Saturday, 12 April 2003
Yet again I am ripped out off my busy everyday life and moved to a new and exciting place on Earth. This time due south. The flight was surprisingly problem-free. The service displaying the direction and distance to Mecca together width the usual information about speed and altitude was new to me.
The staff on this Ethiopian Airline plane was quite extraordinaire. Especially one of the ladies was lovely, smiling, almost dancing and joking with the passengers. When she dropped a glass she caught it with self-irony and a big laughter and she wasn’t mangy with the liquor either, which Jesper experienced when ordering a Scotch whisky. What he got was at least double up keeping him in heaven.
The stop over in Frankfurt was longer than expected and after the plane was filled up totally with passengers we were an hour behind schedule. Nevertheless, the plane landed exactly on time in Addis Ababa, which improved our impression of Ethiopian Airlines as a professional company, even after two cancellations in short notice. The service and food onboard was top class and we were looking forward to travel Ethiopian in days to come.
The very same time we arrived to the Bole Airport in Addis Ababa we lost some of our prejudice for this country. The terminal was brand new, vast, and attractive and everything seemed to work very professional. Jørgen told us that this new terminal was needed as the old one often lacked electrical power, which could be annoying when landing airplanes.
Our excitement was tensed when standing in lane for customs. We kept an eye on the long lane for getting visas, as our visa was not valid before Tuesday. One of the flight cancellations have had a considerable impact on our planning as we had to departure three days in advance, as Ethiopian Airline decided to discontinue one of the bi-weekly flights due to low demand during the Iraq war.
Jørgen had advised me to get a letter from the travel agency explaining the reason why we arrived three days prior to our visa permission. Our lane was quickly shortened as one of the very good looking and very well dressed, young Ethiopians from the airport staff opened a new desk. And then another and suddenly I was facing a young customs officer. To my surprise he wasn’t dressed in uniform and armed, but sat in a very nice blue suit, white shirt and tie. I handed him the letter and explained the situation in the most polite way. He accepted with an “OK” and we shake hand. Welcome to Ethiopia.
When going to get our baggage we looked for Jørgen when passing the arrival hall. He shouldn’t be too difficult to find white as he is. And then he walked straight in to us carrying a nice welcome sign and a big smile. How could he be in the transit area with us? Apparently he bluffed three guards with his UN sign and a firm attitude to get here. That wouldn’t go in Europe. Only five minutes later we got our baggage and left the airport 15 minutes after arrival, the fastest pickup Jørgen and his UN colleagues had experienced.
We said hello to Sophie Mosko a friend of Jørgen that drove us to her lovely house on the outskirts of town. Sophie is half American half French and has lived most of her adult life abroad. Currently she works for “Save the Children – Sweden” as consultant informing among other things about the harmful causes of female circumcision. She welcomed us to Africa with an ironic reference to the rainy weather.
The drive was nice without much traffic, but the on the road we saw a lot of wild dogs. One of them hunted the car for a while, which was unconformity to us. Every time we passed another car Sophie slowed down, as people are not using the indicators, the brake light works rarely and often the cars have no lights on at all. And that’s despite the fact that the streets lights are missing and the locals’ night vision is limited. People don’t look in their mirrors when pulling out, so everybody uses the horn and drives with great tolerance. No wonder Ethiopians are elected as the worst car drivers in the world.