Ethiopia Part 1 - Addis

After returning from Mogadishu, I had a few days in Nairobi before I needed to head to Addis Ababa (Ethiopia). I was looking back and realized that I hadn’t been there since March of 2008. I was Deputy Director of Operations & Finance in Tanzania at the time, based in Dar es Salaam. I was in Addis for a supply chain workshop and I saw very little of the city at that time. I remember going for a couple of runs from my hotel, but I don’t remember a lot about the city. In any case, the city today doesn’t resemble the city back then. It’s crazy how developed it is now.

Addis Ababa

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Some History

For starters, a bit about Ethiopia. It’s an interesting country with an interesting history. I won’t try to do it justice here, but it’s good to have a small background to better understand some things about my visit. The country sits in the Horn of Africa just north of Kenya, west of Somalia. It is land-locked which has had an impact on its history as well as geopolitical events today.

It’s a proud country with a population that maintains a self-confidence that you don’t see as much in some other African countries. Many countries demonstrate a certain deference for foreigners, particularly Westerners, that is often exaggerated. You don’t see this as much in Ethiopia. They have a sizeable population that is highly educated and a powerful economic force. They’re happy to dismiss external (including Western) input if they feel that it is warranted. It’s actually quite refreshing.

Some of this comes from their history. Ethiopians love to raise the fact that they were one of the few places in Africa during the European “Scramble for Africa” in the late 19^th century that largely preserved its sovereignty. After Italian and later British partial occupation during WWII, the country maintained independence and some stability post-war under Emperor Haile Selassie. But by the 1970s, opinion within Ethiopia gradually turned against him, owing in part to the worldwide 1973 oil crisis. In 1974, a Soviet-backed military junta took power after deposing Selassie and ruled the country until the end of the Cold War. This communist foundation is important in understanding Ethiopia today.

Both during communist times as well as during modern times, the country has struggled to maintain unity of its diverse population, particularly in the northern regions of Eritrea and Tigray. Insurrections against authoritarian rule continued to arise culminating in civil war in the early 1970s. In 1977, during the Soviet-backed era, there was an attempt by Somalia to take control of the Somali region of the country – to unify a Somali people that had been arbitrarily divided by colonial powers (this is the area I visited that I will discuss in the next blog entry, which is partially why I’m mentioning it). Eventually, with Soviet bloc country support, Somalia was pushed back and the border dividing the Somali people was preserved.

lots of churches

In 1983, a decade into the war, famine was declared. Though drought was the cause of severe food insecurity, famine is always people-induced. The hardest hit areas were those with long-standing anti-government rebellions. Around 8 million people were affected resulting in 1 million dead. Westerners might remember that the famine prompted release of the single “Do They Know Its Christmas” for the holiday season in 1984 as well as “We are the World” and the subsequent Live Aid concert in 1985.

From 1991 through today, Ethiopia has maintained a federal democratic republic, albeit with a fairly strong rule over the population. Though ethnic tensions persist (including the Tigray War 2020-2022), the country continues to move forward. It is now the fastest growing economy in sub-Saharan Africa. As of 2024, it is home to around 109 million people, making it the 13^th-most populous country in the world, the 2^nd-most populous in Africa after Nigeria, and the most populated landlocked country on earth. There you go. Ethiopia in a nutshell.

taking wood from the mountain to sell in town. wow.

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My trip this time would last about seven days. I needed to arrive on a Friday in order to catch an internal flight to Jigjiga, a town in the Somali region of Ethiopia. I took advantage of the same type of visit in April 2013, when we had meetings in Uganda, I was invited to visit some of the activities in the northern part of the country. I thought it was fascinating and was looking forward to doing this again in eastern Ethiopia (I’ll cover it in the next blog entry).

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Addis

As I mentioned, Addis is unrecognizable from when I was there the last time. My hotel was located on Tito Street (after the former Yugoslav Communist dictator), a shout-out to the country’s aforementioned Communist days. Today it seems slightly incongruous given Addis’ aggressive plunge into capitalism.

not sure "choke" is good in a restaurant name

I do love exploring so most days I would wake up and head out for an early morning jog. I found a few beautiful churches that I recognized from when I was there many years ago (among the few things that don’t change). One was the Bete Maryam Mausoleum. It is located on the famous palace grounds (of former Emperor Menelik). It houses the elaborate marble tombs of Empress Taitu, Emperor Menelik, Empress Zewditu and Princess Tsehai Haile Selassie.

Bete Maryam Mausoleum

I wasn’t sure if it was appropriate to approach the church in sweaty running attire given that it has a certain sacredness for locals. I entered slowly to test out what the reaction might be by guards who were keeping a watchful eye on the grounds. They just watched so I continued walking around the compound. Such a beautiful and tranquil place in the early morning. Several worshipers were scattered around the gardens, some with Bibles open and praying quietly. Ethiopian Orthodox women generally wear white shawls and the worshipers were predominantly women. We have an Ethiopian Orthodox church near us in Nairobi (as well a couple of yummy Ethiopian restaurants) which is a draw for Ethiopians to our neighborhood.

The large numbers of guards at the Mausoleum, I found out later, is attributed to the fact that the Prime Minister’s residence is located at an adjacent compound. 

massive tortoises on the compound

There's so much to see and we didn't have time to do much. It makes me want to return as a tourist. 

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As you would expect, my days were spent in meetings. Nothing too interesting to report, though it’s good to connect with people. Some of my colleagues I’ve known for many years and we've grown quite close. One Kenyan colleague I’ve known since 2007. Other than regular video calls, we all meet face to face once or twice a year at meetings such as this. It’s one of the things I’ll miss when I decide to step off.

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Mount Entoto

Those who know me know I’m not a big fan of team-building activities. My staff and colleagues seem to love them. This week the plan was to devote the entire last day to team-building. It’s not that I don’t like hanging out with my peers. It’s more about the methodology, most likely originating in the US, where there's the compulsion to play silly games. I know you have loads of professionals in this field who stand by the effectiveness of grown-ups playing musical chairs, but I figure that there are more constructive ways to foster cohesiveness among peers that would waste less time. 

we drank lots of good coffee

This week, the plan was for us to pile into a couple of buses and head to a nature area called Entoto Natural Park on the outskirts of the city. I must say, it was an impressive place. It’s massive and has loads of different activities including walking trails, ziplines, horseback riding, archery, trampoline park, etc. For the most part, it was tastefully done and a wonderful resource for people living in, or visiting, Addis.

The plan for the day was to choose an activity (the good part) and then there would be time for a meal (another good part) and team-building games (less interesting).

I signed up for horseback riding, an activity that we’ve been doing as a family. My size can be an issue, however. One of the places we went to near Mt. Kenya said I was too big (heavy) according to some sort of standard applied by certain stables for their Thoroughbreds (the dominant horse in Africa, imported from Europe). Thoroughbreds tend to be smaller than Quarter Horses which are more common in the US. This woman explained to me that Quarter Horses can thus generally carry more weight. I did some research on the subject and it's apparently not as simple as establishing an arbitrary maximum load. It's also dependent on the size and strength of each horse as well as the skill level of the rider (which can lessen the impact of the load). Anyway, the Ethiopian guys at the stable didn’t seem to care how big I was. They just let us ride. I limited my riding time, though, given that my horse was pretty small for my size. It’s not like my stirrups were dragging the ground but I wished they had had a bigger horse available. 

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After riding, we walked down the hill towards where we were supposed to meet for lunch. Part way down we passed the zipline launch facility. Given that we had the time, we couldn’t pass up the opportunity. Three from our group decided to give it a go. The course was set up for three lines, zigzagging down the hillside. It turned out to be quite beautiful, flying over a waterfall and a small lake. The view of Addis and the valley below was wonderful.

watching the strange zipliners

We did run into an issue, however. On the second line, a Ugandan member of our group banged her foot as she approached the landing. Though they tell you to keep your feet up, it’s hard for people that aren’t very fit. In retrospect, they should have said to keep the feet up at the start, then relax, and as you approach the end you need to lift up your knees again.

Anyway, she hit pretty hard and was in a lot of pain. Given that we were partway down the hill, there was no going up and no going down except for her to zipline the final stretch. This was her first time doing this sort of thing and she was freaked by both ziplining and now doing it with the risk of smacking and already injured foot against the landing again. It took a while to calm her down and get her in a frame of mind to go. We had people at the other end ready to catch her and help her to a vehicle. The whole thing took almost an hour but she finally did it. I felt so bad for her. We couldn’t tell if it was broken but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was.

a long way down

By the time we reached the lunch place, we were super late. There would be almost no time for games (thankfully). We would have time for a late lunch, regroup for some last-minute words and soon we were off to the hotel. We had people that were scheduled to fly out that evening and we couldn’t afford to delay. Worked for me. Because of a visa issue, I wasn’t scheduled to fly out until the next day. It ended up being nice not needing to rush to the airport. I could chill at the hotel and leave the following morning.

 

Back to Mogadishu

I’m finally beginning to catch up. I didn’t realize how far behind I was in the blog until I sat down to capture the last couple of months. Ugh.

* * *

Soon after returning from the US, I needed to turn around and head to Mogadishu. There were some relatively important meetings to attend and, to be honest, it was important to be back after such a long break.

I had a few small meetings with staff and a couple of larger meetings inside the “green zone”. The first event was a humanitarian forum pulling together the government, civil society and international community to discuss the humanitarian situation in the country and also chart out the way forward in responding to current and future humanitarian shocks. It’s a large event and must be held in the “green zone” due to the large numbers of people from the international community who are unable to leave the protected area for security reasons (primarily UN and embassy officials). It would also be a considerable security risk to have such a collection of potential targets at a more exposed venue.

the guy not paying attention on the left

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Thankfully, we had the resources earlier this year to purchase an armored vehicle which facilitates my movements outside the “green zone” and to/from our office-guesthouse. Formerly we were using vehicles from a private security firm which wasn’t ideal.

our clean new vehicle; they haven't even take the plastic off the headrests

After the event, I returned to the office for both internal meetings as well as some virtual meetings. It can be a pain to have evening meetings but given that our HQ is in NY, it inevitably happens sometimes. I had been away for a long time so it was expected that my agenda would be full for a couple weeks.

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The next morning, I would return to the “green zone” for the next event. This gathering also consisted of government officials, civil society and international community. As expected, there were a few people from the day before that I saw again at this event.

I'm in this one too but not very visible. You can see the top of my head to the left of the photographers on the right half of the photo. PM is front and center with the blue tie.

It took place in a nice hotel adjacent to the airport. Several government ministers were in attendance, including the Prime Minister. The focus was the rollout of the government’s strategy for durable solutions – interventions that are designed to look beyond the more acute humanitarian response and focus on longer term needs of communities and individuals. It’s always much easier to develop a strategy than it is to fund and implement the activities. Consequently, it's all a bit aspirational. As is always the case, one needs to keep one foot on the cynical side and the other on the idealist side, never moving too far in either direction where it can render you useless.

* * *

That evening was uneventful. I had my usual call with my family, let the know I’m okay, hear about their day, etc. I’ve always struggled with insomnia and the week leading up to this trip was particularly bad, fueled in part by jet lag from travel to the US. Given the calls to prayer that happen in the early hours of the morning, and various noises in our neighborhood in Mogadishu, it makes sleep a bit of a challenge.

On this particular morning, the challenge was more significant. At 5:30am I was lying in bed partially awake and suddenly there was a large explosion. It sounded like it wasn’t too far away from our office. I wasn’t sure what type of explosion it was (for better or worse, I'm getting pretty good at distinguishing between sinister and non-sinister bast/gunfire sounds) but I would find out later it was a mortar attack. That would be in the sinister category. There would be four more over the next several minutes, none as loud as the first.

As I normally do, I stay away from the windows and check my phone. We have a WhatsApp security group where our head of security is remarkably reliable about sending a message in the minutes after an attack. When the message came it, it clarified that it was indeed a mortar attack seemingly targeting the airport/”green zone”. The trouble is that these attacks are not very precise and anything in the vicinity is potentially vulnerable.

I was supposed to fly out later that morning and I admit that my first thought was whether or not this might jeopardize my intended travel. Pathetic human that I am, my second thought was to hope that no one was killed (thankfully no one was, though there were a couple of injuries).

It’s a sobering thing to be around such things. On multiple occasions I have been in Mogadishu when there have been attacks, some closer in proximity than others. It’s not ideal but, at least for now, it’s part of what I do. It’s a stark reality for people that live here and in other parts of the world. They face it far more than I do so I shouldn’t complain. But no civilians should have to deal with this sort of thing.

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 I did make it to the airport a couple hours later. There was no sign of any attack and "green zone" security seemed to be functioning as normal. This is a resilient place and a resilient people.