Arrival

The trip over was very long—25 hours door to door. And there weren’t that many layovers. We just about sprinted through the Frankfurt airport, got to the gate and they were already boarding. Of course we were pulled out of line for takeoff and brought back for additional maintenance. I’m not complaining, though. They could have discovered the problem half way over the Atlantic.

Saturday was spent recovering and adjusting to Addis and the best way to get adjusted to a new time zone is to spend time outside so we went to local market and to see some local sights. Thankfully, we had a contact here who arranged a guide for us. I’m not sure we would want to try and navigate this city on our own.

The city is enormous and sprawls over the surrounding hills. Traffic is crazy. I haven’t seen a traffic light yet. Our guide, Yared, says they do exist, but there is no electricity. The poverty and homelessness here is truly striking, I’ve worked with the poorest of the poor in Latin America but the poverty here seems deeper and more pervasive than anything I encountered there even in the barrios of San Pedro Sula or the very rural areas of Mexico and Honduras. In Latin America you could see pockets of middle class prosperity and some signs of progress. I don’t see that here. Sylvia says I need to look beyond the first layers of houses at the edge of the road and I will see those signs of the middle class—behind first walls of shanty houses. I’ll have to look a little closer.

Addis is home to the major UN agenies—the ECA is headquartered here and most of the major IGO and NGOs work out of Addis so I expected to see a more developed central district. It’s the largest city in Ethiopia, Even the areas by the government buildings have clearly been devastated by the years of war.

People here have been wonderfully warm, gracious, and welcoming. And we couldn’t be happier with our trip so far.

I’m writing this blog offline and will post later. We’ve been told there is no internet today. It ‘s Sunday.