Ethiopia - Cultural Shock and Awe by Chris Foster

My first Blog – I’m going to type up my journal entries as I wrote them over the last few days.

Sunday 15th – Monday 16th August 2010.

Well I’ve finally arrived in Ethiopia!

Just got back from a lovely supper with Birhanu (medics away rep) and his family, which has gone a long way to mitigate against a very long and tiring journey.

After a week of packing and runnning out to get “just one more thing” (still not sure I’m ever going to feel so blocked up that I’ll be glad I packed the laxative suppositories) and a very British moist-eyed fairwell to my wife at the airport, I began my journey by handing over 80 quid for the extra 5kg of luggage weight (not all laxative honest) and I was off…

Except that I wasn’t because every bag, and then at boarding every piece of hand luggage, had to be weighed by one man with a set of bathroom scales (who would only except cash for excess weight payments). As a result the plane was over an hour late before becoming air borne.

This ment that after my long haul economy class experience – with all the love that that engenders towards one’s fellow man- I missed/ was too late for my connecting flight to Bahar Dar and so was stuck in Addis Ababa

I eventually worked out that when told by an official to hand over my paper work and go and stand away from the counter, what one should do (following the locals approach – when in Rome) was to go back to the counter and keep asking about your paper work in order to avoid death by old age.

However the good people at Ethiopian Airlines did taxi me to and from a really very good hotel where they paid for a decent room with a hot shower and vouchers entitling me to 3 square meals; and all this for just a half day wait until the afternon flight to Barhar Dar.

Sadly didn’t catch up on as much sleep as I would like as the obligatory builders (in what sounded like the room next door)were cheerfully chizelling concrete for the whole time and competing in noise generation with the guy outside the window who was power tooling through paving slabs… but you can’t have every thing and I was so tired that I managed to get a good hour or so sleep before heading back to Addis Ababar airport.

The domestic flights terminal was very spartan – think 28 days later – and had zero shops/ cafes. I had my bag serched and had an entertaining moment trying to explain that micotine gum is a medicine and not plastic explosive!

I then got chatted up by a very charming young Ethiopian air hostess but my ego was promptly deflaited when it became clear that she thought I might be able to help her get a scholarship to the London School of Economics (God knows why).

So made it to Bahar Dar and was met by Birhanu and his sister who had been warned that I was on the afternoon rather than the morning flight (despite the vagueness of Julian “potato gun” Proctor*) took me to the house where I will be living for the next 8 weeks and spending the first week alone (hence the length of this entry).

The house itself is really rather nice and much larger than I expected. The facilities are quite basic (but I suspect quite luxrious by ethiopian standards)but there is everything you need. There was a “WHAT NO BOG ROLL?!” moment (with flashbacks to India and the supicious plastic buckets arrangement) where I contimplated long and hard how come in my week long packing marathon I didn’t pack any toilet paper but had packed rectal laxatives…
All in all though very pleased with the house and feel like it could end up being a comfortable home for the next two months.

• Dr Julian Proctor is the Mediics Away elective co-ordinator and a very upbeat guy but the first time I spoke to him on the phone he was hazy on detail (other Medics away students also agree he’s a bit detial shy) but he was very excited about a new potato cannon he had just bought that could launch a spud, at speed, over his neighbour’s fence.