Finally finding my feet in Addis

Back at my hostel after the horrible evening getting grabbed, kissed and followed, I sat in the courtyard and had a beer.

A man named Fajer from Dubai sat with me, he’d just come back from the South of Ethiopia and was still high from the experience. He had flown down South, hired an unofficial guide that he’d met in the market place and two motorcycles. On the first night they got stuck in the jungle and had to sleep rough, on the second night they stayed in a Hamer village and got to see a traditional ‘jumping of the bulls’ ceremony.

He effectively got me excited again to see more of the country, but it was a bitter sort of excitement, knowing that as a woman I would have a very different experience. After the night I had just had fighting off and running away from men, I knew that I could not jump on a motorbike with a hustler, sleep in a jungle and expect to come out of that intact.

At breakfast the next morning I saw Fajer again. This time he was re-telling his southern Ethiopian experience to a young American name Elie. There was another guy with them, a Canadian named Mike. The four of us decided to head to Merkato market together, the biggest market place in all of Africa.

As we were walking out the door of the hotel I bumped straight in to Tom, I don’t know why I was surprised to see him, I should have been expecting it, I probably should have even moved hotels. Thank god I had 3 men with me.

“I need to talk to you”.

“I am going out with my friends, I can’t talk to you now”

“I am in love with you!”

He reeked of alcohol.

“You don’t love me Tom!”

“I love you. I want to marry you!”

“I am leaving Addis tomorrow. I will call you when I get back and we can go for a coffee and talk then.”

It turned out Mike lived in Addis and hung out at the backpackers to meet people, he didn’t like Addis and was counting down the days until he could leave.

The four of us walked to his house and had a beer before getting a taxi to the markets. We haggled with sellers to get better prices on clothes and we attempted to speak Amharic to waiters who didn’t know a word of English. Spending the afternoon the day before with local guys was fun, but hanging out with travellers is so much easier. We understood each others stories and jokes, frustrations and excitement. And with three men at my side hardly anyone asked for money and no men tried to hit on me.

At the market place there was an adult man sitting on a piece of carpet wearing nothing but underpants. His whole body, arms, face and hairless head was covered in huge welts and blisters the size of golf balls. I tried really hard not to stare, but I had never even heard of something like that happening to anyone. I had seen plenty of other deformities in Addis, it felt like one out of every fifth person had an ailment of some kind. Lots of people were missing limbs, or had a hunched back, were crippled or walked bent over on all-fours.

They seemed to fit into a place which was full of beggars, often very young children. At night rows of people slept along the islands that separate roads. Dotted on every street corner were long narrow boxes looking like a coffin on stilts, they weren’t much bigger than a coffin either, just big enough for a single person to get shelter and privacy at night. They were made out of corrugated iron and some had pad-locks on the door at the foot of it. I wondered if the lock was to stop people moving things out or moving themselves in.

Like West Africa the sewers were open, rivers were full of rubbish, and people, both men and women, squatted or stood to relieve themself on the footpaths and off bridges.

But Addis also had a very Middle-Eastern feel. Turkey is as close to the Middle-East as I have ever been, and Addis felt a little bit like Turkey to me. Many women and men wore long white robes and turbans or head scarves. People walked fingering prayer beads and clutching the bulky crucifix at their breast. There were plenty of mosques, as well as grand old churches and spread blankets displaying cheap religious paraphernalia. The day was broken up by the Muslim Adhan (Call to Prayer). It seemed to me that Christians and Muslims lived side-by-side in relative harmony.

Every second person stopped to greet me. Not always to ask for money. Some would just practice their English, saying hello and asking how I am today. When I returned the greeting they made this terribly endearing gasping sound which meant ‘yes’.

Ethiopians seemed better educated than other parts of Africa. I still argue that it is because schools are taught in their own language. But the Ethiopians I met knew a lot about geography, politics and history.

What is really interesting though, is that Ethiopian dates and times are different from ours. It is something like 6 hours, 9 days and 7 years behind us, which made it 2005, not 2012. I worked out that I was 21 years old in Ethiopia, though I certainly did not look or feel 21. You can turn back the calendar but you cannot turn back time… or crows feet.

In the evening after the markets Fajer and I grabbed a bite to eat together. It turned out that he ran a tourism company called ‘Escape Dubai’. It started as a small internet project he set up for friends and now he has made a very comfortable living out of it. His group of coach-bound tourists from Dubai had spent 5 days with him in Addis Ababa and left the day before he headed down South alone. I envied his confidence and the fact that he has grown rich from travelling. I nearly choked on my chicken when he told me what people pay to join him… their 5 days cost more than my entire month in Ethiopia will.

We wanted to find a bar to drink at, but it was a Monday night and the streets seemed relatively quiet. We walked for a while until we heard the sound of music from behind a gate.

I dragged him over and we peered in to see a large courtyard with two white marquees, a live band and a hundred smartly dressed people dancing. I stood back not wanting to intrude – it isn’t like we could blend in with the crowd un-noticed. But Fajer was through the gate and in amongst the crowd before I could say anything to stop him. I hesitantly followed.

One man came straight toward us, greeted us and sat us down. He brought us over beers and told us that we should dance. I promised him that after a beer I would have a dance with him.

The table was on the edge of the dance floor and we sat transfixed on the traditional Ethiopian shoulder-bouncing dance. It was mostly men on the dance floor. Sometimes the men danced together in pairs, sometimes in one large circle, but rarely would a man and a woman dance together. For such a homophobic society the men were really affectionate, with their arms wrapped around each other and pairing off to have private dances. It was also not strange for men to sit side-by-side with their hands on each others knee.

The band consisted of two traditional string instruments and a hand drum. The main dance move was the shoulder shake to the beat. When the women did it they managed to make their breasts bounce up and down in time with the music. Sometimes heads would shake as well, sometimes they would crouch to their knees, but always shoulders shook and bopped. It was very entertaining, and if you have never seen Ethiopian dancing I suggest you look it up on YouTube.

After two beers I found the courage and a dance partner and hit the floor.

Awkwardly I joined the circle of women and tried to find the beat with my shoulders and chest. Two women nominated themselves as my teachers and showed me how to keep my shoulders back and my breasts bouncing. In every country I had visited I had found myself on a dance floor being shown the local moves. And in every country the style of dance was so distinctly unique. In Ghana I had been taught the actions to ‘wash away’, in Namibia I shaken my hips and bum and in Addis I awkwardly bounced my chest.

When the power went out on the party and in the whole street, we left and found a small candle-lit bar in a tin shed. It was close to empty except for three beautiful working girls, a large woman behind the bar who I guessed was the madam of the place, a hungry Indian man watching the girls every move and a touchy-feely man I assumed they knew well. Then there was Fajer trying not to ogle, but failing miserably, and me, feeling quite out of place.

I kept watching the old woman behind the bar. I assumed that she was once a sex worker as well. She was dancing on her own in the little space in the back corner. I could tell that in her heyday she was beautiful and probably very popular with her customers, but now she danced seductively for herself, as men’s eyes were transfixed on the younger girls around her.

I invited the girls to sit with us and to my grave disappointment they did not speak a word of English. But the touchy guy they knew well did and he answered some questions for me.

As I suspected they were poor girls from nearby villages, sent to the city to earn money to send home. The villagers nominated just a few of the most beautiful girls to be the money earners for the whole village. I wanted to know how much money they made but when I asked he just kept saying “depends if the girl likes him or not” I couldn’t even get an average amount.

I had loads more questions, but the mistress came out from behind the bar and got me up to dance.

When there was only 3 hours left before I had to catch my bus to Harar, I said my goodbyes. I was pretty drunk; Fajer and I had been drinking straight scotches for a while. Johnny Walker Black cost us about $1.50 a shot, at a bar at home they cost at least $10.

It had been a good day and a good night in Addis, and I wondered if I would end up liking Ethiopia after all.