A week in Addis

Well, it's almost exactly one week since I got back to Bingham, so it's probably time I sent you all an email letting you know I arrived safely. Here's a quick summary of highlites for each day since I left.

Monday, August 30, 2004
Got all my stuff packed. The suitcase weighed about 27kg, which is 7kg over the official limit, but I had that much last time and they didn't even blink, so I figured I'd be ok. It turned out I was correct about the luggage issue. Unfortunately, since I didn't have a valid entry visa in to Ethiopia, the check-in person didn't want to give me a boarding pass for about a minute. She finally let me on since a) I had a return ticked and b) you can actually buy visas at customs anyway. So, I said my farewells, got on the plane and headed off for Bangkok with Thai Airways.

Tuesday, August 31, 2004
After a 9 hour flight with a couple of boring movies, and unconversational neighbour, and bits and pieces of sleep on the way, we touched down in Thailand at around 5AM. My original booking had me scheduled to leave at around 11:45PM that evening, so it was going to be a long day. On the plane, however, I discovered that my neighbour was also going to Frankfurt with Thai airlines, however her flight was departing at about 12:30PM - almost 12 hours earlier. I still wouldn't be able to get to Addis any earlier, but I would arrive in Frankfurt at around 7PM, before departing the next afternoon at around 1PM. I don't know about you, but I find it much easier to sleep in a bed than an aeroplane seat, so I attempted to get my ticket transferred to the earlier flight. Upon finding the transfer desk at around 5AM, I was informed that it only opened at 5:30AM. I have no idea what you would do if your plane was supposed to leave at 5:25AM, but anyway... So I hung around for a while and was eventually told to go to the transfer desk at the other end of the airport to get put on standby. 700m later, I found it, was put on standby and told to come back at about 12PM.

The downside of this was that I wouldn't know whether or not I'd be able to leave earlier until half-way through the day, which would essentially render the possibility of actually getting outside the airport null-in-void. Not being the world's most energetic tourist, this wasn't a big disappointment - it would have just left me with a lot of time to kill in a really boring airport.

In the meantime, I filled in time by attempting to write some lesson plans (not finishing any), perusing the local duty-free stores (not buying anything) and getting passport photos taken for my Ethiopian visa (which I didn't need anyway). Time well spent, in my opinion.

I didn't quite manage to fill in enough time, so I checked in about 20 minutes early, and was summarily told to come back in 20 minutes. Dutifully, I looked at watches for a while in a nearby duty-free store. (My current watch has lost it's backlight, so I was quite tempted to pick up a new one. Everything else works though, so my frugal missionary mind overruled.) Upon checking in at the designated time, I was asked to come back again in another 10 minutes. After resisting temptation for another period (I am well trained!) I was finally given my boarding pass! 30 minutes later, I was in the air again for the 11 hour journey to Germany.

This time I stayed awake for most of the journey. The movies were equally boring (I can't even remember what they were - although I think Shrek 2 was the last one on the trip, which was fun, although I had seen it before). Since I was supposed to be teaching the morning after arriving in Addis, I figured it would be a good idea to get a good night's rest, so I went through about 3 information desks and customs to find the hotel reservation desk at Frankfurt International. At this point I was having a little trouble pushing my baggage trolley in a straight line, but I eventually found the desk, booked a reasonably priced (by European standards, anyway) room for the night and headed to the hotel shuttle bus pick up point. By 10PM, local time, I was showered, toothbrushed and in bed asleep.

Wednesday, September 1, 2004
Being completely out of synch, time-wise, I woke up at around 3AM. After tossing and turning for about half-an-hour, I turned on the TV and flicked to one of two channels that were in English - CNN (the other option was BBC World). They happened to be showing the Republican Convention, and Arnold Schwartznegger was about to begin his speech. So, I watched/listened his speech encouraging people to vote for the Republicans even if you don't agree with all their policies, especially if you were an immigrant (like Arnie himself, of course). Then George W.'s daughters came on and offended pretty much everyone (apparently it was an attempt at humour) while introducing their dad, who then introduced his wife, who then gave a speech which put me back to sleep.

Later, I woke up again at a more reasonable hour, had some breakfast (included in the price, thankfully), and called Bingham Academy to see if they could fax me a copy of the work permit at the hotel. That 2 minute/€12.50 phone call is ranking up there with the 5 minute/$55 doctors consultation I had recently as the most expensive couple of minutes I've had in my life, but I did get the work permit. Mental note: never use hotel phones again...

After a 45-minute security/passport check, I still had a few minutes to kill, so I visited the local McDonald's and consumed what will probably be my last milkshake for the next 10 months. It was ok. Nothing to write home about. Then it was off to the boarding gate, where I found another Addis family I knew - the kids are students at Bingham. Eventually we all boarded, and even through we were originally seated a fair way apart, the plane was empty enough that I could move down near by. This time the airline was Lufthansa, and they actually had individual TV screens for each passenger. Unfortunately, the only movies available were a dodgy romantic comedy with Pierce Brosnan and a red-headed actress who's name escapes me, or 'On the Waterfront' with Marlon Brando. It was a 7 hour flight, so I figured I'd have time to catch them both if so inclined, so I went with 'Waterfront' first time around. It is a classic, even though I'd seen it before, and was a good way to kill the first 1/4 of the trip. After that, the system turned off. I assumed it would come back on fairly soon, or at the latest about 3 hours before we were due to land. It did eventually come back on - 2 hours before our scheduled landing. Ok, I thought, I guess you know what you're doing. We've had 3 hours with nothing to do, but I'm sure there's enough time to show the whole movie before we have to land. Nope. Half-way through the dodgy romantic comedy, it cut out. Not that the movie was that enjoyable, but gee, that's annoying. Note to Lufthansa: you are all idiots.

So, finally we landed in Addis. Two queues later, I finally got to the visa window. Upon examining my passport, the gentleman on the other side informed me that my visa was expired. Thanking him politely, I answered that that was in fact why I was standing in the queue for a new visa. After some consultation, negotiation, conversation, and work permit fax waving, I was informed that he would keep my passport and I would be given a little pink piece of cardboard to take to immigration the next day to reclaim it again. I wasn't very keen on the idea of relinquishing my passport, but having no other options, that's what happened. I got through customs with no problems and was greeted by Brad Adams (a fellow Australian teacher from last year) and Brian Hall (my new house mate - pictured right). By 11PM, I was back in familiar territory - Bingham Academy.

Since I was supposed to be teaching the next day, I figured I should find out what I was scheduled for. At Bingham, we have 8 forty minute periods each day. I have 7 periods on Thursday. In a row. Including 3 subjects I didn't know I would be teaching. At that point, I was too tired to really care, so I hit the sack and tried to get a decent night's sleep.

Thursday, September 2, 2004
After initially waking up at about 3AM again, I managed to make it to all of my classes. Not only that, the lessons actually resembled something with educational value (well, except 8 and 9 PE). Enough for the second day of school, anyway. I also met most of the new staff and students. Fairly productive I think, considering.

Friday, September 3, 2004
I met a couple of other guys around my age who are in Addis for a bit. A Kiwi named Grant (pronounced 'Grant' as in 'Aunt', not 'Grant' as in 'Ant') who is just here for a few weeks, and a Canadian named Dan (as in 'Man', in case you were wondering) who is around for about 9 months. We also watched a couple of episodes of the Simpsons.

Saturday, September 4, 2004
Brian and I hit the town in search of groceries, post offices and bed lamps. We were successful on all three counts, although we nearly missed out on item 3 due to a) not knowing exactly where we were and b) not knowing exactly where the store(s) we were looking for were. We eventually figured both issues out and made our way home. We would have tried to get a couple of other things too, but the traffic was horrendous. Apparently it is due to the Ethiopian New Year which is happening ths Saturday. Everyone comes to town to get new clothes. That's what I've been told.

Sunday, September 5, 2004
We arrived at the International Evangelical Church (aka IEC) about 20 minutes late due to Brad discovering a grieve (apparently a water-bird) on his way to pick up the car. Several photographs later (sorry, they haven't been developed yet) the bird was released back over the wall into the nearby river. The quality of the water in said river doesn't give me high hopes for the longevity of the bird, but you never know. Sunday was also the day that I found out that Binyam, our local Computer Lab assistant would be departing the country on Wednesday. As in, in three days. To marry a girl in America who he has spent a total of one week in the physical presence of. They have been talking continuously since then (email, instant messenger, phone, etc), but it's still a pretty big leap if you ask me, for both parties. Here's hoping it goes well.

Monday, September 6, 2004
Monday is actually my lightest teaching day. In fact, I am only teaching one class - 8th grade PE, last period of the day. As such, I figured it would be a good idea to get Binyam to show me where he usually gets all the equipment we need, and where to get things repaired. So, after morning tea, we headed off into down town Addis. After about 7 different stores and a hamburger at the 'Family Restaurant', I came away with a colour printer cartridge and enough information to get us by for a while. 6 hours later I was wishing I hadn't had the hamburger. 8 hours later I didn't have the hamburger any more.

Tuesday, September 7, 2004
Tuesdays are my second busiest day. Of course. At least it wasn't Thursday. I didn't make it to morning prayers, but I did make it to the rest of my classes. I'm sure the prayers said in my absence helped with the rest of the day. By 8PM I was in bed and didn't wake up until about 7AM the next day.

Wednesday, September 8, 2004
Almost up-to-date! I woke up feeling pretty much back to normal. After Binyam failed to show up at his farewell morning tea (I did get to say goodbye later), I fudged my way through my classes (I didn't get a lot of time to plan in the last couple of days), ran around the compound a couple of times trying to get the generator on during several black outs, and then headed off to the Baldwin's place for dinner. The Baldwins are a British family with kids at the school, and are also Brian's mentors, so they basically have an obligation to have him over for dinner every now and then. As official house mate, I seem to have been extended invitation rights, so who am I to turn down a home-cooked meal? After an entertaining evening, Dave Baldwin offered us a ride home, as long as we didn't mind push-starting his car, since the battery wires had become disconnected. After pushing it downhill for about 100 metres, we came to the conclusion that there were issues we couldn't resolve with gravity and manpower, and then had the problem of storing it for the night. After attempting to push the car back uphill to a friendly expat's place, we were brought to a halt by an unfriendly speed bump. Around the next corner downhill we finally found a compound owned by a local who seemed reliable enough who was also friendly enough to let us park the car there for the night.

Of course, Brian and I still had to get home. But we had arrived by taxi, so we figured we'd go home by taxi. Which we did, eventually. We had to walk a fair way further to find one than we'd hoped, and all the way Dave Baldwin was being hassled by a couple of locals who had provided minimal assistance and were now demanding financial recompense. Not actually having any money on me at all, I left it to Dave, who also speaks Amharic, and they eventually gave up. Not before becoming a little verbally aggravated. But we made it in the end. We suggested strongly that Dave come back to Bingham with us and we'd give him a lift home, but he wouldn't hear of it, so Brian and I eventually headed back to Bingham by ourselves. It took us over an hour for what would usually be a 15 minute trip.

Anyway, it is now Thursday the 9th, but since nothing interesting has happened while writing this epistle, I'll sign off here and head to bed, ready for my busiest day of the week. Until next time...