I have been relatively quiet as I am currently undergoing an ayurveda detox treatment, which means that for ten days I have to stop drinking coffee, tea, alcohol and eat an exclusive diet of rice and mung peas (lunch and dinner). On the upside, I have different kinds of massage every other day. As part of the treatment, I was told to practice yoga every day and go to bed at 9pm (not my normal routine as I tend to stay up late and drink a lot of coffee the next morning to wake my mind up!). The idea of an ayurveda detox is to rebalance the elements within our body, such as water, air, earth and fire so we can live a healthy life, physically and mentally.

My daily lunch and dinner…

Five days into the treatment, I already see a difference, not so much physically although I do feel less tired, but mentally. I feel calmer and more serene when approaching my work, and I’ve noticed that I forget to check my emails first thing in the morning. We all know the intoxicating power of the internet, I find it interesting that we need (or I need) to go through a food diet to clear my mind of this compulsion. Because I need to always think about what I eat and drink, I live more into the moment, which really helps take a pause. It would probably be much nicer to do this kind of detox in an ayurveda centre in Southern India rather than at home where I have to cook for my family and watch them eat, however, it is better than none. Of course, I am not doing this programme alone but with the help of Deborah, an Ethiopian-Swedish lady who opened an ayurveda centre called Tulsi a year ago in the Arat kilo area of Addis. She offers all sorts of massage as well as yoga classes in her very pleasant space, which is fortunate as my long-standing yoga teacher in Addis, Emily, is moving to France next month to open a new retreat centre. I know I will miss her class.

I came to undertake this detox because I felt I was in a forward spiral I could not stop with work commitments, request for more travel, constant juggling of all aspects of my life, and so on. I needed to take a break. Such need became suddenly very pressing after we heard of the tragic death of one of our UN colleagues last week. I didn’t know her personally but the story shocked me. She was coming back from a trip to the Danakil when they had a car crash driving back up to the highlands from the Dallol plain. She was seven month pregnant and about to finish her contract to go back to her native Finland. Her partner survived but her friend travelling with her, a Polish lady on her honeymoon with her husband, died too. Her husband also survived. From what I heard, they were evacuated by helicopter from the scene of the accident to the nearest medical facility near the Potash mines in Dallol, but unfortunately it was too late. The accident was extremely tragic, even more so because on top of all the pain and grief, they had to deal with the awful practicalities of sending the body back home and of being two future parents of different nationalities and therefore depending on different national administrations for consular matters. I have no word of conclusion after writing these lines.

I took my yougest son (he’s six) for a haircut yesterday, to a local hairdresser I usually go to and conveniently located in a recently built shopping mall, the Laphto center. While he was having his hair cut (it tends to be slow but very cheap), I was there, sitting in a lounge chair, day-dreaming and reading magazines. The choice on display on the table was very interesting. I started with Elle Magazine in German from Oktober 2006, a special edition on hair styles, I don’t really read German but with the pictures I could get what it was about and even learn new words. After that, I read another Elle Magazine, this time in Dutch from January 1998, with a special feature on the horoscope for the year. Shame I could not understand as I could have checked in retrospect if the prediction had materialised. Still, it was fun to see all the usual celebrities looking so much younger.

Dutch Elle Mag, January 1998

I am smiling about it but it is a regular occurence in Addis to read out-of-date magazines. They even have a sale value on the street where it is not unusual to find back copies of many international magazines, including Selamta, the Ethiopian airlines free in-flight magazine. In the street, it sells. I even saw myself buying old copies of French magazines I hadn’t read before outside the French Lycée on Churchill road! I know the vendor now, a man in his 40s who speaks very good French, so when I have old copies of magazines brought back from Europe, I give them to him so he can sell them again second hand. He also has an interesting collection of history books on Ethiopia, all in French, which I think I am the only one to buy. There are actually very few bookshops in Addis; international magazines can be purchased mainly at the Hilton and the Sheraton, and some national magazines are on sale in the more recent supermarkets (we are talking here of just two magazines sold by the cashier, not a magazine stand like in other parts of the world). This is why we enjoy so much wandering around bookshops, especially independent ones, when back in Europe, but we are not deprived, we can read here.

I went to see a dance performance by a new dance company, Destino, at the Alliance Ethio-française a few days ago. The show was quite impressive particularly the choreography performed by disabled dancers, called Tilla. Disability is still quite a stigma in Ethiopia, so to show openly and dance one’s physical impediment is quite a statement here. The dancers were moving on the stage with their crutches as part of the choreography. In one piece, more able dancers were lifting them up so they could gracefully stretch their legs or do a full split in the air. In the course of the performance, one of the disabled dancers read a statement (in Amharic but then translated into English) explaining that dance allowed him to get out of the cage he was stuck in because of his weakened body. He also reminded the audience that anybody could become disabled at any time, so perception towards disability should change.

Apologies for the bad picture, I couldn’t upload the short video clip

Unlike other contemporary dance companies, Destino’s purpose is to improve lives through dance and the arts. It tries to recruit dancers from impoverished backgrounds such as street kids or people who suffer from disabilities. The company was born out of a performance by Ethiopian contemporary dancers Junaid Jemal Sendi and Addisu Demessie which toured the UK in 2009. They were both street kids when they started dancing 17 years ago with another company called Adugna Community Dance Theatre Company,  the first community dance company set up in Addis in the mid 1990s to help people with disabilities or illnesses such as HIV reach their potential through dance. At the time, Adugna selected 100 children from the slums of Addis to perform to the music of Carmina Burana by Carl Orff at the City Hall in Addis. The actual story of Carmina Burana (Adugna in Amharic), especially the opening sonnet O Fortuna which is a complaint about fate and fortune, resonated with the underpriviledged communities of Addis.

After his training with Adugna, Junaid started travelling to perform in international dance festivals. In 2004, he was one of the youngest dancers to win the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative Award for Dance and Choreography. This award gave him the opportunity to work with an established mentor for a year on a one-to-one basis. This cooperation led him to perform Destino in 2009 at Sadler’s Wells in London, one of the most prestigious venues for cutting edge contemporary dance, with Addisu Demessie as well as a number of very established UK dancers. Destino Dance, which intends to continue develop contemporary dance practice alongside traditional Ethiopian dancing, is now establishing a three-year training programme in dance, drama, music, choreography for street children, orphans and young offenders in Ethiopia.

For more info: destinodance@gmail.com

In the last two weeks, my friend Manale has been mourning for the lost of her sister (biologically her cousin but she was a sister to her) who tragically succombed to cancer. She had been living in New York for nearly 30 years, but decided to be buried in Ethiopia so her family had to deal with the unpleasant logistics of flying back to Addis with her body for the burial.

Funerals are a big affair in Ethiopia, which follow strict religious customs. For three days after the actual funeral, the family of the deceased has to host friends and neighbours who come to pay their respects. If they don’t have space in their house, they put up a tent in their garden or failing that in the street so people can drop by. The custom requires them to feed visitors for at least three days, sometimes longer, and family are usually under strong social pressure to do so. Once these days are over, the mourning period continues for at least two weeks with many  gatherings of close relatives and friends.

a church/cemetery in Entoto

When I saw Manale again, about 10 days after her sister’s funeral, she took me to the Orthodox church where her sister had just been buried in the Entoto hills. It was the same church where Manale had been christened as a small child so they  consider it as their family church. For some reason, she had to take drinking water to the priest there, so off we went with a pack of 10 plastic water bottles to be delivered. While she was giving her offering to the priest, I wandered around the church, watching how devoted Ethiopian people are when praying.

Around the relatively newly built church, which has a square shape rather than the traditional circle shape, I could see the outer buildings which serve as the final resting place for the dead. Rather than being actually buried, the coffin is placed in a type of drawer according to Manale’s explanation (we were not able to visit without advanced notice). Ethiopian coffins, which are mainly sold on Churchill road in Addis, are extremely colourful with an outer lining made of red, purple, green or yellow embroidered fabric. In the Orthodox faith, the deceased are buried in the place they choose; it can be a cemetery, a monastery or a church although the latter tend to be reserved to well established families.

Unlike in other religious customs, husband and wife are not buried together, they tend to choose the place that is the most relevant to them as an independent person. That day, Manale told me that her mother was resting in the Holy Trinity church in Addis, the church where emperor Haile Selassié is buried and which was reserved for resistant and fighters against the Italian occupation, while her father had chosen a monastery near Gondar in the Amhara region where his family was originally from.

I have seen for a few months now an increasing number of advertisements for family planning and contraception in the streets of Addis. Huge billboards for condoms, Intra Uterine Devices (IUD) and the contraceptive pill can be seen on every street corner, suggesting that it is a very topical issue.

According to the Bill and Melinda Gate Foundation, the rate of contraception in Ethiopia has increased from 6.3 percent in 2000 to 27.3 in 2011, while the total fertility rate has declined to an average of 4.8 from 5.5 children born per mother. Many reasons explain the successful introduction of contraception in the country. The government, recognizing that population growth may be one of the obstacles to reduce poverty, put in place family planning policies to promote the use of contraception and hence reduce the average size of families. Such policies were supported by international donors who provided help in purchasing contraceptive products, improving access to contraception particularly outside the main urban centres, as well as training social workers on the issue. In addition, the government put in place a health extension programme to bring education and contraceptive products to remote rural areas.

A box of Member’s condoms…

Of all the ads, my personal favourite is the one for Members Only, a local brand of condoms (made in Thailand) with a picture reminiscent of an old Playboy ad (not the kind of ad which would work on a woman’s psyche!). The exclusiveness of the name and the suggestion of a classy product made me smile. So I bought a box to find out more. The condoms are sold in a pack of three and packaged in a black tin box that would fit in a pocket or a handbag. They are much more expensive that other local brands such as Sensation, at ten times the price. A box of Members cost 30 birr for three condoms ($1.5), compared with two or three birr ($0.15) for Sensation, so they are exclusive as the ad suggests.

…with the instructions

Contraception can be bought over the counter at any pharmacy, including the morning after pill which is sold in a single package of two tablets, just the dose needed in such situation. Condoms can also be easily purchased in some supermarkets. All contraceptives are cheap and accessible which can explain the success of the government’s family planning campaign. On an anecdotal note,  I was asked on a couple of occasions if I knew about family planning…that was after I had said that I have five children!

This week I had to make time to renew my Ethiopian driving licence. Due to my dislike of long and cumbersome bureaucratic procedures, I kept postponing it until I had to do it or I would be driving illegally which is not a good idea in Ethiopia. When foreigners come to live in Ethiopia, they have to apply for an Ethiopian driving licence. The process is quite simple but it takes time. We first have to go to our respective embassy to have our national driving licence validated. Once done, we can go to the Ministry of Transport to apply for a local licence which is valid for two years. That implies going to a number of offices and registration counters and follow all the required steps. The licence can be renewed after the initial two-year period.

Temporary Ethiopian driving licence

I was expecting the worst in terms of time so I freed a whole morning  to go to the relevant administration. That sounds obvious but it is not. I had to check which office issued my licence two years ago to know which one I should go to, and luckily I went to the right one!

On arrival, I had to buy a form which costs 5 birr (o.2 euros) and which is in Amharic only, so I had to ask the help of my driver to fill it up. It made me realise what it feels like to be illiterate and not being able to even read a form. Once that done, I had to go to another cashier to buy a tax stamp for 6 birr (0.24). Then I went to another office to enter the information on the form into the computer. There was no network so I had to wait (not long, only 20 minutes). Once that was completed, I was sent to the second floor, to office number 205, where I had to wait until they retrieved my file. That office was hidden behing a partition wall, we had to communicate through a tiny window without even seeing the person we were talking to. I managed to have a peak through and all I could see was shelves and shelves of shabby files, fighting for space. After about 30 minutes, my name was called and a lady came out with my file. She took me back downstairs where I initially started and where this time, I had my photo taken (by one person) and the renewed licence was printed and officially stamped (by another person). I was a bit confused as for the picture I had to go inside the office room whereby for getting the licence I was sent back outside in front of the counter’s window, even though it was exactly the same office. That part cost me 100 birr (4 euros). The whole room seemed disorganised with many desks piled up with an impressive quantity of files, however, the staff seemed to find their way through it. Once I had my licence in hand, I had to go to yet another counter to have it laminated. I was charged another 5 birr for that service. All in all, it took me one and a half hour which was amazingly fast, so I will not complain about the Ethiopian bureaucracy on this occasion. I have seen worse, in Italy for instance, where we usually have to go back three times to the same administration to have anything done.

Ethiopian Orthodox Easter which falls the same day as Western Easter this year, is one of the biggest celebrations in the festive calendar. All over the country, people are preparing for the commemoration of Christ’s death and resurrection which will translate into a large feast during which they will break their long fasting period. At midnight on the eve of Easter, they will slaughter a chicken to prepare Dolo Wat, the traditional meal of chicken and eggs in a spicy sauce they eat on Easter Sunday. Practicing Orthodox have been fasting strictly for the past 56 days, easting no animal product whatsoever, including butter, milk or cheese.

The streets of Addis are suddenly very busy as people are preparing for the big day. The goat and sheep market nearby the slaughterhouse in the Kera district is fully replenished; chicken are being sold alive from vans by the side of the road and shops are stocked up with milk, cheese and butter. Yesterday, I was shocked to see my local supermarket so well supplied, I don’t think I have ever seen its shelves so full. The atmosphere is getting festive with women wearing traditional clothes and the netala, the Ethopian white cotton head scarf they wear to go to church. On Palm Sunday last week, men were wearing a band made of palm leaves around their head. In the church of St Gabriel opposite the supermarket I went to yesterday (Good Friday), people were kneeling and bowing in prayers to the chanting of the priest. We expect to hear Orthodox chanting all night tonight as people gather to the church for the Paschal Vigil.

The Orthodox faith and culture is stil very dominant in Ethiopia, particularly in the North, where people practice their faith intensely and strictly respect their religious calendar. In the Lowlands however, towards the East and the South of the country, a substantial part of the population is Muslim. I have only lived here for about three years but in that short time, I have noticed more Muslim women in the street wearing the full black dress and entirely covering up their face. Many Ethiopian people tell me that it wasn’t the case before, Muslim women in the city were rarely wearing even a head scarf except maybe on Friday and religious days. I have also noticed that every time a mosque is being built, an orthodox church is also being erected in the vicinity. At the main mosque in the Arada district in the centre of town, the street is closed on Friday to allow more people to pray on the pavement and road just outside the mosque, indicating that the mosque may be getting too small for the number of Faithfuls. I was told that Orthodox and Muslims have been living side by side peacefully in Ethiopia, however, I sense that some form of competition is going on in that respect, but that’s my personal perception and not necessarily an indication of the state of the matter in the country.

I have been so busy in the past few weeks that I somehow neglected this blog, so I’ll try to catch up on it. A month ago, I had the visit of a very special visitor, a VIP as far as I am concerned: my own mother! She came with an old school friend of hers and my teenage niece. They were all travelling South of the Sahara for the first time in their life. It is always interesting to see the country through fresh eyes again, especially with such generational extremes: my mother being 70 and my niece 16 years old. I was a little apprehensive for my mother, knowing that she is not a great traveller and that it took her three years to take the jump to come to Ethiopia, while her friend seemed more open to new experiences. My mother adapted surprisingly well, but her friend really struggled to come to terms with the reality of living in Addis and was rather critical of every aspect of daily life here. My niece on the other hand, with the unadulterated enthusiasm of her youth, was taken by the place.

Driving through the current construction sites in Addis

How to entertain them for ten long days in Addis alone was another issue, as the city is somewhat limited in terms of entertainment. After taking them on the usual arts and crafts tour, visiting cotton weavers, handbag makers as well as silversmiths; after visiting the few museums of Addis and Menelik’s palace in the Entoto hills; after breaking the day by having lunch in every fashionable restaurant in Addis, I began to run out of steam. So I thought I could take them on a couple of day trips outside of town. One of them was the classic pilgrimage to Debre Libanos, one of the most important church and monastery in the country which is only one and a half hour north of Addis and has the added advantage of being close to the spectacular gorge of one of the Blue Nile tributaries. They said they enjoyed the trip. While driving in the Shoa high plateau through fields of tef and wheat, they were shocked by how rudimentary agriculture still is. They kept on commenting on it. No mecanization whatsoever, a lot of hand plowing and harvesting.

The famous Portuguese bridge in the river gorge next to Debre Libanos

In Addis too, they could not get used to the poverty in the city, the beggars at every street corner, the disabled people lying on the pavement. The makeshift shops along the streets also made a big impression on them, particularly the many butchers with meat carcasses hanging freely, with no refrigeration whatsoever, in their little market stall. When I took them to Piassa, explaining that it was considered the shopping centre of the city, they could not hide their disappointment. They had in mind the town centre of the major European cities they knew, so of course Piassa was an eye opener for them in terms of urban facilities and design in Ethiopia.

I still appreciate that they made such a huge effort to get out of their comfort zone, especially at their age, when it is not that granted that one can travel easily.To see more of the country, I also try to book tickets to Lalibela, but could not get any return flight within our dates so we had to give up on the idea. I took them to Adadi Mariam instead, a rock-hewn church about an hour south of Addis (to be continued in the next post…)

Ethiopia has such a rich cultural heritage with sites such as the rock-hewn churches of Lalibela or the walled city of Harar, that the church of Adadi Mariam in the vicinity of Addis hardly takes any notice. Built on the same model as her much better known sisters of Lalibela, Adadi Mariam was part of King Lalibela’s ambition to expand his kingdom south. Taking example of what he had achieved in Lalibela, he started to build another rock-hewn church to mark his new territory further south, but never managed to finish it. That is according to the glamorous version from the guide who took us around. I read elsewhere that the church was built in the 14th century by priests coming from the North to convert the South to Christianity, so more than 100 years after Lalibela (King Lalibela ruled at the end of the 12th century and beginning of the 13th).

The rock-hewn church of Adadi Mariam, south of Addis

Unable to take my mother and her friend all the way to Lalibela, I embarked them on a day trip to Adadi Mariam. We drove about an hour going south on the Butajira road, until we reached the right turn to Adadi Mariam. From that junction, we had about 12 kilometres of gravel road to the tiny village where the church is. The distance wasn’t long but it felt like an eternity for me. Everybody in the car was silent, I could sense that my visitors were not enjoying the drive and felt shaken at every sharp turn. They didn’t say anything but I could read their mind: when are we going to arrive? I was wondering too as I felt the pressure of having taken them there. I did give some kind of warning though: “we won’t find any toilet so you’ll have to go before and try to drink as little as possible on the way; we won’t find any food either so we’ll have to make it back to Addis in time for lunch.” As they were not that desperate to have another Ethiopian lunch by the side of the road, they agreed with my itinerary. After a very long 30 minutes, we finally reached the village of Adadi Mariam. Again, the drive through a very rural area was an eye opener for them: no facilities, no infrastructure, rudimentary agricultural tools, no car and kids walking to school. They did mention that it was interesting to see rural Ethiopia.

One of the outside walls of Adadi Mariam

At the church, they had another surprise: they had to take off their shoes and walk barefoot down the narrow steps leading to the inside. They were not prepared: “I would have warn socks had I known,” said one of them. As there was no choice, they played the game and went without shoes. From the outside, we could never guess that Adadi Mariam was a church if it wasn’t for the big cross planted on top, as it is fully covered in grass. It was carved into the rock but the outside was never finished leaving it with such a deceiving appearance. Inside, we went through a gallery which goes around the alter and the holy of the holies (the inside sanctuary where only priests are admitted). It was entirely carved with regular openings on the side which let some light in. Even if it wasn’t completed (in some places the ceiling remains low), it gave a very good idea of what a rock-hewn church is, even if far from being as impressive as Lalibela. At least, it was enough for my mother and her friend who both said that they were glad we didn’t make it to Lalibela as they had enough with one church (that after I told them that there were 11 churches like that there). At the altar, we met a group of school kids who came from Addis for the day. My mother and her friend were very touched with how friendly they were. Each kid greeted them personnally in French or in English and shook their hand with a large smile on their face. They thought they were so open and welcoming. That’s Ethiopia at a glance: it can rough and difficult but people are extremely polite and gentle. So they experienced it in a snapshot going to Adadi Mariam.

The Tiya Stelae field, about 80 kilometres south of Addis on the Butajira road, is one of Ethiopia’s UNESCO World Heritage sites. It is made of some 41 engraved standing stones somewhat reminiscent of some of the Celtic archeological sites found in Britanny. However, the Tiya funeral stelae are far more recent and more finely engraved than their European counterparts. Being only half an hour further south than the church of Adadi Mariam, visitors usually go on a day trip to see both sites.

The stelae field in Tiya

The day I took my mother and her friend to Adadi Mariam (see previous post), I decided not to extend the trip to Tiya as I thought (rightly) that they would have had enough with one site. In terms of sightseeing, the Tiya field is relatively limited so in my view it is best to stop there on the way to Langano or Arba Minch. The site is just off the main road, so it is very accessible for a short 30 minutes break. We stopped there on the way back from lake Langano where we had a long family weekend a few weeks ago. My children were quite reluctant to go to Langano in the first place, but went anyway after a bit of negotiation (I forgot what it involved), so when I told them that we would stop in Tiya on the way back, they vehemently protested. At the site, they refused to get out of the car, so we went by ourselves and left them sulking (the site is relatively small so they were never out of sight). We had arrived just before midday, everything looked closed, including the little office and what seemed to be a souvenir stall. We started walking around the field when a young man came running towards us, explaining that he was the official site guide and that we would have to purchase our entry ticket before he could take us around the field. So we did and he gave us a brief explanation, while our children were giving me very angry looks.

Engraving of a sword on one of the Tiya stelae

Very little is known about the origins of the Tiya stelae. It is believed that the site was a mass grave dating from the 12th-14th century, where people aged 18 to 30 years old were buried in a foetal position. The site was already known in the 1930s, but was further excavated about three decades ago by French archeologist and scholar, Roger Joussaume, an expert in megalithic monuments, and was consequently declared a World Heritage site. The stones are divided into three groups depending on their style of engravings and are between 1 and 5 metres high. Their very stylised drawings speak about the achievements in their lifetime of the people they represent, in particular the number of ennemies they killed which are symbolised by a sword. So four swords carved on a stele means that the deceased had killed four enemies. Some of the engravings are more abstract with shapes such as semi-circles and inverted cones, supposedly representing a woman. According to our guide, other smaller stelae clusters found in the region between Soddo and Awassa are linked to Tiya, but Tiya remains the most important one. Next to the stelae field, a small museum has opened showing pictures of the excavation work and some artefacts found on site. However, the explanations are still quite basic. More research is probably needed to get a better understanding of the place. After that short interlude, we made our way back to the car to return to Addis. Needless to say that my children didn’t say a word to me all the way back home.

more symbolic engravings at Tiya stelae site

Before I virtually close down for the summer, I have to write about Dashen restaurant, one of the best traditional Ethiopian in Addis, as it may not be there when I come back at the end of August due to the new urban development plan in the city. Dashen is located in the centre of town, just behind the central Post Office and a 5 minute walk from the National Theatre and Stadium, so what one would call prime location. According to the new government’s plan, all the old historical houses located in the central perimeter (now redefined as business centre) will have to be replaced by tall buildings.

The main kitchen at Dashen

Dashen, named after Ras Dashen, the highest peak in the Simien Mountains, is one of these old houses which will sadly disappear very soon. It was built in the late 1940s by the aristocratic family of Dejazmatch Dagnew Tessema, who was serving the then emperor, Haile Sélassié. His wife Amsalwork Asefaw had distinguised herself in her own right by helping to fight the Italians when they invaded Ethiopia in 1935/36. After emperor Haile Selassié returned from his exile in Britain in 1941 and regained control of his country, a new period of peace and reconstruction opened in the ancient Abyssinian kingdom. That’s when Dagnew Tessema decided to purchase a piece of land in the lower part of the city which at the time was a swamp with no infrastructure whatsoever, to build a new house as an investment. He consequently drained the area and built a new road to access his house. A decade later, Dagnew Tessema unexpectedly passed away and the family had to find a new source of income. As Addis gained international status with the creation of the African Union in 1963, the house was rented out to a new international educational institution and became a school. The family was able to live on the rental income as well as the sale of grain from their land in the country.

Another 10 years later in 1974, in a bloody coup d’Etat, the emperor was deposed and replaced by a socialist-marxist regime known later as the Derg. Private property was nationalised and well-to-do families had to choose one house to keep as residence and give away the rest of their assets. Amsalwork Asefaw, who was now in charge of the household, chose to keep the newly built house in the centre and moved in with her children. With the loss of land, the family had no source of income anymore, so she decided to open an eatery in her own house as a way of making a living. “She had experience in organising and managing big meals for 50 people or more, so her friends suggested to do the same but for paying customers,” explained her daughter Manale (the same Manale who came back to Ethiopia a few years ago and started designing jewellery).

Amsalwork Asefaw, founder of Dashen restaurant

The family lived upstairs while the downstairs part was refurbished and turned into a restaurant. From a simple eatery in the late 1970s and 1980s, it became a better known restaurant, particularly for the quality of the food and its special atmosphere with traditional singing and dancing every friday and saturday night. When Amsalwork suffered a stroke in the early 1990s, she continued supervising the business with the help of her children until she passed away in 1998. Her children then decided to continue running the restaurant, they established a joint company and appointed one of the siblings as manager. Everything was running smoothly until the government issued its new urban development plan and declared the centre of Addis a business district. The Dagnew family is not evicted from their house but is given the option to build a 20-storey building instead. “At first, we were told we could build a four-storey building, so we found some investors who were prepared to get into the project with us,” said Amha Dagnew, Manale’s brother. “But now the plan has changed again and we would have to build a much higher tower, which is beyond our means. We have no choice but to leave our family house behind and move on with our life.” They said that the compensation they were offered doesn’t reflect the potential loss.

Baking Injera

I was given access to the kitchen and work quarters to be able to record what will soon be gone. For some of the staff, who have been working there for more than 20 years, it will be a loss of livelihood as well as a drastic change of life, particularly those members of staff who live in the premises. In the main kitchen, the cooking is done on two separate wooden ovens: one for fasting food and one for non-fasting. In the Ethiopian orthodox tradition, people fast three days a week on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays when they eat no animal products whatsoever, including milk and butter. Another room is dedicated for injera baking, the traditional tef based pancake used as staple food, while a third kitchen is only for bringing the food orders in and preparing the dishes ready to be brought to the customers.

In yet another back room, meat is being cut to make tibs, another traditional dish made of beef cubes cooked in spices. Next to it, there is also the cold room with three freezers and the larder where onions are stored. In total, 36 people work in the restaurant with most of the staff employed in the kitchen. I feel personally sad because I really enjoyed going there. It is a very genuine place where the true people of Addis Ababa gather. When those old houses are being demolished the soul of the past is going too and forever lost. I really feel I am here at a time of major transformation, witnessing the old Addis disappearing and seeing a new, yet unknown city, being born from its ashes.

The main dining room at Dashen

For the fourth time now, I am back in Addis after a long summer break in Europe. This time, my first week here was quite eventful: it started with a three days water shortage, during which we had to use buckets filled with cold water for all our domestic needs. Luckily enough, water was still trickling from the small tap in our garden, but the pressure was not sufficient to supply the house. So we had to fill up buckets from that tap: one for washing up the dishes in the kitchen and another one, slightly larger one to wash ourselves in the bathroom, something we did very parcimoniously partly to save water and partly because it was so freezing cold, particularly during the wet rainy season Addis is so famous for! As I mentioned then, it was our indirect way to take up the challenge of the ASL freezing water bucket…In any case, we do learn to appreciate the luxury of having hot water as well as running water…As soon as the water shortage which came from a leak in one of the mains, was fixed, we had a flood in our bedroom due to a leakage from the bath. I noticed it in the early afternoon when there was already two centimetres of water in the room and it was starting to spill over into the corridor as well as the other bedrooms. The maid who had been working all morning in the house noticed nothing! So there we were, pushing water out with brushes through our bedroom balcony down into the garden. There was so much of it that it looked like a waterfall!

the heavy construction work in Addis: one of the reasons for the many water and power cuts

Once that incident was over, it took me about two days to queue up at the telecom office to reactivate my internet account which went dormant during the summer. My timing was too bad: Ethio-telecom the national and sole operator was offering a new 3G promotion so the line was at least an hour long in every single telecom retail outlet. After three years here, my patience threshold has increased drastically so I wasn’t bothered, I just turned back and returned a few days later. I now have all the internet devices I need except that they still don’t function half of the time. Never mind, I am following my new motto: Urgence de ralentir, following a programme I wasn’t able to watch on Arte (no download available in Ethiopia from this European TV channel!).

And that’s not all, as I am writing I am experiencing my fifth power cut in one week but that’s not a problem, we have a generator able to power a couple of light bulbs. We do need to unplug all the boilers, kettle, fridge, toaster and so on to be able to start it up! So life is good now: we have water and electricity….and better even, tonight we will be partying to celebrate the Ethiopian New Year, going into year 2007, making us seven years younger!

There is no stopping to the plan of erasing old Addis to build a new city. After Dashen, one of the best Ethiopian restaurants and an institution in the city, it is Fendika’s turn to be wiped out. Fendika is an azmari bet, or a type of cabaret where traditional Ethiopian shoulder dancing and singing is performed. The place is very small, people are sitting on small stools around the circular walls and the lead singer moves around the audience, addressing the people directly and individually and improvising accordingly. So when I go there, I always get a song about farenji or foreigner. That’s for the regular evenings.

However, the main attraction at Fendika is to see Melaku Belay perform. He is the owner of the club and a well known Ethiopian dancer who is regularly touring internationally. Every other Friday the place is packed with people going to see him and his band perform, the atmosphere is always very cheerful and happy, mainly because Melaku loves dancing there; his heart is really in Ethiopia at Fendika.

Now he has been given less than a month to purchase the land where Fendika is located in the Kasanchis district of Addis. His idea is to acquire it so he can leave Fendika exactly as it is and build a cultural centre and hotel behind it. The timing is extremely tight and his project financially ambitious so he has launched a crowdfunding appeal online for 90,000 US$ to gather momentum. Tonight, he is organising a big party at Fendika again to raise funds. He does have a lot of support here in Addis to keep the club going because it is such an amazing cultural heritage for Ethiopia, and one that is still thriving, but that may not be enough to save it from demolition.

Personally, I would find it very sad if it went, just like I am sad to see Dashen go. I don’t believe in erasing a city’s past and memory in such a drastic way in the name of modernity. The past, present and future should cohabit together to give the city its unique spirit and atmosphere, but that’s not what is happening here. Having said that, even if everything is destroyed to make way for the new “New Flower” (translation of Addis Ababa from Amharic), the past will survive in people’s mind, as we can’t easily get rid of our parents and grandparents’ memory. That stays in us wherever we are, even if we fight it.

Link to Save Fendika campaign: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/save-the-fendika-cultural-club-in-addis-ababa

Nowhere else, a new road would draw so much attention but in Ethiopia. The new highway which just opened a couple of weeks ago is getting us all excited and understandably so. This is the first ever fast six-lane double carriage road in the country, linking Addis Ababa to the city of Adama (or Nazret) east of the capital. What used to be a painful three to four hour journey, competing with trucks and cattle on a narrow single road, has now become a smooth drive across beautiful landscape. And this is only the first stretch, the road will be extended possibly in several directions.

New express way in Mojo 

Being as excited as everybody else, we did take the new Express Way (as it’s called) last weekend driving back from lake Langano. We first had to drive for about an hour on a standard road from Langano to Mojo before reaching a slipway into the highway. We were very quick to moan at the lack of obvious direction, but after a few minutes the huge green board indicating the new road suddenly appeared, telling us to turn right. As we saw in the distance the toll station painted in the same green as the direction board, the excitement was building up! We quickly reached the barrier, which has about eight cashiers, and all of a sudden the beautifully empty road appeared just below us. Another few minutes later and we were on it. I don’t think I was ever as excited to take a new road! That’s not it, the drive was so smooth and hassle-free that for the first time ever in Ethiopia we could relax and admire the scenery which turns out to be more attractive than on the old road, especially as the rainy season is coming to an end and the fields are so green. As my nine-year old son said: “it looks like Switzerland!”, yes it did in a way: an empty motorway lined with a peaceful landscape all along. The only downside is that we couldn’t even reach the speed limit of 100 kilometres an hour especially when going up as our sturdy 4×4 car is not built for speed but for endurance. Still the half hour drive to the gate of Addis was very enjoyable for a change… and the road has become one of the hot topics of discussion in the city.

I went to a friend’s house the other morning for a yoga session we have set up in our area. Yoga classes and qualified teachers are hard to find in Addis so we need to organise ourselves to practice regularly. He and his family are lucky to rent out one of those modernist 1960s villas, built at the time with a lot of architectural thought, the kind of house that is being erased nowadays if located in the wrong area. Theirs is in the residential Old Airport district so it will stay, however, my friend told me, the authorities decided to take half of the front garden to turn the current road into a dual carriage way. Once again, even if in this case the house will survive, it is the green area around it that is affected by the development frenzy that has taken over Addis. While we are trying to re-create green spaces in the Western World, here the green goes at a very fast pace to build yet more roads and buildings.

A typical 1960 house in Addis

The house belongs to a family who was part of the elite at the time of Emperor Haile Selassié, when the few people who were lucky enough to be part of it had a very good standard of living, freely importing whatever they needed and contracting top architects to design their private houses. Such houses are today a remaining legacy of an era long gone, allowing newcomers such as myself to get a glimpse of the old Ethiopia. Unlike the newly built style-less mansion houses surrounded by high walls with very little outdoor space, these old houses tend to have beautiful flowery gardens with jacaranda, avocado and tall palm trees. Beyond the history and politics, they also have a great aesthetic value for the unique Addis style that was created in that decade. I have written about architecture in Addis in previous posts, describing the unique style of some of the major public buildings in the city.

inside

We can argue that Africa has the same right to urbanisation as the rest of the World, but as my friend pointed out, we are today suffering from the consequences of such hasty development, so why not try not to repeat the mistakes we made in the Western World, which continue to have a lasting effect on our quality of life. I believe we have gone past the stage of agreeing which side of the planet has more of a right to urban and industrial development, we need to work together to protect nature if we want to survive, it is our common house and the only one we have.

Medical care is a serious problem in Ethiopia, with few facilities available and a shortage of highly professional staff. Foreigners living in Addis are evacuated through a procedure called Medvac as soon as they require medical treatment outside of the most basic. Ethiopian people do not have such luxury and have to do with the services public hospitals can offer here. I heard many stories of people dying from a heart attack because the defibrillator was not working on that day, or succumbing to injuries because they were not treated on time, or even having to have a light operation without anesthetics because the hospital had run out of it. In many cases, if the hospitals have the equipment, it is not always maintained properly and often does not work when it is the most needed.

Newly refurbished Emergency paediatric room at Addis’s Yekatit 12 public hospital

For us the situation somewhat improved when Doctor Karibian, an Ethiopian-Armenian paediatrician who trained in Europe, opened his own private clinic in Addis. At the same time as treating private patients, he is also investing a lot of time and resources in renovating the paediatric emergency room of the Yekatit 12 public hospital in Sidist kilo, one of the busiest and most important hospital in Addis. With his help and under his supervision, the existing ER building has been fully renovated to include seven examination rooms as well as a separate care room with specific equipment to treat critically ill children. In addition, a new triage area was built with the support of Elmi construction, which funded the added wing. Doctor Karibian’s project has also benefited from a number of other donors, however, more funds are needed to purchase the required equipment. In his view, paediatric patients respond very well to basic treatment such as oxygen, intravenous fluids and antibiotics, so with the proper facilities and training, lives can be spared.

The entrance to the Emergency room built in the 1960s

I went to visit the new facility and saw the brand new triage building and the refurbished rooms. At the time, a few patients were being treated. Through a glass window into a room, I saw one of the children lying down on a bed with a drip, with three worried adults around him, hoping for him to get better. The rooms are simple but neat and clean, which is already an achievement here. As Dr Karibian explained, performing simple tasks such as cleaning and washing a hospital room is not so straight forward here because hospital staff don’t believe it is their job and therefore do not do it. So it is not uncommon to see traces of old blood on the wall tiles or on the floor. The hardest task in his view was not to renovate the rooms but will be to ensure proper management and maintenance thereafter, and make sure that the doctors on call feel accountable and responsible for the facilities as much as for the patients. “It is a long-term project I got myself involved in here,” he commented, “I will have to provide regular training but above all, I will have to constantly oversee the management of the place.” He is already fully managing the funds dedicated to the new ER and he needs all the support he can get not only now but also in the future. Anybody wishing to have more information on his highly commendable project can consult his website www.aapediatrics.com where pictures as well as information on how to donate are available. Having seen the facilities and knowing the doctor, I really trust that it will continue to be a well run project.

The old hospital

Last week, my nine year old son broke his arm. In many parts of the World, it is not a big deal as the medical set up is there to provide emergency treatment so parents wouldn’t think twice about it. In Ethiopia, the situation is slightly different because of lack of general medical care. Routine things like a broken arm can potentially have serious consequences if not treated well. It is not infrequent that an arm has to be broken again because it was not set right the first time round (at least I heard that same story several times).

The Cure hospital in Addis

Luckily now, we have the Cure Hospital, a private paediatric hospital funded by Cure International, the Non-Government Organisation (NGO) specialised in orthopaedic treatment for children. The NGO was established as a philanthropic project to help under-priviledged children in the developing world by treating birth defects such as clubfoot or cleft lip and palate. In Addis, they also run a private wing treating routine injuries such as broken arm or leg, which contributes to financing the main hospital. Private patients contribute to about 10 to 15 percent of the hospital’s running costs and for now, they intend to keep it at that level to be able to continue to focus mainly on local patients with serious disabilities and in need of more complicated orthopaedic surgery.

The waiting room

The day I took my son there, we saw a number of children in the waiting room with serious disabilities, some of them, waiting to be examined, were in a plaster cast from feet to waist. It made me realise that my son’s broken wrist was only a minor injury. Still, he was treated by Dr Rick, one of the head surgeons in the clinic and a member of the Royal College of Surgeons. He recently moved from the UK with his young family to take the job in Addis. He personally put the cast on my son’s arm while explaining to his Ethiopian assistant how to put it for maximum effect. Part of his job is also to train national staff. Being very talkative, he told me about the cases he had to treat, especially children from rural areas who are completely ostracised from their community because of their very apparent physical deformities, such as clubfoot which prevents them from walking normally let alone running. The treatment is changing their life.

For more information, you can consult  www.cure.org/ethiopia/

I was very sad this morning to see Hotel Taitu burnt down after the damaging fire which partly destroyed it on Sunday. I am not the only one; many people in Addis, young and old, are mourning the loss of a great cultural institution in this city. Taitu, the oldest hotel in Addis, was a landmark in the old Piassa district, an area which until now has been preserved from the frantic wave of construction and destruction which has taken over the capital city of Ethiopia.

The main façade of Taitu hotel after the fire

The fire hit the main building of the hotel where the restaurant was located as well as the reception rooms upstairs which were often used for art exhibitions and displays. So the grand wooden staircase leading to it as well as the beautiful first and second floor rooms, both with original features, disappeared in the fire. It also completely destroyed Jazzamba, the famous jazz club of the Taitu hotel, where all the great names of Ethio-jazz performed. Both the jazz club and the hotel had a unique atmosphere charged with the history of the city and the country.

Jazzamba club entirely gone

No one has information on the origin of the fire, all we know is that it started in the kitchen on Sunday morning and nobody was injured. The fire brigade came speedily to extinguish it, however, because of the large quantity of old wood, the fire started again with more force to destroy most of the building before it could be put out, or so I heard. The bedrooms located in another adjacent building were not affected.

With Taitu hotel so badly damaged, Ethiopia is losing a strong heritage and maybe the only remaining one of its glorious past. “I am angry because it is our heritage and our responsibility to keep it,” said a young Ethiopian man who was there after the fire. Taitu was the first hotel ever to be built in Addis Ababa at the start of the 20th century just after the city (a small settlement then) had been chosen to be the new capital of a greater Ethiopia. It was Empress Taitu, the wife of the powerful emperor, Menelik II, who wanted a hotel for visitors to stay more comfortably. On her order, it was built in the very distinctive architectural style in fashion during Menelik times, using rare wood and circular balconies as part of the structure of the building. Menelik II, a very modern and forward looking emperor, was at the height of his power then, after having famously rebutted the Italians at the battle of Adwa in 1896 and hence preserved the independence of his country at a time of avid colonial conquests. Soon after, he turned his great plan of a modern Ethiopia into reality. His new capital, Addis Ababa was developed and linked to the World through the port of Djibouti by a brand new railway.

The grand staircase of hotel Taitu as it was

A campaign is already starting on social networks to #rebuildTaituasitwas, and many hope that it will be the case. However, because of the massive urban development programme currently ongoing, they fear the old Taitu may be simply replaced by yet another shopping mall.

To celebrate Genna, or the Ethiopian Orthodox Christmas on 7th January, we went to a new boutique hotel, the first one of its kind, which just opened in Adama (Nazret), only an hour from Addis with the new express way. La Residence, as it is named, was an unexpected surprise in a country where we have become accustomed to rather average facilities at inflated prices. With its beautiful rooms and unique atmosphere, this new hotel is for the first time changing the scene in Ethiopia and providing a level of comfort unseen before.

the lounge at La Residence

Adama is hardly known as a tourist spot today, even if it used to be the winter destination for wealthy residents of Addis who wanted to escape the cold and gloom of the rainy season from June to September without going too far. Adama, located about 1000 metres lower towards the East and being close to the hot thermal spring of Sodere, was the place of choice then. Today, it is better known for being a major road stop on the way to Dire Dawa or even Djibouti rather than a holiday destination. However, the appeal of the Residence is strong enough to make us want to rediscover this forgotten region of Ethiopia.

Adama is not the only place where a new modern hotel has come off the ground. Building hotels has become a thriving business in Ethiopia, strongly encouraged by the government who welcome investors (particularly foreign) in the sector. The country, which until very recently has been practically ignored by the global tourism industry, has pledged to become one of the top tourist destinations in Africa by 2020 from its current 17th position on the continent. After all, Ethiopia alone has more UNESCO World Heritage sites (9 in total) than any other country in Africa and can boast a millenary culture that has been preserved until now. To reach such an ambitious goal, massive investments are needed in the hotel infrastructure, which has been badly neglected for too long.

In Addis alone, some ten new hotels have opened in the last couple of years, while others are opening at a regular pace in regional cities such as Bahar Dar, Dire Dawa, Arba Minch, Kombolcha, Butajira, not to mention Lalibela, the most famous tourist site in Ethiopia. However, none of them has the personal touch of La Residence, where everything has been carefully chosen from the furniture, bed linen and kilim rugs to the bathroom tiles, giving each bedroom its own unique touch. The owner, Amakeletch Teferi, has spent the last three years travelling to Indonesia, India and the Middle East to personnally choose and collect pieces for her hotel, and it shows. For the first time in Ethiopia, I actually wanted to spend time in the room and even the bathroom, so cosy it was (we had the luxury of having a bath as well as a shower in our bedroom). No leaking shower, no second rate bedsheets, no acrylic blanket, everything was thought out for the guests’ best comfort, down to the individual kettle with a well-chosen selection of teas. The common parts are just as pleasant with a lounge area and an internal courtyard reminiscent of an Arabic mansion, as well as a large roof terrace which transported me to the Mediterranean. The mix of different styles works very well there. In addition, a swimming pool, a yoga room and a hammam are about to open, as well as conference facilities for larger groups, providing a new attractive space for professional workshops or yoga retreats.

one of the twin bedrooms

For more information: www.laresidence-hotel.com

I attended for the first time the annual African Mosaique fashion show organised on Thursday night at the Sheraton hotel and featuring Ethiopian designers as well as guest designers from other African countries, this year being a Nigerian fashion designer based in NY. The event, high on the Addis social agenda, was attended, we were told, by a number of Ministers, wealthy business people as well as a battery of local reporters and photographers covering the event. Everything was staged like a highly professional fashion show, with a proper catwalk, sophisticated light and sound effects and a couple of attractive models presenting it. Judging by the number of cameras taking shots in all directions, it was a very important event.

Paradise fashion collection

The highlight of the show though wasn’t the handful of new collections presented on the catwalk but the auction which took place right after, and during which two items shown earlier were sold for charity: a long dress and a coat. To everybody’s surprise, the dress, a very simple yet stylish long black and pink arabic-style dress by the Nigerian designer Lola Faturoti, went for over 3,000 US$, purchased, it was rumoured, by a wealthy Ethiopian businessman (I couldn’t see the person bidding, I was sitting at the back). The coat itself, by the well-established Ethiopian label Paradise Fashion, didn’t do too badly either at 2,000 US$. Proceeds went to the Ethiopian Children’s Fund, an Ethiopian NGO providing education to some 750 destitute children and funded by Anna Getaneh, the Ethiopian clothes designer who also launched the African Mosaique event 15 years ago. The clothes themselves were interesting enough but not groundbreaking in terms of style and fashion. Of all of them, I preferred the collection by Paradise fashion, but still I wasn’t in awe.

As part of the event, the audience was asked to vote online using a wi-fi address set up for the occasion (mine didn’t work) to select one of three designers from the Bahar Dar University’s Institute of Textile and fashion Technology. Again, the young designers were in their infancy in terms of style and fashion if considered on a global level. However, the fact that such Institute now exists in Ethiopia reflects the country’s current wave of change as well as its strong will to move away from a predominantly agricultural economy into new spheres of business. According to the Ethiopian Business Review, which recently published a study by Knight Frank Consulting, the number of millionaires in US$ living in Ethiopia grew to 2,007, representing a rise of 108 percent from six years ago, showing again that Ethiopia is a fast growing economy. Maybe they are the ones bidding at fashion auctions and giving a little back to charity.

Designers: www.lolafaturoti.com, www.mafimafi.com, www.paradisefashion.net, www.africanmosaique.com