4 Things You Will Not Like About Ethiopia

1. TELECOMMUNICATION

Telecommunication is generally expensive in Ethiopia and can be very unreliable at times. Part of the reason is because it is not privatized and there is only one player in the whole country. Coming from a country where telecommunication is privatized and is much cheaper, that stood as a great challenge for me. I mean, we are supposed to be connected around the clock and not only get online when we feel like we are missing out. Anyway, I don’t know about you but when I am back in my country, my mobile data stays on all day, all night. When you are in the land of the Queen of Sheba, forget about streaming your favorite music videos and movies using your mobile data. If you need to use unlimited internet, I would recommend you to visit some of the hotels around Edna Mall in Bole. Most of them have affordable coffee and other drinks which gives you access to unlimited WI-FI. I will be letting you know which hotels I recommend for high speed interrupted internet connectivity.

2. LANGUAGE BARRIER

In my first blog article when I was explaining how I made it from Nairobi to Addis Ababa using a bus, I clearly explained how difficult it was to understand what was written on the bus tickets that we had just purchased at the Moyale bus stop (Ethiopian side) and also how it was difficult for us to communicate to anyone in English. It’s not surprising to find out that communicating in English to most people in Addis Ababa can also be quite challenging and frustrating especially if you have no local showing you around and is fluent in both Amharic and English. This is especially true for Ethiopians working in the informal sector but at least in most professional settings and hotels, this becomes less of a challenge. I will be sharing the basics of Amharic so stay tuned!

3. STRICT BUSINESS LAWS

If you’re a foreigner and have ever tried importing goods into Ethiopia, well you’re not alone. Doing business in this African country can be quite challenging especially if you are not well connected or are doing it for the very first time. I will not get into the details of the challenges that I encountered right now but I will write a full article about why I decided to import goods to Ethiopia business and ended up waiting for them to be cleared for 41 days. I will also let you know how you can avoid the mistakes I made as well as why you should move your manufacturing business to Ethiopia.  After all is said and done, Ethiopia is an African country with so many business opportunities that are unexplored and untapped.

4. POVERTY

Being in Ethiopia for 41 days sure did expose me to a lot of things some of which includes the high levels of poverty and homelessness in Addis Ababa. Most of the places you visit, you find beggars and street families even in neighborhoods that are considered rich such as Bole. At least some of them have decided to take matters into their own hands and you find young girls and boys selling chewing gum referred to as Mastika. Buying the chewing gums from them at least makes sure that they are able to get a meal and not sleep hungry. I really applaud them for that and what you realize is that they do have selling skills. Something an unsuccessful salesman can learn from. They do not take no for an answer and can persuade you to buy from them even when you hadn’t planned to. I call it selling salt to a slug. Another negative effect that poverty has is the high level of prostitution on the streets. Go out to one of the clubs on a weekend around Bole and you will understand why Addis Ababa is referred to as the ‘Bangkok of Africa’.  The high levels of poverty have forced many young women and girls to go out onto the streets and look for a way to survive. It’s probably not their fault or their choice but with very few job opportunities and low wages, this has turned out to be the only alternative to survive instead of wallowing in poverty and starvation.

These are my top 4 things I do not like about Ethiopia. Have you experienced the same in Ethiopia or Africa? If the answer is yes, please share below.

 

Taking A Bus From Nairobi to Addis Ababa (Part 2) – Moyale to Addis Ababa

We woke up at 5:00 am. It had rained heavily the previous night and it was still raining lightly at dawn. The rain had affected the electricity and so we were covered in darkness. We then called Garo who was assigned to take care of us by Adan from the bus company. We left immediately with the Bajaj that he had come with. We got to Moyale bus stage at exactly 6:00am and headed towards our bus.

Unlike our other bus travelling experiences this time the seemingly tough conductors and some contracted controllers were literally opening the locals luggage and inspecting inside. They even took some new shoes and clothes because they thought they were illegally transporting the goods for sale. Some had to give up to 50Birr for conductors so they could board the bus with their stuff.

We waited patiently for all of them to be searched and it was finally our turn. They seemed to treat us with more respect and did not even open our bags due to the fact that we were foreigners.

I was only shocked when they told me that I had to pay 80Birr so that my suitcase could be kept on top of the bus. We boarded the bus and I was lucky to get the front most seat next to the driver and so I was able to see clearly the land of the Queen of Sheba and get a few other perks like charge my phone through the USB port of the radio and get to play my music once in a while until the other Habesha travelers demanded for Amharic music to be played.

So we embarked on the somewhat 788 kilometers (Google maps) to the capital of Ethiopia, Addis Ababa. We passed through the Southern part of Ethiopia which is mainly rural towns such as Yabelo, Finchawa and Hagere Maryam. There were very many annoying and innumerable police stops and custom inspections that they have on the roads and that is why it takes so many hours to make it from Moyale to Addis.

During the inspection, the passengers are required to get out of the bus and make it across the barrier. At some of the checkpoints a lady and a man inspect all of the passengers from head to toe according to their gender and then one or two customs officials are also assigned together with the bus conductor(s) to get on top of the bus and open all of the bags to check for contraband. If found they are taken down from the bus and the owners of the bags are left behind with the police and customs officials to face the law.

At around 1:00pm we stopped at Hagere Maryam to have lunch and shortly after we proceeded with our journey. The road is actually quite okay up until Hagere Maryam and then it becomes marram with a few tarmacked sections almost until you get to a town called Dilla which has very clean streets, very beautiful and peaceful.

We continued with the long journey until dusk. We were supposed to spend the night in Shashamane but luckily my dear friend from Addis had been communicating with some friends from Hawassa who would pick us from the bus stop at Hawassa. We were fortunate to have Garo’s phone to communicate with the guys in Hawassa and at around 9:00pm, almost 12 hours since we started our journey, we made it to Hawassa. The two gentlemen received us warmly and once again we were on a Bajaj and they found us a good place to spend the night not far from where we would take a bus the next morning to Addis Ababa.

The hotel we slept in was really good and cost us each around 250Birr. The next day at around 5.30am I was up and I was able to call our friends who had checked us into the hotel. About 15 minutes later, when the sun had already risen, they showed up. Actually the bus that we were going to board to Addis Ababa by the name of Selam Bus was literally a stone throw away from where we were. We literally walked about 20 meters from where we were.

The Selam Bus was unbelievably comfortable and I remember sleeping for most of my journey with the usual annoying police and customs stops that forced us to leave the buses each time. Once again the road from Hawassa to Addis is mainly bushland with many informal settlements. As you get closer and closer to Addis, signs of development start to show. You start seeing very well developed highways, formal housing around Kality as well as commercial buildings.

We finally reached the city and the bus was going to alight at Meskel Square. I had been talking to my dear friend through a passenger’s phone. We eventually got to Meskel Square and my dear friend was a distance from where I was. I spotted her first and at that moment I was very glad to have seen her and all the struggles of the journey seemed to have never happened. We got into a cab and went straight to Ghion Hotel, we paid for our accommodation and we began our stay in the land of the Queen of Sheba for the conference that was beginning on that very day.

Taking A Bus From Nairobi to Addis Ababa (Part 1) – Nairobi to Moyale

The day that we were set to travel to Addis via road had finally reached, Monday 11 April 2016. We knew that we had to travel early to get to the Rotary/Rotaract District Conference & Assembly (DCA) that was set to begin in three days. So the only two travelers that had decided to do the road trip and stayed loyal till the end out of a group of a little more than 30 people made it to 10th street Eastleigh at 5:15pm; we knew we had to be there on time as the bus was set to leave in an hour.

The place was very busy and bustling with our brothers and sisters of Cushitic descent. Despite the unexpected condition of the bus; I was more than excited to begin the journey. We paid for our tickets, which cost us each KSH2000 ($20) or 400Birr. We loaded our luggage ready to begin our long journey to the land of the Queen of Sheba on Moyale Star bus.

The bus we boarded was crowded by our neighbors from Somalia and it took a while for us to get out of Eastleigh as it seemed to be a big deal for family members to travel to the Northern frontier. Abyssinian music and shops filled the air with a distinct and dominant touch of Somalia.

After joining the Thika superhighway and passed through Garden City Mall what lay ahead of us was nearly 778 kilometers of tarmac, according to google maps.

After traveling for a few hours, we made a quick stop at Sagana to allow the Muslim faithful in the bus to have their prayers. Once they were done, we continued with the journey and we did not make any stop until Isiolo town. There we had a somewhat long break of around 30 minutes where we were able to have some really good food and tea that at the time felt like it was out of this world.

I was now satisfied and ready for the final stretch onto Marsabit and then Moyale but shock on us when we found a road block by the military and demanded all of us to leave the buses with our bags, except from the ones that were packed on top and under the buses. They needed to ensure that we were all Kenyan citizens so we had to provide our identification, documents or passports to see if we were on transit. We were all inspected, one by one.

We were outside for quite a while. The fresh air was precious for someone like me who came from bustling city of Nairobi. The sky was so beautiful painted with stars that gave us a taste of day light. Blinking one after the other they made us forget the darkness that surrounded us, making us forget what probably lay in the bushes on our left and right is not scary- as the place is known for bandit hideouts.

We then started moving and reached Marsabit at 6:00am. It had been raining and the ground was wet, it was cold indeed. We left Marsabit and onto Moyale where we had a brief stop at a small town called Sololo. I had been asleep for most of the journey so I didn’t really feel the distance.

We finally made it to Moyale town and went to the Kenyan immigration office to get our passports stamped with ease. We only got trouble at the Ethiopian immigration office when we told them that we are going for a conference and they asked us for invitation letters which we did not have. The battery on my phone was almost empty but I was able to contact the DCA Chair-ladies who were representing Rotaractors from Kenya and Ethiopia. I was able to get through to them and they assured us that they would get the letters for us. We sent them our official names and passport numbers and they had to get the letters stamped and approved by the Rotary District Governor. We had to cross over back to the Kenyan side and entered a cyber café where we had to download and print the documents.

The Ethiopian Immigration officers received the letters and there was trouble again when they saw the name ‘Eritrea’ on the cover letter. Just to brief you that the Rotary District that we are in is referred to as District 9212 (D9212) and the countries represented are Kenya, Ethiopia, South Sudan and Eritrea. The reason the Immigration officer had a problem with that is due to the conflict that Ethiopia and Eritrea have been having for over 20 years. The two countries seem to be HUGE enemies. He eventually stamped our passports and at that moment we were legally in Ethiopia for the next couple of days that turned to weeks. We later on learned that he wanted a bribe.

We made it to the Moyale bus stage, Ethiopian side, hoping to get a bus to Hawassa but we were informed that no buses could leave to Hawassa at that time (3:00pm) and we had to pay for a bus that would leave the next day.

There was so much confusion due to the language barrier, almost everyone speaks in Amharic and only a few people can understand Swahili and the vast majority of people could barely understand a single word in English probably the word English in itself.

To make matters worse, most of the people knew that we are foreigners and had just exchanged our Dollars and Kenyan Shillings to Ethiopian Birr and they could not stop following us in the name of trying to help us find our way just to make a quick buck.

Luckily I was given a phone number of a man that worked for the bus company that we came with from the Moyale branch. He quickly came to our rescue and assisted us to get the bus tickets for the one leaving to Hawassa the next day. He also linked us up with his friend that was traveling to Shashamane, a town after Hawassa.

The bus tickets were written in pure Amharic and we were indeed lucky to find someone that could read, write and speak in Amharic, Swahili and English. We left the Moyale bus stage in what is called a Bajaj in Ethiopia, Tuktuk in Kenya and headed on to a guest house.

We stayed in the room briefly and then decided to go for dinner. We walked 200 meters from the guest house to a hotel that was down the road and had our first meal while in Ethiopia, we had tibs with injera. It was delicious and that made us forget all the trouble that we had passed through while at the border. When done, we went to our room quite early to sleep and await the journey the next day.