Impressions of Ethiopia

It isn’t easy to write about Ethiopia…and it isn’t easy to write about “first impressions” two weeks after coming back from a seven-week trip through the country…

Ethiopia is intense. It’s a fascinating country. It has a very old and rich history, and is home to a variety of people and languages. But the cultural shock is immense. We found that it is not an easy place to visit as an independent traveller.

We had heard the best and the worst about Ethiopia before our arrival. Most overlanders we had met hadn’t had much good to say about their journey; the roads were supposedly in a bad state and most felt unwelcome and hassled most of the time.

However, Ethiopia was one of our main goals for this trip. And our spirits were raised after reading the introduction to an old edition of The Bradt guide to Ethiopia by Philip Briggs.
Yes, there was hassling, yes there was shouting and screaming as you passed by or arrived in a village, and yes it sounded aggressive; but most of the time it was a matter of misunderstanding… According to Mr. Briggs, one had to keep an open mind, a sense of humour, and remember that there are good and bad people in Ethiopia, just like there are good and bad people everywhere in the world, and that the hassling or aggression we might encounter would be from a few individuals, and not a general characteristic of Ethiopians.

So, we entered Ethiopia, prepared to experience everything that would come our way with as open a mind as possible. We loved our first three weeks there. We loved the food: the tef pancake called “Injera” which is eaten with a variety of sauces and vegetables. We loved the people: those “Iou, iou” screams were a sign of the children’s excitement at seeing “Faranjis” – the equivalent of “Mzungus” (White men) in town. We even loved chatting and joking around with the three words of Amharic we had learnt whenever we were asked to “Give” something! We loved the tarred road, and the beautiful evening light which accompanied us from Moyale to Yabello on our first day in the country. We loved staying at the Bale Mountains National Park’s headquarters in Dinsho, as well as our 6 day trek there, with a wonderful guide and horse assistants. And we loved our first stay in Addis Abeba, its friendly people, coffee shops, fresh juices and pizzas.

Somehow, however the remaining four weeks wore us down completely. By the time we crossed the Kenyan border again around mid-April, we sighed with relief.
What got at us?
It wasn’t the lack of variety of the food on offer, although we didn’t enjoy Injera as much anymore. There was always the good old pasta and tomato sauce available...
It wasn’t the bad roads either. We are always up for an adventure. We are in no hurry and always drive slowly and carefully, and Scarlet did amazingly well.
It could have started with the kids throwing stones at our car. But kids are kids. Throwing stones at cars is a fun change from throwing stones at goats or cows. It’s difficult to blame them.
It could have been partly due to“cultural misunderstanding”. It’s not easy to control one’s instinctive reaction to what is perceived as aggression. The “Iou, iou” sounded like “You, you”, and the “Faranjis” shouted at us at every corner started to sound less and less like excitement, and more and more like unwelcoming screams…
It probably also was the frustration at not being able to have any “normal” relationship with anyone. It is exhausting to feel like people constantly want something out of you and at constantly being ripped off. Admittedly - and fortunately - there were many exceptions as well.
We began to feel a sadness that grew in us after seeing so many, many, many, people – not just individuals - holding their hands out or running after the car shouting “Give, give!” as we passed by.
And certainly the sadness grew each time we were taken for a ride by yet another person posing as someone who wanted to help.
Maybe it is just that we got tired of being on the road and lost our sense of humour. Who knows?! The best is always for you to go and see for yourself.

Now for some practical info:

Ethiopian time = Swahili time. That is: one o’clock in the morning is 7am, 6o’clock is 12am, one o’clock in the evening is 7pm, etc…

Ethiopians also use the Julian calendar, which is 7 years behind our calendar, with New Year on September 11. But that didn’t really affect us.

It really pays to learn a few words of Amharic. We would recommend that you carry a small guidebook with you. The most common words we have heard are:

“Ishee” is the equivalent of the Swahili “Sawa”. That is “OK”.

“Faranji” means “Foreigner”. It is applied to any white person. More or less the equivalent of the Swahili “Mzungu” although we couldn’t really figure out whether it was a respectful or derogatory term as it was often shouted at us with what sounded to us like an aggressive tone…

“Habbishat” means “Ethiopians”. We took to shouting it back at people when we started getting tired of the “Faranji Hysteria” (as Philip Briggs calls it in The Bradt guide to Ethiopia).

1 = and
2 = hulet
3 = sost
4 = arat
5 = amist
6 = sidist
7 = sabat
8 = simint
9 = zeten
10 = asir
11 = asir and
20 = haya
100 = meto
200 = hulet meto
1000 = shee

Exchange rate (in Feb/March 2009): Bir 10 = ZAR 10 = USD 1 (more or less)

Examples of costs (in Feb/March 2009):

1 coca-cola = Bir 4 to 5
1 injera with meat = Bir 13 to 20
Camping = Bir 20 to 25 per person
Hotel double room with shower = Bir 60 to 100
Diesel/Petrol = 65/75 Bir/l

We were warned repeatedly about the availability of petrol (benzeen) in Ethiopia – our car has a petrol engine. We were pleased to discover that it is available mostly everywhere, although the prices vary dramatically, particularly where it comes out of a barrel in someone’s backyard. The petrol stations do run out on occasion and so it is worth filling up whenever you find an official station with stock. We realised a good way of determining whether there was any petrol available in a town is to look out for motor bikes or tuk-tuks.

Driving in Ethiopia is an experience. Everywhere, the roads are shared with people and livestock, many of who are not familiar with road traffic and do something unexpected at the last instant. Our approach was to take it very slowly … It seems to have paid off.