Nightclubs and Mountains....

MEMO
After a week of work, my colleague and I decided we wanted a wild night out…. So after a couple of beers (for me) at The Old Milk House, a Dutch Restaurant / Pub frequented by many Expats especially UN people due to the proximity we headed out to Memo… a so called Nightclub somewhere on Bole Road.

I was very aware of the large amount of prostitutes crowding the Ethiopian Nightclubs but I had never experienced it. The only prostitutes I had ever experienced were the ones behind the windows in the Red Light District in Amsterdam and Belgium.

It was actually quite interesting; it was a little club, with a bar and some sofas and tables around a dance floor. The room was decorated with loads of mirrors, red lights and the big disco ball in the middle of the dance floor.

The people were a good mix between Prostitutes, Ethiopians, Foreigners and some Rastas. The music was quite a weird mix between Reggae ( a lot of Bob Marley songs singing about Ethiopia and Shashamene – the land in Ethiopia reserved for the Rastas), old commercial, such as Abba, some Arabic music, Rap and African/ Ethiopian Music.

The most interesting is the dancing process……The night started with people sitting on the sofas and having drinks…. While some girls danced to the music on the dance floor ‘showing their wares’. After some time, the men chose their girls – it’s the eyeing process, and started dancing with the girls, and then the rest of the crowd goes down. The dancing was wild!! My colleague and I had a good time, although it was only the two of us, we really enjoyed the dancing, especially imitating the Ethiopian traditional dancing which is a dance where you move your shoulders up and done and your head in and out at the same time… obviously, as I have excellent coordination, I sucked terribly.

Ahhh I also discovered that there is another Maltese guy in Ethiopia, he is currently working with the UN, though he’s on holiday in Malta….. I was dancing away to the Arabic Music showing off the dancing skills I had tried picking up in Egypt ( and which suck terribly too), when this girl came running up to me asking me if I were Egyptian…. How could someone mistake me for Egyptian? Ha ha the funniest is that my colleague is Egyptian, and he started laughing at the girl telling her ‘ She Egyptian??? I am Egyptian!!! She does no look anything Egyptian’ ….. Anyhow it turned out that the girl was Italian, born in Ethiopia and she knows the Maltese guy….. Another one to meet….

Towards the end of the night, you could see white oldish men holding one or even two girls in his arms, heading for his car.... not i sight i enjoyed!


ENTOTO

After the wild Friday night and a good sleep - till 2 in the afternoon, I decided to go mountain climbing….. Endalk, the guy I had previously met in the street on one of my walks had offered to take me to Entoto, one of the mountains surrounding Addis Ababa, so took up his offer and headed up to Entoto…. After the night of dancing, I could definitely not climb up the mountain, besides, the 4hr climb of Mount Sinai was still vivid in my head…… so we opted for the 4 wheel peasant taxi drive up the mountain.

Sheep resting on the way up the mountain

The mountain was beautiful…… a lot of greenery and loads of the famous Acacia trees giving out a wonderful mountain air which immediately cleared my sinuses, I could have stayed up there all day…. We visited the nice and colorful Maryam church on the top of the mountain and I visited the luxurious museum of King Menelik II with the royal silver and gold crowns and clothes and crosses.

The colourful Maryam Church on the top of the Mountain

We then decided to walk down the mountain to the bottom. An interesting and unique thing about walking down the mountain is the firewood carriers. Bent like question marks women where carrying bundles of firewood on their backs, the bundles probably weighed more than they did, the steep downhill road was full of these women, walking down, or resting on the low walls chatting. These women earn about 12$ a month and are probably the only income-earners of the family.

The fire carriers walking down the mountain

Having a rest and a chat

Another interesting thing are the donkey and their ‘shepherds’ ( the people who take care of sheep are called Shepherds, what are the people who take are of donkeys called?) these were climbing up the mountain – little did I know that they were very sensitive to being photographed and that I’d be chased down the mountain by a donkey shepherd…. Well to make a long story short…. As I was playing the tourist, I seemed to have offended this donkey shepherd, and as soon as he saw me taking the photo, he grabbed his stick and started running after me and Endalk…. Well he was screaming in Amharic so I did not really understand what he was saying, but Endalk told me – ‘run’ – so I asked no questions and obeyed!!! So him and I ended up running down the hill with a drunken donkey shepherd following us threatening us with is stick… I guess he soon realized that he’d have to walk up the part of the mountain he ran down so he gave up….

Donkeys and the Donkey Shepherd walking up the mountain (not my attacker)

The running down the hill did not end here, while walking down and admiring the beautiful view of Addis from the mountain, we passed a little village, as I looked at the little village, with mud and straw houses, I spotted a large hoard of children who started running towards me shouting ‘faranjis, money, faranjis money’, ‘faranjis’ is actually the Amharic word for foreigner, as I was the only foreigner who risked the walk down the mountain, I figured they were all heading to for my attack!!!! That is where I realized that I should once again run down the hill and head for the safety of the bus to take me back to the city…..

The village Street

One of the mud houses...

The day ended with a nice macchiato in a café and a daily terrible thunder storm…..

On Sunday I decided to go to Church and enjoy the African church singing, where I also met Frank – the Maltese guy and planned my trip to Lalibella and Bahir Dar.

The amazing view of Addis from the Mountain