Saturday afternoon traffic in Addis Ababa
Everything started off as intended on Saturday morning as I parked my car in the extremely narrow underground parking garage of the Hyatt Regency. I crossed busy Airport Road on the short walk to the Red Terror Martyrs' Memorial Museum የቀይ ሽብር መታሰቢያ ሙዚየም, a memorial to the upwards of 750,000 people who were killed during the Red Terror ቀይ ሽብር of 1976-7. After taking my time perusing the sobering yet moving displays, I would go home to pen a thoughtful blog post on the tendency of revolutionary leftist regimes to turn against themselves and, in essence, eat their young - think Stalin's Great Purge, the elimination of Kim Il-sung's rivals in North Korea during the 1950's, the Cultural Revolution 文化大革命 in China or Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge (even the Reign of Terror following the French Revolution). Ethiopia's revolution had its own sad story to tell, and I was ready to listen.
Except that COVID-19 (presumably) had other ideas. For even though I did my research online regarding the museum, with everything I checked suggesting it was open to visitors, that wasn't the case when I approached the entrance yesterday morning, only to find the way inside blocked by a locked gate. That insightful treatise on the influence of the Red Terror on modern Ethiopia will have to wait for another day, when vaccines have enabled life to resume to what used to called "normal":
This blog post may therefore be kind of pointless, but Saturday's excursion wasn't a total waste of time, however, as I treated myself to a nice splurge at the Hyatt's The Kitchen restaurant (the same place where my daughter and I sat down for a
Thanksgiving dinner last year). For lunch I had "Chef Hani's mixed grill" including marinated beef and chicken shish kebab, and washed it down with a Bedele beer (plus an Americano afterward to sober me up for driving home). Meals have been lonely affairs for the past two or so months, but that doesn't mean I can't dine in nice surroundings every now and then:
But, sadly, yesterday's lunch was the highlight of the past week since my last
whine blog entry. I'm counting the days until Amber and Shu-E return to Ethiopia from Taiwan - 14 days from today (and as I write this, it's been 67 days since we said our goodbyes at Dulles Airport). There really isn't much else to report on, so I might as well end this blog post at this point, and leave you with a few photographs. Until next time, when I may have something more interesting to write about...
Yet another view from my third-floor balcony:
The balcony faces southeast, and we do get some nice sunrises. On the downside, the reason for being able to see such wonderful dioramas is because I have to get up that early for work five mornings a week:
Meskel Square መስቀል አደባባይ, a large public space used for concerts and other events, is currently a
giant construction site. The end result apparently will be a parking lot with spaces for 1400 cars; six LED screens; and almost 30 shops (this photo was taken from a pedestrian bridge leading to the St. Estifanos
Light Rail station, much to the displeasure of a group of police officers who were standing there. I deliberately took my time taking in the view)*:
Traffic on Airport Road, outside the Hyatt Regency:
Listening to Ethiopian pop music while stuck in traffic on Fitawrari Damtew Street, close to the African Union complex:
Meanwhile, 8780 kilometers (5456 miles) away in Taiwan, the girls seem to be living more interesting lives than their husband/father, at least judging from the photos that my wife sends to me on Line. Here's my daughter enjoying a pearl milk tea 珍珠奶茶 at the Fengyuan 豐原 branch of Taichung's 台中 famous
Chun Shui Tang 春水堂 teahouse:
On another occasion they visited the fish market at the Port of Taichung. In case you're wondering, the "unship" on the sign behind Amber seems to refer to an unloading area for boats:
The cap that my daughter is wearing will eventually become my Christmas present, although I have to admit it probably looks much better on her than it will on my bald pate:
Shu-E and Amber spent a couple of days last week in my wife's hometown of Xiluo 西螺 in Yunlin County 雲林縣, spending time with family and visiting a few places in the area, like this temple...this ancestral home...this place the name and location of which I forgot to ask my wife (and about which my daughter naturally had no clue when I queried her during our daily phone earlier today)**:
Until the family returns, I'm keeping myself busy with daily chores, like...washing beer bottles. Beer is usually purchased by the case in Ethiopia, and the bottles tend to collect a lot of dust while waiting for
alcoholics customers to buy them. So just as vegetables need to be bleached before eating, beer bottles need to be cleansed before being put in the fridge. Life in አዲስ አበባ...:
*
Read here for a critique of the numerous construction projects being carried out in Ethiopia's capital
**Turns out they were in Huwei on that day, as well. In the unlikely event you're interested, the town is also know in Taiwan for its sugar refinery, which in turn is noted for the ice cream it now sells, and which the girls didn't bother to visit or to try last week
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