Travelling in Addis

Well, it's been over a month since the last email, so it's about time I got around to putting together another update. In fact, it is just over 9 months since I first set foot in Addis Ababa - I arrived here on August the 19th, 2003.

What you should see to the right is representative of a typical morning here at this time of year. We are now in spring/summer, and the rainy season hasn't hit yet, so we're getting some warmer days. By warmer, I mean approaching the mid-to-high 20 degrees Celsius mark. Too hot for some of the locals, but I'm enjoying it at the moment. I'm assured it will be raining this time next month.

There haven't been any major festivals, and I haven't been out of Addis this month, so you're getting one of the 'theme-based' newsletters I promised so long ago. This one is about getting around in Addis.

There are three basic methods you can choose from when getting from point A to B in Addis Ababa. You can either be a pedestrian, a passenger or a driver. If you get outside of Addis there are a couple of other options, but I'm not going into that in this edition.

Pedestrians

Pedestrianism is by far the most popular option for the locals. And when I say popular, I mean it is used by the most people. The other two options would generally be preferred, but that's not always practical or affordable. If you go out onto the streets, there are people everywhere. Well, up until about 11PM, anyway, at which time everyone disappears and Addis becomes a ghost town. In any case, roads here are open for use by anyone (or anything) at any time, whether there happens to be a fast-moving vehicle approaching or not. There are actually pedestrian crossings, it's just that everybody (pedestrians, animals and drivers alike) ignore them. In fact, if you were to stop to let someone cross at one, it would probably cause an accident.

The most difficult thing as a driver is that people have a habit of just walking out onto the road at any time, often without looking in your direction at all. There is a fairly new four-lane 'freeway' (for lack of a better term) called the Ring Road that has vehicles traveling down it at speeds in excess of 80km/h (as long as they're not stuck behind a wedding party caravan traveling at 10km/h), and even though it has pedestrian overpasses, people still cross at ground level, jumping over the cement barriers and dodging oncoming traffic. And even through the number of deaths due to road accidents was apparently around 1000 last year (from a population of more than 6 million), it's amazing that there aren't more.

Passengers

There are two main forms of public transport in Addis. The blue-and-white van you can see above is the first - the taxis. All taxis have the same colours. There are actually two types of taxis, contract and regular ones. Contract taxis usually seat about 4 passengers, and they work the same as western taxis - you pay the driver and they take you directly where you want to go. They also cost about 10 times what a regular taxi would (and are roughly 10 times faster too). Regular taxis are the vans, and they take about a dozen people between certain specific points around Addis, but there are no specific routs. The cost between points is a fixed fee (usually between 0.5 and 1 Ethiopian Birr - it's roughly 6ETB for every one Australian dollar), and you simply get on one taxi until it's not going your direction any more, and then get off and fine one that is. So, you can get from, say Bingham to IEC (the International Evangelical Church) for about 2 Birr (about AU$0.35) via a couple of regular taxis, but it takes around an hour (if traffic is good), or you can get a contract taxi for about 25 Birr (about AU$4) and it takes 15 minutes. The drivers of these taxis are crazy. They basically take no notice of other traffic that may be on the road and pull in or out of lanes (which are a shaky concept to begin with), squeeze between cars and stop without warning (sometimes even without brake lights).

The other form of public transport is the bus. These are vehicles with about the same official seating capacity as council busses in Australia, but with often have about double the actual number of people contained inside them. These have fixed routes, and their pickup points are one of the few places you will see Ethiopians forming an orderly queue. I haven't actually caught a bus yet, so I can't tell you how they work or how much they cost, but I have gotten stuck behind a few as they trundle along the roads at around 30-40km/h.

Driving

This is my preferred mode of transport, but it does have issues of its own. For starters, you have to deal with all the pedestrians and other crazy drivers on the road. For some reason, this doesn't stress me out as much as it does some people (usually my passengers, oddly enough), but you definitely have to keep you mind on the job. Secondly, everyone here drives on the wrong side of the road - even the people who aren't crazy! Thirdly, there are two basic types of Ethiopian driver: Taxi drivers and everyone else. Taxi drivers go at full speed and are prone to unpredictable behavior. Everyone else, on the other hand, are usually more predictable, but tend to drive at speeds around 40km/h. This can get a little frustrating at times, and has lead to overtaking maneuvers that I wouldn't even think about doing in Australia. Of course, everyone here expects that kind of behavior, so it generally works out ok. The only contact I've made with another vehicle was at low speed, and I was actually in my lane and a taxi driver decided to pull out a little early from a side street. So I'm not taking any credit for that one...

Another issue with getting around in Addis is that there are no street signs. Streets do have names (often more than one), but you'll never see it written down anywhere. This makes it tricky getting to a new location - directions are usually delivered with reference to nearby landmarks, 3rd lefts, 2nd rights, and gate colours.

Of course, before you can drive, you have to have an Ethiopian license. Getting this was a 3 day process for me, although it has taken longer in the past. First, you have to go to your embassy (actually, Australians have to go to the Canadian embassy - apparently our last ambassador decided to insult the then-Emperor Haile Selassi at a party and had to exit the country in fear of his life) and have them stamp a photocopy of your passport, saying you are indeed who your passport says you are. Then, you go to the Department of Transport (or whatever it's called her) and have them stamp a photocopy of your existing license saying it is actually a license. Then you have to to to the licensing department (also known as the Office of Many Windows) where you hand your details and stamped photocopies in at one window, follow it down through three or four other windows and hope that they'll let you have a Class 3 rating (it lets you drive vans with more than 8 seats - I only got Class 2 though, very disappointing). A guy named Estephanos who works at Bingham sorted out the first two steps for me, which was handy, but I had to show my face for the final one. It only took about two hours in the end, which is a huge improvement over the previous attempts, so I have been told. In the meantime, my Australian license has expired, so I can drive here, but not at home. Hmm. Maybe that's a good thing...

Flying

Of course, if you want to exit the country, the only practical way is by air. There is a train (yes, a single train) that runs to Djibouti, although it is apparently broken down at the moment. I've never actually seen it in real life. But if your destination is to an island-continent some 12,000km away, you really want to catch a plane. And if you have a return ticket that's only half used up, it should be pretty simple, right? Haha! You're new to this newsletter, aren't you?

Problem 1: When I initially booked my flight, there were no flights in the system for June/July 2004. So, the travel agent just booked the latest flights available at the time, which were South African Airlines from Addis to Johannesburg to Perth (I didn't have enough spare kms on my ticket to make it all the way back to Brissie) on April 1, 2004. I was assured I would just have to show up at my local branch of SAA closer to the date and they'd change the dates for me. Which probably would have worked fine, except that...

Problem 2: In October of 2003, SAA decided not to have a direct flight from Addis to Jo'burg any more. Doh! However, in January 2004, SAA and Ethiopian Airlines came to some sort of partnership agreement about co-sharing some of the flights, using Ethiopian Airlines aircraft. Great! That should work fine then. All I need to do is get in touch with the SAA office here and get my ticket switched over. Which was probably true, except that...

Problem 3: After calling SAA here in Addis a few days before my original departure date on April 1 (on a flight which no longer existed) and arranging a 'preliminary booking' to depart here at the end of June, I needed to go into the office to the the physical ticket exchanged. I was unable to get to the office for a week or two, but figured I had plenty of time. So, I show up at the building with 'South African Airlines' plastered above it to be informed that SAA had in fact closed their offices in Addis and I should try elsewhere. Hmm. I decided to try Ethiopian Airlines, since they were now official partners, and headed up to the Hilton Hotel, where EA's main office seems to be. Good idea, except that...

Problem 4: Ethiopian Airlines couldn't do a direct transfer of my flight, since they had only taken over a few of the flights, and mine wasn't one of them. They sent me over to Kenya Airways, since my ticket also included flights with that airline. Which is fine, except that...

Problem 5: Kenya Airways didn't have the authority to transfer the ticket either. So, they telexed KLM (yes, yet another airline) in Brisbane, requesting the authority to transfer my ticket to Kenya Airways to get me to Jo'burg, and then on with my journey to Perth. Fantastic, except that...

Problem 6: KLM never got back to them. Ah, customer service at its best. The Kenya Airlines person suggested I contact my travel agent and get them to sort it out from the Australian end. Probably my best option at this point, except that...

Problem 7: The guy who sold me the ticket has apparently left the company since I left the country. At least, his email address bounced. And a search of the agency's web site provided no direct communication options (other than telephone, and I really wanted to avoid that if possible - overseas phone charges are somewhat ridiculous here). However, Robin Hicks (David's mum) happened to have used the same company, and she had a contact who had apparently been very helpful in sorting out Robin's ticket issues. Great! Now I had a real, helpful, person to contact, except that...

Problem 8: She was in Townsville. However, she was able to find out who the current manager of the branch in Brisbane I had gotten my ticket through was, and forwarded my details to him (and his to me). Fantastic! Except that...

Problem 9: He never got back to me. A week or so later, I emailed the Townsville girl again, and I finally got an email from the guy in Brisbane. Apparently he had been away sick for the week. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt for the moment (I've been sick most of this week myself, although I did manage to reply to emails in a fairly timely fashion). Anyway, a couple of days later we had finally sorted out the details. Apparently, I just have to show up at the airport and produce my old ticket and I'll be coming back on a jet plane. I'm still a little skeptical about the check-in people here accepting my ticket dated 'April 1' on June 30, but hopefully there won't be any issues.

So, my final itinerary is:

June 30, 2004 (3AM!!!!) - Addis to Johannesburg (6HRS 45MINS)

June 30, 2004 (5:55PM) - Jo'burg to Perth (9HRS 30MINS)

July 1, 2004 (12:45PM) - Perth to Brisbane (4HRS 25MINS)

...with my arrival in Brisbane at about 7PM on July 1st, 2004. Taking into account the 7 hour time difference, I believe that comes to 29 hours of travel. Yuck. Anyway, I'm just glad it's finally sorted out.

Then What?

Well, it seems this has already become another tome to add to the chronicles of 'David In Addis'. I'll try to finish up quickly.

The options I have been considering for the next year or so are 1) return to Australia and complete the last 1.5 semesters of my Education degree or 2) come back to Bingham to teach for another year. After mulling it for a few months, some helpful conversations with friends and relatives here and in Oz, and lots of prayer, I have decided to return here for another year. While there is a practical need here, that wasn't really the deciding factor in the end. I figured God could fill my spot if necessary (which he has really - we now have two other Computer guys who should be here next year too - although neither is trained in education), but I felt that the relationships that I had been building with students, staff and other locals here were only just beginning to show fruit, and taking a year (or more) away from them now would be somewhat wasting the work of the past year. I fully intend to complete my studies, but it seemed that they could wait a year better than the work I have started here could. If I have less lessons to teach thanks to the extra staff, then I can put more time into activities outside of school, which would be great too. I have been involved in the youth group here, but because I've put so much energy into Bingham there hasn't been enough to spend on much else. Hopefully that will change next year.

So, I'll hopefully be back in Addis by the first week of September, giving me about 2 months back 'home' to recharge my batteries, catch up with friends and earn/raise enough money to last me the rest of year. Bingham has kindly offered to pay my airfare, but the rest I'll have to find myself. Speaking of which, if anyone knows of any jobs going between mid-July and mid-August for a computer programmer/teacher, I'd love to hear from you.

However, it has turned out to be pretty cheap to live here. When I was planning to come the first time, David Hicks suggested a budget of around $500-$600 per month. So far, I've been averaging about $300 per month. After factoring in insurance, medical bills, etc, I'm currently working with a target of around AU$5000 for the next year. Try surviving in Brisbane for that much! Of course, that's still a huge amount compared US$120 per year average earned by Ethiopians. But I'm sorry, I just can't eat Injera and Wut every day - my digestive system just can't take it yet.

Anyway, that's where things are at right now. I will need financial support to make it back, but I'm not concerned about it. If God wants me back here, it will happen. I would add though, that if you are seriously wanting to help the work at Bingham financially that you consider supporting David and Sylvia Hicks. Their expenses are higher, their support level lower, and their importance at Bingham way higher than mine. They will be back in Brisbane for about a month from mid July, so take the opportunity to catch up with them then.

Also, if you know of any science teachers with a spare 12 months on their hands, we could use them. Currently Sylvia is the only science teacher for grades 7-12, which is crazy. I can't see how she'll survive the school year, personally. So, spread the word. I'll be happy to provide any information you want about working conditions, food and water sanitisation and road survival for any potential candidates.

In the meantime, thanks for sticking with me so far this year, and I'll see you all in about a month! God bless!