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Published: April 11th 2008
Our 4x4
Not just for school runs & mounting kerbs at Tesco :)And it was an amazing experience!!
We covered over 2,500km across 9 woredas, stayed in 10 different hotels and visited over 20 villages and towns in 3 regions (Amhara, Oromo and Beneshangul-Gumuz).
With between 9 and 13 people (plus luggage) in the long wheelbase Toyota Land Cruiser the journeys (up to 8 hour drives) were uncomfortable, but not unbearable and it was the same for everyone on board. Plus whenever there was additional comfort to be had (better hotel rooms, front seating when possible in the vehicle, catering for our vegetarian eating requirements) our Ethiopian colleagues were incredibly generous in offering it to us first without hesitation.
In fact we both count ourselves extremely lucky to have had the opportunity to make the trip, especially together, and even luckier to have done it alongside such kind and friendly people.
In Sickness and in Health OK, as predicted by my work counterpart "you will scratch in some of the hotels", we did scratch a bit, but apart from some mild car travel sickness on my part in the first day (I was in the back of the vehicle, Sara in
Breathe in!
Trailer load of IT guys (plus kit) the front seat) we were fine.
No malaria (yet - it can take 10 days to appear), though our driver did manage to catch it. We were very, very grateful for our insect and mosquito resistant travel tent.
The only damage suffered was through my uncanny ability to walk into any low lying roof, door, road sign or bus stop en route, which left my head a mass of bumps and scabs. Given the shortness of the typical bed and general low-level building design I should have realised Ethiopia is not made for the 6-footers amongst us and taken more care 😊
Menem chigreallam (no problem), shai tetah (have a tea) and izoh! (be strong!) Our Amharic has certainly improved. Our driver trained us well, so we know now the names of all the animals - beg (sheep), feule (goat), zinjero (monkey) and kupt (cow) - that we narrowly avoided as they sauntered along, jumped out in front of or just stood there staring oblivious at our vehicle!
We are both now far more confident ordering food and drink and can even get the general theme of the Amharic conversations that went on in the
View from the rear
The "Topland" rock (as featured on bottles of Ethiopian bottled water) car.
Kamera? Some of the scenery was breathtaking. Living in a town like Assosa you forget you are in Africa and it is amazing to get out and see the countryside. Ethiopians like to talk and joke to pass the time and on many of the journeys I would be asked why I was so quiet. It wasn't I was being rude its just I was sitting there enjoying the beautiful landscapes that we were passing through.
It is such a pity that my little cheap camera was not up to capturing some of the images. I deliberately chose a simple and inexpensive one as I know it will get lost or broken, so I apologise for the poor quality of some of the panoramas. All I can say it come and see it for yourself if you can.
At one point we headed up into the hills to the highest woreda - Debre Zeit in Wombera - that I guess must be the northern tip of the great rift valley. The views from the hilltops were spectacular.
Abora! (dust!) and mabrat yellum? (there is no power?) Professionally and personally we both learned
Satellite dishes
Sera alleh! (there is work!) a lot about the challenges faced by Ethiopians in both Beneshangul-Gumuz and across Ethiopia. All of the IT equipment at 9 woreda offices I visited suffered from dust exposure to varying degrees as well as very unreliable and poorly conditioned power supply.
Virtually all the PCs associated with the Woreda network equipment we were testing suffered from virus infections and a number had failed components related to power damage (spikes, surges and electrical storm lightning strikes).
Sara visited 7 schools and found the Principals eager to discuss the challenges they face. She will no doubt explain more but for example at one girl's boarding school, one girl a day is hospitalised through malaria. The school has 365 girls. In others the staff and pupils are eager to teach and learn but they are suffering from chronic shortages of practical training materials e.g. the construction students have no building materials and the mechanics have no mechanical equipment to practice on.
On a personal level we have never experienced such limited access to communications. Mobile phone coverage was very limited. Even if the dreaded "network busy" message appears you can usually send a text. Not the case in many
SQF = 66
And we need an SQF (Signal Quality Factor) of 70 for good satellite communications...better break out the spanner! towns.
Power and water were real problems. At several of the woredas the power is only available from 7pm to midnight. This means at least one hour of darkness from 6 to 7pm as well as limiting what is available in terms of food and drink. We also suffered intermittent power cuts and for 5 of the days were almost entirely without electricity. When the power goes off, so does the water in many places.
Obviously with limited power there is limited access to IT equipment. We managed to get on the Internet just twice very briefly. Even though the satellite links I was working on provide Internet access, many were not fully functioning and even if they were, Addis turn off the Internet access every morning to conserve satellite bandwidth for important video conferences.
I should add that many VSOs across Ethiopia and elsewhere are placed in locations without power and sometimes running water.
As an IT guy, I expected to be somewhere where there was a reasonable power supply as without power there is no IT and therefore my skills are useless. All I can say is I take my hat off to anyone
View from the front
Can't see the hotel yet? - VSO or native - living and working without power and running water. Again it reminded us both of how lucky we are in the UK to be able to flick a switch, turn a tap or flush a toilet without thinking about it.
Habasha and Gumuz We also got to see how the Gumuz half of the Beneshangul-Gumuz region live. The Gumuz people live mainly in the Metekel and Kamashi zones, whereas the Berta people live in our home town Assosa zone.
There are clearly some divisions in terms of lifestyle between the Gumuz tribal people and the more developed living conditions of many of the Amhara (and I guess Oromo/Tigray people) living in the towns.
The facilities in each town also varied considerably. From the bustling city of Nekempt, where many of the youngsters are wearing western clothing and addicted to their mobile phones to the completely rural Agalo Mite where there roads are too bad for buses and the kids don't even have shoes!
I'm a Ferengi - get me outta here!! The road conditions were certainly very interesting and at times challenging. Some main roads between major towns were brand
Africa Hotel, Bullen
Bedele tet allow (I'll drink a Bedele beer) new tarmac but others are packed mud, dust or shale-like rocks and then others were, well, little more than cattle trails.
It was 40+ degrees at times in the back of the vehicle, no seatbelts fitted (so I couldn't even wear one if I wanted to), no air-conditioning and the two open windows allowed dust and dirt to blow through. Add 7 other guys and 10 sets of luggage and then bounce them around at 50km/hour around a dirt track up the side of a mountain! Sprinkle in a few random goats, cows, sheep and villagers to wander out in front of you and you get the picture.
Exciting and occasionally terrifying - I only tried to get out once. The rainy season has come early this year (the storms contributing to the power outages) and the over the last few days the rain turned the roads into mudbaths. We had slid down a slight incline in a town with the vehicle pointing at 45 degrees away from the direction we were travelling in, all 4 wheels spinning with the driver fighting the skid through misted up windows as we reached the top of a ridge.
Looking
Room for 2
Hotel in Chagni. down I could see a river of mud with a crossroads below and assorted people, vehicles animals and storm drains that we could conceivably end up upside down on top of or inside of. That was enough for me. Much to the amusement of the other guys I struggled up and bolted for the back door saying "ok, I think I'll just stretch my legs while you go down this hill".
Needless to say the guys are used to driving in these conditions and I was assured all was fine. And it was. Our driver knew his vehicle and we were fine.
En tabuk alen (we wait) We also suffered 3 punctures. One at a time is ok, but when you are running on your spare another flat is a bit terminal to your progress.
It was ok. A bus was flagged down, our tyre strapped to the roof and one of our party set off for the nearest town 60km away to fix it and catch a lift back. We turned down the chance to get on the bus to show solidarity with our colleagues and settled down on a rock under a tree
Best laid plans
So best find some shade.. to wait while the dust devils blew past and the African sun baked all below.
After 2 hours another Land Cruiser passed and the highway code of desert driving applied. They saw our problem, stopped and gave us their spare. (We gave it back 3 towns and 4 days later in Chagni).
Friend (English) There were other VSOs placed in the towns we passed through. We caught up with Mark in Gilgel Beles and Aynsley, Jane, Karin and (briefly) Mark in Nekempt.
It was good to shoot the breeze with fellow ferenj and in Nekempt we stuffed ourselves with ferenji food - pizza and 'cheeps'. Having lived off a diet of bayonetu (mixed vegetable on injera) and taga beano (solid chickpea stew on injera) a change was most welcome - plus there are no pizzas or chips in Assosa anyway. And, joy of joys, we had our first hot shower in over 2 months! (it came after 3 days without water so was even more refreshing).
Gwadinya (friend - Amharic) The highlight for us and without them the trip would have been so much less enjoyable - were the great guys we shared the
Keep smiling
Time for a shai/buna (tea or coffee break) trip with. I will go into detail later in the blog, but they all looked after us so well.
We were shown the local pool-like game called karambula, taught card games, introduced to t'ej (alcoholic honey brew) and t'ella (alcoholic corn brew), had the world of 'chat-chewing' explained to us, were taken to the better hotels, helped out with shopping, helped with food choices, taken to various DSTV bars so I could follow the (sad demise of) Arsenal, given peaches to try, shown how to eat mangos with the skin on, had the history of the various towns explained, taught some of the language and made welcome and kept safe for the entire journey.
Again we wondered if two Ethiopians would be welcomed so whole-heartedly to the UK as we have been to Ethiopia and it made us ashamed to think that they might not.
All good things As expected the program changed from the original. The 26 days were shortened to 20 and all but 2 of the Kamashi zone woredas were removed from the itinery. With increased fuel prices we were required to slice some travelling off and the requirement for two new tyres
Success!
We have satellite comms and audio-visual with Assosa. after our 3 flats had also added to the overall cost of the trip.
The timing was probably just right as after 18 days we were all looking forward to our own beds. As Sara pointed out. It was the first time she had started to think of Assosa as our home.
So we will update the blog with more details of the trip and more pictures, however I am keen to get the Addis to Assosa updates finished first, maybe over the weekend.
Hi to everyone! Thanks for the emails and parcels. We will try and reply to your messages and blog comments when we can. The chocolate and parmasan went down well and Sara has been glued to her OK magazine 😊
It's back to the daily routine. I have been unblocking sinks and there is a problem with our water tank to address. Plus the rains have started so it is getting cooler and the bugs are getting bigger, weirder and noisier!
Take care, izoh! and watch out for the goats!
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PeteJ
non-member comment
Welcome home!
Glad to hear you are back from your tour safe and sound. It sounds a great adventure. I won't mention Arsenal :-( Though I suppose you do still have the opportunity to scupper Man U's chances on Sunday! :-)