Alice in Africa

I am now in Addis, having arrived yesterday afternoon. However, I hadn’t had much sleep the past few days and therefore promptly fell asleep, only to wake up in the night, read a little, and went back to sleep. This morning I woke up to the sounds of the mosque nearby and the birds outside my window… “those birds sound extremely close” I thought…their chirping growing increasingly louder…all of a sudden the bird on my windowsill decided to enter my room and couldn’t get out. Great! My first morning in Addis I will be attacked by a crazy bird in my room…It spastically fluttered around inside the curtain as I tried to urge it toward the fresh air. Finally it hopped out (I checked) but not without leaving some terrified excrement on my windowsill.

I had to take this as a sign – I needed to get out of my room and explore the city. I got up, had breakfast, and decided I would venture outside to walk around the Piazza – the area I’m staying in. The problem – as I’ve known before – is the fact that I’m a blond woman alone and I don’t speak Amharic…I started to think – it was very few times I walked around in Kathmandu alone and while I could have managed there, it was just nicer to have someone else with you to deflect people’s advances. I immediately picked up two guys who wanted to walk with me and talk…I chatted to them a little – but it’s hard to really brush off people when you don’t know where you’re going…I guess I will get in a taxi in a little bit to make my visits to the Ethiopian Airlines office to confirm my flight for tomorrow and maybe to St. George’s church to see where Haile Sallasie is buried. I will then go to Mekele in the morning, where I will meet with Sally and Dr. Ammanuel, and try to get situated there. It’s not that I need another faranji/whitey with me to walk around – just anyone so it’s not just me all alone! However, I am just fine and looking forward to finally having some Ethiopian food – injera and kai wat. More when I get to Mekele.