Out of Addis....

On Saturday early morning, 2 Maltese, 1 Dutchman and 2 Ethiopians headed to Debre Zeit, a little village 1hr away from Addis and surrounded by crater lakes, lakes which were once active volcanoes, and now extinct……

We once again did it the Ethiopian way….. we took a 4birr (0.40$) bus full of Addis Ababa weekenders and headed off to our destination…

The day was amazing… I got to enjoy Debre Zeit and the beauty of Ethiopia as well as see a bit of the real, crude Ethiopia.

We spent the day riding on boats around the lakes, riding on Gari’s (horse driven carts) around the village, visiting poor people’s home (for Frank’s project), being pointed at and called ‘faranji, faranji’ (foreigners, foreigners), and going to Christian retreat homes where I met yet another Maltese person… A Jesuit priest who has been living in Africa for 26yrs and who was also a prisoner for 2months walking across the border in Sudan due to the Muslim / Christian Conflict.

This time rather than writing… I thought pictures can do the talking for me…

The beautiful crater lake of Babugaya

Jumping on to a boat for a relaxing row around the lake




Maltese showing the Ethiopians how to row – Conclusion – Maltese cannot row!

Gave up rowing so attempted being a Gari Driver

Sjoerd happy to meet an Ethiopian wearing a shirt of his home football team



Maltese Invading Ethiopia



Befriending Ethiopians on a picnic by the lake


Children in the village trying to get a closer look at the ‘faranji’

Fooooooood………..We were hungry!!!!!!!!

We went to visit two poor people’s family so Frank could evaluate whether they were lying or saying the truth….. The conditions these people live in were terrible… a family of 9 would live in 2 very basic rooms, a living room and a bedroom. The village has one kitchen for about 5 families… people also would sleep in the kitchen. The father would have a job as a guard where he would earn about 300Birr (35$) 10Birr (1.15$) would go to rent and the rest would go to feeding and maintaining a family of 9!!!!

One of the women in the houses explained to me (through an interpreter) how Ethiopian coffee is prepared.

Sjoerd and I befriended a little girl on the bus on the way back to Ethiopia…. The story of this girl is actually quite sad…. An 8yr old girl running around with her poor sick mother. The girl and mother were traveling on their way back to Dessie where they actually live with only150Birr (17$) in their pocket. This woman was robbed and thus lost all her money. A policeman nicely gave her money to get to Addis Ababa (0.40$) but she did not have where to stay or any money to get to Dessie from Addis. The daughter although young and very playful was also very mature, very caring for her mother…. As soon as we gave the little girl biscuits the first thing she did was give it to her mother to eat… very heart warming…. Franks kind heart then gave her 100Birr (11$) to see that she gets some food and gets the bus fare to Dessie, which is about 200Kms away from Addis….

Thought of the Day
Today was great, it not only allowed me to see the natural beauties of Ethiopia, lakes, greenery, mountains, pelicans, eagles and donkeys…… but I also saw first hand how people live how miserable people can be and how people struggle to survive… the places I visited were not the poor of the poorest but I know that some people do not even have a roof on their heads or basic food to give them some nutrition to outlive the day. After living in Belgium and Egypt where there is a lot of organized begging I was quite immune to beggars on the street and was very skeptical to the poverty….. but today I got another view, the mafia of beggars is rare here, and I can see, not just on TV, but first hand, this poverty, misery and struggle for survival is real and hard…...

To top it all up, I headed home to open CNN and find out about the bombing in Sharm el Sheik, a place I had only just been to and enjoyed with my friends…. More devastation, destruction, misery and a bigger struggle…. Poverty and sickness in Africa and Latin America, bombs / terrorist attacks in Europe, America, Asia and the middle east, war in the middle east and eastern Europe, religion and racial conflicts all around the world, natural disasters in Asia and America and many many more…..
Where is this world heading to??