I’ve been home for a week now and I’m finally 100% recovered from jet lag. Overall I would say I enjoyed the trip, I was working the whole time, but we still managed to have some down time. Ethiopia, although poor, is a beautiful country that has a lot to offer. The country has a unique culture, great weather, awesome food and the most beautiful women I have ever seen. I hope I have the chance to go back sometime in the future on my own time. While I was over there I took plenty pictures and kept a journal of all the days events mainly because I didn’t want to forget any of the things I experienced, I’m not the best writer so please excuse any errors you may see. Links to everything are below.

Pictures
Going To
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6
Day 7
Day 8
Day 9
Coming From

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The morning started with me backing my bags, since the hotel checkout is @ 11am. We took all of our stuff over to the office and ran a few more tests to make sure everything was still working. Once that was over we went out sight seeing, our first stop was the jewelry district; it is one main street that has about 30 shops. It is kind of weird the way they charge for merchandise, none of the pieces have price tags; all pricing is based of the weight of the item, the material it is made out of and whether it is imported or local. No one saw anything they really wanted, so we moved on.

Our next stop was a local pastry shop where we picked up various small pieces of cake that we had planned to eat with our lunch, but some of them were eaten up as soon as we got back into the car. Once we left the bakery we headed to a local souvenir shop that Abiy was familiar with, they had a great selection and to top things off they accepted Visa. As with all the stores around here, prices were not listed on any of the items, so I had one of the employees following me around telling me how much everything cost.

Abiy sees him quoting me on prices so he comes over and starts negotiating on my behalf. They knew us Americans are not use to going into stores and negotiating prices, so everything he quoted me at was higher then it should have been; it definitely a blessing to have a local with us. I picked out all of my items and the last round of negotiations started, they were going back and forth for about 10 minutes before a final price was decided. In all, Abiy probably saved me about 150 Birr. Once we left the shop we went out to lunch.

Friday is a fasting day, and I actually remembered the details of the fast this time. During these days, they do not eat meat or animal by products (eggs, butter, milk, etc.) but they are allowed to eat fish. We decided not to eat the fasting meal and ordered the regular items off the menu. Abiy is friends with the lady that owns the restaurant so she took us around for a tour of the place while our food was being prepared. Zewdu opted for the fasting meal so his came out a lot faster than ours. He must have been starving because he ate absolutely everything, including the fish head. Finally our meal came out, they gave us so much food that we couldn’t finish it all.

For our next stop, we went to the post office so we could buy some stamps for souvenirs. Surprisingly it was pretty similar to the post offices in America, the only exception being that you were frisked before walking in. After that we headed to an area known as “Markato”, it is a large open market area where all of the imported items come in. This place was a zoo; the streets were so packed that it was extremely hard to drive and it took us about 15 minutes to find an open spot to park on one of the side streets. We finally found one near the shoe and leather shops so we got out and started walking around.

We were told to put all of our items in our front pockets and watch out for people bumping into you because thieves are all over the area. We walked around various shops taking it all in, you can buy any and everything you could imagine in this area. I wanted to see if I could catch a deal on a blazer, so we went into suit shop and I tried on a few. The guy in the store managed to get me to try on the whole suit; a nice gray Italian one for about $100 US. Unfortunately I didn’t have enough cash and they didn’t accept Visa so I had to leave it, but the next time I come back I’ll defiantly have to back and buy one.
As we were leaving Zewdu was hit with a parking fee, this was about the 3rd time that this happened today. The parking attendants don’t seem to bother most drivers, but they see his company’s sticker on his car and run over asking for cash every time he pulls off. It was pretty annoying, but that is the way the do things. Ethiopia is known for its coffee and tea so our next stop was a place where we could pick up some beans. This place seemed pretty popular, the person in front of me bought about 30 500g bags and there was another American in line that was stocking up before her trip home. She has been in the country for 6 months volunteering and was heading back home tomorrow.

After I got my beans the next trip was the shopping mall, it was nothing special at all, it looked like any normal mall that you would see in America. We stayed for about 20 minutes then headed back to the office, by this time it was around 6 or so and our flight was set to take off at 10. After a change of clothes we said our goodbyes and made our way to the airport. Once we went through security and grabbed some food I went shopping for some more souvenirs since I had some left over Birr I needed to spend. In one of the stores the clerk walked up to me and started speaking Amharic and was shocked when I didn’t understand her. Because of my complexion, she thought I was Ethiopian, personally I don’t think I look Ethiopian at all. But this was not the first time someone had thought I was; it happened a total of 3 times throughout the trip.

We were finally allowed to board the plane; where some very beautiful flight attendants greeted us. I honestly think that being attractive is a requirement to work for this airline. Unfortunately I did not have an empty set next to me this time like I did on the last flight, but the lady I was sitting next to was pleasant. I had made up my mind earlier that day that I was not going to eat on the flight, since my stomach was a little upset on the flight over and I didn’t want to go through that again.

16 hours later we landed in Dulles and had to wait in the long customs line, once that was over we had to wait another 40 minutes for so for our bags. Because of the ordeal we had when we were leaving, I was a little skeptical about catching the connector flight to Richmond, so before I checked my bags again I wanted to make the flight was still on time and fortunately it was. After a few hours of waiting and a 30-minute flight we arrived in Richmond and concluded our journey.

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Today was spent finishing a few last minute things and performing some testing. For once stuff went as planned so it was a pretty relaxed day. Since I have been here I’ve seen these butcher shops along the sidewalks that have skinned goats and cows hanging up and today we went to one of them for lunch, which only served beef. You walk up to the counter and tell them how many kilos you want and they cut it off for you. You can then have them wrap it up so you can take it home, or have it prepared for you. They prepare it 2 ways, roasted with onions and peppers or raw. We went with option 1 and they brought it out with injera and rolls. I’m not sure how these people were doing it, but some of them were eating there’s raw, I doubt you could even get a restaurant to serve you raw beef in the States.

After lunch we did a few more minor things at the office and then we were treated to dinner. The restaurant we went to was on top of a hill that over looked the city. The restaurant also had some historical value to it, I believe I heard them say it use to be the home of the Emperor’s bodyguard. We head out tomorrow night so during the day we are going to visit the market to pick up some souvenirs and try to do some more sight seeing.

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The day started with setting the backup schedule and writing documentation, with the hopes of finishing up before noon, but I had a feeling it wasn’t going to happen. Lunchtime comes around and of course not everything is done, so we headed out to a restaurant that specializes in serving meals for those that fast on Wednesdays and Fridays. I had Abiy explain the fast to me again, but I forgot what he said by the time I started writing this.

The restaurant only serves one kind of dish on the fasting days, so everything came out real quick. They brought out about 8 bowls of stuff with some injera and fest began. I had no idea what I was eating, but it all tasted pretty good. I have really enjoyed trying all of the different foods since I have been here, it has really added a lot to the trip. Shortly after they brought out a large fried fish, with the head still attached! Although it may not have looked that appetizing, it was by far some of the best I had ever had. Since Abiy knew the owner, the meal was free, and once we were finished we headed back to the office.

Whoever was coming up with the list of IT related items that needed to be purchased for this new office, forgot to put a firewall on the list. So as a temporary fix, we gave the server the remote access server (RAS) role to function as a router and basic firewall only, we are not going to VPN into this network so we left that option out. The plan was to get everything up and running using RAS then when we get back to the US order them an ASA 5505 and ship out it. It is a lot cheaper to do it this way, because cost of equipment in this country is insane.

Throughout the week we had checked our configuration many times to make sure everything was what it should be and it was, but for some reason things were still not working properly. On a whim we connected a machine directly to our handoff to see what kind of results we would get, we started testing and to our surprise we had no packet loss while the connection was active. We ran the same test using the server, but removed the RAS role and we received the same results. This led us to believe something with RAS was causing the problem, and not the ISP. So the hunt for hardware firewall in Addis began. I was looking for a basic router/firewall device if I get a PIX or ASA that would have been great, I really didn’t care as long as it worked.

So we went to 3 of these computer supply places and they had everything except what I needed! What I was looking for is easily available in the US, you can even get one at Wal-Mart or Target, but that wasn’t the case here. We finally found a place that sells Cisco equipment and they had a PIX 515 in stock, the only problem was that they wanted 47,846 Birr for it, which is about $5,200 dollars. Way too much for a device that has been phased out, so we tried another shop and he had a basic router/firewall combo in stock, exactly what I was looking for. They only cost about $50 in the US, but here…… 1,600 Birr, which is around $170 dollars. Again way too much money for what it was, but it was what we needed. I wrote down the cost of the items and headed back to the office. Once I was back, we reconfigured RAS again and this time for no reason at all, we selected the VPN option and things worked exactly like we wanted them to! I have no idea why it worked and I really don’t care, as long as it is working I’m not touching it.

So once the day was over we went out with Abiy to see the nightlife in Addis, yes on a Wednesday of all days. We went to a place by the hotel for some food and then headed to Rodeo Addis. This place threw me for a loop; it is a Texas country western bar in the middle of a city in Africa. All the employees wear western style clothes and even have on cowboy hats. I have never been to a western bar before, but the inside of this place looks like I would expect one to look. They had tons of liquor, flags for all the teams in Texas hanging up, and cow skulls on the walls. They were even playing country music when we first walked it, the longer we stayed the stranger things started to seem for us Americans that were there. The music was all over the place they went from country, to Latin country, to R&B, to rap and then back to country. To top it off they turned on the soccer game once it started. It was puzzling to me; who would have ever thought that I would be in Africa, sitting in a country western bar, listening to R&B and watching soccer? We left that place and went onto the next.

This place was also odd, but not as odd as the last, it actually had a tree growing through it. Our table was right next to the stump and the limbs went up right through the ceiling. On the outside of the building you see the limbs sticking out of the roof, complete with green leaves. I’m not sure why I didn’t take a picture, hopefully I’ll be able to swing back and take one before I go. So after an hour or so we left there and headed to another spot. The next place was also interesting; it was where I learned a valuable lesson in cultural differences. Things that are taken one way in the States can be taken a completely different way somewhere else. Nothing bad happened, but it was definitely a crazy moment that I will never forget. We stayed for about an hour and a half then ended the long night.

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Last night I did not fall asleep until about 4am, for some reason I couldn’t sleep and the loud people in the hall didn’t help anything either. The plan was to go to the regional office and document everything, then finish up a few last minute things in the national office. Once we got started at the regional office we noticed some major issues and went into panic mode. On the surface things looked really bad and we prepared for the worst, but after we took a 2nd look at things it was clear that we overreacted.

We fixed the problem and then made some recommendations that we felt should be put in place sometime soon. By this time it was around 5 and never made it to the regional office to finish up the last few things. If everything goes well tomorrow we should finish up around lunchtime and hopefully get some sight seeing done.

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Somehow we arranged a meeting with the ISP to see if we could do anything about our connection issues. The guy we met with was very competent and understood our frustration, but there is just nothing that can be done until the new equipment arrives. The wireless infrastructure that is currently in place is part of a pilot program and will be replaced with a permanent solution. He outlined how the new equipment will be implemented and answered a few of our questions for us then we went on our way.

We stayed late today to try to finish things up and once we leave the national office tomorrow we should only have a few minor things to finish up. At around 5 our connection was the best we had ever seen it, it was kind of a morale booster to see thing working at 100% for more hour. I made a few calls back home today, but besides that the day was pretty boring.

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I’m ready to go home. Things have not been going as expected and I am making peace with the fact that not much is going to change by the time we leave. Everything that is within our control will be 100% by the time we leave, but some of their issues are just out of our hands. If possible I would like to be done with everything by the end of the day tomorrow, but I doubt that will happen. I also managed to lose my glasses, I think I left them on the bed yesterday morning and they got rolled up in the sheets when the housekeeper changed them.

On a more positive note, I was able to see a few homes in the city today. On our way to lunch we drove by some beautiful newly constructed homes not too far from the office. They really look out of place because they are huge and luxurious but the surrounding area is poor. I noticed the same thing yesterday when we visited the slums; there was a brand new high-rise building right across the highway from them.

One of the employees in the region had a gathering at his house so we stopped by after dinner. One the way over we picked up another employee that just moved to the area and he gave us a brief tour of his place. I’ve noticed that large fences and a main gate for entry surround almost every home here, even the ones in the projects. Most of the fences are made out of brick or stone and have broken glass bottles sticking out at the top.

When explaining the purchase of his home he was telling us that the price of the home included the guard and the maid. His and the other coworkers homes both had small structures off of the main house for the guard and maid to stay. I am under the impression it is common to have a guard and or maid at offices and homes in Ethiopia. Both of them have them, both of the offices I have been working in have them, the garment shop in the slums had a guard and every restaurant that I have been to since I have been here has a guard sitting out in the parking lot to assist you with parking and to hold traffic while you pull out into the street.

In the country two calendars and two time formats are used; GMT+3 along with the Gregorian calendar and then there is the Ethiopian date and time. According to the Ethiopian calendar today is November 22nd and the year is 2000. All over Addis you see things about the millennium celebration that is going on. Ethiopian time is 6 hours behind GMT +3; their clock starts with 1, which is the equivalent of 6am. They have a 13th month and the New Year is in September not January. Crazy isn’t it?

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Today was a well needed break from work at the office, it started off with me attending the conference for the Africa region that is currently going on; I sat in on a few sessions then ate lunch. After lunch some employees from one of our partner organizations gave a presentation about their highly successful AIDS program, the presentation really emphasized how large of a problem AIDS is in Ethiopia and how this program and others like it are helping people live longer.

After the presentation a small group of us went to tour the facility, although the main purpose of this facility is to treat people with AIDS they also provide other medical services. They are currently building a new pediatric wing with money from the Clinton Foundation and they have also built a playground for young patients using money from a program that our organization has set up.

One of the major problems AIDS victims suffer is staying on the strict medication regimen. Some patients feel so much better once they leave the hospital that they feel they do not need to take their medication anymore. Others just have a difficulty trying to keep up with their medication schedule because of other obligations, such as work, caring for children, etc. One of the key factors in their AIDS program is at home care, they have a staff that travels around to administer medication and help the sufferers with common household tasks.

When the tour of the facility was finished we were then driven to one of the projects to sit in on a visit. Upon arriving we were warmly greeted by some children in the neighborhood and then we entered the home of the patient. Her home was very small, about the size of a regular hotel room, by the moans and groans you could tell she was in pain and by the sound of her cough I suspect she was having some serious repertory issues. She had a sheet separating the area her bed was in from the rest of the home, so we did not get a chance to see her but we spoke with the caregiver to get an idea of her daily routine.

On the way to our next destination, our guides were explaining in more detail the area we were in (unfortunately, I forget the name of it). It is basically a transition area for those people moving from the rural area into the city. It also houses a lot of people suffering from HIV and leprosy because they are discriminated against in areas where living conditions are better, so the slum areas become the only places they can live. There is also a dense population, alcohol abuse and prostitution all of which play a role as to why this area has such a problem with AIDS.

The next stop was a building where a group of single mothers make shirts, scarves, wallets and other items. The mothers are taught how to make these things and once they have become proficient they then go out and find jobs that make use of their new skills. We purchased some items, took some pictures and then moved on. Earlier in the tour they had told us about a landfill in the area that was in the process of closing so the land can be used for residential space (I don’t think that is even legal in the US). They took us to the area and the stench and smoke from the burning trash was awful, after a few minutes the combination of the two started to bother me. I thought they had brought us down here just to show us what was going on but I was wrong. To the left of the road was a home partially built with items from the landfill. It belonged to a young widow and her child, both of them have AIDS and the disease took her husband’s life. The home had a dirt floor and part of it had a roof that was made from cardboard boxes. Although these living conditions are nowhere near ideal, both mother and child are doing extremely well in their fight against AIDS. Before they started receiving treatment the child was in very poor condition, but now he is just as active as any normal child. I took some photos of the building and the family and we started to head back to the hotel.

At the hotel I was speaking with a visitor that has been to the country numerous times throughout the years and he was telling me how the government censors all Internet traffic, just recently allowed people to use text messaging and has stopped all telephone service in times of civil unrest. From what I have been told the government has their hand in just about everything, including the banks. I was at a loss for words when I heard this, but I guess when people have power they will do whatever they can to keep it.

I had the pleasure of formally meeting a coworker that I had passed in the elevator a few times when I first started working. She was born and raised in Ireland and when she was 25 she went to Angola as an M.D. to help the people and ended up taking residence and starting a family. She was telling us the stories of her travels and all of the things she has seen in her career and I was just amazed at how full of a life she has lived. I also spoke with another coworker that has been working abroad around Africa for the last 12 years and he also shared some of his stories with me. This trip has really opened my eyes to the rest of the world, and I think living abroad for a year or two would be something I would seriously consider if the proper opportunity would arrive. It is nice to be out of the country, it seems like all you hear about is the war, gas prices or some other unfortunate incident and it feels real nice to be away from all of that for a little while.

For dinner we were treated to a traditional Ethiopian meal and live entertainment at another hotel across the city. On the way over our bus was rear ended, I was not surprised this happened, drivers here have no discretion at all. You can pass wherever you want, I can count the number of traffic lights that I have seen here on one hand and I have not seen a speed limit sign anywhere. We noticed every now and then Abiy and Zewdu would yell “Al-Qaeda” while we were driving around the city. I finally asked why and they pointed to a large Isuzu truck and said that they call them Al-Qaeda because they crash all the time due to the huge blind spots they have.

At dinner I had no idea what I was eating, almost all Ethiopian food looks the same to me, but I enjoyed it. It was by far the best meal that I have had since I have been here. I still have not been sleeping well so we’ll see how thing go tonight. Hopefully it will be better, because this has gone on for 3 nights now.

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I didn’t sleep well at all last night, so it took a lot for me to get out of bed this morning. I was dreading going into the office, because this whole ISP situation is really starting to get on my nerves. Our first stop was the regional office, where we took care of a few things then we moved on to the national one.

As expected, we did not have any connectivity. We called the ISP and they gave us a new range of IP addresses to use, the moment we started using a new address we had a connection and it lasted for longer than half an hour. At this point the day turned around, and most of my frustration left me, but my blissful state did not last too long. About an hour and a half later, we lost our connection again. On a whim I changed our address to another one within our range and things started working again. This problem continued to happen every hour or so, but unfortunately I didn’t have the chance to trouble shoot it, more on this later…..

We took a late lunch and while we were out we exchanged some currency, I exchanged $40 US and got 376 Birr. Food is not too expensive; from what I have seen it is about 50 Birr per person per meal, which is a little over $5 US. So when we get back to the office the generator is running and we get news that almost the entire city is without power! But since the generator is running, we can still work until it runs out of gas, which it does 20 minutes after we get back. At this point there is not much work we can do, so we moved some things around and waited a bit to see if it would come back on, but it doesn’t. The organization is also having a conference this week at another hotel, so we headed over to get an idea of the place because we have a meeting there tomorrow.

Since I blew up my clippers up the other day, I have not shaved since I left the US and it was to the point where I just couldn’t take it anymore so I stopped into one of the shops at the hotel and bought some shaving cream and one disposable razor. The total came to 100 Birr, I didn’t think much of it when a bought it, but about 5 min. later I realized I just paid $10 US for something that probably cost $5 at home. But I really needed the items so I got over it and went on my way.

Tomorrow I am going to take a tour of one of the projects where the organization is helping people. It is not going to be easy to see people living in such poor conditions, but I have a feeling it is definitely going to be a life-changing event and I do not want to miss out on this opportunity. I’ll be sure to take plenty of pictures.

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So a technician from the government ran ISP that has created a monopoly in the county came out today to look into our issue. Previously subscribers were able to purchase a dedicated 256kbps ADSL connection, but they are moving away from them and forcing people to use the wireless infrastructure they have put in place. It appears that their goal is to provide a faster connections to subscribers in the cheapest manner possible, so instead of running fiber or new copper lines the ISP has setup base stations around the city that have a fast link to their network and mounts these access point like devices on the subscribers roof and uses radio waves for the last mile. It is a great idea on paper however it is just not reliable. We have had similar problems with other offices in Africa that use the same setup.

The technician tinkered around for about 45 minutes and we were up and running again, it turns out there was a problem at the base station that was causing our issues. About an hour after he left we lost our connection again! We threw around the idea of using a satellite connection for Internet access, but from what I have been told to mount a dish you need permission from the government.

We waited for a few hours hoping it would come back but it never did, so we did what we could then headed to the Burger Queen. According to Abiy, they have the best burgers in the city, after yesterday’s food adventure I wanted something that was familiar to me. So we had the driver, Zewdu, take us there and on the way I had my first encounter with a beggar. Before I came over I did some research and read that they were very aggressive; the article was 100% true. We were at an intersection and I was being the typical tourist just looking around soaking everything in, and then I caught eyes with one. He was a very slender man that had severely deformed limbs and walked with a cane. He crossed over 2 lanes of traffic and came to my half opened window and started begging. I didn’t have anything to give him and felt real bad about it, because it was obvious that he had a hard life. I was instructed to not make anymore eye contact with him and ignore him, but he did go away. He just asking until Abiy murmured something to him and moved on to the next car.

So after some creative driving we made it to the Burger Queen, half of the 4-lane road was being worked on so we had to jump the median and go against traffic. The place was a lot different than your typical burger place in the US. First off you can get burgers made from all different types of meat (goat, fish, etc.), a “burger” is your typical beef hamburger, a “hamburger” is a beef burger with a slice of ham on top and fries are called chips. Once the food came out, none of it tasted the same as the stuff in the US, not even the ketchup. It was not bad or anything, just different, the best word I can use to describe the taste is “natural”.

Since we didn’t have any Internet access at the national office, after lunch we were going to go over to the regional one so we could check mail and take care of some issues at headquarters. On the way over, the streets were lined with men in blue camo holding machine guns. We saw one about every 100 yards for about a 2-mile radius; the driver told us that they were government security guards. A new movie theater was having it’s grand opening and one of the officials was part of the ceremony. He told us when the motorcade comes through; they stop traffic and completely close all of the roads leading to the official’s destination. I wanted to take a picture but I was told it is illegal to photograph the guards or any government building. I didn’t want to end up in jail or shot so I turned my camera off.

I had been feeling under the weather most of the day, so after reading the 50 some emails in my inbox and making a call back to the States I was ready to go back to the hotel. It looks like tomorrow is going to be another log day, hopefully I will have some time to get some real sightseeing done, but before that can happen we have to finish all of our tasks at both offices; after all this is a business trip.

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