so, did you have fun in Etiopia?

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I got back to Israel few weeks ago. I spent the first 10 days almost isolated and asleep, taking antibiotics to treat a blood infection caused by beg bugs, now I've started waking up and still can't answer this question. Ethiopia was the most complex country I have visited. It's amazingly beautiful, It has interesting and important culture and history, It drained my energies.
I can't place the finger on what exactly was so difficult. I think that it was a mix of not feeling well most of the time, being hassled by people whenever I walked the streets, having unexpected problems with the food and seeing this amazing country being so neglected. It made me so sad I had closed myself to everyone. I still can't open up.
I think that one of the basic difficulties I had was completely cultural. I am an Israeli, and one of the basic features of "US" is that we don't do "what ever will be will be". We don't accept things as they are, we always try to change everything, we will always try (unless we work for some public governmental organization ;-) ) to improve reality to our benefit and we will do our best to push the limits: ours, nature, culture, neighbors, friends etc. we improvise, we will find all kind of routs to make things happen the way we want it. that's how Israelis are, we don't understand "no, impossible, there isn't, etc". I am a perfect sample of one who can't understand limits. So I found it really difficult to see people in the Omo Valley dying because it wasn't raining much and they can't grow the cereals they eat when I see trees. The meaning of treas is that there are water under the surface, but no one takes action, or hearing the same thing when I'm on an island on lake Tana or talking to people about life or maintenance....
saying all that, Ethiopia is amazing, beautiful, surprising, people are great once the language barrier is broken, I don't regret visiting it for a second. I only hope that the new scratch in my heart will heal and won't leave a scar that would make me too distant and estranged.
As I always say, every visit to African countries makes me appreciate my life, my possibilities, my options, that are so easily being taken for granted. As a guy I met in Ethiopia said: "Ethiopia is something you experience, you don't have fun". Here are some photos I couldn't upload when was on dial-up Ethiopia

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Comments

[lemlem]

why you don't have fun in Ethiopia
you make ethiopia all live in the shack in derty, by the grace of GOD you will see in five years Ethiopia, watch the black gold documentary about starbucks The western live over africa blood we are slave to the western no't for long.