Chapter 3
First Days of an Aid-Expert
Most of the Hungarian aid-experts were living in a closed living estate of 2-story apartment houses. After some brain sounding they left us alone. Actually, as we had nothing in common with the expert, together which I flew there, after the acquisition of our documents for living in the country, I lived my life alone, or rather in the company of another compatriot. He had been there for three months, to work on the same place as me.
The acquisition of papers took two weeks, to squeeze out an apartment three times that. John helped me in every introduction, but let me alone then. He also helped me open a P.O.Box in the post office to have an address. My job was one thing, housing another.
I was introduced to the technical manager of the largest state company of the Ministry of Transport and Communications. He was Ato Bekele B., the first word for Mr, the second his own name and the third his father’s name by the local custom. He was of my age. He showed me the premises of the firm and I saw at once the enormity of my task.
There were six experts of ours, including me, living in the hotel. Earlier it had been easy to purchase cars. Most of the experts living there for at least one year, had purchased theirs from the company Ethso, a joint venture of local and Soviet capital to sell Russian-made cars. That year the company was on the verge of bankruptcy and they were dealing only with spare parts.
Only one of us had succeeded in buying the last specimen of the Lada cars. Those living in the hotel were depending on the mercy of others to get a lift somewhere.
I contacted someone, a West-German sociologist with a 3-door white Fiat 127. He was moving to Lesotho, a much more interesting place for him. He called me and I checked the car. He prepared the sales-agreement – it would be one of the necessary documents to get a plate of my own – and for the time being all was settled.
The first week-end we spent all five by visiting the most famous place not far from the capital. About 70 miles to the east it was a hot-spring area in a volcanic valley. Its name is Sodere. The dry season makes the temperature of water rise to 200 degrees F. The rim of the spring is covered with crystals, as in the cooling process water lets its contents crystallize. The valley is covered by mist. That time, one month into the rainy season, the water was still very hot, the big quantity of cool rainwater has not got down into the source of hot water to decrease its temperature.
The water is led to two pools, one of them a small basin with a water temperature of 125 degrees F, the other is somewhat farther, the water can be cooled a little more, it has the sizes of an olympic swimming pool and a temperature of 110 degrees F. In the heat of 85 degrees F even the cooler pool was unbearably hot. The other one I could not use.
Our next week-end was for Sobota. About 20 miles from the town, it is an orchard owned by a cooperative.
Ethiopian national food is not very various. Mainly there are two kinds. The first is raw meat from fresh kill. They eat it with their extremely hot red pepper called "berberay”. That food I have never tasted, first as I cannot take raw meat and eggs, except smoked ham. Second, all the animals in that country are infested by worms.
The other kind of Ethiopian food is "wat” with "injera”. Wat is a stew made of any kinds of meat or a special leguminous plant they call "shourow”. It is a sort of pea, but it gets dark brown being cooked. Even the "pea soup” made of it is black. Wat is made with a lot of rancid butter melted, and much onion drooped on it. Then berberay is put onto it and made into a sauce. Meat chopped into small pieces is the next and it will be fried a little. Then the proper quantity of water is poured on and it is cooked, until ready. Beside onion and berberay of all spices only salt is needed. When it is ready it looks like a thick stew with red pepper.
Berbaray is prepared from very hot red pepper. It is dried on the sun and with its core and seeds is smashed into powder. After it a lot of seasoning is mixed with it to give its special flavour. But its basic taste remains hot paprika.
Wat cannot be consumed without injera as it is too hot. Injera is Ethiopians’ substitute for bread. Its source is a kind of sorghum called "teff” in Amharic. This kind of corn had been grown only in precolumbian America outside Ethiopia. The plant has three varieties, black, white and red. They are called so because of the colour shade in the flour. Ground teff is mixed with water to get a usual dough. It is put aside to ferment for 3 days. It has a characteristic odour from fermentation. Then it is mixed with the same quantity of boiling water to stop fermentation. The dough -- actually a thick fluid like that of pancake -- is fried, or rather dried in a pan about two feet in diameter made of ceramics and having a lid. Heat is so low that originally they used only leaves and little twigs for the fire under the pan. The method is similar to the frying of pancakes, only it is done under the lid and only on one side. The fermented dough will grow to three times its original thickness and is full of bubbles. It is as sour as vinegar. You cannot eat it alone. But together wat and injera is an orgy of taste.
Wat is always made with red pepper, but it can be prepared of different kinds of meat or of shourow. The latter is the flour of the dried seeds and tastes -- beside hot pepper and rancid butter -- like peanuts. As it is more common and cheaper than meat, shourow wat is the daily staple of poor people.
Any time in an Ethiopian restaurant you can order national food. You will get a big plate with five or six different kinds of wat or "alicha” -- the same as wat, but with black pepper instead of red one and made yellow by saffron -- and some rolls of injera. To eat it you use your fingers.
Eating is always by fingers all over the country. Before meal water is poured on your hands and clean towels provided. A dear guest is fed by the mistress of the house with her own fingers. It is the greatest honour and is not to be rejected.
When I have got my ID card, I could apply for a local driving licence. International or foreign national licences are valid only for one month after the arrival or in our case until we have got our ID cards.
In about four weeks I was given an apartment on the 6th floor of a 12-story house. It took me about a week to organize maintenance, painting and white-washing. I was allowed to buy the needed furniture from a local carpenter. Carpets I got only in October.
The rainy season was in full at the beginning of August. That month is always awful, as at the height of the season, the once-a-day rain of June and July turns into once-a-day sunshine. All day it is raining.
Weather in Addis Ababa is tricky. Lying at a height of more than 8,000 feet above sea level, the average temperature of the air in the afternoon is 65 degrees F all the year round. But during night the temperature falls to 50 degrees F. I was light-minded enough to leave the window open during night and the second week of my stay was hard because of the heavy cold I have caught.
Other experts were getting out of the hotel one by one and for a time I remained alone. My flat was in the hands of construction workers, and it was very easy to check them, as the house was across the road from the hotel. Alas, there happened something very inconvenient: all my cash has been stolen from the secret cache of my wallet put into the inner breast pocket of my overcoat within the locked wardrobe. The hotel crew thought it had been done by my neighbours from Yemen occupying the room for some days. The money has never been found.
As long as I didn’t get my car I was walking or riding by taxi. The Addis Ababa taxi was a fine invention. By bribe every taxi driver could pass the technical checking of the car and so, taxies were cars in the town in the worst condition imaginable. Some had no lamps. Others had their doors closed by wire, etc. But they were cheap. At that time for a ride of about two miles you had to pay a quarter of an Ethiopian birr – then 2 birrs were equal to one dollar.
The route has been designed by the passengers. When you got into an empty taxi, you could tell the driver the terminal point of your trip. If it was within the 25 Ethiopian cents, then the driver started. If not, he told you the fare and it was your turn to accept. When someone stopped the car, before you got out, and said a point that was in the same direction, the driver let him in. And so on, and, like a line from the spinning wheel, the route of the taxi was planned.
Having the painting finished in my flat, I went to buy furniture and arranged it in the apartment. I called our representative, John, to see my flat and to report home that my family could come. I learned that they would arrive the next week. By the same plane new experts would be expected, two doctors, wife and husband, and the third one was the friend of Alex, who would take my originally planned place in the university.