I packed my bags and travelled to Ethiopia.

The flight from Rome took me to Addis Abeba's Bole International Airport. This is a gateway to the rest of Ethiopia. The airport also serves many destinations in Africa, Middle East, Asia, Europe and North America. The country's national carrier Ethiopian Airlines has an extensive domestic network flying to 43 airfields and an additional 21 landing strips. There are many other airlines that also serve Ethiopia.

Prior to entry, visitors should be in possession of a valid health certificate for yellow fever. Vaccination against cholera is also required for any person who has visited or transited a cholera-infected area within six days prior to arrival in Ethiopia. I got these and felt safe...
I have one very strong advice: Do NOT get any tap water into your mouth. I did when I brushed my teeth and got stomach bacteria. I had to go to a doctor to get antibiotics to get rid of it. After a couple of days I was ok again. Boil the water before rinsing fruits or vegetables and buy bottles of water for drinking purposes.

The plane arrived 8AM. We flew in over Addis and first I saw a lot of little sheds with tin roofs. Later I saw the city itself. It looked like any other big city from above. Addis is located over 2000 m above sea level up in the mountains.

Ethiopia is in the GMT + 3 hours time zone. Ethiopia follows the Julian calendar, which consist of twelve months of 30 days each and a 13th month of 5 or 6 days. So the 11th of September 2007 they celebrated year 2000!! (mark the date) I also found out later that they skip the one hour changing of clocks to summertime - wintertime like we do,

The local currency is the Ethiopian Birr made up of 100 cents. Visitors may import an unlimited amount of foreign currency, providing declaration of such currency is made to customs on arrival. Foreign currency may be changed only at authorized banks and hotels. The currency declaration form must be retained as this will be required by customs on departure. Visitors, however, will be able to change back any excess Ethiopian Birr to foreign currency at the airport before departure.
100 US Dollar(s) = 909.09 Ethiopian Birr(s)
1 ETB = 0.11 USD
1 USD = 9.0909 ETB
This means that with your currency you are quite "rich" here in Ethiopia.

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Ethiopia

This presentation chronicles the heartbreak of
Ethiopia, which mirrors many of the crises besieging the third world countries of Africa.

Many of these regions are in today's headlines, and tensions recently
have become violent in virtually all of them.

Addis Abeba has hotels that cater to all budgets, from the luxurious Sheraton and Hilton hotels to the tourist class hotels. All tourist resorts offer a choice of modern hotels. You can also find an apartment hotel and rent a flat per week. Since I stayed with my daughter I do not know the quality of them.
Roaming through the streets of the city you will notice it's a diversity of people inhabiting it. Urban city folks, nomadic shepherds bringing in their life-stock, diplomats and labourers, taxi drivers and shoeshine boys, beggars and vendors: Addis Abeba is crowded. Some live in villa's in the Bole area, most of them in small houses with corrugated iron roofs , many are homeless and sleep on the streets. Of course you meet beggars on the streets. But some of them try to make a living by selling things like a package of handkerchiefs, a few pieces of sugar cane or corn grilled on the cob. The women are squatting down with a little burner and grill them for you. Some make a living buying recycle bottles, cans and other materials. They come walking up the street where you live and shout what they want to buy. In my daughters house hold there were water bottles and tin cans. He pays for them and sell them to somebody for a little more.
Like any other capital in the world, there is more than enough for anybody to do in Addis. There are numerous restaurants offering various exotic dishes.

Addis Abeba is as cosmopolitan as any of the world's great metropolises, and the architecture is as varied as the city itself. Tall office buildings, elegant villas, functional bungalows, flat, fashionable hotels, conference halls, and theatres - gleaming in their marble and anodized aluminium - vie for attention alongside traditional homes of wattle and daub, surrounded by cattle, sheep, goats, and chickens. There is no designated 'city centre' because, until very recently, there was no urban planning. Addis Ababa simply grew in a natural, organic way, and its present appearance reflects this unforced and unstructured evolution. Many of the city streets are muddy and still under construction. The ring road works well and you can access all parts from Addis from it. Taxis are available. These include the blue-and-white mini buses, pickups with a closed Canopy or Saloon Cars. They normally operate on a fixed rate and standard route. Personalized and specific trips should be negotiated with the driver in advance. In the Capital, there are Luxury Mercedes Benz taxis operated by National Tour Operation (NTO). They are stationed outside major hotels and at the airport. They also do not have meters. In addition, there are yellow taxis stationed at the airport for special hire which necessitates a prior negotiation with the driver for the price. When I was going shopping or to visit family friends we always phoned a taxi and got a set price. The taxi driver even picked us up again afterwards. Costs can vary but where we were going we paid 20-30 birr. I never used the blue-and-white mini buses but next time I will try them.

The wildlife consists mainly of East African plains animals, but there are now no giraffe or buffalo. Oryx, bat-eared fox, caracal, aardvark, ccolobus and green monkeys, Anubis and Hamadryas baboons, klipspringer, leopard, bushbuck, hippopotamus, Soemmerings gazelle, cheetah, lion, kudu and 450 species of bird all live within the park's 720 square kilometres. Some species exist only in Ethiopia!

The stone house is rather large. We had three bed rooms, a dining room and a living room with an open fire. There were balconies and awnings. Around the house was a high wall with glass peaces on the top (to stop burglars) and a gate big enough to bring in the car. On the sunny back yard was a garden with beautiful plants and flowers. There was also a long building for landry, servants and a special cooking room with a kerosene burner.
In the household is a maid. A young beautiful Ethiopian girl. She lived in a room on the back yard of our house. This is very common in Ethiopia, that you hire a maid, a nanny or a gardener. This girl, Zewdie, was very happy with the arrangement. Her sickly mother lived 3 hours travel out of Addis and Zewdie supported her with what she earned. Working hours for Zewdie were 8 - 10 every day except Sunday when she often went to see her mother. You have to realize that Zewdie was very content with her situation. She was very well treated and had a in comparison high salary plus her room and food. Zewdies job was washing and ironing, do the beds, clean the house, cook sometimes and if needed do some shopping for groceries. She could work in her own pace and take a break when needed. I know that sometimes she stayed in her room reading a book. One thing that I remember with a smile is that when she was sitting on the back yard with the wash-tub in her lap she was singing! There is a washing machine too and she uses this for bigger things like sheets and towels. Zewdie could understand and speak a little English. She called me Mormor wich is the Swedish word for Grama. *smile*
Once a week a boy came to clean the car and do some Garden work. He too was paid well according to Ethiopian custom. So he faithfully carried out the jobs he was assigned to do. He moved plants and was removing weeds in the back yard garden. There were roses, banana plants and beautiful Bougainvilleas. My daughter had Oregano in pots and also some Geranium. Since the climate is wonderful you can say that you have to be either stupid or lazy not to make things grow.
In the morning I sat down and was served this wonderful Ethiopian tea. It is rather strong black tea boiled with cinnamon and fresh cardamom. It is delicious! I drank lots while I watched the BBC news on TV. The family prepared for activities. My grand daughter Abigail goes to school dressed in a sweet uniform made of blue cotton with a white collor. My grand daughter liked to spend time with Zewdie too. They both liked the family dog and sometimes that dog had puppies %uF04A
Today there is shopping on the schedule. There are so many small shacks with all kind of food like bananas, meat, clothes and daily needs. But today we are going to the supermarket down town. If you want to have more western kinds of food this is the place. International brand marks can be found here. We buy cheese, cookies, vegetables and bread here. I want a memory of Ethiopia so I buy an afro comb and nail polish in a little golden jar. Then we go to the market! Here are fantastic markets with everything from live goats to curtains. Here are basket makers, coffee shops and sellers of spices too. Many are selling shoes and clothes. Some are cooking for you and there are tailors working while you wait. You need more than a day to go through here! We shopped for dresses to Abigail, some beautiful living room curtains and I bought a couple of African style dresses with a scarf added. They are beautiful in many colours. I paid 60 birr for a dress. As in other markets you have to go to other stands and bargain. Sometimes it pays off.
We went shopping by cab. Since the prices are so low, we took a little sight seeing tour around Addis. I saw the Parlament building, the Palace where Haile Selassie used to live and the Big Hotels like Sheraton and Hilton. But outside on the streets were the beggers and homeless. The unfairness was obvious. One young boy lived in a hole in the ground. I guess there were a cave that he disappeared into. One woman was lying on a blanket with a little child sitting next to her. She was showing a scar on her body and hoped that people would toss a coin to her. Of course you can give something if you like. There are so many %u2026 seems like you just don't have enough to give.

After the shopping tour we went home for dinner - ingera! Mmmmm

The "national dish" Ingera is cooked in the outside kitchen. Because of the strong smell when you cook them, my daughter wanted them to be made out side. Ingera looks like grayish pancakes but are not. They are made of a special flower that all the farmers grow here. Ingera is staple food number one. Before you cook the flat breads you have to make the dow and let it ferment for days. When the ingera are cooked you can see little bubbles from this in them. The ingeras are spead out on a big flat dish and you eat them with a lovely mix of things that are put on top. The sauce is called wat. This wat is a stew made of chicken, sheep or ox meat. The is usually full of onions, the spice berbere and is very strong - I just love it. You make different stews of beans or lentils too and serve it with ingera. Sometimes there are hard boiled eggs there too. Everyone around the table gets his own roll of ingera. When you eat, you take a piece of your roll with your right hand, pick up some stew or what ever you like and put it into your mouth. Use no fork or knife and try to eat without touching your lips with your fingers. To show special friendship you can feed eachother too hihi.

It is impossible to talk about Ethiopia without mention Haile Selassie. 1892 - 1975. He was the emperor here 1930 - 1974. He had the title Negus Negesti witch means King of the Kings. his full title in office was "His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie I, Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah, King of Kings of Ethiopia and Elect of God"
Rastafari
Before he became Emperor his name was Tafari and his father´s name was Ras. Today Haile Selassie is considered to be God incarnate among followers of the Rastafari movement, which emerged in Jamaica during the 1930s under the influence of Marcus Garvey's "Pan Africanism" movement, and as the Black Messiah who will lead the peoples of Africa and the African diaspora to freedom. He has been greatly popularized through reggae music and also the distinctive dreadlocks of the Rastafari, along with their worship of him using cannabis as a sacred herb which they believe brings them closer to him and has become the basis for claims of religious persecution against the Rastafari movement. Haile Selassie had no role in organizing or promoting the Rastafari movement, which for many Rastas is seen as proof of his divinity, in that he was no false prophet claiming to be God in order to enjoy the benefits of being a religious leader. He was a devout member of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, as demanded by his political role in Ethiopia, and it was to his role as Emperor of Ethiopia that he devoted his life. His publicly known views towards the Rastafarians varied from sympathy to polite interest reinforced by the fact that his political inclinations, including African emancipation, were those of the Rastafari movement.