Maria

So, this weekend Aske and I were in Addis, the capital city, and enjoyed all the great pleasures of life that we once took for granted. We had rented a room in a hotel with a sofa, a table, a big bed, satellite television and a real western bathroom with a normal toilette and, joy-oh-joy, warm water. All this luxury for only 250 Birr (150 kr) for the two of us per night.

The main excuse for our visit was that international parcels can only be sent from the main post office in Addis and we really wanted to send Christmas presents home. In addition we wanted to do some Christmas shopping for ourselves. We found almonds for the shocking price of 148 birr for 500 gr – that is 148 loafs of bread or a fifth of a middle-class monthly income, however, what is Christmas without Ris à la Mande and what is Ris à la Mande without almonds? So, we bought it and now have 500 gr of almonds for Christmas. Yay. Apart from that, Addis offered many interesting things. We also bought cream (from a Danish company) that can be stored at room temperature until 2010 and only needs to be cooled for 24 hours before being “whipped to create the desired foam”. Interesting, although I have my doubts about the taste, but, what is Christmas without Ris à la mande and what is Ris à la mande without whipped cream? Furthermore, we found canned hot dog sausages (also from a Danish company), real cheese(even feta) and (bliss oh bliss) sun dried tomatoes(they cost 60 birr,but were so worth it, the salads we have made this week have been divine).

While being in Addis we also found the opportunity to meet Tsegue who took us to a show at the school where he is currently the principal - Sandford International. It was the first international school in Addis and is very prestigious. School fees are a staggering 60,000 birr (40,000 kr) per year, so the students who attend are upper class Ethiopians or children of diplomats. It was by far the most well equipped school we have seen with a proper sound system, musical instruments and a real stage with curtains. Later his wife, Magdesh, took us to visit Raselas, the school that Tsegue’s wages from Sandford and RCNUWC’s own DROP help to fund. The contrast was stark, but by Ethiopian standards, Raselas seemed a very good school. There were only around 15 students in each class and, what in my opinion was the best part, they did not believe in hitting the students. The library was also very well equipped by Ethiopian standards as it had received book donations from an American association and had also managed to buy some subsidized books. Magdesh told us that she would be e-mailing Ellen from Sweden (who as most of you know will probably start her volunteering period there in January) later that day to get more accurate information as to when she would be coming, so Aske and I keep our fingers crossed and hope that it will be around the 13th of January so that we can meet up with her in Addis on our way back to Europe.

We also met up with Daniel, one of the founders of Eldan, and our own Kidist, the wife of the other founder, Elias, who passed away last year. Together we ate the best fish I have ever tasted (perhaps because I haven’t tasted real fish for several months), fresh from a lake nearby Addis.

Altogether we were only in Addis for half of Thursday, Friday and Saturday, so we had tight schedule with seeing schools, seeing people, shopping, sending parcels (took ages), taking warm showers (took even longer), watching news from the outside world on our satellite television and eating pizzas and Indian food. Before we knew it, the weekend had passed and we had a 7 hour long bus journey ahead of us back to Jimma. It is strange how my perspective of Addis has changed after having lived in Jimma for three months. I remember being scared of all of the attention and thinking that it was all so foreign and different. We were there for almost a week back in September and for the whole time I was only waiting to get to Jimma and start my life here in Ethiopia. This time around, the people of Addis seemed very calm and blasé about our presence there. Every second person did not greet us with a “you, you!”, the children did not become over-excited to see us; we still received some attention, but only a fraction of what we receive here in Jimma. Furthermore, they had quality western food. For three months I had not tasted a real pizza (only a pie that pretended to be one) with real cheese (cheese, along with most other things that require refrigerators, does not exist in Jimma), and oh the joy I felt when I could get a quality Italian style pizza with pork (a no-no in Muslim and Orthodox Jimma) on top of it. When I last was in Addis, I did not know that I was supposed to stock up on warm showers or world news. I did not know that I was supposed to buy spices, cheese, sun dried tomatoes, butter and strange cream that can last for 2 years. But this time, this time I did.

Despite the luxury of the capital, it felt good to be back in Jimma. As Aske and I walked the last bit to our home on the red gravel roads of Jimma, it actually felt strangely like having come home. It is of course not as much a “home” as the real one back in Europe, but compared to Addis, it was. I realized that, although I enjoyed Addis to the fullest, it was still in Jimma that I wanted to live. The roads are redder, we run into people we know and like almost every day and when we walk into a shop, the shop-keepers know who we are and we know who they are. It is nice to live in a city of a reasonable size. It may not have all the food that we are used to, but what it lacks in goods, it makes up for in charm.