Addis again
Our trip back from Harar was uneventful. We took our last days in Addis easily, hanging out at the Four Seasons and souvenir shopping in various shops scattered about town, including one in which Bill Clinton had shopped (it was by far the most expensive of them all). In the afternoon, we took a few hours to tour the Ethnological Museum. Located in Haile Sealssie's former palace (now Addis Ababa University), the museum was the best in the country. Arts and crafts from around Ethiopia were showcased in beautifully designed displays on two floors of one wing. In a corner of the museum, Haile Selassie's bedroom and bathroom had been preserved. The bathroom was awash in baby blue.
Ed left two days before I did, and I moved from the Hilton to a more modest hotel off of Bole road. The proprietor, an Ethiopian who had gone to university in Germany and then stayed for a number of years, had bought it off the previous owner. He was sick of Germany. He said he'd never return and bought the hotel because it was easy to make money in the tourist industry. He said he hoped one day to build a hospital, but he was starting out slowly.
The hotel was full of Chinese. They had come to Ethiopia on a contract to work on the telecommunications infrastructure. When I returned in the evenings, I could see through the open doors of their rooms, their faces illuminated by laptop screens.
I wandered around the area and then took a minibus to Meskel Square. Walking up Churchill Road, I ducked into one curio shop after another, but all the souvenirs were in a similiar vein and I bought nothing. For lunch, I went back to the Asni Gallery to learn that the vegetarian lunch was only being served on Saturdays. I chatted with Fikirte, the gallery's assistant, and walked once again through the atmospheric house.
That night, I was surprised at the number of people walking the streets of Bole Road. The town center had been deserted at night, but here younger Ethiopians hung out in cafes and shopped at the malls. I sipped fruit shakes and ate ice cream and cakes as I walked the streets alongside them.
When it was time to leave Ethiopia, the manager of the hotel asked if I would return. He said he hoped to see me, and that Ethiopia could use professionals like me. I told him that I had talked to a man in Harar about working with him and had offered my services to the Asni Gallery. He seemed satisfied and said he'd look forward to my return.
I arrived early at the airport and found myself with little to do. I sat in the lobby and updated my journal, thinking over the past few weeks. Already, bits of Ethiopia were fading from me as I tried to remember everything I had seen. I was on my way back to Cairo and tried to jot down all my recollections of Ethiopia before new experiences pushed them further into the recesses of my mind.
At the gate, I ran into a large group of Chinese. They were on their way to Sudan to work on the oil fields. They didn't like it there; they said the country was too poor, but that's where their work was. They had just finished a trip back home. Another Chinese woman was also on the flight. She was headed to Cairo for vacation. They had all come from Beijing on an Ethiopian Airways flight and were joining mine for the short hop to Khartoum.
On board the plane, the Chinese woman fell immediately to sleep. We flew towards the border, following the Blue Nile. As we approached Khartoum, I looked for the river, imagining its path as it wound through the desert and then up into the highlands. I pictured it running near Gondar, past the ancient castles and up towards its mouth at Lake Tana. En route, I could feel the heavy mist of the Blue Nile Falls, and for a moment the thought cooled me in the desert as we waited for the plane to fill up with passengers. I remembered the small town of Bahir Dar, in some ways the true start of our journey, and our brief glimpse into Ethiopian traditions as we watched the the Meskel pyre burn. And I remembered sitting in a boat at the mouth of the river, amazed that the current running past me would run out of Ethiopa, joining the White Nile near where I now sat to form the Nile, and then keep running until it reached Cairo, where I was now again headed.
The plane began to fill with passengers, and the stewardess made her announcements. I had already left Ethiopia but I had not yet arrived at my destination. And in those moments of suspension, I felt all of Ethiopia wash over me and my head was full of the memory of Abyssinia.
