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Published: April 20th 2008
The white 4x4
Every NGO must have one.OK, so my blog numbering has got way out of hand but I'll try and rescue it from now on, honest 😊
We are in the middle of power rationing and IT is pretty hard to do without any power. As is blogging. So I am hoping to get this update done before tomorrow's all-day power cut. In fact there is a 10Mb video I will try and attach but if it goes wrong at 56k I may not have the energy left to try uploading it again. Fingers crossed...
At last and much to Sara's amusement I am finally getting round to the entry for the trip from Addis to Assosa. It seems like months ago.
Er, well it was months ago. February 14th & 15th to be exact.
So here goes...
We're on our way, we're on our way... We're are off to Assosa, we're on our way! How we get there we don't know, how we get there we don't care. All we know is we are on our way.... Well actually we do know how we get there. And we certainly care. By VSO 4x4 convoy over 2 days -
Room for a small one?
Not even room for a wafer-thin mint once we got underway. the 800km journey broken into two by an overnight stop in Nekempt.
Goodbye to the Yonnas Having asked what time we will be picked up for the trip to Assosa, we were momentarily delighted to be told "oh about 12 o'clock". Lie-ins all round then after our last night in Addis for a while. There's pizza to be eaten and a jambo with my name on it...
Uh, no. That's 12 o'clock habashat (Ethiopian) time, which is 6am international.
OK. That's not so groovy...
So at some unfeasibly early hour in the morning we haul our 70-odd kilograms of baggage - now swollen with shola market shopping and gifts from the Arab League - down three flights of stairs to the waiting 4x4.
Luckily any tardiness on our part went unnoticed as the driver had to give the 'shock and awe' treatment on Pascal, our sleep-loving Kenyan buddy's bedroom door. Pascal emerges 20 minutes later and claims with a big, yet unconvincing grin, that he was taking a shower and couldn't hear the banging. The assembled company suspect the closest he got to a shower was in the dream he was enjoying until until
Africa
Welcome home, homo sapien. world war 3 erupted outside his bedroom door!
Shuttled a handful of blocks to the VSO offices we unpacked our 70kg once more and piled our baggage in the driveway of the VSO compound.
en tabuk alen (we wait) Then we waited.
The original 4x4 we came in reversed out of the compound to be replaced by another (rented) 4x4. Assorted guards, drivers and general helpers started packing the mountain of baggage, added to by the 3 by 2 foot boxes each VSO gets containing kerosene stove, mosqueto net, blankets and water filter, into the first 4x4.
In addition to Pascal (Kenya), Jerry (Phillipines), Marta (UK), Steven (VSO from Assosa), Sara, myself and Aynsley (UK), who we would be dropping off at Nekempt, two other VSOs who had been in Addis for the sector workshops were waiting hopefully to blag a lift to Nekempt. They were looking on glumly as the baggage was stuffed into the first 4x4 and the spectre of a bumpy bus ride from Addis to Nekempt loomed large.
Time passed and then the first 4x4 reappeared.
Then disappeared once more.
Then reappeared, this time with Demiss our driver
Another traffic jam
Busier than the M4/M5 junction on a sale weekend at Cribbs Causeway... and VSO "fixer".
Then before our eyes and somewhat unbelievably the rest of the baggage - with only maybe one or two readjustments - was slowly loaded onto the two 4x4s and even better, room was made for Karin and Jane to come with us to Nekempt.
All aboard and safely strapped in we wound our way through the Addis rush hour before stopping once more. This time for fuel.
Having spent the last couple of hours shooting the breeze with each other, I decided it was time to break out the iPod. Tired conversation before 8.30am ferengi is not something I do well, besides it was starting to get hot and we had me, Jerry and Aynsley on the back seat and Sara and Jane in the front seat.
Once both 4x4's had been filled up, petrol paid for in cash (there is no real credit/debit card system yet in Ethiopia) and reciepts obtained we were on the road again...
...before stopping.
Time for a shai/buna (tea/coffee) break.
Ah, so this IS Africa, after all Welcome coffee and cake break over we finally exited the outskirts of Addis by mid-morning and
My gert lush wife
Can't speak Amharical. Can speak Brizzle. before us unfolded the sights I guess ferengis usually expect to see in Africa. Breathtaking panoramas, miles of scrubland stretching towards a distant mountain range and mud huts nestled under a beautiful cloudless blue sky.
The 4x4's cruised south west along the asphalt road to Nekempt, drivers swerving expertly around herds of goats, cows, sheep, people, the odd dog and even monkey before our first proper stop for breakfast at Ambo - home of the famous spring that gives Ethiopia "Ambo Wohar" the premier carbonated bottled water of the country.
Clearly not every journey to Nekempt passes so serenely. Every hour there would be evidence of a recent road-traffic accident. A Hi-Ace Toyota flung 50 metres off and resting at 90 degrees to the road, the roof flattened by the roll. An upside down bus in a ditch. Two lorries that had hit head-on, probably the night before; one had tried to swerve at the last minute without sucess - both cabs now collapsed in sickening fashion. With both lanes blocked by the recently abandoned carnage, the standard warning sign - a row of small rocks and branches across the road, directed us off-track onto the edges of
The most picturesque place..
..I've ever had a flat tyre! the adjacent field for 200 yards before rejoining the carriageway.
The roadside ditches carried hints of a not so peaceful past as we passed by the stripped and rotting hulks of soviet tanks, now home to dust, weeds and goats in need of shade.
To Bako, cake and Bedele Special With a continental breakfast inside us from the best hotel in Ambo we settled down to another 6 hours or so of soaking up the sights to the soundtrack of our iPods, idle conversation or taking a quick power snooze. That was until the first puncture.
The rented 4x4 had obviously seen some action and so had its tyres. According to Demiss, these high milage rental vehicles are known for their frequent punctures and apparently with the cost of repair bourne by the renter, not the rental company, there was therefore little incentive in between rentals to replace any tyres showing signs of fatigue.
We pulled up behind the stricken rental 4x4 and piled out to stretch our legs and in some cases empty our tanks. I learnt my first lesson in bush survival. Never use an African thorn bush for privacy if you need
Are they laughing at us?
Maybe they saw me stuck in the thorn bush.. to unzip. Finding a bush may be easy but unhooking yourself, your clothes and anything else that may have got snagged is not quite such a painless operation!
With the even more tired looking spare freshly attached we set off once more. For about 5 minutes. Then another tyre blew on the rental 4x4. Not good. Even though our 4x4 had a spare it was the wrong size so we were stuck. So the damaged tyre was strapped to the roof of our vehicle while we set off in search of the nearest town.
Luck was with us as we pulled into the "Shell Cafe" in Bako, 80km north of Nekempt. The tyre repair shop was open for business and so was the bar. With little else to do except wait - and we were becoming experts at it - we settled down in the pretty gardens of the cafe and ate cake while Demiss sorted out the tyre and took it back to the stranded vehicle.
The rental 4x4 finally reappeared and as it's second tyre was repaired Steven introduced us to the best beer in Ethiopia - Bedele Special.
Mugadu and the entire squad 3 wheels on our waggon..
..and we ain't rolling along. of Manchester United
Our trip to Nekempt passed off without further incident and after dropping Aynsley off at her new house we partially unpacked at the "motel hotel" for the night. We had made a plan to meet up with the other VSOs from Nekempt later that night and while I waited for everyone in the hotel to get ready I thought I should try and engage the hotel night guard in some light conversation.
After failed attempts to exchange names in pidgin Amharic I thought I best switch to the lingua franca of the entire world and talk football. Whereupon my man's eye's lit up and he proudly reeled off the entire squad of Manchester United - by both name and number. After much nodding and smiling I worked out that his name was Mugadu (unless that was one of Fergie's expensive close-season signings that I never heard about) and he was Wayne Rooney's number one fan.
I mentioned that I was an Arsenal fan but this and my failure to recite the entire squad by name and number from memory seemed to leave him underwhelmed. I was saved by his kind offer to tune the
Phew!
That's lucky. TV in his shack to the BBC for me, which is where I was when the others found me - watching a news report on flooding in some rural English market-town that seemed to have about as much in common with my life any more as, well, Wayne Rooney has with his number one fan.
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bako
I have been searching online for months trying to find pics of Bako...my daughter was born in that area and was adopted to me in 2007. Do you happen to have any during your stay getting your tires fixed:-) thanks!!