Heading to the North

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The National Road Safety Coordination Office decided that they wanted me to visit Amhara Region to see a local pedestrian safety campaign, so on Friday morning, Daniel, Sebsibe and I set off with Bahayilu (the driver), for a trip to Debre Markos, Bahar Dar and Gonder.

The trip consisted of a series of meetings with local officials, observations of pedestrian behaviour and pedestrian surveys, interspersed with visits to a few tourist sites.

The road from Addis Ababa to Debre Markos was uneventful … until we reached the Abay Gorge. At this point, the tarmac ends and the unpaved road winds down through a series of sharp bends to the bridge over the Abay River. Only one vehicle at a time is allowed across the bridge - luckily they are in the process of building a new crossing!

On arrival in Debre Markos, my colleagues deposited me in the Shebel Hotel, and then went to find a different hotel for themselves. I was uncomfortable with this and tried to argue that I would stay in the same hotel as them but in the end, decided that I had to give in. I also didn’t like the fact that I was on higher per diems (which did not have to cover my accommodation even!) but managed to get them to agree to me buying lunch for everyone each day.

We had a meeting at the Road Authority and at the Federal Traffic Police, to talk about road safety in general and specifically to find out more about the pedestrian campaign, before turning in for the night.

Over Saturday breakfast, I ended up talking to an American - who was convinced that he recognised me. When I said that I was VSO, it turned out that he had been at the Ethio Millennium Restaurant the week before (and had organised the evening for the visiting US generals). Apparently, the generals were on a tour of Africa as the US military thinks that they should be “knowledgeable, worldly and gentlemen.” They spent 4 days in Ethiopia.

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Comments

[sebsibe Abebe]

road saftey is our responsible keeping human life
here is some how my visiting project to read during my short trip in northern region with my road safety parterer ship the one leading vol enters whom is Kim smith since a few years a go. i was so happy and appreciate seeing in Amara region all about the traffic movement and the children road safety committee. very thanks to my former boss Mr, Abebe Asrat.who was the National Road Safety coordination office head. thanks to also all my friends that keeping speed control in the high way using a hand held radar shoot gun. sebsibe Abebe