Hujambo Kenya!

My stay has been pleasant so far. The KQ plane arrived early. The person who drove me from the airport to our home was exceedingly lovely. We had a good laugh on the way home, making the infamous Nairobi rush hour traffic jams tolerable. I spent the most of the first two days with my parents and grandparent. My friends have been very welcoming. I even watched the FIFA World Cup 2010 finals (despite my attitude after the Ghanaians, Brazilians, and Argentines lost). All a nice start to my short stay in Kenya… until today.

I am presently blogging while I listen to Eric Wainaina’s Nchi ya kitu kidogo in Classic 105 FM to distract me from the excruciating pain I am sure I am about to experience. Mabibi na mabwana, I have just been to the dentist’s – not just to escort a friend or for a consultation, but to get a filling, a scaling, and… to get a beloved pair of my teeth extracted! (PS: Dentist should make sure that their patients know the size of the tooth to be extracted before they start the extraction process.)

I always undergo feelings of massive dread whenever anyone merely mentions the word ‘dentist’. This is the third – and most possibly the last time that I will ever visit a dentist in my life. This is the only time that anaesthetics and my mouth came into contact. The other two visits were for consultations and scaling procedures.

Sure enough, just as predicted, the pain has started.

Day two: Road trip from Soddo

We started the 230km journey northeast to Ziway at seven a.m. and it was definitely looking much brighter than the previous morning. We left the Wolaytta Zone and went into the Haykoch and Butajira Zones back in the Shewa Region without any out-of-the-ordinary incidences. This time Paul Simon’s Graceland (1986) album was our source of entertainment. For those of you who do not know, Paul is a classic rock singer and songwriter. He was part of a legendary duo – Simon and Garfunkel. South African township music, that helped fuel the anti-apartheid movement, inspired this album and the recording (with South African musicians and groups) took place in South Africa. It has a mixture of pop, a cappella, rock, isicathamiya, and mbaqanga – all it needs is some reggae, and this album would have been music to my ears (no pun intended).

We stopped for a coffee break in Shashemene, the Rastafarian town. This is a town in the Misraq Shewa Zone of the Oromia Region. I was rather pleased when a few of the people at the dinner mistook me for one of town’s inhabitants (because of my dreadlocks) and spoke to me in Amharic. I did not understand about 80% of what they were telling me, but I did understand the word ‘Raster’ whenever they called me or were referring to me. I was sad that we were not able to drop by the Rasta community, but we had to be on our way.

We entered the Hayk’och and Boutajira Zones, back in the Shewa Region. This Zone has all the Rift Valley lakes. As we drove, we could see Lake Shala and Abijata to the right and Lake Langano to the left. We drove on into Ziway town centre on our way to the site that we were going to look at. We passed Sher Ethiopia Plc, the largest flower farm in Ethiopia (about 300 hectares). Waters from Lake Ziway irrigate the green houses. We arrived at the site in good time and toured the ground for about one hour before we sat down for lunch.

Last stop was to be Debre Zeyit (in the Yerer and Kereyu Zones), just over 100km from Ziway and 50kms from Addis. As we drove on, I noticed that most of the lands in these parts of Ethiopia are heavily eroded; most of the natural forest was cut down between the 30’s and 90’s. Farmers, Non-Governmental Organisations, and the local governments now try to protect the fields with stones and soil bunds. The inhabitants also started growing Eucalyptus trees for sale, and this has vastly increased the amount of land covered with trees. We passed through Modjo town, a few kilometres before Debre Zeyit and we each bought the most succulent strawberries I have ever seen and continued with our journey to Debre Zeyit. We must have been exhausted (either deep in our own thoughts or keenly listening to Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes) or neither of us wanted to believe that we could be so unlucky for it took while before we realised that the truck was not moving as smoothly as it should. Yes, we had another flat tyre! This time, it was the back left tyre. Luckily, the locals were helpful and we were back on the road in no time. We stopped the nearest town to get the tyres fixed and got to Debre Zeyit later than we had planned.

We did not stay long at the site for it was getting late and as we headed towards Addis Abeba through Akaki, we unable to avoid the rush hour traffic jam. What should have been a half hour journey turned out to be almost two hours. Although we all had a great time, we were all happy to see the campus gates and all of us were happy to get some dinner and sleep… well, all except me. I had to pack my luggage for my next day’s two-week long trip to Kenya.

PS: Isicathamiya and mbaqanga is rural Zulu music that somewhat  sounds like a cappella.

Day one: Road trip to Soddo

We (my supervisor, a colleague, and a fellow intern) left the campus at six in the morning to avoid the legendary Addis morning traffic jam. It was a miserable cold wet morning, but despite this, we were all looking forward to the +320km drive south of Addis Abeba. We had estimated that – taking into account the coffee and bathroom breaks, and weather – it would take us about six hours to get to Soddo.  We headed into Addis Alem, a town in central Ethiopia. It was still relatively dark and we could hardly see much of the surrounding scenery, we were content just listening to re-runs of Michael Jackson’s Thriller album – “A tribute to the legend,” said my supervisor – and catch up on some sleep for the first few kilometres. I have a sibling who loves everything about  MJ and I am reminded of the last time we were together each time I hear one of his songs. We drove on southwest for another 120kms and reached Welisso town.

Although by now day had dawned, it was very foggy outside and visibility was low. We headed into the Chebo and Gurage Zones of Ethiopia. The Gurage people account for roughly 3% of the total Ethiopian population. We could see Mount Gurage (about 3,721m) in the distance – when the fog momentarily cleared. We chose this as our first buna and bathroom stop. As the beats to The Lady in my Life started playing my colleague, who had driven since Addis, informed us that the front left tyre was flat. We unenthusiastically climbed out of the warm, and most importantly, dry car to change the tyre. In the slippery slopping surface, this proved to be a challenge.

Most of the locals had not yet woken up – apart from the occasional herder leading his herd to not-so-green pastures – so chances of any help was minimal. It took us about forty minutes to get the spare tyre on. We then rushed back into the car and drove on – without any music – earnestly looking for the much-needed coffee-house. After quarter of an hour, we found one in the town. Our colleague, who was fasting, went looking for a tyre repair shop while the three of us had the best cup of coffee I have ever drank with the freshest bread that I have ever eaten. It had ceased raining and the town seemed to come alive in less than five minutes. Foreigners do not stop by this town often and we were a spectacle, passers-by enjoyed shouting ‘ferengi’ at us.

In less than one hour, the sun was coming out; we were back on the road, jolly, caffeinated, spare tyre back in the back of the truck and flat tyre repaired and back in place, with The Eagles belting out rock tunes from the radio.  Some of us softly sung along to the songs that we knew under while others whistled or clicked their fingers to the beats of the songs.

We drove on south into the Kembata Tembaro and Hadiyya Zones. The Hidiyigna language is possibly the most interesting to listen to; it consists of complex consonants and phonemes that are quite distinct from Amharic.  The people are more economically developed than those in the earlier Zones. They seemed to have access to electricity, better road networks, the plots of land owned by the farmers seemed larger, there were less thatched roofs and more corrugated iron roofs, and more schools and health centres were visible. We drove through Hosaina town; it was around mid-day now, and people and animals just seemed to laze the afternoon away. The animals were all lying down on the main road without minding the heavy trucks and vehicles passing by and most of the headers, shop vendors, and the other town inhabitants sat around in groups chatting away.

We left the Shewa Region and continued heading southwards to the Sidamo Region, into the Wolaytta Zone. Due to the amount of time spent on changing the tyre and the fact that were relatively close to Soddo, we voted on not stopping for lunch until we arrived at our destination. We arrived in Soddo at about half two in the afternoon, worn out and hungry. As we got out of the truck, we realised that the front left tyre was flat… again. We were all too exhausted to do anything about it and decided to eat lunch first, rest for half an hour and then go back into the town centre to get it fixed, ready for the next morning when we would start our trip back to Addis Abeba through a different route.

Our colleague drove into town after lunch while we toured the grounds to get the tyre fixed. We could see the Wolayta University a couple of kilometres away. My supervisor informed us that the house we were staying in experienced water shortages in the mornings and evenings because the University was at a much lower attitude level and when the students were using the water, the pressure was not sufficient for those at a higher attitude. We played a game of Frisbee and blew bubbles with the local children until we were too exhausted to play any more and went back to the compound, sat on the veranda, each with our own thoughts, and watched the sun set. We boiled some eshete (young tender maize) and heated up the some of the packed food for dinner – ready to stop for the day. We planned to start the trip to Ziway at half six the next morning.

Soddo is the perfect spot for a weekend get away. It has incredibly beautiful surroundings and an exceedingly relaxed atmosphere and the weather was just perfect. At night, the cloudless skies fill up with millions of stars that seem much brighter than the city stars.