Mom's Declassified African Survival Guide: On the Road Again

On the Road Again

I know what you are thinking, “You have given up on this blog and we will not be hearing from the Miller family anymore”. Well friends and family that is not true. I do apologize for the weeks of silence that you have endured. I am back now and ready to give you an account of all of the crazy adventures that we have experienced in the last month. We have visited 5 Ethiopian cities in the last month and each one of them was uniquely beautiful. The beginning of June we decided to take a trip (sponsored by the embassy) to Dire Dawa and Harar. These cities have been off limits to embassy employees for several years do to their proximity to Somalia, because we may not be aloud or able to visit again in our life time we could not turn down the opportunity to see these amazing cities.

We began our journey on the 7^th of June at 5:00am. That is right, 5:00am! So early! We flew to Dire Dawa and arrived around 9am. The flight was only an hour long, the funny thing is that Ethiopian Airlines does a beverage and food service for this extremely short flight. I literally didn’t even have time to finish my food and drink before they came back around to collect the trash and announce that we were descending into the city of Dire Dawa. The airport was tiny but pleasant and clean! The travel agency that the tour was booked through was at the airport to pick us up in a small bus. There were 21 of us on the trip Brenden and James were especially happy because there were kids from school on the tour with us.

We piled into the bus and began the two-hour drive to Harar where our tour would begin. We arrived at the hotel where we took a short break to unload our luggage and relax before the real tour began. The hotel looked nice enough from the outside but inside….well, I felt like I was fine as long as I didn’t sit on the furniture, lay on the bed or take a shower. The biggest question in my mind was “Do I sleep on top of the comforter or under it”? Shudder!

Jake took a short nap (on top of the comforter) then it was time to meet for lunch. We had a catered lunch at a nearby restaurant. It was great! The Ethiopian food was DELISH! The problem with eating out for our family these days is Jacob. Jake is a feral wild child who insists on running around during the entire meal. Out of all of my children Jake is the most difficult to take out in public. Luckily Ethiopians love children and forgive even the worst and most unacceptable behavior. And so three weeks of the Hubs and I eating in shifts began.

From the restaurant we took a walking tour of the city of Harar. The Hubs wrote a nice article on Harar at The Hubs Corner if you are interested in the history of this city. Harar is different than much of the rest of Ethiopia because it is predominantly Muslim. There are Mosques everywhere and more than 100 shrines. Harar is the 4^th holiest Muslim pilgrimage city in the world! The funny and ironic thing about this is that beer is the number one money maker for the city of Harar…..

As we walked through the streets and markets of Harar it felt more like we were the ones being visited. The Hubs carried Jacob in the Kelty backpack for the foot tour of the city. This backpack is a Cadillac in the USA, in Ethiopia this thing is like a rocket ship! What made the spectacle worse was that a man was carrying it. In Ethiopia you never see men carrying babies. People were staring, shouting, pointing and laughing out loud at the Hubs and Jacob as they made their way through the market.

Harar is an ancient gated city. We were able to see one of the original gates and walk through it. It was amazing! We also saw a 400-year-old Harari traders home as well as Haile Selassie’s home. Jacob refused to go into the trader’s home because there was a cat outside. Some how his intense cuteness convinced 3 grown Ethiopian women and our guide to chase and catch the cat so that he could “a-pet him”.

We had dinner at the hotel, it was catered just like lunch had been, the real craziness happened after dinner. In Harar there is an insane family that decided to begin feeding the huge, wild and terrifying hyenas. I’m not talking about chucking meat at the hyenas from a safe–ish distance. These people feed the hyenas from their mouths! Yes seriously! I have traveled all over the United States and have been repeatedly warned about the dangers feeding the wild life, and by wildlife they often mean ducks and swans, here the tour company not only provided us with the opportunity to watch a man feed these wild beasties they also encourage us to feed the beasties. Of course my animal loving feral African baby could not resist. These animals are not cute, they don’t look like cuddly puppies. They are huge ugly beasts! Jake really wanted to feed them, so against my better judgment I let the Hubs carry Jake on his shoulders to the hyenas and feed them! I was terrified! Then James walked up to the creature and held the meat up high so that the animal had to jump to reach the food! Next Brenden appeared in front of the beast and proceeded to feed it several large pieces of raw meat. I believe that this incident shows that I am the only sane person in my family because I was the only person not to feed the extremely dangerous wild monsters. Luckily we all survived the hyena feeding and avoided being mauled!

That night, back at the hotel all I wanted was a shower. Not much to ask right? WRONG! First off the hot water heater didn’t really work that great. I can handle taking a cool shower no big deal, the real issue was when I turned the shower on nothing came out of the shower head! There were maybe a few drips coming out of the shower. I ended up in the tub squatting under the faucet (luckily the faucet was about 3 feet from the ground) trying to wash my hair and body. I felt so grimy there was no way that I could not shower but the idea filling the tub and soaking in it…… kind of grossed me out. So, that left me showering under the faucet. AWESOME! I did get cleanish and tried not to think about how dirty the bed might be as I climbed in a tried to fall asleep.

The next day we traveled back to Dire Dawa. Dire Dawa is a beautiful city. On the way to Dire Dawa we stopped at the largest chat or kat market in Ethiopia. In a previous post I said that chat gave a high similar to marijuana. This statement is entirely false. I don’t know why the nurse told me that. Chat is a stimulant. People who chew it act CRAzY! They can’t sleep and come up with all kids of wild grand ideas that they never carry out once the high wears off. When we arrived at the market the kids decided to stay in the bus with the Hubs, good choice. This place was insane!!!! The energy was palpable and out of control. People were buzzing around all over the place, they were grabbing me and touching my face and hair. It felt kind of like wal-mart on black Friday! Even the goats were eating the leaves and they were crazy! It got so bad that our guide led us up some stairs on the side of a building just so that we could get away from the people. We were up on a balcony and the people below formed a crowed and were shouting and pointing at us. They were taking pictures and making gestures that I probably don’t want to know the meaning of. I have never seen people in this country behave this way before. Eventually we pushed our way back through the throng and to the bus. The people who stayed in the bus were not unmolested. People outside were trying to sell chat to Brenden through the window! They were asking for money and making faces and talking to Jacob. It was insane!!!!! I’ve since been told that chat is more like cocaine or methamphetamines than it is like pot.

After the chat market we visited the old train station. About 5 years or so ago the last trains stopped running. The station was more like a train graveyard. It was sad to see the station just sitting there not running. We were able to go into the old train cars and climb around on the tracks and visit the station. After the train station we had lunch and then visited a camel market. The camel market was pretty much the same experience as the market in Harar. People were everywhere and crowding around Jacob. People loved Jake and the Hubs! One lady realized that Brenden and James were our kids as well as Jacob and she actually asked the Hubs if she could take Brenden! She said that she would give us one of her kids. We decided not to take her up on her offer of a trade.

The last part of our tour was to see some cave paintings that are located outside of the city. The itinerary said that the paintings were 3 kilometers out of the city. After driving for an hour on a dirt road we realized that there was probably a typo. 30 kilometers was more accurate. At one point on the drive we had to stop in a small village in the middle of no where, people crowded around the bus and were asking me to hand Jake out the window. I was like “really?” has that ever worked for you? Sure I will just hand my 2 year old out the window to you!

So we arrive at the cave painting site. Well we drove as far as the bus could make it. The rest was on foot. The walk wasn’t far, maybe 15 minutes or so. Of course we had an entourage of people escorting us. They asked for money and pens (they always want pens) but I didn’t give them anything. We got to a fence and we went through but the escort had to wait outside the fence. The paintings were really neat. Some of the more jaded embassy employees with us didn’t believe that the paintings were 7000 years old like the guide said but I am willing to give it the benefit of the doubt.

Before we began our walk from the bus to the cave paintings, I looked at the bus and wondered "how the heck are they going to turn the bus around"? There was a mountain on the right of the bus and a cliff on the left with a tiny dirt road underneath the bus. As we walked back down to the road to the bus and I noticed that there had been no movement the entire time that we were at the paintings. The Hubs and I decided that it would be best to watch the turning of the bus from a safe distance. It was hilarious to watch. It reminded me of a scene in Austin Powers where he can’t turn his car around. They had to move boulders and rocks out of the way and inch forward and backward for what seemed forever! It was actually about 45 minutes before the bus was facing the right direction!

We began the 2 hour drive back to town through the hills, mountains and villages. The drive was fairly uneventful until our bus got caught on a string or rope that was strung across the road. I’m not sure why the people of the villages do this but there are strings hung up on all of the trees all over the sides of the road. We think that it might have been to pull the fruits down but we don’t know. Anyway, there was a rope strung across the road pretty high in the air, it was not however high enough and we got caught. Another 15-20 minutes of people climbing on top of the bus and the bus backing up and moving forward! We did eventually free ourselves from the booby trap and continued on our way.

The hotel was CLEAN! There was also a pool at this hotel. The pool was pretty substandard. I don’t think that there was any chlorine in it and the bottom felt a little slimy. I had no intention of swimming but the boys were dying to try it out. I don’t know what it is with kids. It doesn’t matter if the body of water is freezing cold or disgustingly dirty they want to fully immerse themselves in it. Honestly, my children would sit and play in a mud puddle if I would let them (yes, this includes the 11 year old). So after much whining and begging and complaining I allowed the children to swim in the pool. There was a kiddie pool and a large swimming pool. I tried to keep Jake in the kiddie pool but he wanted, “a big otter” (water). It was awful. Then there was this kid that was employed by the hotel (I have no idea if he was a life guard or what) he was freaking out that Jake was running around and jumping in the small pool and gave me a crappy blow up life vest and then tried to charge me 20 birr for it! When I told him I had no money he said 10birr! WTH? No I don’t want your crappy broken life vest! So I gave it back, he then tried to give it to me for free but Jake wouldn’t use it anyway.

We had dinner poolside that night and it was really great. The hotel had a DJ and there was music and food and drinks. A member of our tour group had her birthday and they brought cake and the DJ announced her birthday to everyone and played a song for her. It was really fun! We turned in fairly early, around 9pm but the party lasted well into the night! The next day was just relaxing until it was time to go back to the airport. I wish that I could say that I relaxed but relaxation is just something that doesn’t happen with Jake around.

For some reason we ended up waiting at the airport for EVER it was so annoying! Jake running around terrorizing everyone, James fighting with Brenden, AWEsome! Eventually we made it out the door and onto the plane. The flight was short and we arrived in Addis. When we got to Addis we left the airplane and piled onto an airport bus that was supposed to take us to the terminal. It dropped us off and drove away. We quickly discovered that we were taken to the wrong terminal. This was the international terminal. We didn’t want to go through there because that would mean going through customs so we decided to walk to the next terminal with out going inside. Well the security did not like that idea! They made us wait around until they could call the bus back for us. We did eventually make it home! All in all it was a great trip. I learned a lot and saw some wonderful things.

Until next time friends and family!

Survival Tips

1. If you let men carry babies in Ethiopia be prepared for a good amount of staring and pointing

2. Kelty backpacks are a double-edged sword. The kid can’t run away but you might have to!

3. Bring your own linens when you stay in hotels, just in case.

4. When driving a tour bus be sure to have a plan for turning it around!