Mud Splattered Beginnings

26^th Sept.

Writing this first, rather general update from Addis has taken longer than expected, but not for want of trying. On two occasions I sat writing in an internet café, only to have the power cut in the middle of my writing. On another I futilely tried to type it on my phone in the only free wifi spot I have yet located. Intermittent power has been a regular feature of my first ten days in Addis; I had assumed this was because of the enduring rains, but an Ethiopian friend of mine suggested that it had more to do with the massive infrastructure building that is going on throughout the city, and that I should expect outages more regularly.  So I stocked up on candles and a cheap, but very effective rechargeable torch.

My neighborhood, Hayahulet, is particularly burdened with this at the moment since the construction of a partially underground train system is in full swing. Five minutes from my house, a gaping hole where the road used to be stretches at least three blocks; the incessant clanging, hammering, scraping of busy workmen and machinery goes from dawn till well after dark. This work makes travelling from my neighborhood more challenging than normal, especially on wet days since it involves a small trek over rather precarious, very muddy ground to get to the other side of the hole. The assumption is that this project, like so many of the building projects in Addis, is a major Chinese initiative. When walking through Hayahulet last weekend a couple of people yelled “China! China!” at me. I’m used to being called a ‘ferengi’ (slang for white person, deriving from ‘Frank’), but being called ‘China’ was striking; in some quarters ‘China’ is apparently displacing ‘ferengi’ as the generic moniker for ‘foreigner.’

Despite the construction work, our neighborhood and our house are great. The latter is an upper floor apartment, which great views out to the hills surrounding Addis. I am already enamored of evenings spent sitting on the little balcony of my bedroom with a book and a glass of wine. We have a nice little restaurant, Zebra Grill, around the corner and wide selection of bars, cafes and (best of all) fresh juice shops (those of you who read my writing last year will remember my joy at discovering the “juice sprisse,” a layered mango, papaya, avocado glassful of heaven). There’s the Axum Hotel with its inexpensive gym and its free wifi (if you buy an expensive coffee), and Meskel Square, the central hub of the city, is a mere 5-10 minute drive. The commute up to Addis Ababa University is a little more taxing, but I’m getting used to riding the two minibuses a day that take me to Sidist Kilo, where it is located. My call of “waradj alle” when I reach my stop seems to be a source of endless amusement to my fellow commuters.

And, the rains appear to be subsiding! Although I shouldn’t speak too soon… When I arrived a daily downpour (or three) was to be expected, but they have been more sporadic of late. When it rains in Addis it begins with three or four large splodges on the pavement, and then the heavens open. I was confused at first when I saw Ethiopians start to sprint for cover as soon as the first drops fell, thinking that surely with an umbrella I could survive. How wrong I was! The rain falls like fast, wet bullets from the sky; it can be hard to control an umbrella while getting pummeled by it. Persevering, soaked to the core, up the road from Arat Kilo I felt like an extra in a Marx Brothers film, and my Ethiopian audience was suitably tickled. Whilst Ethiopian women are very practiced at navigating the ensuing situation under foot, even in delicate ballet pumps, its safe to say that I have spent much of my first ten days with mud-splatters up to my knees and boots that look as if I’ve come straight from the construction site.  Elegance, of course, has never been my strong suit.

So besides all of this, I have begun some work! Last week, the great triumph was to get affiliation as a Visiting Scholar to Addis Ababa University.  The latter is something I knew nothing about before arriving, since it is almost impossible to get such information online. I arrived with a letter of introduction from my department at Stanford and no clue about how I was going to get access to the library and archives. Fortunately, a fellow Brit, Sarah, was subletting a room in my house and, as a graduate student from London, knew far more about the situation after having been in touch with other researchers who had come to Ethiopia. Word of mouth appears to be the only way to get information on a range of practical matters, from affiliation to the university, to which Amharic classes you should / can take. (Next week, I’m going to write a short blog entry on these practical processes, in the hope of more broadly sharing information that I found very difficult to get on my own.)

There are many things that I hope to achieve in the next week, from meeting various key people to getting my residency card. I also plan to brave the Amharic section of the Institute of Ethiopian Studies library, armed with a list of texts that I’m in hot pursuit of (including an Ethiopian article on Lunarcharsky, about which I’m fascinated!)

27^th Sept.

Today is the national holiday of Meskel, or the Finding of the True Cross, which is an Orthodox Christian holiday. This holiday Last night I went down to Meskel Square (the hub that used to be known as Revolution or Abyot Square). With a few of my new friends, I stood in a crowd of (apparently) several hundred thousand people to watch the burning of the Meskel bonfire (demera), understood as reminiscent of the fire burned by Queen Helena, the smoke of which showed the direction of the True Cross. The bonfire is also sometimes understood as an act of cleansing sins. It was a quite spectacular affair, and one in which there is considerable religious song and dance from groups of young men and women of the Orthodox Church. Despite the recent, deeply tragic events in Kenya, people were not discouraged from attending a large-scale public event, and the atmosphere was very festive. Once the bonfire had burned to nothing, and toppled to one side, the fire brigade arrived to extinguish the lingering flames. Soldiers, who has been keeping the crowd at a distant moved out of the way and allowed people to run into the smoldering remains to grab some charcoal. This is then used to mark a cross on the foreheads of the faithful. My friend Ramallah insisted on marking both mine and my friend Victoria’s heads, much to the fascination and amusement of the Ethiopians around us…particularly in the fancy bar, The Black Rose, where we went to eat steak sandwiches after the festivities.

In other news, its my little sister Anna's birthday today! I remember well being taken from school at 6 years old to meet her. Anna, I hope you have a wonderful day!

I promise to try to update this more regularly, particularly from next week when I hope (fingers crossed) to have access to the internet at home.