics of the game (apparently you pass backwards).

We managed to get in about 40 minutes before being thrown out by the park keeper who told us that Jan Meda was closed until October.

We weren't too sad to go. The knee-high grass, scattered animal skulls and sudden surprise-swamps that opened out under your feet were getting a bit tiresome. Another risk associated with training in these conditions is getting worms from all the mud that spatters around after every trip and failed catch.

The next challenge is to find a name, a better ground and a sponsorship deal with the makers of albendazole.

If any of this sounds attractive to anyone out there, send in an email and I will pass on your details to the organisers.

Posted by aheavens at 7:20 AM | Comments (3)

July 13, 2006

Running away

That's it. We've had enough of the rainy season. We're off for a few weeks to catch up with folks back home and see some unseasonal sun.

It will be great to get some unfettered access to Ethiopia's Blogspot blogs once again. What they can't tell me, I'll learn online from my daily doses of ENA and Walta.

While I'm away I thought you would like to see the new-look Meskel Square with its brand new video screen near the junction with Debre Zeit road. There seems to be a new ad banner going up every day somewhere on the square. By the time we get back, the whole thing will probably be covered.

The 18-lane junction seems a bit smaller now that it is plastered with ads for Ethiopian Airlines and Sony flat-screen TVs. But at least it means business is booming for someone somewhere. Go to Flickr to see snatch shots of our last drive through Addis.

Posted by aheavens at 6:52 PM | Comments (5)

July 10, 2006

A stranger in a strange land

Ethiopians are famously friendly people. It is easy to spend months at a time thinking that you have been accepted - that there is nothing more natural than being an Englishman in Addis Ababa. Then a chance remark or encounter jolts you back into reality and reminds you that you are very much a foreigner.

There was the time a non-Ethiopian friend was driving down Bole Road when an Ethiopian shot out of a side junction and smashed into him. There was no doubt about who was to blame. My friend got out of his car and went up to a traffic policeman to make his case. The policeman just shrugged and turned his head. "Come back to me when you can speak Amharic," he said.

Then there was the time I was sitting in a café with a group of African colleagues. One of them called the waiter over in the classic Ethiopian way - with two short sharp claps. "I just can't do that," I said, meaning that I still felt awkward making such an imperialist gesture. "What!" said the woman sitting next to me. "You mean you can't get the rhythm!"

Posted by aheavens at 7:41 AM | Comments (8)

July 7, 2006

The new Old Milk House

The Old Milk House is reborn ... again. This time it is 10 floors up at the top of the Kokeb building - one of those mouldering tower blocks that overlook the UN compound and Meskel Square.

Wim, its owner, has been amazingly resilient over the years. He recently placed newspaper adverts listing all the Milk Houses from the past - most of them victims of Addis Ababa's relentless construction boom. Each of them has had to shut down to make way for a new building, only to reappear somewhere else. The advert had the word 'bacca' (enough) printed in large letters at the bottom - suggesting that he might have given up.

But now it is back - and they are going to have a tough job knocking down this venue.

It is inconvenient, having to walk to the Kokeb building in the first place, then wait for the small lifts. It has now lost all resemblance to the back-yard bar that it was two incarnations ago. It is now somewhere that James Bond might have hung out in back in the 1970s mixed in with a bit of brutalist-concrete-chique.

But the food and service are the same - I celebrated the rebirth yesterday with Chicken Haka Noodle. And the new views (see pic with Meskel Square in the background) make the climb worthwhile.

Posted by aheavens at 4:07 AM | Comments (4)

July 5, 2006

Behind the mask

Who would have thought it? Ethiopia's most radical new publication is a fashion magazine.

Myfashion is, as far as I know, the country's only home-grown glossy. Issue 2 has everything you would expect - a photo spread on Osman Mohamed Osman's new 'Ras Africa' leather line, an introduction to interior decoration for the Addis elite and an interview with the country's latest supermodel.

And then from pages 38-40 there is a society feature on 'Gay Ethiopians behind the mask'.

You have to live here to know what an unusual article this is. Homosexuality remains illegal and totally taboo. Any discussions about it are generally hushed and polarised. For a taste of those discussions, have a quick read through the conversations still going on under my year-old post Holding hands.

The Myfashion article reflects some of the prevailing views in Ethiopia, particularly in its side Vox Pop. Here is Habtamu Tena, a 32-year-old security guard:

These people are sick. I suggest they receive medical attention to relieve themselves from their illness. If modern medical attention does not help, then I recommend shenkora tsebel (holy water).

And here is Alemu Tegauze, a 65-year-old radio technician:

This is a pure abomination to Ethiopian society. It has no moral, cultural or religious justification. I do not understand the significance of deviating from nature. I do not see the justification of this sinful act. I think they are probably on drugs or something.

The Myfashion article itself breaks new ground by writing about homosexuality in Ethiopia sympathetically. It is a solid piece of journalism with interviews with gay Ethiopians, frank discussions about the challenges they face and statistics from online dating services. Here is how it starts:

After reading this headline, many people will probably say "Gay Ethiopians? That is a bit far-fetched." Yes, gay Ethiopians, living in Ethiopia and elsewhere. There has been significant recent growth in the Ethiopian gay population for many reasons. However, since their sexual orientation does not conform to a conservative society like Ethiopia, gays and lesbians prefer to live hidden behind curtains.

"It is always difficult to escape society's watchful eyes," says and Ethiopian gay man living in the diaspora whilst reflecting on his gay life in Ethiopia.

For the heterosexuals in the audience, there is also a great article about the travails of a poor white guy on the Addis dating scene, written by one of the writers behind Things We Should Have Written Down.

Posted by aheavens at 4:34 AM | Comments (39)

June 10, 2006

Shining shoes to go to school

Meskerem Geremew knew she had to get an education. So the 12-year-old girl from Ethiopia's bustling capital, Addis Ababa, decided to take action.

First she got hold of some rags and a cracked water container and set herself up as one of the city's only shoeshine girls, holding her own against hundreds of competing shoeshine boys. Then she started saving, splitting her earnings between her mother and a special school-savings pot.

On weekends and evenings after classes, Meskerem shines shoes for up to 1 birr (11 cents) a pair. On a good day, she can earn as much as 10 birr ($1.15). Half of that goes to buy food and other provisions for her family. The rest of her earnings are put toward school fees and related costs – 15 birr a month, or 154 birr for the whole year.

Read more on www.unicef.org

Posted by aheavens at 7:07 AM | Comments (3)

May 13, 2006

Nine bombs and counting

Yesterday at least nine bombs exploded in Addis - two of them in commuter buses - leaving at least four dead and scores injured.

I say "at least" because the numbers keep changing. "I think it was nine but I've lost count" said one journalist in the afternoon. It is really too depressing to write about, beyond pointing you to the wire pieces on the explosions. Here's Reuters' take on the blast at the Amica café in the Merkato (pictured) where two died:

"Two who sat on the veranda were killed instantly," cafe manager Seifu Shume told Reuters. Two waitresses were among the injured, including one whose leg was blown off, he said, standing amid shattered glass on a blood-smeared floor.

Later, one person was killed when a bomb went off on another minibus and another was killed in a blast at a hotel parking lot, police said in a statement broadcast on state television.

Again, easy "civilian" targets were chosen. Again the timing seemed designed to get commuters on their way to work. If you put bombs on line-cab buses on busy traffic routes it means you are out to maim and kill "ordinary" people. Why would anyone want to do that? Why has no group claimed responsibility and set out their aims? None of the conspiracy theories I have heard amount to anything like a convincing explanation.

Now the focus is on what is going to happen on Monday May 15, the anniversary of the elections.

Posted by aheavens at 2:13 AM | Comments (17)

May 4, 2006

The Milk House is dead ...

The Milk House is dead. No more chicken chilli dry. No more chicken chilli gravy. No more crispy thin pizzas on round wooden plates. No more hacks and whores and rounds of Bedele Special on Friday nights.

Long live the Milk House whenever it gets round to opening up yet again in a yet another new location, hopefully not too far away from here.

What a nice glitzy new building we're going to get in its place though (see sign).

Posted by aheavens at 3:16 PM | Comments (17)

April 19, 2006

Women at work

Feminism finds a foothold in the Ethiopian construction industry. Now all they have to do is to recruit some female builders.

The photo is take looking down on to Haile Gebreselassie Road which leads into Meskel Square to the right. Note the new blue and yellow NOC petrol station in the background, one of scores springing up around Ethiopia.

It is part of a newish chain owned by Sheik Mohammed Hussein Al Amoudi , the richest man in Ethiopia and, apparently, Africa, who was recently named the 77th richest man in the world by Forbes.

Posted by aheavens at 11:17 AM | Comments (8)

April 15, 2006

Unfortunate reporting

Fortune printed a strange story last week. Under the headline The Diplomatic Landlord, it reported on how the caretaker of the Bulgarian Embassy in Addis Ababa was renting out parts of the building to businesses and private tenants. The story's opening paragraphs read:

Out of the norms of diplomatic engagement, and violating the country's commercial laws, one of the European embassies in Addis Abeba has involved in indiscreet businesses ranging from nightclub to renting its premises for businesses and residences. Nobody seems to care to stop it, learnt Tagu Zergaw, Fortune Staff Writer.

The Embassy of Bulgaria, with both its chancery and residence located on Haile Gebreselassie Road, opposite Haile Building, has been renting apartments and office spaces to companies and individuals.

This is against the regulations of the country, which state that a diplomatic mission or its stuff with diplomatic status, are by no means to be involved in commercial endeavors without prior consent and knowledge of the Ministry, according to officials at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

It was a strange story for two reasons.

The first was that it wasn't really a story - there was nothing new about it. Everybody already knows about the Bulgarian Embassy. The big complex on Haile Gebreselassie Road is a relic of the Mengistu era when Ethiopia had strong relationships with the Eastern Bloc. These days there is next to nothing for a Bulgarian ambassador to do in Ethiopia. So the diplomats left and, over time, the private tenants moved in. The situation was so accepted that, as the article says, even the United Nations' Childrens Agency UNICEF was about to move some of its departments in. "Nobody [seemed] to care to stop it" because no one was that bothered. No one was losing. It was hard to get that excited about a technical breach in the "norms of diplomatic engagement" with all the other things that were going on in Ethiopia.

The second reason was that the story didn't mention that one of the main tenants in the Bulgarian Embassy, up until earlier this week, was one of Fortune's competitors in the English-language newspaper market - The Sub-Saharan Informer. Days after the Fortune article appeared, The Sub-Saharan Informer was called into the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and ordered to leave its offices just after its regular Thursday print run. As I write this the staff are out on the streets with their computers loaded into the back of a couple of cars looking for somewhere else to work.

Maybe Fortune could offer them a couple of rooms until they find a new home.

Posted by aheavens at 9:43 AM | Comments (16)

April 6, 2006

More rumblings

At least two more suspicious incidents today in Addis Ababa.

At around 9.30am, police closed off Nazret bus station, near the capital's train station, after finding some sort of suspicious device. No explosion, no injuries.

Then, about an hour ago, there were reports fo a small blast outside a coffee processing plant, close to the National Electoral Commission office, on Debre Zeit Road. Broken windows but, again, no injuries.

There have been a few more dull thumps and booms. But you can persuade yourself that anything sounds like a bomb these days.

Posted by aheavens at 3:19 PM | Comments (3)

April 5, 2006

Exciting Times

Here is a picture of today's Times, seconds after I finished flicking through it during a coffee break in the UN compound in Addis Ababa this morning.

I didn't get it off a friend just flown in from the UK. I didn't pay DHL to speed it to my doorstep. I bought it in a bookshop ... in Addis.

If you don't live here you won't realise just what an exciting statement that is. Up until yesterday, the most up-to-date British newspapers in town were the week-old copies of the Independent stacked up in the British Council café. People with very good contacts in the British Embassy or DFID could occasionally get their hands on a copy of the Guardian that was just three days out of date. But the best that the rest of us could do was to call early on someone who had just flown in to Bole airport and rifle through their hand luggage.

Yesterday, however, everything changed. BookWorld - the best, really the only book chain in the capital - started selling same-day print-outs of most of the main European and US titles. In many ways they're better then the originals. Whiter, cleaner paper. Slightly bigger print. On the downside, the supplements, including The Times' Section 2, are missing - no daily Sudoku or UK TV listings (it's always good to know what you are missing). And at just under 40 birr a copy (£2.64 as opposed to the current UK cover price of 60p), it's only ever going to be a weekly treat at best.

Posted by aheavens at 12:06 PM | Comments (9)

March 27, 2006

Two Three Four blasts - one death

At least one person was killed in Addis this morning after another two explosions in the capital.

A passenger in a 'blue donkey' minibus died after a blast tore apart the back seat of the vehicle at about 9.30am. It happened on the inbound carriageway of busy Debre Zeit Road, around the Kirkos district. Reuters reported that "a second blast occurred outside the gate of an abattoir in the city but no one was hurt, police said".

Again people seem to be taking things in their stride - although this is the first fatality caused by these blasts. Two hours after the explosion, all that was left at the scene was a pool of petrol. Traffic flows and roadside business was back to normal.

No one so far has managed to come up with a clear explanation of who is behind all this. Journalists are starting to talk of "mysterious explosions"; the government blamed the last blasts on Eritrean-backed "terrorists" with smuggled plastic explosives.

It is worrying that public transport is now being targeted. For me it is also puzzling that they don't seem interested in high-profile targets. Their main aim seems to be intimidating "ordinary" Ethiopians on their way to work.

UPDATE: Another explosion boomed out around 3pm, this time from a café near the Mexico area of Addis (see pic), making it at least three explosions today.

On the scene, you didn't have to be an expert to see the seat of the blast - someone had wedged the explosive between the thin trunk of a tree and the metal cafe wall, just a foot away from one of the tables inside. There is no doubt that whoever placed it there meant to injure people.

No one was sure how many were hurt. Someone on the scene told me 40. An hour earlier, somone had told other reporters it was 10. A car outside had its roof smashed in by the tree. There were two pools of blood next to the nearest table. Everywhere else there was broken glass, twisted metal walls and people's half-eaten snacks sitting on smashed plates.

UPDATE 2: A fourth blast left no injuries according to AFP

Police said a fourth explosion had occurred in the capital's northeastern Teklehaimanot district but had not caused any injuries.

"I think the explosions are due to criminal acts but the cases are under investigation. They are not accidents, I think," [police spokesman Demsach Hailu] told AFP.

There goes my "it was all an accident" theory.

UPDATE 3: Sorry to everyone whose comments have not been published below. Call me a coward, but I 'm not going to let through any direct accusations of blame - so far none of the posts have come with any forensic evidence attached.

Posted by aheavens at 11:11 AM | Comments (13)

March 16, 2006

Phew no flu! - time to make a killing

Here's a sure-fire investment tip. Come to Addis and buy every chicken you can get your hands on.

Prices have dropped as low as 8 birr a bird over the past weeks, amid all the worries over avian flu. Today, however, government scientists announced that initial tests on dead birds from a farm in southern Ethiopia had not detected the dreaded H5N1 virus.

The news is sure to filter out on to the street soon and prices are sure to rise. Chickens cost as much as 35 birr before the scare. Anyone who buys low and sells high could be talking about a 438% 338% return on their initial investment. It's a better bet than Google.

UPDATE: News of the negative test clearly hadn't got through to the UN's security people who were still on high alert yesterday afternoon (see pic).

Posted by aheavens at 4:45 PM | Comments (11)

February 9, 2006

Ethiopia goes to the dogs

How about this for historic?

Over the weekend, Addis Ababa's International Community School played host to the country's first ever dog show. There was a dog beauty contest and a dog IQ contest together with loads of stalls, snacks, and fair-style entertainments. Fun for all the family.

Now, I know what you're thinking. Typical ferengis lavishing attention on their pets while the humans around them suffer in one of the poorest countries in the world.

But what you might not have realised is that the whole event was organised by a home-grown Ethiopian charity - the Homeless Animals Protection Society (HAPS). One of HAPS' main aims in life is to campaign for animal birth control and rabies vaccination programmes for the thousands of stray dogs and cats that you see everywhere in Ethiopia's main cities. (Members are looking for an alternative to the capital's current animal control policy - leaving poisoned bits of meat lying around in the street.)

As one of the event organisers said in her opening speech:

Many people might think it is a luxury to care for homeless animals in a country like Ethiopia that deals with so many issues such as hunger and many diseases. But we must understand that our fate and the fate of these animals are combined. With three people in Addis Ababa dying from rabies every month, it is not a luxury but our obligation to solve the stray animals problem once and for all.

Many of the dogs on display were former strays that had been rescued by HAPS before being treated, re-housed and groomed to their weekend state of glossy-coated perfection.

Posted by aheavens at 9:40 AM | Comments (39)

January 28, 2006

Undercover ferengis

You've got to find your humour where you can in Addis these days. That's probably why this ENA report claiming ferengi journalists were sneaking into city hositals "in disguise" really cheered me up this morning. Try and picture it.

Posted by aheavens at 7:09 AM

January 19, 2006

Calm down, it's Timket

Sorry - I had to remove the 50 or so comments that were building up under the last post. Things were getting a little too bloodthirsty for my taste.

In the hope of bring back a bit of 'love, peace and understanding' to the site, I have posted some photos of this morning's Timket celebrations on Flickr. Thousands of people walked to Jan Meda, a large piece of open ground in Addis Ababa, to celebrate the Ethiopian Orthodox Church's Festival of the Epiphany.

There the crowds looked on, chanting and dancing, as brightly-robed bishops and priests paraded with their Tabots – symbolic representations of the Ark of the Covenant that lie at the heart of every Ethiopian Orthodox church. Similar celebrations took place across the country.

The umbrellas were bright, the crowds were joyful and I won a religious magazine in a tombola-style raffle. What more could you ask for?

(The headline, by the way, is borrowed from a series of very bad adverts that ran - or may still be running - on UK TV. 'Calm down, it's a commercial,' was the catchphrase. I am sure you all picked up the reference.)

UPDATE JAN 20: It looks as though things weren't quite so joyful and peaceful outside the epicentre of the Timket ceebrations in Jan Meda where I was happily taking photos. Today's Sub-Saharan Informer has the full report:

Ethiopian religious day marred by violence

Over a dozen people were wounded and an unknown number arrested yesterday as clashes between rioters and federal police interrupted celebrations for the Christian holiday, Timket (Epiphany) in Ethiopia's story.

Doctors at Menelik and Yekatit hospitals confirmed that three and ten people, respectively, had been admitted to their emergency rooms, including two from gunshot wounds...

Protesters appeared to initiate the throwing of stones, but as the unrest spread and the situation became more chaotic, soldiers from the federal police were also seen throwing rocks.

At approximately 11:30 am, two people were shot and wounded amidst a large crowd near Addis Ababa University at Sidist Kilo. Reporters for SSI were no more than five meters away from a man shot in the leg.

Now that is about as close to the frontline as you can get.

Posted by aheavens at 12:19 PM | Comments (16)

January 13, 2006

Ethiopian habits

Habits I have picked up from Ethiopia:

1. A sharp in-take of breath while listening to someone talking to show that I'm agreeing with what they're saying – or at least concentrating hard

2. Spelling out numbers – "That's 15, 1-5 birr, not 50, 5-0 birr." Although, that is more the habit of a non-Amharic-speaking ferengi than a native Ethiopian

3. Three kisses when meeting someone of the opposite sex, with a small rhythmic pause before the third (or am I imagining that last bit?)

Habits I still have to pick up from Ethiopia:

1. Offering someone my wrist to shake instead of my hand when my hand is wet or dirty.

2. The shoulder-to-opposite-shoulder greeting hug. This has been done to me several times and it's always nice when it happens. But initiating the whole thing still doesn't feel natural.

3. Speaking Amharic, Tigrinya, Oromigna, Guaragigna or Somali – I've tried the first, but it's hard.

Posted by aheavens at 1:24 PM | Comments (9)

January 9, 2006

Back in Addis

Day two in Addis Ababa and everything seems peaceful. The combination of Christmas and Id Al-Adaha (Arafa) has kept traffic to a minimum and large chunks of the population at home with their loved ones.

One of the first things I did was buy all the English-language papers and settle back with a succession of macchiatos for an update.

Fortune came up with the best report on last week's court appearance of the arrested CUD leaders, alleged rioters and journalists. It was a true blow-by-blow account of the proceedings complete with reactions from the packed courtroom. Fortune hasn't published the article online yet, so it will have to put up with my plagiarism.

Applause and tears in court - Fortune 8 Jan 06

...The main agenda at the Wednesday January 4, 2006 Court session was to rule on the defendants' request for bail at the last appearance, but it also considered the case of Binyam Tadesse, who claimed to be 14 but had been charged by the prosecution as a 16-year-old.

The Court ordered in the last session that police should handle Binyam with special care and have a medical examination done to determine whether he was underage or not. The 2004 Criminal Code states that people between the ages of nine and 15 shall not be subject to ordinary penalties applicable to adults, nor shall they be kept in custody with adults.

Binyam was charged with the alleged crimes of outrage against the constitutional order, criminal conspiracy, and obstruction of constitutional power. During his first court appearance he wore his school uniform, this time he was dressed in a white T-shirt and trousers. The one thing that remained the same though was the look of fear on his face.

After checking the presence of the defendants, the Court looked at Binyam's case first. The Presiding Judge Adil Ahmed read a medical examination from Black Lion Hospital which confirmed the age of Binyam was between 16 to 18. Murmuring could be heard from people in the Court and there were many loud sucking noises from around the courtroom.

When Judge Adil began to read the charges to Binyam the lad spoke faintly: "I have a birth certificate" he said as he scratched his head. The Presiding Judge asked him where it came from; he responded that it was from the church. The murmuring and sucking of lips continued through the exchange. The Presiding Judge held off on giving a decision about Binyam until after ruling on the bail request of the defendants.

...After the recess, Judge Adil ... took into evidence Binyam's birth certificate and adjourned his situation until the next session to verify the contradictory results of the medical examination and the certificate. The prosecutor Shimeles Kemal objected that scientific results are conclusive for such cases and that the birth certificate should not be taken as evidence. Shimeles' argument raised guffaws among people present in Court.

The Sub-Saharan Informer had an interesting interview with the State Minister for Foreign Affairs Dr. Tekeda Alemu, you can see the article on the journalist's blog Things We Should Have Written Down. He says there is a full transcript of the interview on the paper's website. But I couldn't find it.

And, to leave politics to one side for a minute. It looks as though my post about Su Dokus last month wasn't so off-subject after all. If the puzzle pages of Ethiopia's English-language press are anything to go by, the craze has apread to Addis Ababa.

Posted by aheavens at 1:46 PM | Comments (4)

January 7, 2006

Merry Ethiopian Christmas

I will be getting into the Genna spirit midair on the way back to Addis. If anyone is still shopping around for the perfect gift, why not try the Holiday Special III.

UPDATE: Here's my interesting Ethiopian Christmas fact for 1998. In the UK, children leave mince pies and carrots out for Father Christmas and his reindeer on Christmas Eve. In Ethiopia they brew him up a pot of black coffee - a much more appropriate gift if you consider Santa's schedule. That is according to Yonas Kabede's column 'Santa Claus and Christmas Trees' in yesterday's issue of Fortune.

Posted by aheavens at 3:38 AM | Comments (7)

January 5, 2006

ThisIsAddis.com

At last, Addis has got itself a decent events listings website. ThisIsAddis.com promises to "promote entertainment in Addis Abeba, capital city of the cultural heartbeat that is Ethiopia."

I particularly enjoyed its description of the notorious nightclub Memos.

Memo: (Off Bole Road, near Meskel Square). Its still got good sounds and attracts a mixed crowd including couples, and beautiful women who mix business with pleasure. DJs Teddy and Michael are on 7 days a week and it's a mix of oldies (think Imagination, Jackson 5, we're still waiting for “kung fu dancing”..), habesha, arab, reggae, you name it, it goes down well as you watch girls in tiny tops trying to hook up with their elders and palers and compare dance styles as many nations strut it on the disco floor.

I wonder if they could be persuaded to put on a Madchester night.

Posted by aheavens at 7:54 AM | Comments (4)

January 4, 2006

New Year's Resolution No. 3

Get someone to take me to an Amharic film.

Local films become favourites of movie goers - Daily Monitor Jan 3

There has been a marked rise in the number of people going to view local films in Addis Ababa to the point where they have affected the number of foreign movie viewers.

My companion will have to be prepared to provide a running translation - until Resolution No 2 is fulfilled that is. Or are they ever sub-titled?

Posted by aheavens at 10:04 AM | Comments (8)

December 16, 2005

Working 9 to 12 - with a tea break in the middle

Want to find out how an average government worker spends their day? Read deli[log]ue.

Posted by aheavens at 5:02 AM | Comments (0)

November 16, 2005

A day in the park

The gloom that has settled over most people I know in Addis lifted for exactly one hour and 35 minutes over the weekend. The event was an official training morning for the upcoming Great Ethiopian Run, due to take place on Sunday, November 27.

More than 200 people – a mixture of keen ferengis, wannabe Kenenisas, middle aged office workers and street children – took part in mass aerobic sessions and short runs on Janmeda ( a huge piece of open land usually packed with people playing football). There were slow jogs, longer circuits for the faster runners and short dash races for boys and girls under 12. When you added the constant PA announcements and amplified music the whole thing began to feel a bit like an English summer fete.

Everyone was out enjoying yet another gloriously sunny morning with all the worries and tensions of the past few days temporarily left behind them. For me it was a reminder of what life used to be like in Addis Ababa before the election.

All the signs are that the 10k road race is going ahead, despite the general nervousness over large gatherings of people in the capital. A total of 25,000 people have signed up to take part – 5,000 more than last year. It is a great run because it is a genuine mass participation event. A couple of thousand of people normally join in off the street just for the sake of it. It is also organised by Haile Gebrselassie, an inspiring, unifying figure.

If the organisers can pull it off without any incidents, it should be a huge lift for the whole city.

Posted by aheavens at 3:29 PM | Comments (13)

November 4, 2005

Eid ul-Fitr in Addis Ababa

It started at 6.00 or 12.00 Ethiopian time yesterday morning. At least twelve huge explosions from somewhere near our compound rattled the windows and shook books and bric-a-brac on the shelves. Every three or four blasts there was a pause - just long enough for you to think it was all over – then they started again, apparently getting closer.

The phones started ringing as people tried to work out what was going on. The first thought was an artillery bombardment – but there were just the bangs, no whistling shells. Others thought the army was just trying to scare people by firing off huge blanks from their bases around Janmeda. If that was their intention, they were doing a good job.

Out on the streets, a passing worker just shrugged and came up with the real explanation. "It is the Muslims," he said. "They have a big celebration."

Yesterday was the day that Ethiopian Muslims marked the end of their long Ramadan fast with the festival of Eid ul-Fitr. Someone in the Islamic hierarchy had decided that the 12 mortar-style blasts was the best way to kick of a day of joyful celebrations – an interesting choice given the events of the past 48 hours.

The early morning explosions were the first of a series of mixed signals and false alarms that kept stepping up the tension throughout the day. The sound of distant machine gun fire turned out to be a man hammering on a piece of wood. Another mortar blast turned out to be a crash between two metal rubbish carts. Walking down Churchill Road later in the morning, I saw a packed crowd on tens of thousands of young men running up towards the Piazza. At first sight it looked like a re-run of June 8 but on a much larger scale.

A few minutes later I was in the middle of the Eid ul-Fitr celebrations again – vast crowds of young people singing religious songs, dancing and shouting out 'I Love You' to passing ferengis. Three trucks filled with heavily armed red-beret wearing Special Forces came round the corner. The crowd just parted and let them through.

Lots of other people have written about the violence – the killings on the streets, the horrible injuries in the hospitals - over Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Blogs and other online news sources have done a particularly good job – look at Global Voices, Satisfy My Soul (Ego) and Nazret.com. Some of the most shocking stories were about the young people caught up in the violence. Wednesday was without doubt the worst day of all with the sound of real heavy machine gun fire and ambulance sirens coming from all sides.

The part that is most difficult to put into words is the ongoing oppressive feeling of worry and tension that remains even when the soldiers and protesting crowds have gone. It is a tension which has paralysed the whole city and emptied whole districts, shops closed and taxis nowhere to be seen. It is caused by rumours of outrages as much as by the events themselves.

Most of the people I know are staying at home, locked up in their houses and compounds. A few have ventured out to stock up on food, emptying the shelves in Bambis supermarket.

One thing that is not helping is the total absence of news on the streets – except for the official state-owned papers and radio stations. There is not a single private paper on sale today. Arat Kilo, which is normally packed with newspaper hawkers and readers taking turns with each paper, is totally deserted. I have heard plenty of explanations for this strange absence. One local editor told me they had decided not to print this week's edition after hearing bundles of newspapers were being seized at the printing presses.

All we are left with are vague reports of violence on the outskirts of the city or in other towns - everywhere from Arba Minch to Bahir Dar according to the rumours. When you get there, the road is either blocked with soldiers or the storm has passed over leaving only a burned out truck or piles of stones behind it.

The other main presence is the steady stream of Special Forces and federal police, packed into a variety of Armoured Personnel Carriers, gleaming new Humvees and open "technical"-style trucks. Back in June, they just sat in the back of their vehicles, holding their assault rifles upright between their legs. Yesterday you could see them hunched ready in a firing position with their rifle butts steady against their shoulders and their eyes staring down the barrels.

Posted by aheavens at 12:10 PM

October 9, 2005

Fat in Addis

The day after I got back I bumped into an Ethiopian friend in the UN compound in the centre of the city. She greeted me with three kisses and the words "Why Andrew, you have put on so much weight".

She was quite right of course. Three weeks of Caledonian 80 Shilling and the best fish and chips in Edinburgh will do that to you. But it still took me aback.

It took me a few seconds to realise that she was actually paying me a compliment. In the UK, it is the last thing you would say to someone returning from their holidays. Over there, people congratulate each other on how much weight they've lost. Here, apparently, it is the other way around. (Another friend here told me she was once hugged by a Bangladeshi friend and told she looked as fat as a pig).

Posted by aheavens at 4:36 PM | Comments (5)

Back in Addis

So, as I said below, I'm back in Addis after a three week break in Edinburgh, Scotland. As part of it, I took an almost total break from the internet - something that I would recommend to everyone who spends too much of their life staring at a glowing screen. As a result, I have got nothing intelligent to say about anything that has gone on recently.

I missed the Meskel celebrations where, I heard, members of the crowd expressed their frustration by throwing stones. I missed the tension building up to the mass protests that never happened, the allegations of mass arrests and aborted armed uprisings. I arrived back just in time to hear of the break down in talks between the EPRDF and the main opposition coalitions.

Apparently the UK and US delegations here are now trying to do their bit as peace-brokers, giving the people at the battle-scarred European Commission a bit of a rest.

What I can say is that tomorrow is supposed to be the first day of the new parliament - whether the opposition decides to turn up or not. In the build up to the big day, the streets are once again filled with the guns and blue and black camouflaged uniforms of the federal police. You see them everywhere walking along Bole Avenue, up around the Sanford School end of town, from the Piazza to the Merkato. Add to that the (no doubt false) rumours of another city-wide strike early next week and some unpleasant memories are starting to stir.

Posted by aheavens at 4:00 PM | Comments (0)

August 28, 2005

Kaldi-bucks

Here, as promised, are some photos of Addis' great Starbucks rip-off Kaldi's. They were taken with what is officially the worst digital camera in the world. But you get the idea.

If it is a tribute to Starbucks, it is not a particularly subtle one. I haven't been into a Starbucks for months (it is now just a few weeks away from the anniversary of the day we left all that behind us and moved to Addis). But I am pretty sure that even those swirly patterns on the wall are a direct copy.

As far as I am concerned, it makes the whole experience of drinking there more enjoyable. The chairs are just as comfortable as in America or the UK. The service is also up to scratch. And the coffee is, of course, much, much better.

Just a few weeks back, the New York Times did an article on the chain, with a much better photo. In it Starbucks said they were aware of the outlet.

Officials at the Starbucks Coffee Company were not thrilled when they learned of the knockoff. "Even where it may seem playful, this type of misappropriation of a company's name (and reputation) is both derivative and dilutive of their trademark rights," a company spokeswoman, Lara Wyss, said in an e-mail message, adding that the company prefers to resolve such conflicts amicably.

Despite their grumbling, Srarbucks would be very unwise to send in the lawyers. As Nestlé has already learned to its cost, a super-rich company that flexes its legal muscles in Ethiopia will never emerge unscathed.

Posted by aheavens at 2:10 PM | Comments (12)

August 16, 2005

Sanitation stars revisited

Finally, Fortune newspaper's groundbreaking restaurant reviews are getting the recognition they deserve.

Back in May, I did a short Meskel Square entry on the business weekly's regular detailed articles on Addis Ababa's growing restaurant scene. The entry highlighted the reviews' analysis of each restaurant's "sanitation" facilities.

Yesterday, none other than the New York Times came out with its own article on the phenomenon - 5 Stars for the Soap Dispensers, and the Food's O.K., Too. The journalist had clearly read the same reviews and was equally impressed with their bathroom-focus.

This Sunday's Fortune picked on the Meda Bar and Grill in the ground floor of the Tegene Building near Globe Hotel on Debre Zeit Road. Just so you know:

Both restrooms are of a very good quality and very spacious. The men's has five toilets and five urinals with comfortable sinks, liquid soap and an electric hand drier. The ladies' room has only two toilets of the same high standard.

Both rooms are well ventilated, and there is always a lady waiting outside who makes sure the place remains clean. You can leave her a tip in the small basket if you are satisfied.

It is good to see someone else recognises the importance of having a "comfortable sink".

Posted by aheavens at 10:16 AM | Comments (24)

June 30, 2005

Hitting the headlines

Bloggers are notorious for lifting newspaper articles and simply copying and pasting them on to their sites. An average edition of the New York Times, for example, must get duplicated thousands of times every day on weblogs across the world.

Well, in Ethiopia, it happens the other way round. The photo shows the last MeskelSquare.com entry as copy and pasted by The Addis Tribune. Its editors took it off the screen and used it as their front page story and double page feature. A feature on the page before it was unwittingly provided free of charge by my wife, taken from the BBC's news website.

One of the things journalists have to get used to in Ethiopia is the rather flexible attitude of the country's newspapers to copyright. You write an article for the Times or Reuters one day. And the next you wake up to discover that you've just written the front page lead for the Addis Tribune, or become an unpaid feature writer for the Daily Monitor.

It has become common practice and no one is that bothered about it. I am not sure what would happen if I called up the Tribune and asked for payment. (If they are offering one, they can reach me by the email address in the top right hand corner of the page.)

But it is perhaps no coincidence that the best written English language papers - The Reporter and Fortune - are the ones with the smallest proportion of "borrowed" content. (Although a number of front page pictures published by The Reporter in recent weeks did look a little familiar).

Back to the elections - it is probably not the best day to be having a dig at local newspapers. Four editors of Amharic newspapers have been arrested for their coverage of the post-election violence when at least 36 people were killed in clashes between stone-throwing youths and armed police.

Befekadu Moreda, editor-in-chief of Tomar; Zelalem Gebre, editor-in-chief of Menilik; Dawit Fassil, editor-in-chief of Asqual; and Tamrat Serbesa, editor-in-chief of Satenaw, all Amharic weekly newspapers, were detained for seven hours and later released on bail of 2,000 birr each (about US $228), the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said.

They faced charges of "defamation and misrepresentation" of the Defence Ministry, state-run news agency ENA said on Wednesday. "The editors were charged for persistently carrying news items that slur the good name of the Ministry and attempt to alienate the military from the Ethiopian people", it said.

That last two paragraphs, by the way, were copy and pasted from IRIN and Reuters. And no, I'm not paying.

Posted by aheavens at 5:28 AM

May 11, 2005

Texting for votes

Ethiopia's election has entered the mobile age. For the first time supporters of the various parties and coalitions have started pestering people with SMS campaign messages. Here are of the messages that are doing the rounds. From this informal poll it looks like the opposition CUD has the technological edge over the ruling EPRDF.

"Vote bee. If you vote bee / You will eat honey / If you vote for the two fingers / You will loose the three others."

"If you love your country, for so many reasons you already know, vote for KINIGIT! Please send this for 5 others."

"Kinigitin alememret mebt new, negr gin yemekeran gize marazem new" (Not to vote CUD is a right, bit it is a right that would prolong misery.)

"Ehadegin miretu, ehagegin bitimertu, hiwotachihu kalefew 14 amet yebelete be hiv, besira atiet ina, bechigir yetemola endihone enadergalen." (Vote EPRDF, if you vote for EPRDF, we will fill your life with more HIV and poverty than you have seen in the past 14 years.)

"Show your response towards Alamoudi's support to Woyane by not drinking any of the Pepsi products. Pass this message to five country-loving Ethiopians."

I suppose it is an advance of sorts. But it won't be long now until companies start joining in and Ethiopia will be buried in mobile spam.

Posted by aheavens at 7:17 PM | Comments (4)

May 9, 2005

Competing crowds

This was Meskel Square yesterday, packed with more than 250,000 supporters of Ethiopia's main opposition coalitions. The country's ruling EPRDF coalition had a similar meeting the day before.

I missed the EPRDF rally so am unable to compare the two. But the opposition turn out was certainly impressive. The whole city seemed to be filled with opposition supporters honking horns and waving the two-finger V-for-victory symbol used by the CUD - the Coalition for Unity and Democracy.

Just in case you don't know, Ethiopia is holding its third ever national elections on Sunday, May 15.

Hailu Shawel, head of the CUD, told the crowd "We want change and we want a new government... We need job creation to bring about poverty alleviation, not dependency on foreign aid -- which is what we have now."

A day earlier, Meles Zenawi, Ethiopia's prime minister, told EPRDF supporters: "The huge turnout is an indication that EPRDF and its policies are supported by the people. We seek your support for re-election on May 15. We urge you to vote in a peaceful manner."

There are more photos of the rally on Flickr.

Update: There has been some controversy over the exact number of people at the event. Most journalists settled on about 250,000. One man in the crowd ran up to me at the event and said "there are six million people here" - a little unlikely when you remember that that is about one and a half times the entire population of Eritrea.

Anyway, here is a little trade secret. No one ever knows how many people turn up to these huge events. At a typical protest or rally, organisers tend to overestimate the turnout and authorities like the police tend to underestimate it. Journalists tend to take all available estimates, compare them to their best judgement and then agree on a number together. That seems to be the best system to me - unless anyone wants to have a go counting the heads in the photo.

Posted by aheavens at 6:04 AM | Comments (1)

May 2, 2005

Sanitation stars

One of the best newspapers in Addis at the moment is Fortune, a business weekly that come out every Sunday. And one of its best features is its highly-detailed restaurant review. There are extensive sections on food, environment, service, parking and, most usefully of all, the "sanitation".

Here are some recent pieces:

Olive's Garden Restaurant & Lounge
Location: off Namibia Street, behind Kaldis
Cuisine: Italian

Overall *** and a half Sanitation *** A common restroom is located in a separate building, which is impractical when it rains. The restroom consists of three stalls, the middle of which is permanently locked. While the toilets are clean, most women would turn their nose up at having to share public facilities with men.

The sink area is clean, but there is nothing with which to wash your hands. Also, the liquid soap is either of a poor quality or it has been diluted. If the latter is the case, the management should know that everyone notices, and most hate it.

Makush
Location: First floor of the Mega Building on Bole Road (Africa Avenue)
Serves: Western Meals

Overall: *** Sanitation: *** In general, the location of the restrooms was discrete. Common to both genders' restrooms was the cleanliness and the maroon walls. The men's restroom was dark and cramped, and the Jackson Pollock-like splashes on paint on the wall did nothing to add to the space. Also, depending on the time of day, you may find a most unpleasant and unappetising view of a bucket filled with used toilet paper.

Conversely, the women's restroom was quite spacious with a powder room three times the size of the "restroom proper". Additional rolls of toilet paper were available as was a surprisingly large can of air freshener. Single-use towels were rolled and placed in a basket, adding a touch of elegance. A red light - the kind that makes you look great, ladies! - hung over two large mirrors in the powder room - so you can look twice as good.

Blue Drops Restaurant
Location: Namibia Street, about 150m from Atlas Hotel going towards Bole Telecom
Serves: Western and Ethiopian meals

Overall: ** and a half Sanitation: ** The restaurant's only restroom is, by default, a men's restroom; the toilet seat is missing. One reviewer was overwhelmed by the pungent smell and found the wet floor with muddy footprints most revolting. A giant cottage-style medicine cabinet hovers ominously over the sink, which is missing a knob. Those curious enough to open the doors will be greatly disappointed to find not even a roll of toilet paper inside.

A white towel hanging near the sink is visibly dirty and most unhygienic. One reviewer found clear and indisputable evidence that someone had taken a shower.

Arcobaleno Bar & Restaurant
Location: On the road extending from Roosevelt St. toward Mekanissa, about 50m south of MIDROC Headquarters
Cuisine: Italian

Overall: *** Sanitation: ** The tiny cubicles are minimally equipped with the only roll of toilet paper sitting on the ledge behind the commode. The tap in the women's restroom needs to be replaced. You need two hands to operate it: one hand to turn the handle and the other to keep the spout from turning with the handle.

If you are lucky there is a bar of soap, but you have to shake your hands dry, which you can do by waving to the people in the couples' bar who have a perfect view of you through the opening in the top of the restroom door.

Anyone who hasn't visited Addis may be a bit surprised by the vagueness of the addresses. There are road signs and house numbers here. But they are rarely used. "Behind Kaldis" is a much more useful address than saying the restaurant is off Namibia Road. There is an urban myth here that Bono wrote the song "Where The Streets Have No Name" after a visit to the capital in the 1980s.

Posted by aheavens at 6:23 AM | Comments (0)

April 10, 2005

You leave Addis for one day...

This all apparently happened rather close to our house. The last time a bomb was found in Addis (January last year - on a truck) it was blamed on a group called the Oromo Liberation Front. I wonder if there are going to be more of these incidents in the run up to the election.

Ethiopia's security forces defuse explosive devices in public bus - Xinhuanet Apr 9

Security forces have defused two explosive devices, planted in a public bus in Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, police said Saturday.

The explosive device was made with C4 explosive, the Ethiopian Federal Police Commission said in a press release.

One of the explosives was fitted under one of the seats of the bus and the other beside a seat in the bus that commuted between terminals at Kazzanchis and Merkato sub-cities on Friday.

Posted by aheavens at 3:19 PM | Comments (0)

April 7, 2005

Holding hands

A recent visitor was talking about how impressed she was with the open-mindedness of Ethiopian society. It was nice to hear. But what what precisely did she mean?

Well, she meant just how open-minded it was about homosexuality. You could walk down any street and see men walking in couples hand in hand. There were men holding hands, men leaning on each other, arms draped round each other's shoulders. And no one gave them a second look.

It was an easy mistake to make. If you see two men holding hands in the UK or the US, it is a reasonable assumption to make that they are gay.

Here, of course, it means no such thing. Men hold hands in Ethiopia in the same way that they drunkenly punch each other on the shoulder in pubs in Britain. It is a casual expression of mateyness (spelling?). Nothing more.

It is ironic that this acceptance of public displays of male affection does not actually go along with an acceptance of homosexuality. People I've spoken to about it in Addis tend to have two attitudes on the subject.

The first is that they just don't think about it very much. One Ethiopian woman with a fairly senior job in an NGO (translation: non governmental organisation - i.e. a charity) out here assured me homosexuality was a foreign import. There was no such thing as a naturally gay Ethiopian. If any Ethiopians were gay, she said, it was a condition they had "caught" from visiting foreigners.

The other attitude I have come across it straight-out hostility. The clearest example of this came in an editorial in The Addis Tribune, the country's oldest English-language weekly. It's headline said it all - "An abomination". I can't link to it because, for some reason, the paper has removed it from its website. But you can guess its contents. Also missing is the storm of correspondence it caused on the Tribune's letters page. Opinion was divided. Letters from expatriate Ethiopians in the US and Europe condemned the editorial. Letters from Ethiopians in Ethiopia were fully supportive.

Given that level of unashamed hostility, it is perhaps no surprise that the Yahoo! Groups page dedicated to Gay Ethiopians urges caution with the message: PLEASE DO NOT POST,REAL NAMES,PHONE NUMBERS,GAY SPOTS OR HANGOUTS IN ADDIS OR OTHER PARTS OF ETHIOPIA.

Posted by aheavens at 5:56 AM | Comments (72)

March 21, 2005

The SIM card stampede

The crowd started forming at dawn. By 8.30am they had started jostling against the armed guards outside the Ethiopian Telecommunications branch office. When I asked someone what was going on he said two words - "mobile phones".

Later in the day, I watched a similar crowd gathering outside the main telecoms office on Churchill Road in the centre of town (see pic). The young men - and in both cases it was mainly young men - had got up early to push and shove to get hold of one of the 200,000 new mobile phone lines that have been offered to the public over the past few weeks.

Those lines have been a long time coming. For years there has been a huge backlog in the SIM cards distributed exclusively through Ethiopian Telecommunications Corporation (ETC), a state monopoly. Until recently, the only way to get one was to go one a two-year waiting list, rent one by the week, or get a letter from some ministry pushing you ahead of the queue. (As a registered journalist I got to use the last technique with the help of the Ministry of Information).

The recent rush for SIM cards highlights two things. First, and most obviously, there is the huge demand for mobile phones in Ethiopia and beyond that Africa as a whole. The second is the inefficiency of leaving the state to run a country's telecommunications industry. There is a huge demand for mobile telecoms in Ethiopia and - in the worldwide market - there is a huge supply of mobile handsets and services. But, for some reason, over here supply is so limited that the arrival of some SIM cards starts a stampede.

Last week's Economist had some interesting facts and figures in their lead article The real digital divide:

Instead of messing around with telecentres and infrastructure projects of dubious merit, the best thing governments in the developing world can do is to liberalise their telecoms markets, doing away with lumbering state monopolies and encouraging competition. History shows that the earlier competition is introduced, the faster mobile phones start to spread. Consider the Democratic Republic of Congo and Ethiopia, for example. Both have average annual incomes of a mere $100 per person, but the number of phones per 100 people is two in the former (where there are six mobile networks), and 0.13 in the latter (where there is only one).

Ethiopia's mobile phone story took an interesting twist in last week's Fortune, one of the country's two Sunday business papers. Ayenew Haileselassie reported on the paradox that while thousands were queuing to snap up SIM cards, the country's officially-licensed mobile phone shops were doing very bad business. The reason, of course, was that Ethiopia's new mobile users were taking their new cards down to the markets to put them into a flood of much cheaper, illegally imported handsets. Customers had found a way to get round at least one state control.

Ayenew visited an official Siemens dealer in the Piazza:

Their best daily sale over the past three weeks since the ETC started doling out 200,000 lines to subscribers has been five phones. Their worst sale, which could happen once or twice a week, amounted to zero…

"Sometimes we get our salary a day or two late," said Tariku [one of the salesmen]. "We feel embarrassed to remind our employer, for we know we have not made many sales."

ETC, by the way, is going through a process of gradual privatisation.

Posted by aheavens at 5:34 AM | Comments (3)

March 3, 2005

Italy forgets

Yesterday was Battle of Adwa Day in Ethiopia. Just in case you don't know:

"The battle of Adwa, in which [poorly armed] Ethiopian forces under Emperor Menelik II united to defeat an invading force of [very well armed] Italian troops, was one of the most significant turning points in the history of modern Africa. It occurred, in 1896, when the "colonial era" was well advanced on the African continent, and it served notice that Africa was not just there "for the taking" by European powers." - Xinhuanet 02/03/05

Read more about it here.

This was a day off for everyone - except, perhaps not so surprisingly, for those who work at the Italian Embassy in Addis Ababa. I heard last night that even the Ethiopian staff were made to come in. I guess it must be a bit like being English on the 4th of July - or German on VE Day.

The picture is from the Africana Collection in the US Library of Congress. You can tell the Italians are the bad guys because they are painted in profile with only one eye showing. The saintly Ethiopians stare straight out of the canvas with both of their eyes. (Click on it to make it bigger)

Posted by aheavens at 3:22 AM | Comments (1)

March 1, 2005

Broadband in Addis

I have not missed broadband in Addis Ababa up to now.

Most of my news and online reading comes through Bloglines – an RSS aggregator that strips out all that cumbersome page design from sites like ft.com, leaving just the lean content behind. Other news updates arrive in the body of email messages. When text is the only thing that matters, a 52kbps dial-up connection from Ethiopian Telecommunications is plenty.

It has made me realise just how much of the broadband-powered stuff I did in the UK was unnecessary. Did I really need to watch a CNET news report or interview via a video feed? How often have I actually listened to those poorly-recorded Stone Roses bootlegs that I downloaded through BitTorrent? Did I really need to tune into obscure radio stations online when I had more than enough free audio blaring out of our real-life digital radio set in the kitchen? It was all great fun – but almost all of my high bandwidth surfing amounted to procrastination and time-wasting.

I have occasional mild hankerings for something faster here in Ethiopia. My wife Amber is a radio journalist and it takes ages to send her MP3 audio reports back to Blighty via email or FTP. It would be nice to download a few of the latest music releases via iTunes. But, up to now, that has been about it in terms of missing our expensive, high-speed service.

This morning, however, I found another more substantial reason to regret the slowness of our connection here. It was the news of the upcoming release of Odeo, a service that aims to simplify the process of "podcasting" - which according to Wikipedia is "making audio files (most commonly in mp3 format) online in a way that allows software to automatically download the files for listening at the user's convenience". People download radio and other audio on to devices like Apple's iPod and listen to it at their leisure, in the same way that people record and watch TV shows through TiVo.

It reminded me of the one piece of high bandwidth content that I would love to get hold of over here and download on to an iPod or any gadget that can take it. It is something that I will never be able to get to via my weedy dial-up line or listen to through our crackly shortwave radio set.

It is, of course, Car Talk, probably the best radio show in the world and available only to listeners of the USA's NPR radio network or owners of broadband internet links.

The show is basically two Boston men giving car advice to callers from across the US. Just like UK blogger Stuart Hughes, who loves it as well, I have no interest in cars. But it is still amazing - "a hugely entertaining hour of radio" in Mr Hughes' words.

For me it is nothing less that a one-programme justification for the broadband revolution.

Posted by aheavens at 8:53 AM | Comments (2)

February 19, 2005

Drivers with a death wish

Ethiopia's drivers call them the 'Al-Qaedas'. "They will kill you and kill themselves and not even care - they are suicide bombers on the road," one UN driver told me recently. He was talking about the hundreds of new Isuzu trucks that have taken over the country's highways.

Their driving really is alarming. It is not unusual to see two Al-Qaedas side by side coming straight at you, blocking both lanes of the road ahead. You either have to swerve off the tarmac or play chicken and wait for them to nip back on to their side of the line. Most of the time they are also hugely overloaded with piles of Coke crates, eucalyptus trunks or chat bundles stacked up twice as high as the vehicle itself.

No one is certain why one brand of vehicle breeds such erratic behaviour. One theory is that the drivers buy the lorries through crippling credit agreements. Apparently they have to pay it all back within one year. So they spend that year speeding around the country, trying to cram in as many high-paying trips as possible.

Road traffic accidents currently kill 1,800 Ethiopians a year and injure another 7,000. As far as I know, no one has broken down the figures to work out the number of crashes involving Al-Qaedas.

Ethiopia's road conditions have come in for a lot of criticism in the local press recently.

According to Fortune, oil giant Shell has become so worried about the number of accidents, it has taken matters into its own hands.

Alarmed by the increasing carnage, Shell Ethiopia, the largest fuel distributor in Ethiopia with a 60pc share, last week launched an awareness campaign: “Drive to Live”. Shell officials say the campaign is intended to promote the value of safety rules and the benefit of implementing “defensive driving” for drivers employed by the transport companies.

Tony Hickey, owner of the Village Ethiopia travel company, had a great rant in last week's Reporter newspaper, headlined 'Slaughter on the roads - what can we do to stop it?'.

There are a number of reasons behind the high accident rate - poor driving skills, ignorance of traffic regulations, speed, drunken driving, poorly maintained vehicles, and from pedestrians, carelessness and ignorance of the highway code. Since the state is not addressing these problems, is it unreasonable to look to the private sector?...Why could we not look at outsourcing other services, from accident reporting, driver testing, speed traps to traffic signs?"

But there is hope. Last Sunday's Capital paper reported that the Road Transport Authority of Ethiopia had imported four patrol cars to police traffic in the capital.

Posted by aheavens at 5:15 AM | Comments (3)

February 7, 2005

Africa Unite

It has been a busy, chaotic week. Bob Marley's 60th birthday celebrations have largely moved on from Addis Ababa now, down the road to Shashemene, the Rasta community about 150 miles south of here. Unless something dramatic happens down there, the world's media is likely to move on as well.

Most of the coverage of the 'Africa Unite' Marley events tended to focus on Ethiopia's small community of Rastafarians and the heritage of Bob Marley. There has been less interest in the reaction of the Ethiopian population.

While I was talking to UK rastas and Reggae managers in the press area at the concert in Meskel Square, AFP was out getting these great quotes from the crowd.

“I am really surprised to see this celebration in a place where I was condemning Haile Selassie on the orders of (the communist government),” said pensioner Abebe Gutama, who turned out to watch the concert.

A septuagenarian former employee in the emperor's palace, Assefa Tessema, said he was stunned by Haile Selassie's new-found prominence.

“I was afraid his deeds and activities would remain buried like his body,” he said. “I never expected to hear his name again as glorified as today in dignity and honor. It's really a miracle.”

A bit of background - With the coronation of Ras (Prince) Tafari as the Emperor Haile Selassie in 1930, Marcus Garvey's Christian black nationalist movement adopted Ethiopia as its spiritual home and Haile Selassie, the Lion of Judah, as its messiah. To some Rastafarians, Haile Selassie is more than a messiah - more a God. To Ethiopians as a whole, however, he is simply their last Christian emperor.

Posted by aheavens at 6:35 AM | Comments (1)

February 2, 2005

ARTICLE: Bobfest launched

This is a story I filed for AP on last night's launch of Africa Unite, a festival to celebrate Bob Marley's 60th birthday. They only used a couple of pars "for colour". So I thought I'd put the rest of it up here.

Bob Marley's 60th birthday celebrations were launched in Ethiopia last night to the sound of massed African drums and an emotional song from the Reggae legend's own mother.

Mother Cedella Marley Booker, still frail after a recent illness, won a standing ovation from a crowd packed with celebrities, leading Rastafarians and the head of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, Abuna Paulos.

More than 300 people packed into Addis Ababa City Administration's hall to mark the start of a month's worth of concerts, discussions and exhibitions organised under the banner of 'Africa Unite'.

"Bob Marley was the voice of the voiceless. He represented those who were disenfranchised and gave them power," Dr Desta Meghoo-Peddie, managing director of the Bob Marley Foundation, told the audience.

"We are here tonight to commemorate his memory and also to realise that Brother Bob lives on. It is eternal life that we are dealing with as Rastafari."

During the concert Rita Marley sat in a row alongside to Abuna Paulos, six senior Orthodox bishops and Sheik EliasRedwan, vice chairman of the Ethiopian Muslim Affairs Council. "Bob said ‘Africa Unite' and that's what we are doing", said Dessi, a leading member of the Rastafarian community in Shashemene south of Addis Ababa. "In Ethiopia Christians live in harmony with Muslims."

At one point in the concert Mother Cedella Marley Booker was joined by US actor Danny Glover, in town to chair sessions in the ‘Africa Unite' symposium which will take place over the next three days [Wed-Fri].

Bob Marley's mother made her first public appearance since flying into Addis Ababa last week. She arrived in a wheelchair but managed to walk on stage towards the end of the proceedings to sing what she described as a “song for the children of Ethiopia” with the chorus “let the children play”.

The crowd chanted ‘Go Nana, Go Nana' as Rita Marley was made an honorary citizen of Addis Ababa by the town's mayor Akebe Oqubay.

They also heard from Prince Bede Mariam Mekonnen, grandson of Ethiopia's last Emperor Haile Selassie who is seen as a spiritual leader by Rastafarians. He paid tribute to Bob Marley and called on Ethiopia to set up a memorial and an annual reggae festival in the singer's memory.

Other entertainment came from the National Drummers of Burundi and the Drums of Rastafari - a band of Addis Ababa-based Rastafarians who led the crowd in a stirring rendition of the Marley classic ‘Get Up Stand Up'.

Posted by aheavens at 1:41 PM | Comments (0)

January 31, 2005

Burundi comes out for Bob

The Royal Drummers of Burundi took over the centre of Addis today a day before the start of 'Africa Unite', a month long celebration of Bob Marley's 60th birthday. The drummers are going to be one of the star attractions at tomorrow's launch ceremony and, I think, at Sunday's big concert.

If their performance was anything to go by, the celebrations are going to be quite something. They basically stopped Addis in its tracks by hoisting their huge drums on to their heads and marching across one of the busiest streets in the city. They then circled the Menelik monument three or four times, beating the hell out of their drums and jumping high in the air.

Bob Marley is going to be taking over this site over the next couple of weeks. There is something different happening most days and I am helping to cover the event for AP. Regular random postings will resume when it's all over at the end of February.

Posted by aheavens at 4:07 PM | Comments (2)

January 25, 2005

Bob Marley the symposium

I have just had a briefing on Ethiopia's celebrations of Bob Marley's 60th birthday next week. The briefing included details which, as far as I can tell, have not been made public up to now.

In case you don't know, about 300,000 people from across the world are expected to cram into the capital on Sunday, February 6, for a huge, free concert. Harry Belafonte, Quincy Jones, Angelique Kidjo, Baaba Maal and Youssou N'Dour are all performing. Very appropriately for this blog, the event is due to take place in Meskel Square.

In the days running up to the concert, there will be a symposium on subjects inspired by Bob Marley's songs in the United Nations base in the centre of Addis. Here are the highlights.

The overall theme 'Africa Unite' is based on Bob Marley's line "Africa Unite, unite for the benefit of your people, unite for it's later than you think".

Day one - Tuesday February 2, will relate to the lyrics of the songs 'War' and 'Exodus' particularly "Until the philosophy which holds one race superior and another inferior is…abolished, there will be war."

According to the briefing:

Bob Marley's musical rendition of the legendary speech to the United Nations by H.I.M. Emperor Haile Selassie I allows us to focus on Africa's contemporary challenges including tribalism, gender discrimination and disenfranchisement of youth. Additionally, international issues that are clear barriers to African growth and development, such as unfair trade agreements, inadequate debt relief and in some instances, continued support for non-democratic leaders, are all manifestations of colonialisation and the vestiges of slavery and racialised policies. As prophesied, the outcome is war.

The programme, chaired by US actor Danny Glover, includes greetings from: Nana Afua Adobea 1 (Mrs Rita Marley); K.Y. Amoako, executive secretary of the UN's Economic Commission for Africa and President Alpha Oumar Konare, chair of the African Union Commission.

Day two - Wednesday February 3, is based on the songs 'No Woman No Cry' and 'Get Up Stand Up'.

No Woman No Cry, unsurprisingly, will focus on the situation of women in Africa, covering areas ranging from poverty, AIDS and domestic abuse to "the need for girl child education" and "the negative effects of genital mutilation".

According to the briefing:

The complementary song 'Get Up Stand Up' emphasizes the driving force of African women on the front line who refused to accept a fait accompli…The lyrics of the song provide absolute defiance and determination in the face of systematic problems, "sick and tired of the ism schism, you can fool some people some time but you can't fool all the people all the time…get up stand up stand up for your rights…".

The programme is made up of a number of as yet untitled addresses, panels and sessions involving, among others: Professor Michelle Jacobs from the University of Florida; Marie Angelique Savané, chair of the African Peer Review Mechanism (of NEPAD); Dr Debrework Zewdie, director of the World Bank's Global AIDS programme and the writer Maya Angelou.

Day three - Thursday, February 4, is focused on 'Redemption Song' and 'One Love'.

The main theme taken from these songs is youth.

[Redemption Song] emphasises the call for youth to liberate themselves, in spite of all the technological challenges, while encouraging them to reach out and reach forward to their history and their ancestors as a source of strength and guidance. Africa's greatest victory will be its ability to work for and with the youth for her advancement.

Ziggy Marley and Angelique Kidjo will give some closing remarks ahead of a mass chant of 'One Love'.

Posted by aheavens at 4:47 AM | Comments (0)

January 21, 2005

Time for a rubble index

It's time we had another way of measuring the size and growth of Ethiopia's economy. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is just old hat. The dollar purchasing power parity (PPP) used in C.K. Prahalad's The Fortune At The Bottom Of The Pryamid sounds great. But it goes way over my head.

How about a rubble index? There must be some sort of relationship between the amount of building debris and construction activity in our streets and the prospects of the economy. Just a five-minute walk from our house shows that something big is happening in Addis Ababa. The city is one huge building site. Shining blocks are shooting up, whole roads are being ripped up and widened.

It is not much fun to live nearby - our water was cut off for three days after the diggers moved in and our electricity comes and goes as it pleases. Local storekeepers turned up one morning to find the front of their shops had been demolished to make way for the widening (they just shrugged their shoulders and re-built everything in an afternoon). And when we had two days of unseasonal torrential rain last week, the area turned into a mud bath.

But it is all development, albeit rather messy development.

Posted by aheavens at 9:06 AM | Comments (2)

January 4, 2005

The long fetasha

One of the few downsides to life in Addis Ababa is the number of times you are searched and frisked going about your daily business. You are searched going into the bank, searched before queuing up to pay your telephone bill, searched going into the city's main shopping mall the Dembel Centre, searched going into the compound of Addis Ababa University.

You are searched on the way into the National Museum - but, oddly, not on the way out. You are searched every time you walk into the main post office to engage in the highly sensitive business of buying a stamp. (The post office guards make a particular point of confiscating all cameras.) Every time you visit the Ministry of Information - the headquarters of Ethiopia's state TV company ETV - your bag is stripped of all information-gathering equipment including microphones and tape recorders. Your bags are x-rayed every time you go into the Hilton for a swim or a quick drink - although if you are reasonably well-dressed the guards just nod you through even if your bag sets all the alarm bells ringing.

If you ever ask why you are bring searched, no-one seems to know. Up until recently, it was all a mystery. That was until my wife, Amber, came across the following passage in Ryszard Kapuscinski's book The Emperor about the reign of Haile Selassie. The passage describes the regime imposed on the streets of Addis immediately after the Emperor's downfall in the 1970s.

To get things under control, to disarm the opposition, the authorities order a complete fetasha [amharic for search], covering everyone. We are searched incessantly. On the street, in the car, in front of the house, in the house, in the street, in front of the post office, in front of an office building, going into the editor's office, the movie theatre, the church, in front of the bank, in front of the restaurant, in the market place, in the park. Anyone can search us because we don't know who has the right and who hasn't, and asking only makes thing worse. It's better to give in. Somebody's always searching us. Guys in rags with sticks, who don't say anything, but only stop us and hold out their arms, which is the signal for us to do the same: get ready to be searched. They take everything out of our briefcases and pockets, look at it, act surprised, screw up their faces, nod their heads, whisper advice to each other. They frisk us: back, stomach, legs, shoes. And then what? Nothing, we can go on, until the next spreading of arms, until the next fetasha. The next one might be only a few steps on, and the whole thing starts all over again. The searchers never give you an acquittal, a general clearance, absolution. Every few minutes, every few steps, we have to clear ourselves again.

So there you have it. Thirty years have passed and the fetasha lives on.

Posted by aheavens at 6:33 AM | Comments (2)

December 30, 2004

A walk up Entoto

Michael Buerk infamously described Addis Ababa as a city of "diesel and desperation" in his recent documentary on Ethiopia, returning 20 years after the 1984 famine.

Even in the city centre the description is unfair. There is plenty of diesel and some desperation, a result of the grinding poverty. But the phrase simply fails to capture the vitality of the capital.

When you wander to the city limits - just 20 minutes drive from the centre - Buerk's description becomes even more inappropriate.

These are some pictures taken on a Boxing Day walk in Entoto, the hill to the north of Addis where Haile Gebrselassie, Ethiopia's running star, trains every week. This is where Emperor Menelik II originally founded the capital at the end of the 19th century.

Posted by aheavens at 4:31 AM | Comments (0)

November 29, 2004

The great Great Run

Look closely and you still won't be able to see me among the crowd of 20,000 who set off from Meskel Square on Sunday for the Great Ethiopian Run.

It was an amazing experience. I would like to see the competitors in the UK's Great North Run keeping up the same level of chanting all the way round the course.

Posted by aheavens at 10:15 AM | Comments (1)