first impressions of ethiopia

another busy day….began with meetings with other organizations that are working here on the elections, made me kind of glad I’m not staying here any longer than a month cuz they have a huuuuuge job ahead of them…. but at least I hope to be making the transition easier for the country director who gets here in march!

some more random thoughts…. reminded me of this huge poster of zinedane zidane (the soccer player) in marseille painted on the side of a building along the sea…. they have the same kind of thing of gebru haile selaissie (spelling?!), the 10,000m runner who won gold at the Olympics this past summer. he’s running right at us as we drive down the street, all 50 feet of him. think people here are pretty proud…. the other big event that just took place here is the bob marley festival, think the Rastafarians decided to rebury him in ethiopia so he’s apparently here now, somewhere…and the rastas are here in full too, have run into a few of them here and there, very surreal and kind of different…

it’s hard to be here too, running around with a driver and a very foreign face (although there are apparently tons of Chinese people here, and much of the construction of roads, buildings, bridges are done by Chinese laborers, random huh?!)…. every stop light we get caught at brings tons of starving street kids out to beg for money or food or trying to sell things, and it’s difficult to turn my head away and not look, continue conversing with others in the car….just hate being in those situations but can’t give money all the time and for no purpose. I know it sounds harsh, but it never ends….so you can’t really give them an inch or they’ll never stop.

Driving is absolutely nuts here, there are hardly any traffic lights and pretty much no crosswalks, so you’ve got people crossing the street all over the place, cars making their own lanes, and goats and other sorts of vehicles on the sides of the roads. Thank goodness I didn’t bring my bike cuz definitely would not be able to ride in the city!! I keep getting in the car with the instinct of putting my seatbelt on but they’re not really necessary since people here drive so slowly, the one saving grace and the reason there aren’t more accidents than there should be!!

there are so many extremes here, from weather (very cool in the morning and at night but so hot during the day) to wealth (magnificent villas versus tin shacks) to education (private all-boys schools that only a few privileged families have access to)…. I could go on and on…. hope this gives you an idea of what things are sort of like here, but it’s hard to describe everything and give it all justice.

anyways, i'm learning to live on one pair of underwear and two interchangeable outfits since my luggage is still not here. it's amazing what you can do without! hope everyone's well and will write more soon....