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Published: December 6th 2009
THANK-YOU to everyone who has sponsored me for the Great Ethiopian Run! Your help is much appreciated by both us and VSO! The last 6 weeks or so have been a total blur - in Assosa I've hosted our friend Marta (the ex-VSO from Assosa) and our French friends Christine, Bernard and Liana. Then in Addis Sara and I have hosted her sister, Jan and husband Al.
Lots of nice pictures that are completley blog-worthy, but with time against me now I'll be working hard in moments of free time to update you all too.
In the meantime I took a slight detour from Assosa....to Kenya!
When we first got clearance from VSO London to remain in Ethiopia, we were told Sara must stay in Addis - because of the malaria risk in Assosa - but kind of assumed that everything would be fine with the ongoing medical support in Addis until we planned to leave in January.
Then out of the blue we got an email advising us to either go to Nairobi, Kenya or back to the UK/Ireland for Sara's 18-21 week scan!
This was news to us. We had agreed to pay
The Evolution of Man
(Fine leg, wicket-keeper, fast-medium bowler & attacking the ball at mid-wicket)any costs arising out of the pregnancy, so VSO would not have to foot the bill, and another trip overseas was going to rattle the bank account somewhat.
Plus we were in Ethiopia to work.
Taking more time out to fly back home - or to Kenya - was going to reduce our work-time considerably, particularly as I am in Assosa (4 flights/week) and have to first get to Addis before I can get anywhere else.
We were both really keen that I should be there for the scan too. I had missed the 13 week scan and as we want to know the sex of the baby (possible at 19 weeks) it would great for us to both find out together.
After some debate between the pair of us and VSO London we agreed to go to Nairobi.
We had spoken to a neonatologist volunteer working in Ethiopia as he had plenty of experience of African hospitals; his opinion was that Nairobi might have better facilities (lots of WHO - World Health Organisation funding) but there was no guarantee the talent within the facilities was any better than the talent in Addis.
Given
Gracia Resort, Nairobi
Wireless broadband to the rooms! that we were already out on a limb with VSO having continued our placements after Sara's pregnancy we didn't want to argue the matter. They would just say "OK, well in that case just come back to the UK now".
So off we went.
Do you have the time to listen to me whine? '
You might have thought that a two hour hop from Addis to Nairobi would be covered by some local EasyJet/Ryanair £9.99 (+ tax) arrangement?
Er, 'fraid not.
You can fly Ethiopian Airlines or Kenya Airways.
For about £250 return each!
Plus as a tourist trap for safari tick-boxers you need to stump up $25 each for an entry visa on arrival (which goes up to $50 each in Jan).
Then once you get there you don't get charged double as a white-skinned Ferenji (like Ethiopia), you just pay four/five times the Addis rate as a matter of course!
I guess I should stop whinging - as a UK tourist you'd still be pleased to pay only £20 for a taxi from Nairobi airport to the hotel and then £40/night half board.
But we are volunteers on
£100/month and in Addis an airport taxi is £3 (or 10p if you use the local bus) and a hotel is £9.
Anyway. Let's move on - lots of good things to talk about in Kenya so I'll keep mum.
Three Deep Breaths and Out With the Love We arrived in good time at Addis airport for a flight departure of about 3pm.
Unfortunately not in good enough time to beat 25 young Ethiopian girls - clearly on some internationally-funded conference - to the check-in.
International Addis check-ins are typically a test of patience anyway.
Last time I flew internationally each UK-bound traveller (presumably at the insistence of our fellow Brits in immigration) had to have their passport photocopied for collection at the gate.
There must have been some good reason - maybe people try to "escape" onto UK/USA bound flights as someone else. It meant check-in took around 15 times longer than normal as the only working photocopier was a 5km walk away.
It might have been sensible to round up all UK travellers and take all 200 passports and photocopy in one go, rather than wait for each one to
The Kenyan Shilling
In Ethiopian Birr? Just divide by 122, multiply by 1.65 and then times by 13...easy! rock up to check-in, walk 5km to the copier, walk 5km back and then move on to the next passenger. But what do I know?
This time we had these 25 poor girls who had clearly never been to an airport before, had no leader to organise them and were completely ignorant of the time-honoured fashion of queuing (we Brits get very hot under the collar about that one - queuing fairly is part of our culture).
We had the bad luck to follow them through check-in and then exit-immigration.
It was a chaos of missing paperwork, people jumping in and out of queues, bags being left, lost, refound.
At one point as we neared the front of immigration queue someone popped-up in front of us, grinned and 5 of her buddies scurried past us to join her.
You just had to (try to) smile 😊
It was quite sweet too as after immigration as there is an escalator to the departure gates and clearly many of the girls had never seen one before. They watched a few other people use it, hesitated, hopped on and teetered and tottered around as it lifted them
Tusker Beer from Kenya
(brewed in...uh...Dundalk, Ireland) upwards towards the gates.
Peter and The Grace Resort At Nairobi airport were were relieved to see someone waiting for us with a "VSO" sign and introduced ourselves to Peter - a very friendly and helpful taxi driver that VSO Kenya use regularly in Nairobi. The poor fellow had been waiting for almost 3 hours as our flight had been delayed!
He gave us a brief Nairobi orientation as we travelled in his brand-new, super-posh Toyota people-carrier.
Buildings and offices lit up in the darkness flashed past in the night that looked just like parts of Europe; and the number of new and expensive cars was an eye-opener compared to the battered 1970's Lada taxis and Toyota mini-buses that populate the streets of Addis.
When we arrived at the hotel we had just passed a six or seven story ultra-modern office block that was apparently the VSO office, followed by a shopping mall that could have been the Galleries in Bristol (except it was called the Ya-Ya Centre).
The hotel was in a tree-lined walled compound, spread across two four storey buildings, with a leafy outdoor area with covered chairs and table - probably
The Black Stuff from Ireland
(brewed in Nairobi, Kenya, of course ;) for pre-arranged barbeques.
We checked in, took our keys and were told we would need a password for the wireless broadband Internet!
Really? Broadband wireless Internet?
I kicked myself for not bringing my netbook as there were a number of pieces of technical software that I needed to download for work and had failed on a number of occasions, in both Addis and Assosa, as the speed and reliability of the Internet in Ethiopia is poor.
Dumping our bags we headed off for a surreal experience at the Ya-Ya centre.
Bright lights, Christmas Trees, piped Christmas carols (Christmas? What's that?) and a supermarket (first stop) with more treats and nice things than a typical Tesco Metro.
My priority was beer, though I had kind of drifted off into supermarket paralysis at all the (alan!)...consumer products (AL-AN!!)...in nice shiny packaging...(A-L-A-N!!!!)...(sorry, Sara dragging me back to reality)
Yes, apparently many hotels in Nairobi do not sell beer - not because they are Muslim-owned but - because they are Christian-owned.
Having been alcohol-free for 3 weeks prior to the Great Run I was keen - in the spirit of cultural exploration of course, to experience
Hmm...
...I thought I was the stupid half of this marriage? some Kenyan beer.
Besides, the older I get the more I seem to be turning into Homer Simpson (well, with regards to beer and sweet things). I think Sara is afraid I'm going to suggest Bart or Lisa as potential baby names soon 😉
***********************
Hmmm...Bart or Lisa Mercer...kind of rolls off the tongue...just like a cold glass of Tusker Beer...
***********************
An obsession with soaps Being as (curiously) afraid of the the rest of the Mall as the girls were of the escalator earlier we snuck back to the hotel for our evening meal.
In the Dining Room we were introduced to a vast arrangement of food in an 'all-you-can-eat' buffet, including mushroom soup starters, three choices of main course and trifle with real chocolate topping for dessert.
We looked at each other and laughed - I think we (and Mr Bean) are going to enjoy it here!
Over dinner Sara even had the opportunity to watch some rubbish TV!
She was slack-jawed and bright-eyed at a truly awful Hispanic soap, dubbed into English with the intonation and enthusiasm of Marvin the Paranoid Android. My basic Spanish (limited to 'dos cervesa
Happiness Is
A glass of Guiness & "Storm over Paradise" por favor' and 'hasta la vista baby') identified the advert-break title as something like "Storm over Paradise".
While we took a break from plunging necklines, tanned breasts, open-necked shirts, gold medallions and shaved chests (the male actors) we got to watch about 3 back to back adverts for washing powders!
The doorstep challenge, public 'wash-off' between mums and how to solve the problem of your grubby granny's-chicken-chasing toddler filled the wall-mounted lounge flat-screen TV for around five minutes, before a Safaricom mobile phone advert segued us neatly back to Paradise.
The baby is a GIRL! ...or maybe a boy. We still don't know :P
The following day, after a massive buffet breakfast and a visit to the man frying omlettes and eggs to order, our taxi-man Peter turned up to ferry us to Doctor Doggra's for the scan.
Well that was the plan.
The reality was kind of more complex.
Doctor Doggra was not there. His locum was seeing someone else at 9am - a hypochondriac old Ferengi given the amount of time she took to emerge. Then two Ferengi soldiers turned up - one in full uniform - and joined us
Beans for Mr Bean!
Full cooked breakfasts too :P in the queue.
When we saw the Dr, she started a full interrogation on the progress of the pregnancy!
We were getting used to this by now. When you don't follow the rules and decide to be pregnant overseas, you are bounced from medical professional to the next who wants a full low down and wants to add his or her two cents. You just have to get on with it.
Sara has papers and reports from a clinic in Assosa, Kadisco Maternity Hospital in Addis, Limerick Maternity Hospital, a Dublin Maternity Hospital, the British Embassy Clinic in Addis and now a private doctor's locum in Nairobi (plus the latest from the Aga Khan University Hospital, Nairobi, Kenya).
The process, we ultimately found out, was this.
The Dr has to refer you to the neighbouring Aga Khan University Hospital for a scan, and this had been booked for 8.30am the next day (
not 9am today).
The scan results then take a day to be processed and you can collect from the hospital the day after the scan.
Given we would be back in Ethiopia by the following evening this was not going to
Shh! Sara!
I think the big cat has spotted us... work.
To cut short a long story - we went to the hospital, queued, did lots of smiling, waiting, phone calling and more smiling and we eventually got a scan at 12 noon! Perfect!
And it
was perfect!
Our baby has everything in the right places...except the umbilical cord - which was between the legs and therefore prevented identification of the sex.
Big happy smiles and come back tomorrow for the photos and report.
More Ya-Ya and VSO Jitolee Feeling upbeat and positive we returned to the hotel and psyched ourselves up for a return to trip to the Ya-Ya shopping mall - which had now been invaded by Ferengis. The chinese resturant and deli bars were full of ladies doing lunch.
We mooched about, ate a pair of the most expensive cheese salad sandwitches we had ever eaten in Africa and made a plan.
Sara went off to purchase maternity bras and elasticated trousers in Woolworths, while I checked out PC World for laptop prices (just out of curiosity) and then the bookshop on the 3rd floor.
Although well stocked the bookshop was clearly (and somewhat cheekily) overpriced.
Second-hand
Er..what's swaheli for ?
U paka mrembo jinsi gani ulivyo! books were selling for about £5 and many of the new books were Indian imports but were priced at UK or European prices.
In Addis you can get a bargain at the bookshops by buying Indian books. They are the same books as you buy in the UK, but priced in rupees to be accessible to the Indian market.
They have big "Not for sale outside India" labels but these are usually replaced with a local price tag; and, in Addis, are priced quite competively. I have bought £40 technical books for around £7 or less in Addis.
Not so here in the Ya-Ya - you got to pay UK prices for the Indian book.
***
As we were only a stone's throw away from VSO Kenya we wanted to pay it a visit and thank the people who had helped organise our visit (booked the hotel, taxi, doctors etc).
VSO Jitolee (meaning "volunteer" in Swaheli) is based in a plush set of offices on the 5th floor of an impressive modern-looking office building.
Since coming back to Addis we had spoken to Ugandan and Kenyan volunteers in Addis and they had chuckled
Two Pregnant Mums
Exchanging baby talk and said "You can't compare the VSO office in Kenya to the one in Ethiopia" but it was kind of difficult not to.
The Kenya office is actually a recruitment base (for volunteers from Uganda and Kenya) as well as a placement base i.e. it places international volunteers within Kenya (and I think Uganda, maybe Tanzania).
We met Tussy and Esther who had been great in looking after us and making sure our trip ran as smoothly as possible. They gave us a guided tour of the office and answered our questions.
They told us they have about 60 volunteers in placement in Kenya at the moment, which is a bit less than Ethiopia (we have about 80, though when we arrived in Feb 2008, there were around 120).
Spotting three computers in the "Resource Room for Volunteers" we took the opportunity to catch up with email (via broadband) and chat with a couple of volunteers from India and Holland who were in town and in the office.
They told us to really not judge Nairobi and Kenya by the Ya-Ya centre and the part of Nairobi we were staying in.
Once you get
Lame Tourist Shot #941
At least the kiddies brighten it up out of Nairobi the rural areas face the same challenges as the rural people in Ethiopia. In fact the Indian volunteer said he was struggling as his house does not have a toilet and he has to use a pit latrine that he shares with 100 other people in the village!
He acknowledged that he had asked for a rural placement but kind of expected a private toilet. He looked tired and a bit thin and had said he'd even stopped eating food at times so he didn't have to use the pit latrine.
I kind of felt sorry for him, but then we all have to complete a Placement Analysis Form (PAF) prior to accepting (or being accepted) on a placement. On the PAF you are meant to identify your bottom line (no pun intended).
Maybe he didn't think about it? Or forgot? Our placement form said we'd have a toilet inside our house. Maybe his did too but the expectations didn't match reality?
An evening in with the Mrs Quite tired from the day of running around, scanning, shopping and well, just the general "new country overload" we decided to have a quiet
The Road Ahead
Strangely goat and chicken-free night in our hotel room.
Several local people, including Peter, had warned us about walking around the streets at night. "It is not safe for visitors. People will think you have dollars. And maybe they want to help you spend those dollars!"
I am sure many places get unfair reputations and we were used to walking around Addis in the early evening with no problems, however we didn't want to tempt fate.
We headed off to stuff our faces at the buffet once again and were kind of disappointed that the Storm over Paradise had been replaced by the news (with no sound) and a looped soundtrack of cheesy Christian soft-rock songs sang by some equally cheesy American group. Given that there were at least two Muslims in the dining room I found it somewhat insensitive.
Tonight I tried the major source of Kenyan carbohydrates - ugali. It's a kind of white blob, somewhat like a dollop of mashed potato, that seems kind of, um, mild tasting?
I guess it needs mixing with something with a strong taste (just like pototoes do, I guess). I smeared it with hot chilli sauce and it was not
bad...in fact it tastes as lot like South African 'pup', which it probably is, but with a different name.
Come the third cheerful rendition of Amazing Grace, we decided to adjourn to the bedroom for some TV and (in my case) some supermarket-bought beer.
Fortunately Storm over Paradise was in full swing and we got to fathom out if the head of the family's son was dating his nephew's sister (?) and watch the progress of the outrageously flirting doctor as she saves the life of the oldest son's baby, who has been poisoned by his evil wife's mother-in-law.
BUT!
Maybe the evil wife is not really the mother of the child (lawyers just turned up with a DNA test warrant) and anyway she seems to be busy sleeping with her uncle (lots of sleeping with uncle going on in Paradise, it seems).
I drifted off as the maid's daughter agonised about forming a relationship with the youngest son and recalled a dreamy sequence where she kissed him in the back garden...zzzzz
The Urban Safari During the previous evening's dinner (to take our minds off of Amazing Grace) we made plans for the
Warthogs
Snuffling for half potatoes [buried by the light of a full moon] following day. Our flight was not until 9pm so we had the day to kill.
Given that we had never been to Nairobi or Kenya before we asked Peter for some options.
He suggested either some time at the museums (near the hospital), a visit to the Elephant orphanage, a visit to some farm from the Out of Africa woman or an urban safari at the Nairobi National Park.
I wasn't really fussed about seeing animals. Having lived/worked in South Africa for about 5 months, travelled by train to Zimbabwe and revisited SA and done the Jo'burg-Cape Town-Durban-Jo'burg drive, I was kind of indifferent to the prospect of seeing animals mooching across the savannah.
But Sara has seen less of Africa and was definately up for it; and then again, I usually find that if I go along with her suggestions I end up enjoying the trip much more than I had expected.
And so it proved.
First up we had to check out and do a bit of shopping at the Ya-Ya supermarket.
Sara had entered a lucky dip courtesy of her maternity purchases from Woolies and had won a 1,000 shilling
"Zebra Crossing"
Only the twenty-nine millionth twit to try that gag in the history of Safari blogging... (almost £10) shopping voucher.
We zombie-shuffled around the supermarket (why do supermarkets have that effect on people?) and came out with a couple of small gifts for Debebe and Bekema in Assosa as well as some bits and pieces for Sara's new flat in Addis.
Peter turned up and we set off to the hospital to collect our results.
Unfortunately (as we expected) the results were not ready for us to collect as promised, they had been sent to our Doctor, who would need to
discuss them with us. We had watched a woman go through the "where are my results" palava the day before and so were mentally prepared for this.
Luckily Doctor Doggra's office is in the opposite compound and we headed off and as luck would have it, overtook the courier with the results (he took the lift, we took the stairs).
Once in the reception we looked at the 10+ people waiting for their appointment, grabbed the results and headed off, muttering about missing our flight to Addis if we had to hang around.
The day was getting hotter and hotter. It had rained the previous two nights but the
cloud had burnt off and it was turning into a scorcher.
Peter said that it was now the time for rainy weather and that Kenya needed it as the rains had been late this year (the same as Ethiopia).
Given that we had just emerged from the end of the rainy season in Ethiopia it seemed odd that it's southern neighbour should be just entering theirs? I guess the equator runs through Kenya which may fiddle about with the seasons there?
Nairobi was looking very green (compared to the dust of Assosa and Addis) and given some fiendish traffic jams (and short cuts to avoid them) we got to see some interesting and beautiful parts of the capital - including an amazing Indian temple that looked like it had been carved out of ivory (would have been a pretty huge elephant of course!).
We were still amazed at the number of Mercedes and BMWs alongside the usual Toyotas and enjoyed the taxi-buses - which in Addis might have the odd painting of Jesus or "Arsenal" along the rear window - here in Nairobi were almost works of art.
In Kenya the old empire influence means
A herd of antelope-things
Doing what antelope-things do daily they drive on the left side of the road, just like in the UK, and I could see from the Japanese interior markings that the country must benefit from quality second-hand Japanese imports (where they also drive on the left and are forced by law to replace their older cars with newer cars ever few years).
Although fun to see parts of Nairobi our ultimate destination, however, was the Nairobi National Park.
Getting back to nature (I think I'm done with the soaps, beer and shopping mall, baby) Though it was outrageously Ferengi-priced by a factor of ten - 300 shillings for each Kenyan, 3,150 shillings (over $40) for each Ferengi - we had shaken out our bank accounts and gathered enough for the day-hire of the taxi, plus entry-fees for all three of us (and car).
It was highly unlikely we'll ever get the chance again, particularly with a baby on the way, so why miss an opportunity like this?
Within two minutes of passing through the gates you forget you are 10 minutes drive from an African capital city.
A grassy plain, dotted with bushes and low-branched trees, stretches off to a
range of distant hills. The sun beats down from a cloud-spotted deep blue sky and yep, it feels like (glossy tourist magazine) Africa again.
The park is very impressive.
The rangers told Peter where animals had been spotted earlier in the day so he could plan a route and every few km there is a stone-marked junction with directions to various landmarks.
He says he does this trip about 2-3 times per month for tourists so he knows the routes and where to take us.
As a week-day (and after lunch - early morning is recommended for best animal viewing) we virtually had the park to ourselves.
We saw one 4x4 in the distance and passed a taxi-bus with concertina roof (for viewing) at the picnic stop.
We also saw white rhino, wildebeest, buffalo, kudu, warthog, ostrich, giraffe, (lots of) zebra, maribou storks, antelope, monkey, Masai cow (?!?), little white zebra-buddy birds, a blue-headed chicken-thing, lots of other birds and even an Air India cabin crew (in the taxi-bus at the picnic stop).
Of course we mostly we saw their bottoms as they scampered away from the car (not the Air India crew,
of course)
And...
Amazing safari story coming up..
A pair of sleeping lions less than 10 feet from the car!
Hush my darling (don't fear my darling) The airline staff had asked if we had seen the lions? Just up the road from the picnic area, before the next main junction.
Not wishing to miss the opportunity we headed off and with my head popped out of the sunroof we scoured the landscape with our eyes.
No joy.
Passed one junction (did they mean before this one?)
Then another (I guess we've missed them..)
Before Sara shouted to Peter to stop!
In the thorn bushes to the left, 20 foot back, she had seen two sleeping lions!
Er, what? Surely not that close to the road?
Peter slowly reversed...
...and there they were.
"Are they dead?" Peter whispered
"No, I saw a chest moving..."
Entranced and excited we inched back, Sara staring out of her window, me with half my torso through the sunroof and Peter through the passenger window.
Amazing! Even Peter - in years of visits to the Park with
Buffalo
Fancy milking one of them?? tourists - said he had never seen lions so close before.
The female was in deep cover and hardly moved, but the bush thinned around the big male and we had a clear view of him as he slept off (maybe) a heavy lunch.
You could see his mane gently ruffled by the breeze that had sprung up and even watch the progress of some beetle as it zag-zigged it's way across the sleeping lion's stomach.
We watched motionless as the big cat rolled over onto it's back with it's paws folded on it's belly like a domestic tabby waiting for a tummy-tickle.
It's left leg started sliding towards the right and it corrected it's posture to prevent rolling over towards us. Then the left leg started slipping once again - the lion dragging it back.
Peter chuckled.
As it lazily stretched it's back it's head turned slightly towards us and I realised with a start that one of it's dark eyes was wide open and staring straight at me!
My upright torso protruding from the roof of the car was clearly visible to him and I felt a surge of terror as
Bambi
It's ok bud - we're vegetarians my mind drew images of the powerful creature leaping to the roof, claws and teeth bared while I screamed at Peter to get moving
The moment passed and the lion stirred; turned away again.
Threat assessed: Mostly harmless.
Peter nodded his head, smiled and breathed - "he knows he is the king"
We watched for 5 minutes more, savoured the (for us) unique moment, before pulling away quietly and leaving the King and Queen behind us to take their rest.
Back to Basics Within one hour we were sitting in the airport waiting for an ultimately impossible meeting with Pascal, the old Kenyan VSO from Assosa (Bob had emailed ealier - he was in Mombassa and couldn't get to Nairobi to meet us).
Within four hours we were back in Sara's flat in Addis.
Tired but happy.
Another pregnancy test passed.
(and a interesting and enjoyable mini-break in Kenya to boot...)
*******************************************************
Kenya Details We have always liked the company of the volunteers from Kenya (and Uganda).
Now we can say we like their (Kenyan) home
It looks like a Zebra's Arse?
Seem to have lot's of pictures of animal behinds today :0 country too!
If you want to pay a visit to Kenya, you can't go far wrong using Peter as your taxi-driver and guide in Nairobi (mobile 0733 727175 and 0720 767992, email petmuthee at yahoo.com). Mention VSO and he'll know where you're coming from.
The hotel is called the Gracehouse Resort (www.gracia-hotels.com) and email is gracehouse at gracia-hotels.com.
You can buy a SIM card for any unlocked mobile for about 200 shillings (£1.50) and top up scratch cards are 25,50 or 100+ shillings.
Worth having as the coverage is great and useful for arrangements with Peter! Note that Vodafone SIMs work fine - assuming you are OK to pay £1.50 per minute calling outbound, and £1.20 per minute of inbound calls.
Even if you are in Nairobi for a day, consider the Urban Safari at the Nairobi National Park...and with luck you might not even need a pair of binoculars to see the lions 😊
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Dupuyoo
non-member comment
Informations ask about Assosa
Dear Madam, Sir, I am very interrested to visit the area of Assosa/Mendi in a near future. I would like to obtain informations about. Please could you contact me by mail jmdupuyoo(at)yahoo.fr Thank you in advance. Sincerely. Jean-Michel (Toulon/France)