So now I am becoming very skeptic towards the UN. Here are some examples of things that pisses me off
- Per Diem: If you have a mission out of the city you are based in, you get a DSA. This is a certain amount of money, according to the place you go to. With this DSA, you are supposed to cover all your daily costs: accommodation, food, taxis… For example, if you go to Nazareth, you will get 115 dollars a day. Knowing that your daily costs will approximately not go over 60 dollars (and you already are spoiled with this!), it means that you put in your pocket more than 50 dollars. OK. Soit. Imagine you go to Paris, than you get 350 dollars. Great, you actually can make 200 dollars a day…just for attending a meeting from which nothing concrete will come out. Chennai: 388$; Mumbai: 393$; Mexico city: 309$; Rabat: 302$; Ouaga: 330$; Kiev: 650$ (this one is for the Hyatt).... et j’en passe! (of course those rates are calculated for stays in hotel like Sheraton or Hyatt. Do you really NEED the Sheraton? Will you die in a bit cheaper place. Are you working for development or?). So I am organizing a two days retreat to train people from the AUC on gender issues. The gender Directorate dared to tell us: “If you want people to attend your retreat, we need to organize it outside of Addis. Then they get the DSA and will come. You know, the senior staff at the AU is not well paid”. You bet. Never seen as many Mercedes in Addis than in the parking of the AU. I know we need incentive and way of motivated the people to work in those organisations... but really? we can't find other ways?
And then you are told that the interns are not paid. Don’t you think they could provide us 30 birrs a day for lunch (2 dollars). That is a bit unfair. They don’t pay anything but throw out the money tons of money for flying all over the world to meeting and blabla events.
- The “expatriate” way of life. Let’s say you are international staff of the UN, you have a very big car (biggest in town), you live in a compound with very high walls, security, garden, and all in the best standards of town. You don’t mix with locals; you don’t speak a world of Amharic even after ten years in Ethiopia. You never walk in the street (either you have a car or a driver that picks you up the morning and drives you home). You have “house helps” that you pay 200birrs a months (20 dollars. The minimum wage is 150 birrs). You go to meetings all the time to discuss about things that you are not clearly familiar with because you are not from the country, you don’t know the customs nor the reasons why. But you claim you can do something about it. You claim your are driven by passion but it more feels like that is the position and advantages that took you here. I generalize, and I am sure they are lots of people that do not live this way, are driven by passion and dedicated to their work for the right reason. But sorry, where are they? Can I meet some?
- Management: If you are hired at the UN, it is mainly for two reasons: either you have good contacts, or you are an expert in your field. I‘ll come back to the contacts later. Let’s say you are expert in gender and human rights. Great. You have experience; you get a good position as a project leader or program officer. And you have a team to manage. But what is management? No idea. So here we are, with a skilled boss who is expert in human rights. But who doesn’t know how to organize a team, nor motivate people, nor lead a meeting, nor communicate, nor nor nor…. So it is great but it is not efficient, not functioning. You decide to take interns but you don’t share anything with them and is too busy to help them. Even to busy to give them notice and context of a meeting. And then the results are messy, not organized and not productive. Maybe the UN should observe a private company and try to understand why manager are pillars of efficiency and productivity.
- Contacts: Not one of the interns I met at the ECA got into the structure without knowing someone. When you are hired, you have to fill in a form. One of the questions of this form is: “Do you have any relative working at the UN?” Before, with my innocent of my 20’s, I was sure that if you were checking “yes”, you would have more troubles to be hired. Actually now, I am pretty sure it is a way of seeing if you actually are related to the big family and if you are allowed to be integrated totally (understand here my irony of course)
I am stopping here because I don’t want to be “too much” and i know i already am... It is hard not to see all those bad sides when you have hard time finding the reasons why you actually think the UN is so great...Quite pessimistic today, i know... but always hoping!
Ps: Apart from that, still visiting some apartments and house and still only visiting crap! Need some more work on this….
jeudi 24 septembre 2009
Holidays!
Thanks to the Ramadan, we had the Monday off. We decided to get out of Addis with Jonathan and Sarah. We went on Saturday morning to Awassa, 5 or six others south from Addis. We found a nice cute hotel near by the lake, with a huge garden and many many monkeys. On Sunday morning we went to the fish market, where I have seen the most ugly birds I could imagine. They have long dirty rotten beck, the high on legs, mainly look rotten and even have curly hair, disgusting, Pictures will come! The market was nice and I ate fried fresh fish that was actually excellent. We ate several!
Then we have been trying in vain to take a boat and go on the lake to see hippos. Just didn’t work out. We needed to take a bus to go to another lake up north, on the way back to Addis and were short in time. Sarah got very feverish and sick, and has been struggling to walk to the hotel in the 2nd lake, went to bed at 7 and slept all day the Monday. (we discovered after being back in Addis that she had amoeba, nice little parasites that made her intensively sick. She went to the Swedish clinic to find that out, had a very beautiful Swedish doctor and paid the equivalent of a month rent for a shit sample! She was haaapy!)Anyway, Sunday evening we just walk to any hotel on the edge of the lake, thinking we should plant the tent. But Sarah was sick and solidarity made us share this expensive nice house just in front of the beach. It was not such a big sacrifice! Jonathan and I just hanged around, had a midnight bath and enjoyed the scenery of a lake, stars and fresh clean air. I felt in holidays. The next day, we woke up for the sun rise, walk following the edge of the lake until we found a amazing expensive lodge where we could stop for a great buffet breakfast. Hummm makes me hungry just to think about it! We hanged around a long time on the terrace of the restaurant, before going back to our hotel meet our sick friend and we chilled all day on the beach, alterning pancakes cooking (adaptation de l’expression “faire sa crepe sur la plage”) and lake swimming. Yes, it is one of the only lake in Ethiopia that has been declared Bilharzias-free, which means you can swim without being penetrated through the skin by strange tiny aggressive parasites, nice huh? I was still very stressed to touch snakes, reptiles of hippos while swimming and was panicking each time I was noticing some strange spot on my skin. But I seem to be okay, apart from little sun burn with the shape of my fingers around my bathing suits because je n’ai pas bien etale…haha smart!
We went back to Addis on the evening after a great holiday and a perfect chilling-on-the- beach-feeling –like-summer-day. We had to hitchack/hijack a car to go to the nearest city to get a proper bus to Addis. Terrible bus trip as it was late, I think the driver wanted to go fast and really enjoyed the strong breaking method. It was amazingly throwingable. Sarah who was sick, just couldn’t talk anymore and needed to concentrate not to throw up and I, being in the back (last row, 3 seats but we are 4) was just trying to forget the fact that my two big neighbors were sweating on me and that my skirt was wet from the contacts with them…. Cruel.
But we all survived, reached home and slept with very happy memories of the weekend.
Then we have been trying in vain to take a boat and go on the lake to see hippos. Just didn’t work out. We needed to take a bus to go to another lake up north, on the way back to Addis and were short in time. Sarah got very feverish and sick, and has been struggling to walk to the hotel in the 2nd lake, went to bed at 7 and slept all day the Monday. (we discovered after being back in Addis that she had amoeba, nice little parasites that made her intensively sick. She went to the Swedish clinic to find that out, had a very beautiful Swedish doctor and paid the equivalent of a month rent for a shit sample! She was haaapy!)Anyway, Sunday evening we just walk to any hotel on the edge of the lake, thinking we should plant the tent. But Sarah was sick and solidarity made us share this expensive nice house just in front of the beach. It was not such a big sacrifice! Jonathan and I just hanged around, had a midnight bath and enjoyed the scenery of a lake, stars and fresh clean air. I felt in holidays. The next day, we woke up for the sun rise, walk following the edge of the lake until we found a amazing expensive lodge where we could stop for a great buffet breakfast. Hummm makes me hungry just to think about it! We hanged around a long time on the terrace of the restaurant, before going back to our hotel meet our sick friend and we chilled all day on the beach, alterning pancakes cooking (adaptation de l’expression “faire sa crepe sur la plage”) and lake swimming. Yes, it is one of the only lake in Ethiopia that has been declared Bilharzias-free, which means you can swim without being penetrated through the skin by strange tiny aggressive parasites, nice huh? I was still very stressed to touch snakes, reptiles of hippos while swimming and was panicking each time I was noticing some strange spot on my skin. But I seem to be okay, apart from little sun burn with the shape of my fingers around my bathing suits because je n’ai pas bien etale…haha smart!
We went back to Addis on the evening after a great holiday and a perfect chilling-on-the- beach-feeling –like-summer-day. We had to hitchack/hijack a car to go to the nearest city to get a proper bus to Addis. Terrible bus trip as it was late, I think the driver wanted to go fast and really enjoyed the strong breaking method. It was amazingly throwingable. Sarah who was sick, just couldn’t talk anymore and needed to concentrate not to throw up and I, being in the back (last row, 3 seats but we are 4) was just trying to forget the fact that my two big neighbors were sweating on me and that my skirt was wet from the contacts with them…. Cruel.
But we all survived, reached home and slept with very happy memories of the weekend.
lundi 7 septembre 2009
Finally some news!
Hello hello…
After not having written for ages, I am back telling about what is going on around here. It might be long to tell you about all, so I’ll try to sum up a bit.
So i think i left you just before i took couple (or more) of days off from work to be able to go travel a bit with Tim. Our route started in Bahir Dar, a city north of Addis, on the side of the biggest lake of Ethiopia, the Lake Tana. We took one of those crazy local place to go there, an dit took us the day to do something like 400km. The bus was pretty bad, ass-killing but the roads were kind of maintained (built by the Chinese and Japanese on this portion of the road) and the landscapes are very beautiful. So it was fun. Long but fun.
On the way to our destination, the road was beautiful. We crossed the Blue Nile Gorges which a beautiful and impressive, because the road goes down in the gorges before crossing them, then up again in a beautiful area. Ethiopia has lots of stiff mountains and the views are great !
Arrived in Bahir Dar, we slept in a 40 birr the room hotel (very cheap) with a dirty room and disgusting common toilet (was so close to go pee in the shower… didn’t do it !). The second night, we up scaled to a 50birr room with private bathroom an dit was great. We had a cold shower from a plastic bottle in the dark, it is memorable!
In Bahir Dar, we did the usual stuff: the boat trip. The lake has more then 30 islands on which there are many very old monasteries. Those are impressive because very old, but after three or four, we kind of had enough. The boat tour was nice, lots of birds to observe and nice fisherman boat. We met a funny crazy old polish guy with who we hang around a bit after. The next day, we went with him to the Blue Nile Falls, once considered as one oif the most beautiful fallls in Africa. Now, the falls have lost 75% of its water as they built a dam just ahead of the falls to produce electricity for the country (still not enough huh !). WE were lucky because the falls were « open » meaning we had the chance to see big waterfalls compared to normal. We climbed the highest mountain around for couple of hours before reaching the top, with a 380° view on the valley. Bweauwtifuwll ! Worth the effort.
After coming back to town, we almost directly took a minibus to Gonder.
HAaa.. i make it short but it makes me skip some funny details like the door of the bus taking us to the falls which fell down during the first 2 meters, the rain inside of the bus, the crazy Chinese taking pictures of us at the falls, the crazy children jumping on you to sell you any kind of handicraft stuff, the shepherds and so on…
To go to Gonder… i think it should take 2 hours and a half. WE took something like 5hours. Yeah, we had a little « bus » problem. After stopping at the gas station, we just couldn’t start anymore. So we had to wait for a mechanic, then for him to repair then we went.
We stayed in a lovely hotel in Gonder where we met the first night Chris, a Canadian guy off traveling for a year and a half. He was heading eventually to India, so we had a beer all existed sharing about the cool places we should go to. In Gonder, the main attraction is the castles, or the remain of them. It is impressive and surprising for Africa. Those are just old stones castle like we have. Sa that was cool. Then we met a girl who stayed in Gonder couple of months and she took us to visit a bit the surroundings, taking us a bit outside the center, with beautiful views and more rural village.
Then it is said that the first official tej place in Ethiopia was in gonder, so we had to go. No electricity, big wooden tables with a tiny candle, and lots of old wise Ethiopian guys zipping their tej in chemistry bottles (cf pictures) and a great atmosphere.. We had a great evening, the wine and the atmosphere made us talk for hours without us noticing it. After our fourth bottle, we realized we were the only one left and that we got pretty drunk. The wine was excellent, soft, sugary and tasty. But we forgot it was wine. So we took a rickshaw (yesss they have that all over Ethiopia but in Addis, what a shame, i love it!)We got home fast and slept like babies. The next day, i had a fever. So i hesitated between the hang over, the swain flue or malaria (paranoid ? not at all !). Think in the end i just had a cold…like a normal winter cold (yes it is winter here !).
The next day, i left time, Gwenen and Chris go up north to Axsum, while I went down to Addis in a nice middle class bus that took one day instead of two. I have been so happy to have chosen this fancy bus as i was feverish, diarrhaish and sickish in general. I just wanted to be home, take a shower and sleep.
I went to work on Monday but slept all day the Tuesday and had a slow motion week before Tim came back on Sunday.
Tim trip was …fun i think. Him and Chris have been sick alternatively (« are you good Tim ? yes but Chris is piucking all he has got ». And the next day : « are you good Tim ? No I am shitting blood but Chris is great ». Poor guys, they have been miserable. And they were riding buses all days… interesting.
I met them on Saturday morning thinner and dreaming for some rest. We had a nice week end in Addis before Chris flew to Egypt.
The next week has been the last one in town for Tim, who enjoyed some shopping, walking and last meetings.
On Friday, we flew (no time for 2 days of the local bus, so just 2 hours by flight ! luxury) to Lalibella. Lalibella is where the rock churches are. It is a small village in the mountain, without car, with beautiful views and great sunsets. Celebrating our two years together, we made the week end special. We had this crazy fancy hotel in houses called tukuls (traditional round houses), a huge room, impressively clean with lots of windows opening on a balcony and on a gorgeous view on the valley. We even had breakfast in bed, checking out the sun rise… yes i know, luxury again. But it worth it!
We went to the market on Saturday morning then to the churches in the afternoon. We had a little of tej the evening (a little, i have been a bit quieted down on tej !), we met nice people (including a Thai girl living in Lund and speaking Swedish just a bit better then me but who sounds so confident that i got jealous ! Med vi pratade lite svenska och det var jätte trevlig att träffa henne.
Then again, i am skipping lots of details but it is too much and i am sure you are already a bit bored. But we climber a mountain to see a beautiful sunset, we visited the churches that are very impressive, we ate the biggest omelet in the world, lots of cute birds of all colors, the best fruit juice and the worst ginger-dirt-tea, we saw the most traditional way of selling honey in the market ( big bags, full of durt with honey inside and a woman digging her whole arm in it to take a handle of it…yummie. And so on and so on.
We came back to Addis on Sunday and Tim flew in the evening, after a great packing day, followed by his last injera and a stress of not having money left to pay it. Indeed all the ATM were out of function and i had only 50 birrs, which didn’t even pay the taxi. So i had to leave a deposit of my traveler check.
The problem led me finally to visit the Sheraton hotel the next day (the best in Addis, totally wahou), to meet another svensk, to meet another guy from the world Bank and to get a lift to an ATM that works (i had only six birrs left and i think they had pity of me…)
So sunday evening, tim left and flew back to Sweden a studies, which put me in a veryyyy slow and sad pace of life. But my roommate came back from their trip and interns from ECA were going, so my week has been quite busy anywas. And after all, four months is going to be fast right?
Here it is, the sum up of our trip. The pictures should help you visualize what it was. Hope it was not too boring ;)
Bisous à tous
Ps: papa, j’adore mon appareil photo! Il est juste géniale.
After not having written for ages, I am back telling about what is going on around here. It might be long to tell you about all, so I’ll try to sum up a bit.
So i think i left you just before i took couple (or more) of days off from work to be able to go travel a bit with Tim. Our route started in Bahir Dar, a city north of Addis, on the side of the biggest lake of Ethiopia, the Lake Tana. We took one of those crazy local place to go there, an dit took us the day to do something like 400km. The bus was pretty bad, ass-killing but the roads were kind of maintained (built by the Chinese and Japanese on this portion of the road) and the landscapes are very beautiful. So it was fun. Long but fun.
On the way to our destination, the road was beautiful. We crossed the Blue Nile Gorges which a beautiful and impressive, because the road goes down in the gorges before crossing them, then up again in a beautiful area. Ethiopia has lots of stiff mountains and the views are great !
Arrived in Bahir Dar, we slept in a 40 birr the room hotel (very cheap) with a dirty room and disgusting common toilet (was so close to go pee in the shower… didn’t do it !). The second night, we up scaled to a 50birr room with private bathroom an dit was great. We had a cold shower from a plastic bottle in the dark, it is memorable!
In Bahir Dar, we did the usual stuff: the boat trip. The lake has more then 30 islands on which there are many very old monasteries. Those are impressive because very old, but after three or four, we kind of had enough. The boat tour was nice, lots of birds to observe and nice fisherman boat. We met a funny crazy old polish guy with who we hang around a bit after. The next day, we went with him to the Blue Nile Falls, once considered as one oif the most beautiful fallls in Africa. Now, the falls have lost 75% of its water as they built a dam just ahead of the falls to produce electricity for the country (still not enough huh !). WE were lucky because the falls were « open » meaning we had the chance to see big waterfalls compared to normal. We climbed the highest mountain around for couple of hours before reaching the top, with a 380° view on the valley. Bweauwtifuwll ! Worth the effort.
After coming back to town, we almost directly took a minibus to Gonder.
HAaa.. i make it short but it makes me skip some funny details like the door of the bus taking us to the falls which fell down during the first 2 meters, the rain inside of the bus, the crazy Chinese taking pictures of us at the falls, the crazy children jumping on you to sell you any kind of handicraft stuff, the shepherds and so on…
To go to Gonder… i think it should take 2 hours and a half. WE took something like 5hours. Yeah, we had a little « bus » problem. After stopping at the gas station, we just couldn’t start anymore. So we had to wait for a mechanic, then for him to repair then we went.
We stayed in a lovely hotel in Gonder where we met the first night Chris, a Canadian guy off traveling for a year and a half. He was heading eventually to India, so we had a beer all existed sharing about the cool places we should go to. In Gonder, the main attraction is the castles, or the remain of them. It is impressive and surprising for Africa. Those are just old stones castle like we have. Sa that was cool. Then we met a girl who stayed in Gonder couple of months and she took us to visit a bit the surroundings, taking us a bit outside the center, with beautiful views and more rural village.
Then it is said that the first official tej place in Ethiopia was in gonder, so we had to go. No electricity, big wooden tables with a tiny candle, and lots of old wise Ethiopian guys zipping their tej in chemistry bottles (cf pictures) and a great atmosphere.. We had a great evening, the wine and the atmosphere made us talk for hours without us noticing it. After our fourth bottle, we realized we were the only one left and that we got pretty drunk. The wine was excellent, soft, sugary and tasty. But we forgot it was wine. So we took a rickshaw (yesss they have that all over Ethiopia but in Addis, what a shame, i love it!)We got home fast and slept like babies. The next day, i had a fever. So i hesitated between the hang over, the swain flue or malaria (paranoid ? not at all !). Think in the end i just had a cold…like a normal winter cold (yes it is winter here !).
The next day, i left time, Gwenen and Chris go up north to Axsum, while I went down to Addis in a nice middle class bus that took one day instead of two. I have been so happy to have chosen this fancy bus as i was feverish, diarrhaish and sickish in general. I just wanted to be home, take a shower and sleep.
I went to work on Monday but slept all day the Tuesday and had a slow motion week before Tim came back on Sunday.
Tim trip was …fun i think. Him and Chris have been sick alternatively (« are you good Tim ? yes but Chris is piucking all he has got ». And the next day : « are you good Tim ? No I am shitting blood but Chris is great ». Poor guys, they have been miserable. And they were riding buses all days… interesting.
I met them on Saturday morning thinner and dreaming for some rest. We had a nice week end in Addis before Chris flew to Egypt.
The next week has been the last one in town for Tim, who enjoyed some shopping, walking and last meetings.
On Friday, we flew (no time for 2 days of the local bus, so just 2 hours by flight ! luxury) to Lalibella. Lalibella is where the rock churches are. It is a small village in the mountain, without car, with beautiful views and great sunsets. Celebrating our two years together, we made the week end special. We had this crazy fancy hotel in houses called tukuls (traditional round houses), a huge room, impressively clean with lots of windows opening on a balcony and on a gorgeous view on the valley. We even had breakfast in bed, checking out the sun rise… yes i know, luxury again. But it worth it!
We went to the market on Saturday morning then to the churches in the afternoon. We had a little of tej the evening (a little, i have been a bit quieted down on tej !), we met nice people (including a Thai girl living in Lund and speaking Swedish just a bit better then me but who sounds so confident that i got jealous ! Med vi pratade lite svenska och det var jätte trevlig att träffa henne.
Then again, i am skipping lots of details but it is too much and i am sure you are already a bit bored. But we climber a mountain to see a beautiful sunset, we visited the churches that are very impressive, we ate the biggest omelet in the world, lots of cute birds of all colors, the best fruit juice and the worst ginger-dirt-tea, we saw the most traditional way of selling honey in the market ( big bags, full of durt with honey inside and a woman digging her whole arm in it to take a handle of it…yummie. And so on and so on.
We came back to Addis on Sunday and Tim flew in the evening, after a great packing day, followed by his last injera and a stress of not having money left to pay it. Indeed all the ATM were out of function and i had only 50 birrs, which didn’t even pay the taxi. So i had to leave a deposit of my traveler check.
The problem led me finally to visit the Sheraton hotel the next day (the best in Addis, totally wahou), to meet another svensk, to meet another guy from the world Bank and to get a lift to an ATM that works (i had only six birrs left and i think they had pity of me…)
So sunday evening, tim left and flew back to Sweden a studies, which put me in a veryyyy slow and sad pace of life. But my roommate came back from their trip and interns from ECA were going, so my week has been quite busy anywas. And after all, four months is going to be fast right?
Here it is, the sum up of our trip. The pictures should help you visualize what it was. Hope it was not too boring ;)
Bisous à tous
Ps: papa, j’adore mon appareil photo! Il est juste géniale.
jeudi 20 août 2009
New Pix
http://picasaweb.google.com/Alicethiopia/Picassa#
ps: Note the new very little link to the left...
ps: Note the new very little link to the left...
lundi 17 août 2009
Last week's message that i didn't manage to send...
A week end outside Addis
Friday after work (remember I finish at 2), we decided with Tim to go to Merkato, the supposed-to-be largest market in Africa. Hummmm it is totally huge. I think we have seen something like 20%. The rumors say you can find everything, from camels to Kalashnikovs. I hope I can find them one day. It is full of hustlers that jump on farenji (white men) to take them to visit the market. We definitely rejected (or escaped) them and wander all alone in this crazy place. Some areas are not used to receive farenji I think and people were looking at use strangely (like in the car spare-parts area, not much tourists!). We had ten macchiato in different very small cafes where you really wish you would not need to try the toilets. One was smelling roar meat very strongly, terrible. Or should I be honest and say it was stinking dead animals? Anyway, we walked for more than four hours, got lost, found our way, got lost again, bought some earrings and scarf (hoooo how much bargaining you have to do if you don’t want to be the stupid-used farenji and get a decent price!). It is a crazy place and I think I will spend lots of Friday afternoons discovering this huge area of the town, with billions of people doing business, running around, shouting and so on. It is a dirty smelling place but I like it. This looks like Africa more then any other places in Addis.
This week end, we don’t stay in Addis. Need to take some fresh air. On Friday night, we decide to have a quiet night just the two of us, restaurant and dodo. We chose a restaurant not far away from home. We do our lazy people and take a taxi (raining too much and too long day). I want to brag about my ahmaric (which is slowly coming to basic shape) so I give the taxi driver one of the number I know. “Haya birrs to go to Almendi restaurant?” he answers straight away “No problem”. Weird. Usually you discuss, you don’t just accept! Actually Haya is 20, and it was just wayyyy too much to go to the restaurant very close from home. The guy was nice and he said once there, really the price I gave was ridiculously too high “Ok, give 15”. I think he had pity. Now I will learn more numbers in Amharic! Moreover, the restaurant experience was a disaster. The waiter put us in small room (Arabic style) with mattresses on the floor without asking us if we wanted a normal table to eat. Then no one was coming to take our order as if either they had forgotten us or if they wanted to let us “in private”. Weird. We finally manage to order food. We try to find vegetarian things on the menu and end up with two desert: a banana/eggs stuff and and big pancake with honey. We were starving and we’ve been disgusted quite fast with so much sugar! We asked for a salad and a chicha “Possible possible”. The chicha never came and the salad was half a ball without sauce (not even oil, just water) that they charged us 25 birr (should cost 5 birr). So yeah, I don’t think we’ll be back there but it was fun. On the way back home, we stopped in a gloomy restaurant and ate good old injera and finally got full from food!
So Tim and I decide to rent a motorbike. Saturday morning, we go to “Stadium” and bargain for more than two hours to get a good bike, not destroy or with only half of the features working on it. Long time, long discussion, long bargaining. Then an hour more to get two helmets (yes two not one… so hard!). We finally manage to get everything, even a written contract on the condition! Amazing. While taking our breakfast, we observed a fire in the building in front. We had the opportunity to see how long the fireman are to come and how bad it looked. Many people were around, some helping other just looking. It was impressive.
Then on the road. We drove till Debre Zeyit, almost 40 km from Addis, to the east. It is an area with seven crater lakes. We arrived and chose the best view on one of the lake to eat. We met a couple of interns from ECA and had a nice time on a terrace with a beautiful view on the crater. Then we went to see other lakes and we looked for a hotel for very (too) long. We ended up at a women’s place I met on the road. A crazy little woman married to a farenji (not at home this day) who is building a beautiful traditional lodge on the edge of the crater. We stayed in one of the bungalow that was finished (I think she just let us her own room actually). We had a nice evening talking around the fire with her and her younger sister. It was a great evening. She was crazy and it was fun. Next time I go, I sleep there for free she said, nice! Only problem, we ate there, the food was great and the lemon juice also. Made of tap water? Of course. Did I drink it? Of course. Did I throw up all night? Of course. Was the bed on top of a mezzanine that you had to climb with a ladder? Of course. Were the toilet without running water? Of course. Did I think about taking any medicine with me for the week end? Of course not. Soooo sum up: awful night and slow motion Sunday. No waking up early and going around the lake as planned, not riding to the next city and have hot spring bath. We just stayed in bed until 12, I drunk lots of Coke and we walked around a bit and drove back home. What a shame. Never again this water, I have been very stupid. I know it now. The week end was good anyway; we met nice people and enjoyed the views. I am feeling better and the poisoning didn’t last more than a night (I have sore muscles from the action though!).
I took few days off (come on, I am not paid, I can do it!) and we are going out of town for the week. I think Tim will stay one more week and will let me go back alone to Addis on Sunday. I will probably join him where he is the next week end.
Friday after work (remember I finish at 2), we decided with Tim to go to Merkato, the supposed-to-be largest market in Africa. Hummmm it is totally huge. I think we have seen something like 20%. The rumors say you can find everything, from camels to Kalashnikovs. I hope I can find them one day. It is full of hustlers that jump on farenji (white men) to take them to visit the market. We definitely rejected (or escaped) them and wander all alone in this crazy place. Some areas are not used to receive farenji I think and people were looking at use strangely (like in the car spare-parts area, not much tourists!). We had ten macchiato in different very small cafes where you really wish you would not need to try the toilets. One was smelling roar meat very strongly, terrible. Or should I be honest and say it was stinking dead animals? Anyway, we walked for more than four hours, got lost, found our way, got lost again, bought some earrings and scarf (hoooo how much bargaining you have to do if you don’t want to be the stupid-used farenji and get a decent price!). It is a crazy place and I think I will spend lots of Friday afternoons discovering this huge area of the town, with billions of people doing business, running around, shouting and so on. It is a dirty smelling place but I like it. This looks like Africa more then any other places in Addis.
This week end, we don’t stay in Addis. Need to take some fresh air. On Friday night, we decide to have a quiet night just the two of us, restaurant and dodo. We chose a restaurant not far away from home. We do our lazy people and take a taxi (raining too much and too long day). I want to brag about my ahmaric (which is slowly coming to basic shape) so I give the taxi driver one of the number I know. “Haya birrs to go to Almendi restaurant?” he answers straight away “No problem”. Weird. Usually you discuss, you don’t just accept! Actually Haya is 20, and it was just wayyyy too much to go to the restaurant very close from home. The guy was nice and he said once there, really the price I gave was ridiculously too high “Ok, give 15”. I think he had pity. Now I will learn more numbers in Amharic! Moreover, the restaurant experience was a disaster. The waiter put us in small room (Arabic style) with mattresses on the floor without asking us if we wanted a normal table to eat. Then no one was coming to take our order as if either they had forgotten us or if they wanted to let us “in private”. Weird. We finally manage to order food. We try to find vegetarian things on the menu and end up with two desert: a banana/eggs stuff and and big pancake with honey. We were starving and we’ve been disgusted quite fast with so much sugar! We asked for a salad and a chicha “Possible possible”. The chicha never came and the salad was half a ball without sauce (not even oil, just water) that they charged us 25 birr (should cost 5 birr). So yeah, I don’t think we’ll be back there but it was fun. On the way back home, we stopped in a gloomy restaurant and ate good old injera and finally got full from food!
So Tim and I decide to rent a motorbike. Saturday morning, we go to “Stadium” and bargain for more than two hours to get a good bike, not destroy or with only half of the features working on it. Long time, long discussion, long bargaining. Then an hour more to get two helmets (yes two not one… so hard!). We finally manage to get everything, even a written contract on the condition! Amazing. While taking our breakfast, we observed a fire in the building in front. We had the opportunity to see how long the fireman are to come and how bad it looked. Many people were around, some helping other just looking. It was impressive.
Then on the road. We drove till Debre Zeyit, almost 40 km from Addis, to the east. It is an area with seven crater lakes. We arrived and chose the best view on one of the lake to eat. We met a couple of interns from ECA and had a nice time on a terrace with a beautiful view on the crater. Then we went to see other lakes and we looked for a hotel for very (too) long. We ended up at a women’s place I met on the road. A crazy little woman married to a farenji (not at home this day) who is building a beautiful traditional lodge on the edge of the crater. We stayed in one of the bungalow that was finished (I think she just let us her own room actually). We had a nice evening talking around the fire with her and her younger sister. It was a great evening. She was crazy and it was fun. Next time I go, I sleep there for free she said, nice! Only problem, we ate there, the food was great and the lemon juice also. Made of tap water? Of course. Did I drink it? Of course. Did I throw up all night? Of course. Was the bed on top of a mezzanine that you had to climb with a ladder? Of course. Were the toilet without running water? Of course. Did I think about taking any medicine with me for the week end? Of course not. Soooo sum up: awful night and slow motion Sunday. No waking up early and going around the lake as planned, not riding to the next city and have hot spring bath. We just stayed in bed until 12, I drunk lots of Coke and we walked around a bit and drove back home. What a shame. Never again this water, I have been very stupid. I know it now. The week end was good anyway; we met nice people and enjoyed the views. I am feeling better and the poisoning didn’t last more than a night (I have sore muscles from the action though!).
I took few days off (come on, I am not paid, I can do it!) and we are going out of town for the week. I think Tim will stay one more week and will let me go back alone to Addis on Sunday. I will probably join him where he is the next week end.
lundi 10 août 2009
Enfin des Photos!
Hoping that this time it is working!
http://picasaweb.google.com/Alicethiopia/Picassa#
http://picasaweb.google.com/Alicethiopia/Picassa#
vendredi 7 août 2009
Another week is gone!
Et bien et bien. Sorry I didn’t write for a while. Here is alittle sum up.
Last week end, we have been out with my roommates. We were supposed to go dance salsa (or just accompany our girl roommate to do so while drinking Saint-George, the Ethiopian beer). The salsa club was dead and our Ethiopian friend told us we had to experience this Memo club, a very famous club (not to say the most famous club in Addis). So Why not? Few observations. First, Music was quite “so so ”, a mix between Ethiopian (good), American (so so) and other African music. That was fun. Then, girls. Yeah it is an important think to observe over there. All those absolutely beautiful and hot Ethiopian girls who wriggle their hips to the frenzied beats in the middle of the dancefloor. Wahou. But euh nop “wahou”. They are all prostitutes. Even my American friend who looks very much like she is Ethiopian got some nice nice offers …You can’t really be an African girl in a pub dancing alone if you are not a prostitute. So it is totally bewildering. Then I think we forgot ourselves a bit.. because we ended it up at 6 o’clock in the morning eating injera and fifir in the restaurant of the club, totally starving and exhausted by this night of crazy dancing. I didn’t enjoy a club that much for years (yeah, I am getting old).
The next day, as you can imagine has been a chilling day, good breakfast in a small cozy delicious place, then just a normal Saturday hanging around and not doing much. Ho we actually had a mission which was finding a badminton racquet to play in the garden (ours is dead). We dragged ourselves till this shop where it was just too expensive and achieve our mission but renouncing to this insane purchase (450 birrs). Tim was supposed to arrive at midnight this same day. I was hang over and pretty tired when everyone went to bed, leaving me alone in the dark, without electricity, without battery in my cell phone to set an alarm. Just myself, my book and my tiredness. Awful. I was burned out. Electricity is back, I switch on my cell phone, read Tim’s message: two hours delay. Haaaaaaa I watched a movie and went at the airport at 2 o’clock, stood up a little hour more, and finally found him. That was hell of a long day, but I was happy. Tired but happy.
Since then, we are having a little routine: wake up at 7.30, go to work, leave him wander in Addis until lunch when he comes to eat in small workers Ethiopian restaurants (9 birrs a lunch for the both of us, just amazing!), then he wanders again and come and pick me up at 5.30. Some days he manages to walk around, visit and see things. Sometimes he gets stuck at the terrace of a café, soaked wet, cold trapped by the pouring rain. But I think it is part of the Addis experience, so he is leaving it. It is good.
Ho we went to an Indian restaurant (couldn’t resist), very good and famous one where we filled ourselves with souvenirs of two years ago.
This week end we are planning to get out of town, with bikes or car, to we don’t know where yet. But who cares, we’ll just figure it out soon. Can’t wait to breathe some fresh and pure air. Addis is congested and the air is not nice.
Work is good, i continue working on my project, i am slowly quiting the Spider solitaire addiction and learn a lot of things on AFrica. I like it.
Life is going on as normal around here, I feel home and it is good to have “the visitor” around here. He looks funny because he totally sun-burn at the beginning of the week. I think Ethiopian wonder what kind of guy he is, too red to be white, not enough to be black… just strange Swedish!
Last week end, we have been out with my roommates. We were supposed to go dance salsa (or just accompany our girl roommate to do so while drinking Saint-George, the Ethiopian beer). The salsa club was dead and our Ethiopian friend told us we had to experience this Memo club, a very famous club (not to say the most famous club in Addis). So Why not? Few observations. First, Music was quite “so so ”, a mix between Ethiopian (good), American (so so) and other African music. That was fun. Then, girls. Yeah it is an important think to observe over there. All those absolutely beautiful and hot Ethiopian girls who wriggle their hips to the frenzied beats in the middle of the dancefloor. Wahou. But euh nop “wahou”. They are all prostitutes. Even my American friend who looks very much like she is Ethiopian got some nice nice offers …You can’t really be an African girl in a pub dancing alone if you are not a prostitute. So it is totally bewildering. Then I think we forgot ourselves a bit.. because we ended it up at 6 o’clock in the morning eating injera and fifir in the restaurant of the club, totally starving and exhausted by this night of crazy dancing. I didn’t enjoy a club that much for years (yeah, I am getting old).
The next day, as you can imagine has been a chilling day, good breakfast in a small cozy delicious place, then just a normal Saturday hanging around and not doing much. Ho we actually had a mission which was finding a badminton racquet to play in the garden (ours is dead). We dragged ourselves till this shop where it was just too expensive and achieve our mission but renouncing to this insane purchase (450 birrs). Tim was supposed to arrive at midnight this same day. I was hang over and pretty tired when everyone went to bed, leaving me alone in the dark, without electricity, without battery in my cell phone to set an alarm. Just myself, my book and my tiredness. Awful. I was burned out. Electricity is back, I switch on my cell phone, read Tim’s message: two hours delay. Haaaaaaa I watched a movie and went at the airport at 2 o’clock, stood up a little hour more, and finally found him. That was hell of a long day, but I was happy. Tired but happy.
Since then, we are having a little routine: wake up at 7.30, go to work, leave him wander in Addis until lunch when he comes to eat in small workers Ethiopian restaurants (9 birrs a lunch for the both of us, just amazing!), then he wanders again and come and pick me up at 5.30. Some days he manages to walk around, visit and see things. Sometimes he gets stuck at the terrace of a café, soaked wet, cold trapped by the pouring rain. But I think it is part of the Addis experience, so he is leaving it. It is good.
Ho we went to an Indian restaurant (couldn’t resist), very good and famous one where we filled ourselves with souvenirs of two years ago.
This week end we are planning to get out of town, with bikes or car, to we don’t know where yet. But who cares, we’ll just figure it out soon. Can’t wait to breathe some fresh and pure air. Addis is congested and the air is not nice.
Work is good, i continue working on my project, i am slowly quiting the Spider solitaire addiction and learn a lot of things on AFrica. I like it.
Life is going on as normal around here, I feel home and it is good to have “the visitor” around here. He looks funny because he totally sun-burn at the beginning of the week. I think Ethiopian wonder what kind of guy he is, too red to be white, not enough to be black… just strange Swedish!
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