|
I was sad to leave Addis, I had grown attached to all the bureaucracy and quirkiness of the place. My visit to the Ethiopian Mapping Authority was a proper experience in official procedures. I was encouraged to visit the authority, prompted by an enthusiastic Ethiopian that I met one day at the University. He invited my coworker Doug and me to come to the government building later in the afternoon.
It was surprisingly difficult to get into this building because of the crusty guards, but once you are in, you can wander around aimlessly down the shadowy halls lined with closed wooden doors. After finding ourselves lost in the bowels of this old dusty building, I finally found our host. He straight away rushed us upstairs to one of the manager’s offices and then literally ran away. He ran. Away. I soon discovered why during the very tense and long impromptu meeting with the soft-spoken manager. Afterwards we also quickly ran away, to the map shop. It took 45 minutes of “ok now take this purple piece of paper, and give it to this person, then pay and take the purple and white form to obtain the orange form, then have it stamped by this person” and so on, to procure myself very cool wall map of Africa written in Amarhic. I was in fits of internal giggles when I left.
I sadly said goodbye to my friends at the Ghion Hotel, and we were off to the airport. Except, due to our lack of outside communication devices (no cell phone, no working phone in my room, no internet) we didn’t know that Ethiopian Airways had canceled our flight. We spend several unhappy minutes in a back brightly lit room of the airport, and after some insisting were off on a Kenyan Air flight back to Nairobi.
It was finally the weekend. Doug and I had Julius drive us around the quiet Saturday streets of Nairobi killing time before we had to drop Doug off at the airport. Julius seemed to be awful quiet, until we dropped Doug off at the airport. After that he seemed to perk up and become quiet chatty, laughing at my giggling at the giraffes by the fence and the golfbag birds. Seeing the long slender animals around the fence encouraged me to sign up for a sightseeing tour. Julius’s face lit up when was when I told him I didn’t need a ride until Monday morning. He said something like, “Thank you madam, I would watch the game” with a deep belly laugh. I was really starting to like Julius by this point.
It was time for some R&R after my first week in East Africa. I signed myself up for a guided day-tour through my hotel with an unknown business traveler. She turned out to be this wonderful woman originally from Peru and now a doctor for the World Health Organization. We set off early in the morning to see those airport giraffes up close.
I had been “on safari” a few times to the vast lands of the Kruger National Park, a huge game reserve about the size of Israel located in South Africa. I unfortunately didn’t have enough time between business meetings to travel to the vast expanses of the Kenyan Serengeti and some of the best game viewing in Africa. Therefore, the Nairobi National Park about 15 minutes from downtown Nairobi seemed appropriate to me. The park was established in 1945 as the first National Park in Kenya. The tall savannah grasses and animals where set against a backdrop of the high-rises of Downtown Nairobi. It was dark and cloudy in the morning with a warm gentle breeze. We saw just about everything you can see: zebra, giraffe, buffalo, all with the skyline of Nairobi in the background and the waving grasses of the Serengeti. 
My favorite part of the whole day, and possibly my entire Africa trip, was the visit to the elephant orphanage . The day was starting to clear up and it was the perfect temperature. Men in green uniforms led out several baby ellies, the youngest being two months old, into a crowd of about 40 tourists. We watched the handlers feed milk to the babies, and then we got to play with them. For me, an animal lover, it was an absolute thrill to be able to interact and touch a baby elephant. One liked me so much he filled his trunk up with water and sprayed me.
The giraffe sanctuary is also quite an experience. It isn’t often that I had the opportunity to hand feed giraffes—they enjoyed sticking their slimy grey tongues out and wrapping them around my arm. The giraffes were very friendly, and again it was exhilarating to be that up and close to these creatures.
The excursion ended with a bright and colorful Masaii market in Nairobi where we practiced our bargaining skills. Getting there was half the fun, battling the Sunday Afternoon Nairobi Jam. The tour operator led us right past the largest slum in all of Africa, Kiberia. It looked like the images in the Constant Gardner.
It is hilarious what you will do to save a buck. It’s impossible not to get into the bargaining. I had a group of men follow me out of the street marking trying to sell me a mobile. The crafts range from vibrant scarves to wooden carvings of tribal figures, bowls and baskets, beaded jewelry.
While traveling on business it is hard to find time to do the fun things, so I felt good that this weekend I was able to do something fun. It was a great weekend, and now it was time to gear up for the week ahead.
Next Blog Post – A Week in the Life of Julius
Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites
|
