Difficulties and discrimination

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(Ruta writing) In sharing our experiences here, I would not be honest if I only related the positive experiences. Our trip on Ethiopia’s historical circuit was very rewarding and cool, but it was also one of the most frustrating that Tadas and I have experienced. We had read about the egregious overcharging of foreigners, but because our family is large and on a volunteers’ income our budget is so tight, the effect was magnified. Despite having over 4 forms of identification stating that we are Ethiopian residents, earning an Ethiopian income, and are entitled to Ethiopian or foreign resident rates, this information was often ignored or dismissed. The attitude we encountered was “Oh, you are white. You must be rich. To enter, you must pay 2-10 times the Ethiopian rate.” Often, we had to regretfully decide not to enter the church/museum/ tourist site.

On top of this, oops, the restaurant adds 5 or 10 additional Brr to our bill - either through genuine addition mistakes or non-genuine bill padding. In addition, there is the occasional hotel that quotes one price and then changes their mind. In one town, late at night we got some of the last 2 hotel rooms. Almost the exact same room cost us 150 Brr, but our Ethiopian driver (who earned my 6 months salary in 3 weeks of travel) was charged only 25 Brr. Grrr.

The non-financial challenges were also significant. The distances are far requiring many many hours of driving, and many of the roads are rocky, bumpy, and windy. Poor Vasara got car sick several times. The roads along the mountains offer beautiful panoramic vistas, but you’d better not look down, because there are almost no guardrails or safety features. Sometimes you drive directly into road construction and simply wind around the cement truck and the construction workers.

In restaurants, it could take over an hour for us to receive the same food that others in the restaurant seem to have received, eaten, paid for, and left. Tadas developed a theory that perhaps restaurant owners just thought we were entertaining and attracted attention to the restaurant so it’s to their advantage to extend our time there.

One unfortunate evening 3 of our kids got over 100 bug bites on their faces and arms. 2 kids got a stomach ailment, 2 others got the flu. Because of shortages, we lived for 4 days without running water and several evenings without electricity. Boy do we sympathize with residents og villages that suffer continual water shortages. Living with electricity shortages is annoying, but living with water shortages is just plain hard.

So, such is our life here. Both good and not-so-good, we learn about the world, others, and ourselves.

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