My first days in Addis Ababa

To all my fans around the world (means: Austria, Germany, Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey, Palestine,...): I am back to bring you the reports you’re dying to read! You’re ready to get into a completely different world? You’re ready to read about things never heard before from a country?
No…lets get serious…These are my experiences and here is what happened the last days:

Departure: Saturday, 30.June 2007
My departure from Salzburg was absolutely great: especially the surprise as I found a classmate from high school as one of the stewardesses of the Austrian Airline plane! Of course I knew she was working for this Airline, but never thought I d meet her here today. She was as much surprised as I was and short time before our landing in Frankfurt she gave me an extra-packet with food for the long journey.
My fears, I would not come along at the Frankfurt Airport were not justified. I found the right terminal and gate within minutes (well placed signs!) and had plenty of time to sit there and wait then (and start thinking about what is going to come along…phu…). At least the boarding… The Airbus of the Lufthansa was pretty nice, so was the staff, I had a seat nearby the window again (oh, how much do I love that!), with a Swedish/Ethiopian family nearby me. The take off delayed as one of the wheels was perforated and had to be exchanged. Flying over Libya I fell asleep for sometime, crossing Egypt in the south to Khartoum/Sudan when I woke up again as the plane started to reduce height for the landing. Around us the clouds looked so unreal to me as they got a beige, then rosé till reddish colour (it was said it is the sand), a nice Cumulonimbus cloud made a lightening performance per excellence…
Khartoum: the soil looks red. Around the airfield installed weapons (what always irritates me a little flying to southern countries). Many are leaving the plane here. Its not really clear to me where the regular asphalt streets finishes and just piste begins (also not on the airflield as we are rolling to the take off, turning round and suddenly facing a UN-plane, which then seemed to drive into the field to let us take off). One and a half hour left till Addis, the little girl nearby me in the hips of its father starts making nonsense with the seat in front of her (I could not resist and did the same what made the father laughing seeing me imitating his 3-year-old daughter). Over Addis there had been a few turbulences and as there was a lot of traffic at the time we had to stay in the air for some more minutes. Then the landing, getting the baggage no problem, getting outside: little problem (had to phone home, they wanted to know the exact address & phone number where I am going to stay), then waiting for somebody to fetch me. Waiting, waiting, waiting… making la connaissance du Marie, une francaise working at Basel… also waiting. Phoning home again for the phone number of my hosts (very clever, I know… I did not save it in my mobile which fortunately works here). At least my hostfather came to bring me to my new home. I did not take the time to unpack my things. I was terribly tired and more or less just went to bed.

My first day in Ethiopia: Sunday, 1. July 2007
I slept a till midday, had confuse dreams, took a shower and got known to the daughter of the house. Then I unpacked my things, took a breakfast. Its rain season here, and the sky is getting more and more blue. A cock is trying his voice since the morning and its somehow smelling like hay.
Somehow I d like to go out on the streets, but somehow I also don’t dare. I get tired again and lie down, sleep for another 3 hours, then start reading my Turkish literature (in German, of course). The family father is coming, we are going to buy some food for me, one of the girls (I thought they are his grandchildren but it turned out that they are the housemaids) accompanying us. The groceries are at the crossing, looking like our Christmas-market houses. Its already a little dark, I cant see a lot but the street, masses of people walking around clothed in African style with or without scarfs around the head. We are also going for drinks…at first into the coffe-house (I took a tea, which tasted marvellous, like it smelled, I am not sure about the herbs, but I am going to find out), then for a beer (hmmm…not bad… sweeter than most of ours). At home again I am asked to sit together with the family, one of the girls preparing my meal. “Can I do that? Should not I prepare it myself?” “Noooo… they re getting paid for it… just tell them what you want”…. Why does this has to happen to me, as I already have a bad feeling letting Stef carry the shopping-bags L … We are watching TV, suddenly I get a blanket over my knees so that I don’t feel cold, a small table placed in front of me so that I don’t have to move to the main table and can eat my meal where I am. Apart from my spaghetti I get some Ethiopian food to try (forgot the name again and again..ups…). I’m learning about the bomb at the London Airport at BBC World and matching that topic I am learning about how to build and hide mines in the streets at Eritrean TV. Moreover I learned that CSI New York also exists here (with arab subtitles) and during some movie with Kiefer Sutherland I am deciding to go to bed.
Oooh…yes…and: I got to hear that there’s a difference in german German and austrian German…

My first working day: Monday, 2. July 2007
My boss at the Goethe Institute, responsible for the “Programmarbeit” came to fetch me. This was my first possibility to see the Addis streets at daylight and I can tell you: I could have spent hours just sitting somewhere watching what’s going on!!!!! It is so absolutely fascinating, too much for me all at one time… just want to observe for some time (preferably without being seen myself). The way is too short to get enough of all the impressions. The Institute is situated at the compound of the university, a nice building, compared to the ministry of education we passed by. I got a tour through the house, the director of the institute, introduced to most of the staff (the important one) and my working place. Then she explained what there’s coming along to organise and to the next weeks. That I should also make a visit and get known to the German and Austrian embassy as well as the French, Italian, English and eventually also Russian cultural institue of Addis Abeba, moreover visit some exhibitions and concerts, the first on 5th of July at the Hilton Hotel. I was going to my workingplace (trying my computer just to find out that the internet connection is terribly slow – what a pity!). The Institute Director called me to talk a little and I got known that my apply for the internship was mainly accepted cause of my outrageous activities as paramedic and soldier (how much these things can help, huh???) which made my curriculum vitae some kind of special and the one out of 4-5 per week sent that was taken. The next for today was that I got the chance to attend a project presentation (this time from the other side, not me as the speaking one), very interesting! At the end of the meeting one of the two asked me: “you did not say anything during the meeting…” “yes, this is just my first day here”… what lead to an invitation to come to the municipality where the one works to experience that as we are going to work together with him in the future projects.
The rest of my day I spent in a classroom together with photographs of Ethiopia, some really wonderful, most colourful, with comments about Ethiopian students to these photos, which I have to match together with german comments to the same photographs tomorrow. Really interesting what turns out there, the comments had often been a great help for me to interpret the pictures as my encyclopaedian knowledge (especially about Africa) is far not enough to understand the pictures without this help. I’ve really fallen in love with some of the pics and so I really wondered as I heard that the german comments aren’t going to be very nice at all…
I spent hours of intensive studying the Ethiopian comments, summarize them and picking out the main characterising points, so that I suddenly found myself without my 2 bosses or a description of the way home (oooh… I was right…they thought I had already left). But one of the library staff found that the guardian who had shift lives in the same direction and together with her I found my way home. No problem at all – everything gets solved at least! And how nice to hear a “I love you” again, even if its just by the money-collector of the minibus in which I turned out to be an attraction. But I think I looked a bit irritated (my angel-face, you know ;-) ) as they started a friendly laughing and my accompanying guardian told me “do not be afraid! Everybody is friendly here!”…
At home I took a warm shower, my dinner, went for watching TV and talking to the daughter of the house, got the Ethiopian food again and got another blanket (yes… I feel a little cold here… its just about 18 ° maximum). Generally, even though sooo much new and challenging, it has been a great day!

And here the most important informations:
The rain time is far not as bad as I thought it would be...just a little rain from time to time (or has not it started yet???)
NO, I did not see any goat-herds yet, but sheeps and there are donkeys running on the street in front of the house (very important for transport – no joke!!!)