Travel Log 10 – Addis Ababa

Addis Ababa
29/3/2008 – 18/4/2008 and 30/4/2008 – 21/5/2008
The ageless mango

Having been told by a businessman on the bus that ‘Addis Ababa’ meant ‘new flower’ made the approach to the city one of imaginings. Would it be fresh and vibrant? Would it be a delicate and beautiful place?

Historically it does not live up its name. ‘New’ is somewhat a misnomer as it is widely considered to be slap bang in the centre of the seat of human kind, from where, 100,000 years ago the human race spread out across the globe. In more recent times, it was established by Emperor Menelik II in order to appease Taytu, his wife, who was fond of the natural mineral baths the city still provides. In the present it does live up to its name, as its people are new. Everyone in the city seems to have either consigned themselves to an eternal immovability or is in a state of manic movement, waving their arms about and strutting around. Men in oversized sunglasses and designer stubble mix with the robed crowds praying at the old churches. Women in traditional dress eat pastries to the sound of 50 Cent and prostitutes trussed in Lycra swaddling rub shoulders with priests wearing strange, cylindrical hats. There is not necessarily a sense of Addis, the place being ‘new’, more that it inhabits a time all of its own. It is more the case that its people are ‘new’, but they have come from all different times.

‘Flower’ suggested something effeminate, and it was impossible to deny that the city had a disproportionate number of knee-tremble-inducing women. However, the dirty, raucous nature of the place was symbolically closer to a fruit like the mango: exuberant, but sordid.


‘Ageless Mango’ as it should be known was dominated by the vast Presidential and Prime Ministerial palaces, grand Coptic churches, high rise shopping centres (but never with more than ten storeys), the brightly lit Ethiopian Electric building, wooden scaffolding reaching up into nothingness and decadent the British Embassy.

When the Djiboutian Embassy asked for a letter of recommendation from our embassy in order for them to begin processing our visa application it did not come as a big surprise, the same was required by the Sudanese in Cairo. The shock came when we passed through the imposing gates of the vast British Embassy with its polo field, swimming pool, golf course and pet leopards. Presumably in order to fund such a jolly good time we were asked to pay $120 for the one page printout which cost around $30 in Cairo. Toby had previously been in the Post Office to collect his birthday cake but the security guard was unwilling to allow it entry into the Embassy compound. Presumably as it was a heavy fruitcake it posed a risk as a weapon.

It sounded like an echo of the not-so-distant past. Haile Selassie would feed his lions before breakfast every morning. The image we had built of the mythical man was brought crashing back to reality when we visited his palace, now part of the city’s university (where there are no tuition fees). We stood uncomfortably in his private chambers looking down at his sad little bed. There was a poignant reminder of his usurpment by the Communist Derg on the 12th September 1974 in the form of a bullet hole in his bedside mirror. His private bathroom did not have gold taps, it was a utilitarian affair of plain mosaic not too dissimilar from toilets down the road in Kaldi’s café.

Kaldi’s is Starbucks with a more inventive menu and better coffee. There are the same chalkboards, uniforms, logo and unpleasant prices. An enterprising gentleman suggested Starbucks open a chain in the home of coffee. They refused after they lost a court battle with the Ethiopian government with regards to the patenting of an Ethiopian coffee bean. Ethiopian coffee producers thought it unfair and won the case. Kaldi’s was built in its stead and appears to be hugely popular.

We occasionally watched the ice cream melt in the counter fridges during one of the city’s many power cuts. After reading the local press it came to light that the late Mahar rains were the root of the problem. Ethiopia gets its electricity from hydropower and with the imminent completion of expansion projects intends to begin exporting power to its neighbours. Without the rain the system did not work so power was being rationed. What was not in the Ethiopian press was the more pressing effect of the drought: the impending humanitarian disaster in Oromiya and Somali regions where 4 million people are at risk of death. A week after the US and UK pledged $90m in relief, the Ethiopian government announced that it will be increasing its military budget eightfold to $400m.

Some of the Ethiopian press was surprisingly free (most notably, The Reporter) which described how the opposition had ducked out of the local elections which were taking place while we were in the city. They claimed the voters and politicians were being pushed, violently. While we were in the city three people were killed by a bomb blast at a petrol station. There were suggestions that it was the work of Ogaden National Liberation Front (the underdeveloped south of the country). What was bizarre about the ONLF was the government’s claims that they were backed by the Qatar government. No indication was given as to Qatar’s interest in the debacle, but it entailed the Qatar based Aljazeera website being consigned to the same fate as all blogs in the country – it was barred. This made writing this blog challenging.

Addis seemed to attract fascinating eccentrics from all over the globe, all with weird of wonderful tales. The Austrian researching the sticks Ethiopians use as toothbrushes. The French graffiti artist, fluent in Amharic and the world’s only white azmari (traditional Ethiopian minstrel who sings freestyle about the audience members and current affairs). The group driving three Morris Minors from South Africa to London on the way to the 60th anniversary celebrations. The Dutch woman trained in hostage negotiation helping street children. The French street performers preparing for a fire show. The three Brits setting up a perma-culture ecolodge in the south of the country. The alcoholic Saudi Arabian who loved America at around four in the afternoon but generally hated them by about ten in the evening. Two of the three Russian cyclists we first met on the boat from Egypt to Sudan who were hating Ethiopia, having had rocks hurled at them as they passed through villages. The Japanese farmer who wanted to introduce bamboo to the Ethiopians. The British journalist living in Lebanon researching tobacco and ch’at. The part time DJ from Dalston searching for source material. The Frenchman who had single-handedly rediscovered Ethiopian jazz of the 60’s and 70’s (as can be heard in Jim Jarmusch’s film Broken Flowers). He was in the process of organising a music festival steeped in Romanticism. One of the performers had not been in Ethiopia for fifteen years after he sought political asylum in America. He was found working as a petrol pump attendant and had agreed to return for a one off performance.

Politics and music were hot topics in the ch’at and coffee houses during our stay as the country’s number one performer had been locked up just before the election. Apparently this is a repeated theme, the governments of Ethiopia have had some bad experiences with their more feisty song writers. Teddy Afro was in court on the charge of a hit and run murder and everyone had an opinion on the matter, far beyond the information found in the papers and very deep into their imaginations. It was a welcome break from talking about Arsenal, Man United and Chelsea (and in the cases of some wild cards, Liverpool).

Knowing where to go out in Addis was a tricky business. We had to base it upon the advice of those who had tried and tested before us. On Toby’s birthday the decision was made that FreeZone would do for dinner, Harlem Jazz for some music, then wing it from there. FreeZone turned out to be the place to be, a courtyard of people posing, posturing and doing their best to catch the attention of the waiters (in Ethiopia waiters are very possessive over their tables, if you catch the eye of the wrong one you normally get a blank stare). Everyone was having fun and it was a relaxed place to be but everyone was showing off a little too much. Harlem Jazz proved to be the place for some genuine reggae. Many of the ‘twice as nice!’ band members came from Shashamane – the spiritual home of the Rastafarians and sang of Selassie, repatriation, Jah and Bob over lolloping and scatty rhythms that made all of the white people dance like idiots. We made the schoolboy error of asking a twelve year old taxi driver where we should go next. We were taken to the notorious Memo Club where women outnumber the men 4-1 and the ugly ones are turned away at the door. The flaw in this seemingly perfect club was that they were all prostitutes. Fat, bald, sweaty Chinese businessmen lounged on sofas draped with women while UN types ground against women in mini-skirts. However, the saviour of the dance floor came in the shape of an Indian man wearing a sweat band and sporting one hell of moustache. He pointed to the DJ to signal that now was the time for his song (the one where bhangra music is played over the top of the Night Rider bass line). He picked a point when the dance floor was empty. He circled round pointing to people in the crowd then erupted into a flailing masterpiece. It turned out to be good fun, once we had established with the women that their services were not required they were very cordial and referred to themselves as our sisters and we all had a good dance. We never quite got the hang of the Ethiopian shoulder dancing (which randomly interspersed the 50 Cent and Timberland tracks) but we gave it a bloody good go.

Addis was not a place of attractions. The Derg Monument near the Post Office was an imposing monument to Communism and intriguing in its incongruity. The Millennium Square celebrated the Ethiopian Millennium with a giant metal dove and the flags of most of the countries of the world. Then there was Selassie’s palace and the ethnographic museum, which did have some good photos of British soldiers who were stationed there, as was Toby’s Great-grandfather, and the tribal habits of the Ethiopians of the south. Then there was the church housing the body of Haile Selassie and his wife (that is if you are to believe what the ‘bomboklat’ minister tells you – Rastafarians believe him to be alive but in hiding) with its mural above the altar depicting Selassie’s moment of transition from mere mortal to super hero. It was at his speech to NATO that his words became prophetic, he foresaw and warned them of WWII but no one was listening! The truth of the matter was that although these sights were distracting, Addis was far more about drinking amazing coffee and reasonable beer and chewing the cud with anyone and everyone. This sensibility seemed to rub off on those people passing through and left the city crackling with chatter.


What was treacherous about Addis’ streets was the moral threat rather than a physical one, as culturally Ethiopians did not seem inclined towards crime. We were told how children come to the city looking for easy cash. If they are not female or not pretty enough to be a prostitute they are taken under the wing of a Fagin character who in many cases purposefully disfigures them, in order to improve their earnings. From a roof top café one could watch a mother sending her toddlers out to targeted individuals. We saw a man lying on the street with what looked at first glance, like a pink sweet stuck to his belly, hence the flies. It seemed like a cruel trick to play on someone so destitute. On closer, and completely innocent inspection it turned out to be the membrane of some internal organ which had ruptured through the skin. The Addisians reaction to these people was one of resolute acceptance. We watched as two blind people collided in front of a bus queue. They were locked in an awkward embrace, maintaining there respective sales pitches – the man calling upon the name of Selassie and tapping his white stick, his face almost entirely burnt away and his white eyes bulbous. Her calling upon Jesus and shaking a handful of change up and down rhythmically. People from the bus stop quickly and quietly righted them.

Addis’ merkato is dubiously given the title of Africa biggest market. It covers a huge area but what is a shop and what is a market stall is hard to tell, and where it starts and ends it also unclear. What is clear is that it is a dirty, noise life-filled headache. Everyone was bustling to get to their bargain and out again. Inside one shop / stall we bought honey. It was a high ceilinged and dark hall filled with musty smells. Huge sacks of butter, honey and dried fish were piled high. The shopkeeper scooped handfuls of honey into a plastic bag, gently conducting the flies around him. The place was alive with bargain hunting women preparing for the end of the Easter fasting. As Easter approached the goods became in higher demand and the prices rose and this was apparently the best time to buy.

We were lucky enough to be in the city during the annual film festival. The Africa Spelling Book whetted our appetites for Kenya as it was a film made by an NGO which had given cameras to Nairobian street children and told them to produce short films about what Africa meant to them, based upon the letters of the alphabet. The driving, upbeat feel to the films set in slums were thought-provoking. It was easy to forget that although these places may be a mess, they are also people’s homes, in which they go through some the very same sagas as people in environs more familiar to us.


During the night the city felt very safe. When we visited the Habasha Restaurant for a treat we dined with the Kenyan diplomats and were treated to the most spectacular shoulder dancing we had seen to date. The dancers moved their necks and shoulders independently and into impossible contortions, flicking their heads around like ping-pong balls. Members of the audience (generally older Ethiopian businessmen) would periodically go up and give it a go, then stuff cash into the pockets of the performers. Miraculously nobody suffered from whiplash.

Another dance performance was on a whole new scale of weirdness. It was a variety act at Concord Club which involved a dance narrative performed by a man and woman. The man is a drunk, saved by the power of love. The climax of the show is the man playing the woman as a variety of musical instruments. The most eye popping being the piano. He laid her legs in the splits position across his lap and pressed her thighs and feet as if they were keys. When a bum note played on the musical accompaniment he went straight for the groin. We later saw the same performance re-enacted on the TV. They are clearly quite a sensation.

Another night’s entertainment was advertised to us as ‘traditional’ which turned out to be quite a stretch of the imagination. It was a fashion show watched by Addis’ great and good, with a camera crew there ready to film our awkward grins. Between designers the entertainment included a stand-up comedian who we suspect may well have been using us, as the only two white audience members, as source material. There were also three far from coy mistresses in Lycra performing a very ‘special’ dance routine. This all took place on top of one of the city’s tallest towers in the modesty titled Cloud 9 Café...

It was all a lot of off-kilter fun.