An interesting place with interesting people…

When coming to Ethiopia - an interesting country which is not exactly the world’s favorite traveling destination – I expected to meet and have opportunity to speak to interesting people.

Thus one of the best descisions I made was to move from the Ericsson crowd situated in the luxury of the Hilton to a guest house in a part of Addis. The disadvantage is that I don’t get the luxury of the Hilton, I don’t get the nice restaurants, and the swimming pool, the sauna and the jaucuzzi……. But on the other hand I get interesting people who are not rich aristocrats who live in luxury, or rich executives on business trips, but people who are here for a longer time, who are here to experience Ethiopia and who have something to talk about that is not business or economics.

Thus one of the most interesting persons I’ve met so far is a person from Guyana, this is the first time I had ever heard about the country, let alone met someone from there. For those who don’t know, apparently it is a small country north of Brazil, and bordering with Venezuela with a population of 700,000 a little bigger than Malta, and just like Malta was a British Colony.

She is here on a business trip, she is working with this international NGO that helps street children and children that are sold for prostitution and affected with HIV/AIDS.

Ethiopia is extremely heavily struck with HIV/AIDS and prostitution. A big belief, as I explained before is that AIDS was brought to Africa through an experiment by white men. The white men want it spread around Africa to exterminate the Africans!! Never heard of that before. South Africa is the 1st highest and Ethiopia they say is the 2nd!!

Also, something I didn’t know, is that South America is the 2nd continent with the highest percentage of people struck by AIDS, she also told me that Guyana is actually the 2nd highest after what she thinks is Jamaica.

We then spoke about Rastafarians, and discussed the fact that although Ethiopia is thought of as the ‘heaven’ of the Rastafarians, there aren’t too many around. (though I have seen a couple around my neighbourhood, but I don’t know if they were right expat Ethiopians trying to make a fashion statement with dreadlocks, or actually Rastafarians)

Apparently she says (Tom read) the Rastafarians are not very good. In Jamaica they cause the most violence mostly due to the effect of the drug on the brain. And in Ethiopia they are very much influenced by the Ethiopians, and although live in a community of their own outside of Addis they don’t like the same way they do in Jamaica and they don’t really believe that Sailasse is their God.

I think this is one of the best conversations I’ve had so far in this country. We planned to go on a trip around Addis this weekend if all is stable.

The people who live in the house all work in NGOs, these group of Japanese and a South African are working with an NGO trying to foster more education in the rural communities. We all leave for work at the same time, and in this guesthouse they offer breakfast where everyone sits on one table, so its nice a nice family environment.


The receptionist of the Guesthouse also invited me to her house on Sunday which should be interesting to see a real Ethiopian house. Though lets hope all is stable so I could do all I want and go wherever I want!!!