Ethiopia Day 2

Thursday April 28^th, 2011

We found a taxi quickly and they took us to the guest house (sort of like a hostel) down this dark alley.  Um yeah a little scary.  No one answered right away so now I started thinking we would be sitting outside this gate all night.  Finally the Zebenya (security guard) woke up and let us in but the owner wasn’t around so he had no idea where to put us.  Turns out the owner was in the hospital but left a note with our room numbers but the guard didn’t get it.  He ended up finding one room that didn’t have a working lock and it had a double bed…which is really only slightly larger than a twin bed.  Yeah someone wasn’t sleeping.  My dad got the least amount of sleep on the plane so he went to bed first while my mom stayed up and read and I got some editing done. I ended up editing from 2am-7am straight.  My parents woke up then and I laid down for 3 hours while they hunted for a new hotel.  Although the hotel was $10 a night, it was pretty crummy and had a shared (disgusting) bathroom.  Welcome to the 3^rd World I suppose. 

I woke up and decided to check my text messages although it is crazy expensive.  Jason had sent me an urgent text to call him and I knew something was wrong. I called ($3 per min) and found out my car had been stolen from his driveway.  Well that pretty much set the mood for the rest of the day!

My parents came back while I was on the phone with him and we quickly left for a new hotel. (Sorry no photos, I was preoccupied with my car crap)  This one is down the street in a high-rise building.  On our way there one of my first sights of Ethiopia was a man walking two donkeys down the street among the cars. Interesting.  The new hotel is $30 a night and it is a large room with one double bed, its own bathroom and TV.  They brought a single bed up for me and we stuck it in the unfinished kitchen so I kinda have some privacy now.  We are only here until Sunday.

 

 

My dad had called his old Amharic teacher, Shibabaw, from his days at Howard and he helped us find the new hotel.  He and my dad found an Internet café where I could call my insurance company.  I hadn’t eaten in awhile so we stopped for lunch at a café my dad knew about (Green View) from when he stayed in this area in 2005.  We shared a pizza and a few beers.  The whole meal was under $6!  Wow!

We walked to the Internet café and I called my insurance company but they were closed.  We walked over to another guest house where my dad stayed last time he was here in 2005 to check it out.

Back up to the hotel to rest.

A little while later, dad’s former student, Abdul-Rashid, came to pick us up and help us get around.  He took us to his two houses and fed us treats and juice and tea.  The Ethiopian culture is very giving and he was trying to feed us the entire time even though we continually said no thank you.  He owns a popular electronics store so we went there so my parents could buy a local cell phone to reach some more people they want to see while we are here.

Goats along side the main road…taken on iPhone while in a moving car, sorry for the blurriness!  You can buy one of these for the meat and they will slaughter it for you right there. Yum.

After, I went back to the Internet Café and spent 30 mins on the phone with my insurance company getting the claim filed.  I’m not feeling very well, sort of like I’m getting sick.  My body is extremely weak. Its probably lack of sleep and stress.  Tonight will be an early night to bed!  I got to talk to Jason again tonight (dealing with more car stuff) so at least that was a positive part of my day!!   Internet is super slow here and I have yet to see anywhere that offers Wifi.  I have to use the hotel computer just to check my email!