Katie's in Africa: Falling behind in Ethiopia

It’s been awhile since my last update, which is largely due to poor communications infrastructure throughout rural areas (no, I’m not back in Australia).

Over the last fortnight we have travelled through southern Ethiopia and northern Kenya to Uganda.

From Lalibela we drove down to Bahir Dah, which lies on Lake Taner, and enjoyed a couple of nights relaxing in its near tropical climate. Along the way we’ve often had the option to upgrade from tents to rooms for a whopping US$5, however we’ve found it’s a bit of a gamble in Ethiopia - you will either have electricity or hot water, but rarely both at the same time.

Crossing the road is also a bit of gamble when you’re used to traffic being on the left, and vehicles rarely stop for people or animals.

After two days at Lake Taner, an early start and solid 12 hours of driving took us to our first major city in weeks, Addis Ababa. Unfortunately we hit a traffic jam just as we entered the city and sat stationary for another two-and-a-half hours as buses, trucks and cars slid on the mud around us.

As we only had one full day in Addis I didn’t get to see much of it, but did make it to the ethnological and national museums, which provided a great insight into the history and tribal culture of Ethiopia.

After two nights of city comforts we continued our journey south towards the Kenyan border. The further south we went the people became noticeably more demanding – children would still wave at us but their hand would then drop into the universal position for ‘give me something’. We were also greeted with ‘give me money’ or ‘give me pen’ – sometimes shortened again to simply ‘money money money’. While the people were obviously very poor we didn’t see many people who were visibly starving.

On the long drive days we stop for lunch by the side of the road, usually somewhere isolated or secluded, but within minutes we would have an audience of local children, followed by adults. Sometimes they just gather around and stare but sometimes they become more forthright and ask for food. The biggest audience we’ve attracted in 30 minutes was 89 people – and we’d thought we were in the middle of nowhere.

Our first major incident with the truck since the gas for our airbrakes had fallen off occurred the day we left Addis. Villages along the main highway (a basic two lane road) began to feature measures to slow traffic down including boom-gates across the highway. These were basically a log attached to a piece of rope, which had to be raised by two men who inevitably thought it was a good idea to sleep on the job. In most places the log was up already, begging the question of why it was there in the first place. As we approached one village the gate was down. The man in charge of rising the boom lifted it but didn’t quite get it high enough and the windscreen in the back of the truck was shattered. Luckily most people were sleeping so injuries were contained to a few small cuts, but glass went everywhere. It took about an hour to tidy up and rig a makeshift canvas cover (by this point it had started to rain) and we continued on to our camp at Arbaminch where we would now spend an extra day waiting for a new piece of glass to arrive from Addis.

There wasn’t a whole lot going on in Arba Minch, but it’s a beautiful area surrounded by four enormous lakes – three of which have hippos and crocs in them. Unfortunately we didn’t get to do any tours here as we weren’t sure when the glass would arrive, though some of our group stumbled upon a hotel full of marines and an airfield where drones were flying in and out of.

Once our new windscreen arrived we continued south, stopping overnight at an eco lodge (the name was quite misleading as it was really a small campsite amongst a strawberry farm with a few toilets and showers built out of natural resources). Here we visited a local village where the women walk for 3 hours each day to fields to collect sticks and grass for fires and hut maintenance. Our guide explained that as part of new family planning initiatives, when a woman has had a baby her husband has to sleep in a communal hut for men for two years so she doesn’t risk becoming pregnant again.

From the eco lodge we spent a good 10 hours driving along a progressively deteriorating road to the Kenyan border. We began to see people wearing more tribal attire (most others had been in relatively western clothing) and hopped out at one village where the women wore bright sarongs, beads and elaborate headdresses, before crossing into Kenya that evening.