Adventures in Addis!!!!

Sunday was Easter so there were very few things that were open. We went to a church and then to the Addis International Film Festival. We saw the most amazing documentary about Youssou Ndour… a Senegalese singer and percussionist. His story was inspirational. His strong Muslim upbringing and family values inspires his music. It you get a chance, look him up or listen to his music.

The next day we went to museums and out for a traditional Ethiopian meal. Just figuring out the bus system (or I guess in our case, the lack of being able to figure it out) is tiring. The drivers shout out their destinations and you have to listen carefully. People then fight to get on the buses. The first museum we went to was on the Addis Ababa University. It talked about traditional Ethiopian people throughout the lifecycle. It started with childhood and ended with death. I learned lots of interesting things but there was a lot of reading to learn everything. After the museum, Lily and I sat in an outside café and read the Lonely Planet’s history of Ethiopia. Ethiopia has a rich history and is the only African country that wasn’t colonized, a fact that all Ethiopian are proud about. We also learned that the Rastafarian religion originated in Ethiopia from one of the Emperors. We also went to the National Ethiopian Museum. It was nothing special but it houses Lucy who is estimated to be 3.5million years only and one of human’s distant relatives. At night we went to Habasha, an Ethiopian restaurant that has traditional music and dancing. It was a lot of fun and all the honey wine made it even better!

On Tuesday, we went to Entoto Mountain. We had another adventure trying to find the right transportation to reach it. In one day, we were on a total of 7 different buses. On the bus that finally brought was to the mountain, we met a man that said he would show us the area. As we walked up to the top of the mountain we learned that he’s a painter and has an art gallery at the top of the mountain. The gallery was housed in what looked like a large box but when we went inside, we saw beautiful paintings…I was very impressed. He took us to see the view of Addis from the mountain. On the way back to Addis we stopped in Shiro Meda. This is where people come for traditional Ethiopian clothing. I was excited to find a place where women who were firewood carriers make scarves. A woman who carries firewood usually walks around 12-15miles per day and only makes about $12 per month. The project is trying to help these women so I was glad to buy some scarves. Lily was in search of a dress and we went into about 100 stores to find the perfect one. As she went into some of the last stores, I sat down and was offered a beer from some of the store owners and then Lily found her dress! We were both happy!

For our last day, we traveled east of Addis to Debra Zeyit. It’s filled with beautiful lakes. Our waitress from the night before recommended that we go to this resort there. We arrived at the resort in a horse cart. The resort was beautiful, situated on one of the lakes. We walked in and they asked us if we had a membership. I felt that this place was way too fancy for my usually travel. They had a very reasonable day membership that included lunch, kayaking, and swimming in the pool. It was a great last day of our trip. The food was amazing and we got to relax.