Ferenge Addis Blog

What's your name?

After 10 months I think I've finally figured out people's names here. It doesn't work the way it does in America and Europe. There, we get Dad's last name and a couple other names our parents pick out of a baby name book.

I noticed that in Ethiopia everyone is referred to by what I think of as their first name. Let's take, for example, a fictitious Dr. Yohannes. His full name is Yohannes Abebe Birhanu. If it were in the States, he would be Dr. Birhanu. But he's not; he's Dr. Yohannes. Here's why: at birth everyone gets their own name, and they only get one. The way to tell one Yohannes from another is you also refer to them by appending their father's name (his only name) and his grandfather's name (the grandfather's one name).

Take me for example. If we used Ethiopian naming conventions for me, I would be Mr. Marc (my one and only name). We would separate me from all the other Marcs by appending my father's name (Robert) and my Grandfather's name (Arnie, a Finnish name). So I would be Mr. Marc Robert Arnie. My father's name would be Robert Arnie Victor (his grandfather's name).

Now it all makes sense.

Quick Book Review: The Lords of Poverty

Graham Hancock's famous little book 'The Lords of Poverty' has three good points to make, which nobody who's worked more than a couple of days in development can deny:

1. Many development assistance ("foreign aid") agencies are inefficient bureaucracies.
2. A lot development assistance money gets wasted on administration and overhead.
3. Not enough development assistance money actually gets into the hands of poor people.

I just wish he were better at making them, and wish he were a better writer. To say that Hancock has an axe to grind is an understatement of epic proportions. About 1/4 way into the book the word "screed" kept coming to mind. About 1/3 of the way through the book, I started to wonder whether one of his children had been run down by a World Bank Land Cruiser or something. The writing has the tone of a skinhead review of Israeli culture and society. He might have a good point now and then, but his writing evidences such an extreme lack of objectivity that you wonder whether what he's saying can be believed. For example, when saying that the effects of development projects continue after the experts go back to their offices, we get "Long after the experts from the [development agencies] have packed their bags and their cute ethnic souvenirs, boarded their aircraft and fled northwards, the ill-conceived development projects that they have been responsible for continue to wreck the lives of the poor." And every sentence of every paragraph reads like this. It's like being bludgeoned senseless with hyperbole.

In addition, Graham can't keep his story straight when recounting the crimes of development workers. In one chapter he berates them for spending money to visit the project implementation sites. Calling it "development tourism," he goes on for an entire chapter complaining about the travel costs of the various agencies. In the very next chapter he goes on for dozens of pages calling development workers aloof from the poor they're serving, citing instances of managers who never visit the project sites.

To be sure there are diamonds hidden in this truckload of verbal gravel. Graham's description of how the World Bank and International Monetary Fund function was an education for me. I'm just not sure it's worth wading through the diatribe and sifting fact from prejudice to find the gems.

Inside Plumbing

When I was a boy my grandparents had a cottage that didn't yet have inside plumbing. This meant that the only toilet was an outhouse behind the cottage. "Indoor plumbing" meant you had a toilet inside, and believe me, in northern Michigan where the temperatures get to -20 F at night (-32C) it was no mere luxury.

Which brings me to our little house here in Addis. We live in what is considered a ritzy neighborhood (Bole). It's close to shops, restaurants, my office, etc. There is no crime and the streets are quiet. The house, though, has, well, issues. The electricity in the back 1/2 of the house works about 1/2 the time. The electricity in the front 1/2 surges so badly that we go through light bulbs like M&M's at a pre-school picnic. And the water...

Oh, the water issues. At first we didn't have any: when describing the shower I didn't know whether to use "dribble" or "trickle." Our landlord, bless him, installed a pump which helped a little. Then the water would just run out, about mid afternoon. Doing without electricity is one thing. Doing without water is harder (no washing or going to the bathroom). The landlord installed an extra tank to hold water that came in when there was some, to use when there wasn't any, and another pump to put the water up on the roof tank. Then, about a month ago, we noticed paint blistering on a lot of the walls, down low. After looking for mold, etc, and repairing the paint once, the cause became apparent: the old pipes couldn't take the good pressure and were leaking into the concrete walls.

To fix the problem the landlord sent a plumber, who quickly installed new pipes, inside the rooms. Let me repeat: the water pipes now run inside the kitchen and both bathrooms, not inside the walls. Oy.

Begging

Answer: 2

Question: how many beggars did I see while in Tanzania (Dar Es Salaam and Zanzibar) for 10 days?

Anyone who's walked or driven anywhere in Ethiopia has heard the constant "moneymoneymoney!" or "onebirr" chants. I've also been reading a book about a shoestring journey from Cape Town to Cairo (Swahili for the Broken Hearted which I recommend for a fun and easy read). In the chapter on Ethiopia, the author notes the same preponderance of beggars as compared to other African countries. Personally I've only seen this level of begging in India.

What could cause these kinds of differences? Could it be simple poverty? Other Sub-saharan African Countries are equally poor yet have few beggars. And in Ethiopia it cuts across socioeconomic lines. While on a bike ride I passed a chubby 12-year old dressed in freshly-pressed gray wool slacks, starched powder-blue oxford cloth shirt, navy blue blazer with gleaming buttons, and a maroon tie. He looked like he just walked out of a high-priced British prep school. The moment he saw me he thrust out his hand and started the "gimme one birr" chant.

I read once that Ethiopia has a heritage of "alms giving" as informal charity. Could this account for all the people begging?

Any ideas?

Zanzibar to Addis

When I left Zanzibar it was 80 degrees, sunny, and soft breezes were blowing in from the Indian Ocean. My transfer in Dar Es Salaam was the same. Five hours later when we got to Addis it was dark, 55 degrees, and raining steadily. On the plane I took out my Celtel SIM card and said good bye to cheap, reliable phone service and the SMS everyone uses everywhere but here. I mentally deleted my "jambo, mambo, poa, hakuna matata" patois and put it it's place my "tenahsteleen, endemena, tadyas, salam" auto-responses. I looked forward to a nice big meal of injera and shiro tagabino (sp?) and gomen (and those of who have eaten ugali know why). I also looked forward to sleeping in my own bed, with a cat laying on my chest, purring (the cat, not me).

What would you miss from home?

I'm going to the US for three weeks in July. Like good parents, both my Mother and Father have been asking "what should we have in the house for you?" It made me think of things I have gotten used to not having here in Ethiopia, but will really love when I get back. It makes for an odd list:

• Veggie burgers
• Vanilla soy milk
• Thick black beer
• Gatorade
• Heavy whole wheat bread, the kind you can use as a weapon
• "Natural" peanut butter that separates when you leave it alone
• Bagels
• Thai food
• Tofu
• Starbucks (don't you start with me!)

And on the non-food front:
• Miles and miles of diesel-fume-free country roads for bicycling
• Wifi everywhere
• SMS
• Freeways
• The Gap outlet in Traverse City
• Anonymity
• Nordstrom's shoe department (Ethiopian men apparently don't have big feet)
• The Apple Computer Store
• Circuit City

I'd be interested in hearing what other expats miss from home. Paul, my Aussie colleague, was talking about missing Vegemite...

Addis to Dar to Zanzibar

I'm writing from the terrace of the Serena Hotel in Zanzibar, looking at the fishing Dhows navigating the chop on the Indian Ocean. It's a little windy this morning. I left Addis on Friday morning, and arrived in Dar Es Salaam after a 5-hour flight that left and arrived spot on time. I planned to stay overnight with a friend who's got a consulting gig in Dar (Bob R for those of you who know him), then proceed together to Zanzibar (ZNZ) the next day on the ferry. The first thing out of the airport I wanted to buy a cell phone SIM card to have a local number. Talk about culture differences: I had a choice of several cell phone carriers, all boasting of faster and cheaper service. I picked CelTel, and they installed the $3 SIM card for me, gave me some free minutes, and thanked me profusely. I fired up the phone and texted my colleague and set up my voice mail. (What a contrast from ETC where one searches for weeks to find an expensive SIM, fights form-filling nonsense to be allowed to buy one, hopes the service works once in a while, and dreams of services like text messages and voice mail that other African countries have had for five years.)

The morning ferry from DAR to ZNZ on Saturday was full of not-yet-pink college-vacation tourists slathered with sunblock and by the looks of things nursing Saturday-morning hangovers. The two hours passed quickly and we disembarked into the chaos of the Stonetown ferry dock, porters carrying our suitcases on their heads, above the throng. Two hours later we were on Managpwani beach, a pristine white stretch of sand in front of the azure blue sea.

If You Were HIV+ What Would Your Spouse Do?

I was recently at a Health Center, talking with some HIV-positive women in a mothers' support group. They took turns telling stories about finding out they were HIV-positive and deciding whether, and how, to tell their spouses. In a country where male/female power dynamics are so unequal, this is a matter of no small weight. One woman found out she was HIV-positive during a test she took as part of her ante-natal (pre-natal) care. After some angst she shared the news with her husband. What happened? "He berated me, saying I acquired the virus from some other man, even though I have only been with him in all my life. He now has another wife, though he visits our baby." The next women's story started the same, but had this ending: "my husband was very sad for me and our baby. He also got tested but was HIV-negative. We are still together. He is a good man."

Lalibela Take 2 and the Domestic Tourist

A couple of weekends ago a colleague was in town from North Carolina so I went to Lalibela for the second time. The trip was just as worthwhile as the first, for overlapping reasons. During the first trip I was so overwhelmed with the idea of the rock-hewn churches that I spent the entire tour of the churches in that "holy cow!" fog. The sheer size, complexity, and unbelievability of the task blocked out any detailed inspection of the sites. On the second tour I noticed significant details that I'd never even seen during the first trip: things like the ornate carving and painting in St. Miriam church, or the exactitude of the pillar carvings, or the many many different crosses carved into the windows of most of the churches. Each church we visited started to form some individuality in my mind. (St. George is still my favorite.) This time we also went for a two-hour hike into the hills surrounding Lalibela for a view of a monastery. As the guidebook said, the trek is better than the destination. My companion, a flatlander who lives at near-sea level, did an admirable job of keeping up in the altitude.

On the way from the airport we met an older Ethiopian man who was staying at our hotel. He described himself as a domestic tourist, who was on a one-month mission "to discover my country." A lifelong Addis resident, he had never seen the churches of Lalibela, the castle at Gondor, or the obelisks at Axum. In his bush jacket, safari shoes, and carrying his Brandt guide, he looked just like the tourist he was trying to be. His enthusiasm and love of country was infectious. "So many people live in this beautiful and historic country and never see these wonders" he said with great earnestness. "I won't be like that." When we last saw him he was headed for Axum by road.

Calling All Business Majors

Okay, here's something that doesn't make sense to my liberal-arts-educated brain. I'm hoping the business majors out there can sort it out for me/us.

Ethiopian Airlines, the government-run state airline of my adopted country has a good record of providing safe, on-time international service, where they have lots of competition (Emirates, Kenya Airways, Turkish Air, etc). Now, about the domestic flights:

They pretty much go wherever they like, whenever they like, and published schedules be damned. In one record-setting run, L and I spent nine late-flight waiting hours over the course of three domestic flights. This is time beyond the scheduled departure. In another instance, the flight from Addis to Bahir Dar first went to Gondor because... well, just because. On my first flight from Axum to Addis, we started back down after only about 25 minutes in the air (Axum-Addis takes more than an hour.) We landed it Lalibela because once he was in the air the pilot figured out he didn't have enough gas to get to Addis. In Lalibela, the guy who had the keys to the gas truck was somewhere in town eating lunch, so we waited 2-1/2 hours for someone to find him so we could gas up the plane and return to Addis. Once a flight left Bahir Dar one full hour early, because the plane was there and ready to go.

The Airline's standard response to complaints about their indifference and buffoonery is that they don't make any money on domestic flights. They say they can't raise rates to cover their costs and make a profit because nobody on domestic flights would be able to afford it. But the flights are always fully booked a week or two in advance. Does this make sense from a business standpoint?

Or could it be that, as with the telecommunications industry, a lack of competition lets them do whatever they please with no risk of loss of business?

Discuss.