Second day in Addis Ababa
We booked our onward journey through the Baro Hotel. The manager told us that a 4x4 would pick us up from the hotel at 5am, and to be ready. We paid him 250 birr ($1 = 8 birr) each and spent the rest of the day exploring Addis, starting with the National Museum. The basement floors were under construction, and they had moved Lucy to the main floor, along with a number of other remains charting human development through discoveries in Ethiopia. It was amazing to look at fossils of human acestors millions of years old.
That afternoon we stopped in a coffee shop in the Piazza. An Ethiopian woman sitting beside Ed began speaking to him, and we learned she had grown up in Cuba. Her English was spotty and so they chatted briefly in Spanish. She motioned to me and said something to Ed. He told me she thought I looked Arabic, and was wondering where I was from. Ed told her I was Chinese, and that we were both from New York. She asked if we were working in the country. Around us people came and went, shaking themselves as they entered. A light rain had begun to fall outside.
Once the skies cleared, we set off for the Holy Trinity Church, the biggest Orthodox church in the country. The main door was locked, but as we walked to the side, doors began opening for services. We walked in ahead of a group of worshippers, and I found myself following a tour group up towards the sanctuaries. As the services began, we were behind the priest, admiring the murals painted along the inner dome. A famous one depicted the Emperor Haile Selassie making his speech to the League of Nations.
As we walked back down the avenue leading from the church to Entoto Road, Ed turned around to take a picture. A man yelled at us. We walked away, but he gave chase and stopped us. He spoke to us in Amharic. A couple stopped to translate. The man said we had to go back to his office. We asked why. He told us we had taken a photo of a sensitive area. We told him the church. He said we had to go back to his office. The couple suggested we do as he said, and after a few minutes we relented.
There, a group of uniformed Ethiopians crowded around us. They asked to see Ed's camera. A government building was situated along the access road, and they were concerned he had photographed it. They paged through the photos on Ed's digital camera. One photo after another showed the church. We smiled and, satisfied we had taken only tourist shots, they let us leave. Once we were safely away, I told Ed I was glad he had the digital camera. I would have hated to have had to hand the guards my film.
That night, we ate at a "traditional" Ethiopian restaurant. The building was built in the form of a circular tukul, complete with thatched roof. Grass was spread on the floor. A taxi brought us from the hotel, and the driver offered to wait while we ate. We wondered at how much we were being charged if it was worth his while to wait, then realized how empty the streets had become.
Inside, a man played keyboards in support of a rotating stable of singers. A small group of Ethiopians sat along the wall. Shortly after we sat down, three foreigners entered. Our three groups made up the crowd. The food was good; the music was loud. Polite applause followed each act. We sampled the local beer and listened to the music. As we were about to leave, dancers appeared. We watched one couple and then left. We were to rise at four the next morning.
