Clean Your Plate - Adventures in Ethiopia

Most people my age remember their parents saying to them as children, "clean your plate - there are starving people in Ethiopia".  As we got older, the smart asses among us would offer to package up the leftovers and send it to them if they were that hungry.

So a week ago Friday, when I got a frantic e-mail asking me if I could go to Ethiopia for a 2-day meeting, that's all I could think about.  I've been to Addis Ababa twice before - it's nothing to write home about, but the starving children are kept well out of sight.  Maybe they're in the countryside? 

I'm not trying to make light of the plight in Africa - it's real.  When I was having lunch with the team there, I got into a discussion about chicken.  My new friend from Ethiopia explained that the chicken found there is all organic.  I laughed, because I thought he was trying to impress me.  But he followed it up by saying, "no really, it's organic because we can't afford fertilizer." 

The next day, he brought in an egg from an Ethiopian chicken to show me.  Much smaller than the eggs we're used to, the yolks are much darker than the "European chickens".  Showing me the egg caused quite a debate amongst the Ethiopians in the room, saying that the European chickens were not as tough as the Ethiopian chickens (probably because of the chemicals and hormones they're fed). 

My hotel, the only one available at the time, seemed okay on paper.  It had "high-speed internet", was newly built (2008), and was close to the airport.  I knew that I was in a high-class hotel when I arrived, because there was an ATM in the lobby.  ATM's are almost unheard of in Addis.  There was no check-in counter, but instead 2 desks, where I was asked to sit and fill out a form.  They didn't take American Express, and the card key machine wasn't working, but they showed me to my room.  I actually upgraded to a Queen room, so they led me to the 2nd floor, through the restaurant, to room 105.  The door was opened, and I saw a bed so close to the floor I knew if I rolled off of it I wouldn't wake up.  The locks on the door were broken, but then so was the door to the bathroom.


The overhead light was burned out, but there was a mini-bar.  The bathroom had a tiny sink, and a rather large bathtub, with no shower, hence no shower curtain.   
 
The room itself had a desk.  One (and I mean one) outlet with only one plug-in was available in the room, but there were three lamps and a bedside clock.  If I wanted to power up my laptop, the lamps had to be unplugged.  If I needed light, I had to unplug the clock and the laptop.  And since there were no plug-in's in the bathroom, you can imagine the sacrifice when I wanted to straighten my hair.

The next morning, I went outside to the front of the hotel to await my pickup.  As I looked around, I thought to myself, "this isn't so bad - it looks like any area near an airport in the world except for the skyscrapers with the bamboo scaffolds surrounding them and the strange crow-like black and white birds hanging around."

I thought that until the donkeys walked by, loaded down with bundles of fabric, followed 3 paces behind by two boys deep in conversation.  The donkeys certainly seemed to know where they were going, lucky for the boys.

Then a man walked by with huge open cartons of Ethiopian eggs (or were they European - I wasn't close enough to tell) on his shoulder.  Children in dirty school uniforms, really old cars spewing exhaust fumes, and a hooker.  I could tell she was a hooker because she didn't go anywhere.  She was dressed in what looked like a rayon or polyester dress from the 80's, quite modest actually, and she walked back and forth across the street from me. 

I spent my 50th birthday in this place.  The CIO of Ethiopian Airlines took me out to dinner to celebrate with a roasted lamb dinner.  It too must have been organic, because I could barely cut into it.  But it's the thought that counts.  The people I have met there have been generous, good, and kind, as airline employees around the world tend to be once you get past their tough exteriors.  A new adventure to tell, a new story to remember.