Sylvia's Journal

Armed with my last Dutch purchase, vitamins for ‘zakenmensen’ (business people), I arrived in Addis in the dark, after a brief stopover in a very hazy, dusty and sandy Khartoum. Addis is new territory for me. Exactly 29 years ago I missed a chance to go here, from Dakar, and never forgot the disappointment, but here I am, finally.

I was greeted by several signs that either meant ‘Americans welcome’ or ‘we want to to be like America,’ or both. We passed the Denver Café, the Boston Day Spa, a large statue of liberty and something that looked like Starbucks, same typeface and colors, but with a different name. We passed more cafes; this is after all coffee land. From my shaded view through the tinted windows of the Sheraton shuttle I saw a city that looked like a mixture of America, India and Africa: shopping mall ads, beggars in rags and momuments to celebrate the ephemeral African Unity. My co-travellers in the van were sitting with their blackberries in attention, waiting for a signal which they may never get. Communication with the outside world is restricted. My CGNet program does not list Ethiopia. I could have left my Skype headset and cellphone at home. One way or another communications with the homefront will be expensive, a scarce resource.

I am in Addis’ fanciest hotel, according to blog entries in the Virtual Tourist. The concierge and his helpers wear hats, either Fedoras or Bowler hats or, in some cases, one that is a cross between the two. My room was not ready and I was parked in the heavily draped and carpeted lounge where a pianist who looked like Angela Davis played hotel music. A gaggle of young beautiful women was, I imagined, waiting for further instructions from their impresario.

My bathroom has a scale with a paper sheet taped to it with ‘ideal weight’ for ladies on one side and for gents on the other. I am 2 kilos over the top of the ideal range; the result, no doubt, of 3 days of unrestrained consumption in Holland; another objective for the next 9 days to get myself in shape for two more days of unrestrained consumption after landing in Amsterdam on the 9th and before heading back home on the 11th of May.

I had a hard time going to sleep. My room has a door that opens on a small balcony overlooking an idyllic scene of pools and palms, more idyllic at night than in daytime. I slept with the doors open, sung to sleep by crickets, the sound of small waves (the pool?) and the faint barkings of dogs faraway; nothing that told me I was in the middle of a big African city.