Well I’ve slacked for far too long. Currently I am attending a seminar on African Literature. The authors tonight have been exercising their ability to give excuses as to why they publish in French as opposed to their African indigenous languages (I mean besides the fact that they would not have been invited to speak by the Alliance Ethio-Francais, which curiously, has no ‘E’ in its acronym). With the exception of the Ethiopian authors, those who have spoken claim to be more ‘comfortable’ writing in French, or complain of not seeing the point of publishing in the language of their little ‘tribe’ as the readership would be close to nil, etc. etc. how sad. Speaking of sad, i must be getting old. My body is sore from W/o Desta’s class, knees aching, back aching, shoulders aching…Azmari Night’s coming up on Thursday tho’ so hopefully I’ll be able to do a little sumthin sumthin. Alas, this has NOTHING to do with Awassa and Shashemene, so now I reach back into the recesses of my mind to recall as vividly as possible the activities of that time that now seems so long ago. Like I said I must be getting old ‘cause it wasn’t that long ago.
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… We were so happy to get back on that smooth road to Awassa. It was more of the same scenery with more frequent occurrences of horse-drawn carts. When arrived in Awassa it was nearing dusk. We drove directly to the big beautiful lake that is the highlight of Awassa. When We pulled up there were people all around. Some people stood at the bank of the lake holding hands and chatting animatedly, others just watched the sun set in silence, still others sailed in little boats on the lake. ppl rode their bicycles past us, stopping on occasion to patronize the peanut or popcorn vendor.

**A note: Handholding isn’t just for those enamored of each other here in Ethiopia. It’s a sign of friendship, so it’s not uncommon to see members of the same gender walking and holding hands, be they male or female.

We joined the silent sunset-watchers at the bank of the huge lake. The water washed up against the sides. After the sun took her final bow, but before the stars could precede the moon for the final act, we hopped in the vehicle to find a hotel.

**Another note: this time about hotels in Ethiopia. A lot of them are not up to very good standards, in particular the restroom facilities. I’ve heard many a horror story about hotels that were supposed to be good that ended up being anything but. My hosts told me of a hotel they stayed at in Shashemene that refused to give them more than one towel even though 2 ppl were staying in the room, that had an odorous rug in the room that they refused to remove and whose restroom facilities were so horrible they thought it better to go to the forest to relieve themselves, hence their insistence on spending the night in Awassa. Your best bet is to check out a guide or ask ppl who have traveled and are used to the standards you are used to. There is another trick you can use that I will explain presently.

There are several hotels in Awassa, they include: Wabe Shebele I & II and the Pinna hotel. There are others but their names escape me now. Since we were closer to W.S. II we decided to stay at that one. As it turns out we were just closer to the sign pointing to it. you see that wasn’t the only sign pointing to it, in addition to that, that the sign was there didn’t necessarily mean that the hotel was nearby. Indeed we spent an additional half an hour looking for this hotel, all the while going deeper and deeper into what looked like at this time of day very foreboding woods. Turning right then turning left driving some more over rough road looking for another sign or the hotel itself. We got a lot of false positives. Just as I thought we would never reach we saw the blue and white sign and an opening. It wasn’t very well lit and there was a lot of shrubbery around. By now very tired, we pulled up to a building with a sign on it that read ‘Reception.’ We went to the desk to find a room.
How much are the rooms?
“35 Birr for Ethiopians and 90 Birr for farenjis.” I should’ve stayed in the car. Later I was told it wouldn’t have made a difference because they would’ve asked for ID.
“how many of you are there?”
3 females, 1 male.
“there are only 2 rooms available though.”
Can 3 of us stay in a room?
“No. You will have to get 1 room for 2 of you, 1 room for the male and 1 room for the other person. But there are only 2 rooms available. There is a government meeting here and they are using all of the rooms. They’ll be gone tomorrow though.” We groaned. (but that doesn’t help us NOW). We left dejected because all of that driving was for nothing. I mean I’m sure we would’ve enjoyed the scenery if it wasn’t for the fact it was pitch black outside. Fortunately, one of us had been talking to someone at Wondo Ganet who recommended some hotels, one of which was the Lina hotel. So we set off looking for it. It took less time to get to the 1st W.S. II sign from the hotel than it did doing the opposite. That could’ve been perception though. we headed towards some street lights all the while looking for hotels. Then we saw one: The Pinna Hotel. That was the hotel recommended, Pinna not Lina. We made a U-turn and pulled up to it. it is beside a restaurant on a very busy street - the exact opposite of the previous hotel. We peered through the window, the lobby looked promising. Another comfort was all the Land Cruisers parked in the small lot in front of the hotel.

**Yet another note: actually, this is a continuation of the last one, you know, the trick I was going to tell you. This is how you can tell if a hotel is good or not, that is, if it’s not called Sheraton Addis and is owned by Ethiopian gazillionaire Sheikh Al-Amoudi (here, the term Sheikh is bestowed on a very rich person who claims Islam as his religion and has had a heaping helping of arab money to help him along the way). If you see Land Cruisers, or even better, Land Rovers in front of a hotel, especially if there’s a Red Cross on the side, or the letters ‘U’ ‘N’ on the license plate, or the license plate is yellow, it is highly probable that said hotel is clean and the service is good (another note is forthcoming about ‘service’ at these hotels). You see when the ‘Lords of Poverty’ (pick up that book) are on their way to their ribbon-cutting, they exploit their colonial-style privileges in developing countries only at the best of hotels or on prime land of said countries. So if you see a sign of them, at a hotel anyway, it is a good thing with regards to the hotel.

Heartened, we entered and enquired about a room. “150 Birr for farenjis 75 Birr for Ethiopians.” Can 3 of us stay in 1 room? “Yes but you will have to pay the farenji price. We can give you an extra little bed and linens.” Thank you. The rooms looked very good and they even brought the price down to 110 Birr. Very good means I only saw 2 roaches, there was mosquito netting over the beds, each room a television with a movie channel, ETV and who cares about the rest. You do? Ok, 2 BBCs and a CNN. There was a night stand and a desk and I believe each room has a balcony. At least our 2 did. The bathroom was cool, toilet worked, it had a seat (many public toilets for some reason are without seats). The water pressure was good from the showerhead and there were plenty of linens. Our fatigue was surpassed only by our ravenousness. We were howngray. All that monkey food we had Wondo Ganet wasn’t cuttin’ it, I needed some Wat, some Injerra, some kiti… well, I wasn’t that hungry. We went to the restaurant beside the hotel and used one of their private rooms, only because it was set up with traditional stools around a messaup and nobody else was using it. the dinner was served promptly, I stuffed myself and washed it down with some Ambo. I rolled myself over to the hotel and worked off some of the dinner by climbing the 3 flights of stairs to our floor. folks in wheelchairs are out of luck if the bottom floor is full – i.e. no elevator. I flopped onto the bed and half-watched a movie that was on. I lowered the mosquito netting and went to sleep. The next morning I watched the sunrise from the balcony. We all showered and packed up our stuff. We went downstairs, paid the bill and were pleasantly surprised to see that our very dirty vehicle had been washed. We tipped the man who had taken our bags and saw about the extra mattress and tipped the man who had washed the car. This brings me to my next and final
**note: the trouble with going to hotels or any places frequented by the ‘Lords of Poverty’ is that you might be mistaken for one. Locals who provide service, any kind of service, be it directing you to a parking space or watching your car, generally expect a tip. It’s worse if you are mistaken for a L.O.P. because then they expect a very large tip. The men at the hotel were no exception. This could be seen by the disdainful expression one had on his face when he got our tip. Such ppl are used to getting 100 Birr tips, they get such tips from arab visitors as well and so anything less, or much less as in our case is not looked upon very well. Fear not! Though you will probably question the possibility, looks can’t kill.

We packed up our stuff and raced towards Shashemene as we had promised the lady we would be back in time for breakfast that morning.

Kemetian
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