THE MAP/"A Drunken Man With Low Self-Esteem?" [September 19, 2006]
SEPTEMBER 19, 2006 – DAY TWO
Only in the grand theatre of extreme coincidence, the kind that feeds UFO conspiracy theories and Hollywood blockbusters, could I ever have expected to find myself one night standing in the middle of the street, grappling with a drunk Ethiopian who wanted nothing more than my encouragement. It only makes sense then, that barely a day after landing in Addis, that was exactly where Robyn and I found ourselves.
Our second day had started off industrially enough. Robyn and I had spoken with our placements, then gotten a thorough tour and introduction to her NGO staff. Her colleagues then took us out for lunch and to look at houses to rent before dropping us off at our east-end hotel. The confusing search for houses left us in desperate need of a detailed map of the city, so we set off for the Ethiopia Mapping Agency (EMA), which the Bradt Guide claimed were proprietors of the best available map of Addis Ababa.
With only an hour until the EMA office closed, we took off walking toward the city centre. I had my knapsack with me, which held our money, travelers’ cheques and passports, as well as a sweater to brace me against the mountain air. The EMA itself was across from the Hilton, and it quickly became obvious we weren’t going to walk there in less than an hour. We decided instead to brave our first minibus ride to Meskel Square.
THE MINIBUSES...
The minibuses in Addis are royal blue and white Toyota Hiace vans. The rest of the country will have the same vans, but painted different colours – usually just a solid navy blue or all white. The buses are as rickety as you can imagine, covered with stickers and pictures from famous English soccer teams, and usually packed to the hilt with passengers. The three seat back row is a four-seater, people are on wheel wells, squeezed three to a double seat, and stuck on the front-bench platform, facing backwards into the bus.
Getting a minibus is a delicate art in itself. There are regular minibus stops, where anywhere from half a dozen to a dozen dozen buses will be stopped at any one time, going in a hundred different directions across Addis. To board, you simply cruise the crowd, listening to the conductors shouting out destinations, until you find the one you want. It’s clearly a little less formal than the TTC, but essentially the same.
En route to these terminal points, however, your average minibus will rarely stop to pick up passengers. Instead, they slow down and honk at pedestrians, with the conductor leaning out the window, yelling out the name of his route at people walking by or stopped on the sidewalk. It doesn’t matter to the minibus conductor which direction you’re walking. The simple act of basic pedestrianism, even if it’s taking place in a direction squarely opposite to the route of the bus, is enough to pique the conductor’s curiousity. Considering that none of the streets in Addis are straight and swerve into, across and around one another, it’s no surprise to walk past a screaming conductor going the opposite direction and find him ten minutes later having a macchiato in the same café you were headed to in the first place
When scouting for fares, the driver will also act as a spotter. This is sometimes because he is keen to maximize revenue in the extremely competitive deregulated Addis public transit market, but usually because he needs something to do since he actually has no control over the bus itself. No car in Ethiopia is properly aligned, and minibuses are the worst offenders. It’s common to see drivers going straight but trying to keep the steering wheel at a ninety-degree angle. I say trying because since the alignment is so completely out of kilter, the steering wheels have tremendous play and range of motion in them, and watching the driver’s hands is like watching Maggie take the wheel in the opening credits of The Simpsons. The wheel is constantly spinning from side to side, and this helps explain why no one in Ethiopia can stay in his or her lane (the other major factor being that obeying ordinary traffic norms is the surest way to get you killed on the road).
The driver will sometimes scout fares by pointing out groups of people to the conductor, but usually he just takes the simplest option and swerves directly at whomever he sees. The conductor obliges by screaming at the targets, who either heed his warning and run for their lives, or hold their ground and wait for the side mirror of the minibus to slide three inches past their nose.
If inclined to hold their ground, a passenger-to-be can flag down a bus in one of three ways: Either by yelling out her own preferred destination, sticking his arm out and raising a finger, or just by making eye contact with the conductor and raising one’s eyebrow. When the driver sees this, the bus instantly slows. When the driver doesn’t see this, the conductor bangs his fist as hard as he can on the side of the bus, making the entire doorframe rattle, and signaling to the driver to stop. An extra two seconds of adrenaline is pumped into the waiting passenger as the delayed reaction of the driver means the side mirror will now pass within an inch and a quarter of his nose. The bus slows down to a crawl, and anyone getting on has to pretend they’re a hobo riding the Union-Pacific Line to California and time their jump from the curb to the car just right. More than once I’ve seen the bus “conductor” save an old lady from a timely if slightly bizarre death beneath the wheels of the bus.
Amazingly enough, in the first of many coincidences which led us to a less-than-romantic encounter with an intoxicated local harbouring self-esteem issues, the first minbus Robyn and I saw had a driver yelling for Meskel Square, although it sounded more like Mek-sel Square. After gesturing for us to sit in the front seats, the conductor slammed the door and the driver took off.
We had no idea what the going rate was for either locals or foreigners. I reached into my pocket and pulled out several 1-birr notes, unsure what would be appropriate. In hushed tones, we discussed the fare. “I think you pay when you get going.” “Is this enough?” “Is it too much?” We drove on, the money stuffed back in my jeans. The conductor tapped on my right shoulder, so I pulled two notes out. “I think you have lots of time to pay him,” whispered Robyn. I nodded and coolly palmed the bills, at which point the conductor finished dragging his next fare through the door and began to insistently bang on my left shoulder. I turned and passed the notes back over my shoulder. He took them, but a moment later said something directed at us. Another mini-debate ensued - “Are we good?” “What did he say?” “What does he want?”. The conductor interrupted and said it again, at which Robyn asked the lady sitting behind us what he wanted. “Forty. Forty cents,” she said. I pulled out the coins and gave it to him, and got my change back instantly. Quite pleased with myself, I sat back and enjoyed the ride.
Until, that is, the bus drove right through Meskel, past the road leading up to the Hilton. Robyn and I looked at each other in alarm as the driver crossed the massive square. Just after Meskel, he abruptly turned and threw the bus into a parking lot outside of Addis stadium. We jumped out as fast as we could, doing our best not to get caught in the head by the elbow of the conductor who was still hanging out the window. We now officially had no idea where we were, and no map to tell us. We knew which direction the Hilton was, so we turned back and headed that way.
THE HILL...
We passed a man peeing on the side of a fence. He was watching a group of kids ride dirtbikes through the mud of a soccer field that was beside the Stadium. It was completely ordinary. A kid tried to sell us maps of Africa, but we declined, walking instead up a diagonal street in the direction of the Hilton.
The road it took us out onto was clearly not the one with the Hilton, but we felt we were headed in the right direction. We stopped at an internet café to ask directions, but were told to turn around. This was even more confusing to us, so we said we didn’t want to turn around but continue going up and then across to the Hilton. The language barrier seemed insurmountable until a young man at one of the computers sighed and stood up.
“You want to go this way? I’ll take you there,” he said, the exasperation evident in his voice.
“No, no, you don’t have to take us,” we protested. “Just show us where to go and that’s fine.”
“It’s okay. Come with me – I’ll take you.” He marched out of the café. We looked at each other and shrugged our shoulders, and then followed him out.
Our friend turned up the street in the direction we were headed. He was slightly disheveled, but no more than your average Addis Ababan. He was wearing cut off pants with a hole in the pocket, and a heavy brown jacket with badly frayed sleeves and a large hole in the middle of his back. He chatted with Robyn briefly about Canada and Vancouver while I kept guard on the bag. After a ten minute walk, we arrived at a busy intersection. He pointed out some landmarks, and then said we had to turn right. “Just walk up this road, and you will see the road. It is not far from here.” “Just go straight?” “Yes. Up this hill.” We gave our thanks and said our goodbyes, and our friend turned around and walked back the way we came. Happy to be back on track, but worried about the lost time, we set off again.
The road, as it turned out, was longer than either of us had anticipated. The walk wasn’t helped by the intensity of the sun beating down upon us. Even though it was still cool by my standards, the extreme elevation of Addis, the third-highest capital city in the world, only added to the potency of the sun’s rays. Worst of all, however, was the combination of the long road, hot sun, and an extremely steep hill. It was about a fifteen-minute walk, but we were drenched with sweat by the time we arrived at the top. My bag was sticking to my shirt, which in turn was slowly melting into my pores.
As we stood at the massive intersection, we realized we had no idea where the EMA was from here. We looked up and down the street, but all we saw were trees. Only the corner directly across from us had any sort of activity on it, so we made a life-changing dash across twelve lanes of traffic and soon found ourselves standing outside some store fronts, intently watched by a small crowd of taxi drivers, shoeshine kids and street hawkers. We wandered in and out of the buildings, going to find businesses that could direct us, but nobody had any idea what we were talking about.
Coming out of the building for the third time, one of the drivers asked us what we wanted. We explained to him we were looking for the Mapping Authority. He looked at us slyly.
“It is okay,” he said. “I know a guide. He will take you.”
“No no no no,” barked Robyn. “We just want to know where it is. We don’t need a guide. Just tell us where to go.”
The man leered at us and smiled a slightly toothless smile. “Information for nothing?” He laughed and explained to his friends what the ferenji had said. Fed up, we walked away, deciding to go up the road we had just crossed. The shout came from behind.
“Wait, wait!” We turned expectantly. “Where is it?” The man smiled again, and his friends laughed. “Go up this street,” he said, pointing in the direction we were aiming for. “Cross it at the Hilton, and there you will see it.” He smiled and sat down. “Thank you very much,” we said.
Turning back to the road, we checked our watches. We had the directions, but only fifteen minutes were left, and we had no idea how long the next walk would be, only that it was up another steep hill. Bowing our heads, we crossed the street and redoubled our pace.
THE SMALL BOYS...
Time was running out as we pushed up the hill. Cars and minibuses whizzed by us. We couldn’t see anything, except a small intersection a hundred meters up the hill, with a small number of street kids standing on one side. As we got to the intersection, we realized it was actually the tastefully subtle entrance to the Hilton. Looking across the street, we scanned for the EMA.
“There it is,” I said excitedly. “I see it.” I pointed across the road, where a sign for the EMA and the building were evident. Invigorated by how close we were, we jumped into the street and nearly skipped across it. We had been silent for much of the last little while, running up and around hills and tired from our search, but the fact we could see the EMA had us talking again.
“You know, this really feels like we’re on the Amazing Race,” laughed Robyn as we stepped out to cross the first six lanes. “The confusion, the fact we’re in Africa, we’re running out of time – it’s very much like the Amazing Race.”
I laughed in agreement as the Small Boys who were crowded in front of the Hilton took notice of us. One kid yelled if I wanted a shoeshine, but I declined, saying I had to go to the Mapping Authority.
“I will show you, I will show you,” he said, running out into the street. I tried to shoo him away, telling him “Don’t worry – I already saw it.” He didn’t turn back, however. Instead, one of his buddies chased us onto the road as well. Like little impoverished kids around the world always do, he was pushing a small tin wheel that he had hooked onto a long stick. Only his wheel wasn’t really a wheel – it was a wire coat hanger that had been broken and bent into a circle. His stick wasn’t a stick either, but another wire hanger that had been straightened except for an inch at the end, which then hooked into the wire circle. Presto! Hours of amusement at the price of a visit to a drycleaner’s dumpster.
The first Small Boy kept talking.
“Where you from?”
“I’ll show you when I get the map,” I said.
“You want map?”
“Yeah, we want maps.”
“I get you maps.”
“No, it’s okay, that’s why we’re going to the map place – to get their maps.”
“I get you map,” he said with surprising determination for a boy that didn’t look like he could have been more than nine. “Where you from?”
“You tell me. Where am I from?”
At this point, we had crossed the wide median and reached the second set of six lanes. Robyn and I hadn’t slowed down, and barely paused before starting to cross.
“France?”
“No,” I said as we stepped down from the curb.
“Swiss?”
“No,” I laughed. We checked for traffic.
“You from Norway! Norway?”
At this point we were in the middle of the street. I stopped walking for the first time in half an hour and turned around with my hands in the air, looking at the boy in complete bewilderment. “Norway? What!?! No! Do I look Norwegian?" Robyn laughed and grabbed my arm, dragging me across the road before I could be mowed down by a misaligned minibus. "Where the hell did you even learn about Norway!?!”
The two kids stood at the opposite sidewalk, staring at first, then bizarrely breaking into song. “It’s clo-osed, it’s clo-osed, not open, it’s clo-osed.” We laughed, and the first Small Boy yelled, “You come back? You come back…come back!”
We walked into the EMA grounds through a black wrought iron gate. Guards looked at us suspiciously. We passed what seemed to be a group of geography students, the girls giggling and whispering behind their hands or notebooks while the boys gazed in rapture and glared in anger at Robyn and I respectively. Focused on the map, we ignored them and ran up the short set of stairs into the building. Five minutes left.
Looking around the foyer, we tried in vain to find a sign directing us to the map store. A lady behind a glass walled counter asked if we could help. “Maps? Mapping Authority? Store?” She looked at us quizzically. “We want to buy maps.” “Maps? That way.” She pointed down the dark corridor leading to our right.
The lights in the hallway were out, but office doors were open, letting the late afternoon light filter through. Dust glittered in the air as we walked through a set of double doors into the last section of the corridor. Two office doors lined either side, and the far wall held a tall, deep wooden cabinet with dozens of small, nearly square drawers. Depending on your perspective, it looked either like a giant version of the card catalogue from my grade school library, or the part of the morgue where they kept dead Smurfs. A man with his back to us crossed from the cabinet into one of the offices to the left. We followed him and poked our heads in the door.
The conversation was brief. We explained to him what we were looking for, and he frowned almost immediately. He motioned for us to follow him to the hallway cabinet, explaining that he suspected they were low on that particular map. After rifling through a number of drawers, he harrumphed and pulled out a single map.
Showing it to us, he asked, “Is this the one?”
“Uhh, we’re not really sure,” I replied. All three of us studied the map intently. “I think so…it looks pretty good.” Robyn and I looked at each other. “Can we buy it?”
“No, I’m sorry. You cannot buy this one. I think we are out of stock, and I have only this one in the office.”
Shit. Shit shit shit. Fuck. The ordeal of the past hour, short as it seemed, had taken its toll on us. I felt myself deflated, and remember thinking, “Is this what it’s like when you poke the Michelin man with a pin?”
“Maybe you can come back tomorrow?”
I snapped out of my reverential contemplation of rubber men, cursing a philosophy degree that left me equipped to ponder only the inane.
Robyn and the man were gone, sitting in his office. I stepped in as Robyn spoke.
“Why tomorrow?”
“I will check with the stock. Maybe there are more there. But we do not have anymore here in the office.”
We made an appointment for four the next day, and also managed to introduce ourselves to one another. His name was Kasse, and he was working on an intense urban planning project, which was why he was still at the office after hours. Revived by hope, we smiled and bade Kasse goodbye.
Leaving the EMA, we decided to continue on to the Hilton to change travelers’ cheques. As we made it across the twelfth lane and stepped onto the sidewalk next to the hotel entrance, we were accosted by the second Small Boy. His wire wheel lay to the side, the wire handle sitting on top of it.
“You want map?”
“No, no we don’t. It’s okay,” I said. It had been a long day, and neither of us were looking forward to tortuous negotiations with random Small Boys.
“I get you map. Very good map.”
“Oh yeah? From where?” Looking around, most of the Small Boys had disappeared, and none of the ones left had any sort of maps in their hand. If they had, they would have been climbing up our pants the second someone said ‘map’.
“My brother. My brother has maps.”
“Where is your brother?” Again, looking around, no one was volunteering himself as the brother, despite the promise of ferenji cash.
“He is there,” said the second Small Boy. “He come soon.” Everyone – Robyn, myself, and all the Small Boys turned our heads and followed his extended arm. Backlit by the setting sun, the dirt under his fingernails glowed purple as he pointed down the hill towards Meskel Square.
The negotiations continued. I looked at Robyn, then back to the Small Boy.
“I don’t know. I don’t really want to wait.”
“You go inside?”
“Yes.”
“He come now. He come one hour. You come one hour?”
Robyn and I exchanged glances. “Sure. We come back here in one hour. Your brother will have the map?”
“Yes, very good map. One hour.”
“Okay. See you then.” We left him on the street with his cohorts as we headed to the bank.
After changing our money, Robyn and I decided we had earned a drink or two, if only to rehydrate. Before heading to the bar, we stopped at the concierge to see if they had maps. After a couple of minutes of digging, the receptionist pulled out a pair of photocopied sheets with a very simple, easy to read map of the city centre. The edges were cut off, but it was better than nothing.
We thanked her and sat ourselves down at the bar, ordered four liters of water, and spent the next hour talking about anything but maps. An old man sitting next to me suggested we have dinner at the Old Milk House, which was apparently a big UN hangout and not too far from the hotel. We noted his directions and thanked him as he left. Dreams of UN connections – duty free stores, satellite internet, jobs! – ran through our heads. Finally, we decided we were hungry, and decided to step out to the restaurant, which was just around the corner.
As we walked out the front gates of the Hilton, we ran smack into the second Small Boy and what was evidently his brother, who stood grinning from ear to ear. We were shocked – it had been two hours since we left the gate, and they were still here. Impressed, we renewed our negotiations.
“Let’s see what you got.”
The Small Brother whipped out a folded up glossy map and opened it with a flourish. Robyn and I immediately started laughing. It was a colour version of the map the Hilton concierge had given us, the only difference being that none of the edges were cut off. Instead, the map was ringed with ads for a dozen different hotels, car rental places, photo shops and restaurants.
“How much?”
The Small Brother eyed us. “Fifty birr.”
“Fifty!” I couldn’t contain myself and had to turn away. “Fifty! You got it for free,” laughed Robyn, as I bent over, my body convulsing with laughter.
“Okay okay, how much?”
“Ten,” she said.
“Ten?”
“Yes, ten. You got it for free.”
The brothers exchanged looks of their own.
“Ten,” repeated Robyn. “But we want two. Do you have two?”
There was a pause before they agreed. “Yes. Okay.”
I pulled out two ten birr notes, and handed it to the boys. “Thanks guys, check you later.”
They ran up the street, and we headed back down the hill, looking for dinner and then home.
THE WALK HOME...
As it turned out, the Old Milk House was right at the spot where we had encountered the taxi drivers earlier that day. The sign pointed down a wide lane, which was littered with rocks and puddles. There were no lights on the lane itself, but through the shadows and moonlight we could see small groups of men sitting and talking. A few were staring at us. We paused.
“I don’t know if want to go down there,” said Robyn with a smile.
I smiled back. “Maybe. But how bad can it be.” We started walking. The only encounter we had was at the end of the lane, when a taxi driver asked us if we wanted a ride. We ignored him and went inside. The restaurant itself was located on the ninth floor of the building, and the elevator ride gave a spectacular view of the city. The food was equal to the view, and by the time we left, we were quite happy.
Walking out the building to the lane, we stopped for a moment at the gate of the parking lot and looked up the road.
“I don’t know if want to go up there,” said Robyn with a smile.
I smiled back. “Maybe. But how bad can it be.” We started walking. The only encounter we had was with the same taxi driver as before. Before we could turn him down, another one started yelling at him, turning towards us every few seconds. Figuring it was a good time to leave, we spun away and began to quickly walk up the lane. About a third of the way up, we heard a low hum behind us, and then bright lights quickly flashed, projecting our shadows to the top of the road. We turned and saw one of the taxis slowly following us. The driver leaned out the window and yelled at us, asking if we wanted a ride. Robyn and I quickly agreed we were better off walking than getting in his cab, and told him as much. He yelled some more, but didn’t pass us, following us all the way, occasionally splashing mud about as the car thumped off bumpy rocks and rattled into puddles. At the top of the road we turned and the car stopped momentarily, before peeling out of the lane and speeding down the street we were walking.
We turned and soon arrived at Meskel Square. It was brilliantly lit by a giant video screen in one corner and a row immense streetlights towering over the square itself. Turning at the church, we lowered our heads and starting the long walk home. Within a couple of minutes, all the charm of dinner was gone. Prostitutes whistled as we passed. Even though our hotel was on that side of the road, we crossed the street at a set of houses and shops that sat on a riverbank, wary of the stories Semhal had told us of the dangers of people and places by the river. On the opposite side of the street was a sidewalk café and internet shop. A couple passed us, the man glaring, the girl laughing out loud. Why she was laughing was beyond me, given she was wearing what amounted to a cross between a wedding dress and a child’s ballerina costume. We kept walking, giving a wide berth to three drunks peeing against the same section of fence. We dodged the odd homeless lady sleeping on sheets in the street, with only a gabi wrapped tightly around her and her tiny children. Silence settled upon us as we crept through the quiet desperation of the sort you only find late at night on empty main streets. Side by side, we kept humping on to the hotel, not really talking to each other and not being spoken to by anyone else.
Coming up to the brightly lit intersection of EU Road, I spotted an obviously drunk man walking toward us. He met my eye as we passed on the sidewalk, and I could see his head turn and follow us as we walked toward the intersection. I took two more steps and turned to find him walking right behind us. His hand reached out for Robyn and I. “You wait,” he said.
Slowing my pace, I let him grab my arm while I stepped between him and Robyn and gave her a push forward in the back as he flailed at her arm. “You wait,” he croaked again, tightening his grip. Robyn stopped and turned and grabbed at me as I pulled my arm away from him. “I think you should go in front,” she said, pointing at the backpack and pushing me away.
Having lost hold of me, the drunk grabbed at Robyn instead. So I stopped and took a step back, pulling his arm off her. We turned to go up the street, but he grabbed me again with both arms. I managed to wrestle free. Glowering at him, I told him in my loudest non-shouting voice to chill out. “Hey! That’s enough. Let go,” I said as I stepped toward him. He took a step back, and I turned to catch up to Robyn, who was across the intersection now.
Two seconds later, he was back.
He grabbed my arm, I slapped it away, but he grabbed it with the other. I pulled my shoulder and dragged it out of his grip, but he thrust his other hand out and yelled at me. “Tell me I am a good man!” “What!?! Let go!”
There I was, standing in the middle of the street, having a flashback to the time my older brother and I were in school in England in during the first Gulf War and a girl in his homeroom started choking me outside the gym, and none of my friends and I could figure out why this fifteen-year old was trying (very poorly) to throttle a sixth-grader. Fifteen years later, here I was, standing in the middle of the road in Ethiopia, slap-fighting with some drunk while trying to figure out whether he was genuinely drunk, insane or simply learned to mug people by watching old Three Stooges reruns.
“Tell me! I am a great man!” “Christ, no, I’m not saying that.” I shot my arm in an uppercut, but only managed to get free long enough to take another step.
He had both my arms in his and we stood facing each other as he pleaded with me. “Who are you? You are a good man,” he sputtered. “You are a good man. Tell me I will be a good man. Tell me I will be a great man!” I tried to spin out of his grip, but he tightened his fingers and clawed into me with surprising strength. He was strong but harmless, and actually hitting him didn’t seem like the most auspicious start to our stay.
“Jesus,” I muttered. “Look man, don’t worry, you’ll be fine.”
“No! No no, you are a good man. Tell me I am a good man. Tell me I am a good man,” he implored, pushing his face into mine. His wild eyes were milky brown, and his pupils massively dilated. There was a dark spot underneath the right one, polluting the yellow of his jaundiced eyes with a blood red island. We stared at each other, and then he dropped to his knees on the ground in front of me.
Bowing his head, he whimpered, “Tell me…you are a good man…tell me.”
“Goddamn,” I said. Sighing, I finally obliged his pitiable form. “You are a good man. You’re a good man.” I tried to step out of his way, but he grabbed my ankles. Still on his knees, he barked at me again. “No, you are a great man!”
“Okay, fine, you’re a great man.”
“NO, no, YOU are a great man!”
“What?”
“You are a great man. Tell me I am a great man! Tell me I am a great man!”
The penny finally dropped. It was me he was talking about.
“Christ, man, you don’t even know me.”
“Tell me you are a great man!”
I paused. “Okay, I am a great man. I’m a great man, thank you very much.”
He slowly lifted his head, his eyes as unsettled as before. “With passion! Passionately! Passion!”
This isn’t happening, is it? Or am I in Africa, and this is normal? Christ. His head was bowed, waiting for my answer. JEEEZUS. I took a deep breath, and looked up at the sky. The moon was out, and with the glow from the surrounding hotels and shops, I imagined the idiocy of the spotlight shining on this comic display in the heart of the world’s oldest civilization. Was this my part to play? CHRIST. I looked down at him, then up again. I couldn’t look him in the eye.
“I am a great man!”
My ankles shook with his joy. “You are a great man!”
“Yes, I am.”
He shook them again and looked up at me. “You are a great man! Tell me!”
“I am a great man.”
“Passion!”
“I am a great man! A great man!”
“Yes!” The ankles stopped shaking, and suddenly my right foot was raised slightly. “Oh jesus, man don’t do that!”
But it was too late. Before I could move without fear of kicking him in the face, he had kissed my right toe and then the left one. He stood up and clasped me on the shoulders, suddenly a thousand times soberer. He looked me in the eye, and all the wildness disappeared behind an intensely sincere stare. “You are a great man,” he whispered. “A great man.”
With that, he turned away. I stood in the middle of the street staring after him. His drunken gait lifted as he straightened his spine and began walking with purpose down the hill. He stepped out of the light and disappeared into the empty street.
We walked silently back to the hotel.
THE MONEY THING...
The next day, we went back to the Mapping Office. We were almost arrested on suspicion of carrying cameras, but managed to get let in.
Kasse was standing at the end of the dark hallway, bent over some maps piled on top of a filing cabinet with another man. When he saw us, he very politely ushered us into his office and sat us down. He stood away with the other man in the hallway for a moment, before reappearing with a map in his hand.
He paused, and slowly showed us the map.
“You came for the map? This is the map. It is very good.” He spread it out on the table. We stared in rapt awe. It was good – it was large and detailed and had highlighted hotspots and numerous roads no other map had. It was as good as maps got in Addis.
“Yes, this is it. That’s the one we want. Do you have any?”
He shook his head regretfully. “Unfortunately no. We do not have anymore.”
“Oh…do you know were else we could get one? Would the Tourist Commission have one?”
“Tsch!” He kissed his teeth sharply and shook his head again. “No, nobody else has this map. Just us. But you can have it.”
“We can have it?”
“Yes. It is mine, but you can buy it from me. I took it out from our stock because I needed a copy of my own, but you can pay me for it.”
“Pay you for it?”
“Yes. You can have it.”
We looked at each other with unease.
“How much?”
“This one is fifty birr.”
“Fifty?”
“Yes. There is no other.”
I looked at Robyn. “Do you want it?” We stared and shrugged at each other. After everything we had gone through – the two day adventure, the minibuses, the Amazing Race, the Small Boys and prostitutes, the drunk, was fifty birr, barely $7 CAD, that steep a price?
“Okay. Fine, we’ll take it.” We gave him the money, and he began to fold up the map.
“Good. I will give it to you, but there is one condition.”
“What!?!”
“You must roll it up and put it in your bag or your purse. No one can see you take it from here. It is not allowed.”
Our jaws dropped. Three days into our stay, we had managed to bribe our first government official, who in turn was ripping us off for a stupid map. CHRIST.
Two weeks later, I was with our real estate agent Tito, looking at a spectacular house which Robyn and I moved into shortly thereafter. Going through the master bedroom to the balcony, I saw a large, colourful picture over the dresser. It looked familiar, but I just walked past it to the outside in order to negotiate the rent. When I came back a few minutes later, having knocked 2,000 birr off the price, I looked at it again. I stared and started laughing out loud. Tito looked at me like I was crazy. I laughed again. There it was - At the top it read “Addis Abeba”. Underneath, in smaller print, it said Ethiopian Mapping Authority.
I looked at the landlady. “Can I have that?” “That? Of course," she said, slightly incredulous. "What do I want with that? No one uses them here.”
Maybe not, but it's worth having one, if only for the story.
Only in the grand theatre of extreme coincidence, the kind that feeds UFO conspiracy theories and Hollywood blockbusters, could I ever have expected to find myself one night standing in the middle of the street, grappling with a drunk Ethiopian who wanted nothing more than my encouragement. It only makes sense then, that barely a day after landing in Addis, that was exactly where Robyn and I found ourselves.
Our second day had started off industrially enough. Robyn and I had spoken with our placements, then gotten a thorough tour and introduction to her NGO staff. Her colleagues then took us out for lunch and to look at houses to rent before dropping us off at our east-end hotel. The confusing search for houses left us in desperate need of a detailed map of the city, so we set off for the Ethiopia Mapping Agency (EMA), which the Bradt Guide claimed were proprietors of the best available map of Addis Ababa.
With only an hour until the EMA office closed, we took off walking toward the city centre. I had my knapsack with me, which held our money, travelers’ cheques and passports, as well as a sweater to brace me against the mountain air. The EMA itself was across from the Hilton, and it quickly became obvious we weren’t going to walk there in less than an hour. We decided instead to brave our first minibus ride to Meskel Square.
THE MINIBUSES...
The minibuses in Addis are royal blue and white Toyota Hiace vans. The rest of the country will have the same vans, but painted different colours – usually just a solid navy blue or all white. The buses are as rickety as you can imagine, covered with stickers and pictures from famous English soccer teams, and usually packed to the hilt with passengers. The three seat back row is a four-seater, people are on wheel wells, squeezed three to a double seat, and stuck on the front-bench platform, facing backwards into the bus.
En route to these terminal points, however, your average minibus will rarely stop to pick up passengers. Instead, they slow down and honk at pedestrians, with the conductor leaning out the window, yelling out the name of his route at people walking by or stopped on the sidewalk. It doesn’t matter to the minibus conductor which direction you’re walking. The simple act of basic pedestrianism, even if it’s taking place in a direction squarely opposite to the route of the bus, is enough to pique the conductor’s curiousity. Considering that none of the streets in Addis are straight and swerve into, across and around one another, it’s no surprise to walk past a screaming conductor going the opposite direction and find him ten minutes later having a macchiato in the same café you were headed to in the first place
When scouting for fares, the driver will also act as a spotter. This is sometimes because he is keen to maximize revenue in the extremely competitive deregulated Addis public transit market, but usually because he needs something to do since he actually has no control over the bus itself. No car in Ethiopia is properly aligned, and minibuses are the worst offenders. It’s common to see drivers going straight but trying to keep the steering wheel at a ninety-degree angle. I say trying because since the alignment is so completely out of kilter, the steering wheels have tremendous play and range of motion in them, and watching the driver’s hands is like watching Maggie take the wheel in the opening credits of The Simpsons. The wheel is constantly spinning from side to side, and this helps explain why no one in Ethiopia can stay in his or her lane (the other major factor being that obeying ordinary traffic norms is the surest way to get you killed on the road).
The driver will sometimes scout fares by pointing out groups of people to the conductor, but usually he just takes the simplest option and swerves directly at whomever he sees. The conductor obliges by screaming at the targets, who either heed his warning and run for their lives, or hold their ground and wait for the side mirror of the minibus to slide three inches past their nose.
If inclined to hold their ground, a passenger-to-be can flag down a bus in one of three ways: Either by yelling out her own preferred destination, sticking his arm out and raising a finger, or just by making eye contact with the conductor and raising one’s eyebrow. When the driver sees this, the bus instantly slows. When the driver doesn’t see this, the conductor bangs his fist as hard as he can on the side of the bus, making the entire doorframe rattle, and signaling to the driver to stop. An extra two seconds of adrenaline is pumped into the waiting passenger as the delayed reaction of the driver means the side mirror will now pass within an inch and a quarter of his nose. The bus slows down to a crawl, and anyone getting on has to pretend they’re a hobo riding the Union-Pacific Line to California and time their jump from the curb to the car just right. More than once I’ve seen the bus “conductor” save an old lady from a timely if slightly bizarre death beneath the wheels of the bus.
Amazingly enough, in the first of many coincidences which led us to a less-than-romantic encounter with an intoxicated local harbouring self-esteem issues, the first minbus Robyn and I saw had a driver yelling for Meskel Square, although it sounded more like Mek-sel Square. After gesturing for us to sit in the front seats, the conductor slammed the door and the driver took off.
We had no idea what the going rate was for either locals or foreigners. I reached into my pocket and pulled out several 1-birr notes, unsure what would be appropriate. In hushed tones, we discussed the fare. “I think you pay when you get going.” “Is this enough?” “Is it too much?” We drove on, the money stuffed back in my jeans. The conductor tapped on my right shoulder, so I pulled two notes out. “I think you have lots of time to pay him,” whispered Robyn. I nodded and coolly palmed the bills, at which point the conductor finished dragging his next fare through the door and began to insistently bang on my left shoulder. I turned and passed the notes back over my shoulder. He took them, but a moment later said something directed at us. Another mini-debate ensued - “Are we good?” “What did he say?” “What does he want?”. The conductor interrupted and said it again, at which Robyn asked the lady sitting behind us what he wanted. “Forty. Forty cents,” she said. I pulled out the coins and gave it to him, and got my change back instantly. Quite pleased with myself, I sat back and enjoyed the ride.
Until, that is, the bus drove right through Meskel, past the road leading up to the Hilton. Robyn and I looked at each other in alarm as the driver crossed the massive square. Just after Meskel, he abruptly turned and threw the bus into a parking lot outside of Addis stadium. We jumped out as fast as we could, doing our best not to get caught in the head by the elbow of the conductor who was still hanging out the window. We now officially had no idea where we were, and no map to tell us. We knew which direction the Hilton was, so we turned back and headed that way.
THE HILL...
We passed a man peeing on the side of a fence. He was watching a group of kids ride dirtbikes through the mud of a soccer field that was beside the Stadium. It was completely ordinary. A kid tried to sell us maps of Africa, but we declined, walking instead up a diagonal street in the direction of the Hilton.
The road it took us out onto was clearly not the one with the Hilton, but we felt we were headed in the right direction. We stopped at an internet café to ask directions, but were told to turn around. This was even more confusing to us, so we said we didn’t want to turn around but continue going up and then across to the Hilton. The language barrier seemed insurmountable until a young man at one of the computers sighed and stood up.
“You want to go this way? I’ll take you there,” he said, the exasperation evident in his voice.
“No, no, you don’t have to take us,” we protested. “Just show us where to go and that’s fine.”
“It’s okay. Come with me – I’ll take you.” He marched out of the café. We looked at each other and shrugged our shoulders, and then followed him out.
Our friend turned up the street in the direction we were headed. He was slightly disheveled, but no more than your average Addis Ababan. He was wearing cut off pants with a hole in the pocket, and a heavy brown jacket with badly frayed sleeves and a large hole in the middle of his back. He chatted with Robyn briefly about Canada and Vancouver while I kept guard on the bag. After a ten minute walk, we arrived at a busy intersection. He pointed out some landmarks, and then said we had to turn right. “Just walk up this road, and you will see the road. It is not far from here.” “Just go straight?” “Yes. Up this hill.” We gave our thanks and said our goodbyes, and our friend turned around and walked back the way we came. Happy to be back on track, but worried about the lost time, we set off again.
The road, as it turned out, was longer than either of us had anticipated. The walk wasn’t helped by the intensity of the sun beating down upon us. Even though it was still cool by my standards, the extreme elevation of Addis, the third-highest capital city in the world, only added to the potency of the sun’s rays. Worst of all, however, was the combination of the long road, hot sun, and an extremely steep hill. It was about a fifteen-minute walk, but we were drenched with sweat by the time we arrived at the top. My bag was sticking to my shirt, which in turn was slowly melting into my pores.
As we stood at the massive intersection, we realized we had no idea where the EMA was from here. We looked up and down the street, but all we saw were trees. Only the corner directly across from us had any sort of activity on it, so we made a life-changing dash across twelve lanes of traffic and soon found ourselves standing outside some store fronts, intently watched by a small crowd of taxi drivers, shoeshine kids and street hawkers. We wandered in and out of the buildings, going to find businesses that could direct us, but nobody had any idea what we were talking about.
Coming out of the building for the third time, one of the drivers asked us what we wanted. We explained to him we were looking for the Mapping Authority. He looked at us slyly.
“It is okay,” he said. “I know a guide. He will take you.”
“No no no no,” barked Robyn. “We just want to know where it is. We don’t need a guide. Just tell us where to go.”
The man leered at us and smiled a slightly toothless smile. “Information for nothing?” He laughed and explained to his friends what the ferenji had said. Fed up, we walked away, deciding to go up the road we had just crossed. The shout came from behind.
“Wait, wait!” We turned expectantly. “Where is it?” The man smiled again, and his friends laughed. “Go up this street,” he said, pointing in the direction we were aiming for. “Cross it at the Hilton, and there you will see it.” He smiled and sat down. “Thank you very much,” we said.
Turning back to the road, we checked our watches. We had the directions, but only fifteen minutes were left, and we had no idea how long the next walk would be, only that it was up another steep hill. Bowing our heads, we crossed the street and redoubled our pace.
THE SMALL BOYS...
Time was running out as we pushed up the hill. Cars and minibuses whizzed by us. We couldn’t see anything, except a small intersection a hundred meters up the hill, with a small number of street kids standing on one side. As we got to the intersection, we realized it was actually the tastefully subtle entrance to the Hilton. Looking across the street, we scanned for the EMA.
“There it is,” I said excitedly. “I see it.” I pointed across the road, where a sign for the EMA and the building were evident. Invigorated by how close we were, we jumped into the street and nearly skipped across it. We had been silent for much of the last little while, running up and around hills and tired from our search, but the fact we could see the EMA had us talking again.
“You know, this really feels like we’re on the Amazing Race,” laughed Robyn as we stepped out to cross the first six lanes. “The confusion, the fact we’re in Africa, we’re running out of time – it’s very much like the Amazing Race.”
I laughed in agreement as the Small Boys who were crowded in front of the Hilton took notice of us. One kid yelled if I wanted a shoeshine, but I declined, saying I had to go to the Mapping Authority.
“I will show you, I will show you,” he said, running out into the street. I tried to shoo him away, telling him “Don’t worry – I already saw it.” He didn’t turn back, however. Instead, one of his buddies chased us onto the road as well. Like little impoverished kids around the world always do, he was pushing a small tin wheel that he had hooked onto a long stick. Only his wheel wasn’t really a wheel – it was a wire coat hanger that had been broken and bent into a circle. His stick wasn’t a stick either, but another wire hanger that had been straightened except for an inch at the end, which then hooked into the wire circle. Presto! Hours of amusement at the price of a visit to a drycleaner’s dumpster.
The first Small Boy kept talking.
“Where you from?”
“I’ll show you when I get the map,” I said.
“You want map?”
“Yeah, we want maps.”
“I get you maps.”
“No, it’s okay, that’s why we’re going to the map place – to get their maps.”
“I get you map,” he said with surprising determination for a boy that didn’t look like he could have been more than nine. “Where you from?”
“You tell me. Where am I from?”
At this point, we had crossed the wide median and reached the second set of six lanes. Robyn and I hadn’t slowed down, and barely paused before starting to cross.
“France?”
“No,” I said as we stepped down from the curb.
“Swiss?”
“No,” I laughed. We checked for traffic.
“You from Norway! Norway?”
At this point we were in the middle of the street. I stopped walking for the first time in half an hour and turned around with my hands in the air, looking at the boy in complete bewilderment. “Norway? What!?! No! Do I look Norwegian?" Robyn laughed and grabbed my arm, dragging me across the road before I could be mowed down by a misaligned minibus. "Where the hell did you even learn about Norway!?!”
The two kids stood at the opposite sidewalk, staring at first, then bizarrely breaking into song. “It’s clo-osed, it’s clo-osed, not open, it’s clo-osed.” We laughed, and the first Small Boy yelled, “You come back? You come back…come back!”
We walked into the EMA grounds through a black wrought iron gate. Guards looked at us suspiciously. We passed what seemed to be a group of geography students, the girls giggling and whispering behind their hands or notebooks while the boys gazed in rapture and glared in anger at Robyn and I respectively. Focused on the map, we ignored them and ran up the short set of stairs into the building. Five minutes left.
Looking around the foyer, we tried in vain to find a sign directing us to the map store. A lady behind a glass walled counter asked if we could help. “Maps? Mapping Authority? Store?” She looked at us quizzically. “We want to buy maps.” “Maps? That way.” She pointed down the dark corridor leading to our right.
The lights in the hallway were out, but office doors were open, letting the late afternoon light filter through. Dust glittered in the air as we walked through a set of double doors into the last section of the corridor. Two office doors lined either side, and the far wall held a tall, deep wooden cabinet with dozens of small, nearly square drawers. Depending on your perspective, it looked either like a giant version of the card catalogue from my grade school library, or the part of the morgue where they kept dead Smurfs. A man with his back to us crossed from the cabinet into one of the offices to the left. We followed him and poked our heads in the door.
The conversation was brief. We explained to him what we were looking for, and he frowned almost immediately. He motioned for us to follow him to the hallway cabinet, explaining that he suspected they were low on that particular map. After rifling through a number of drawers, he harrumphed and pulled out a single map.
Showing it to us, he asked, “Is this the one?”
“Uhh, we’re not really sure,” I replied. All three of us studied the map intently. “I think so…it looks pretty good.” Robyn and I looked at each other. “Can we buy it?”
“No, I’m sorry. You cannot buy this one. I think we are out of stock, and I have only this one in the office.”
Shit. Shit shit shit. Fuck. The ordeal of the past hour, short as it seemed, had taken its toll on us. I felt myself deflated, and remember thinking, “Is this what it’s like when you poke the Michelin man with a pin?”
“Maybe you can come back tomorrow?”
I snapped out of my reverential contemplation of rubber men, cursing a philosophy degree that left me equipped to ponder only the inane.
Robyn and the man were gone, sitting in his office. I stepped in as Robyn spoke.
“Why tomorrow?”
“I will check with the stock. Maybe there are more there. But we do not have anymore here in the office.”
We made an appointment for four the next day, and also managed to introduce ourselves to one another. His name was Kasse, and he was working on an intense urban planning project, which was why he was still at the office after hours. Revived by hope, we smiled and bade Kasse goodbye.
Leaving the EMA, we decided to continue on to the Hilton to change travelers’ cheques. As we made it across the twelfth lane and stepped onto the sidewalk next to the hotel entrance, we were accosted by the second Small Boy. His wire wheel lay to the side, the wire handle sitting on top of it.
“You want map?”
“No, no we don’t. It’s okay,” I said. It had been a long day, and neither of us were looking forward to tortuous negotiations with random Small Boys.
“I get you map. Very good map.”
“Oh yeah? From where?” Looking around, most of the Small Boys had disappeared, and none of the ones left had any sort of maps in their hand. If they had, they would have been climbing up our pants the second someone said ‘map’.
“My brother. My brother has maps.”
“Where is your brother?” Again, looking around, no one was volunteering himself as the brother, despite the promise of ferenji cash.
“He is there,” said the second Small Boy. “He come soon.” Everyone – Robyn, myself, and all the Small Boys turned our heads and followed his extended arm. Backlit by the setting sun, the dirt under his fingernails glowed purple as he pointed down the hill towards Meskel Square.
The negotiations continued. I looked at Robyn, then back to the Small Boy.
“I don’t know. I don’t really want to wait.”
“You go inside?”
“Yes.”
“He come now. He come one hour. You come one hour?”
Robyn and I exchanged glances. “Sure. We come back here in one hour. Your brother will have the map?”
“Yes, very good map. One hour.”
“Okay. See you then.” We left him on the street with his cohorts as we headed to the bank.
After changing our money, Robyn and I decided we had earned a drink or two, if only to rehydrate. Before heading to the bar, we stopped at the concierge to see if they had maps. After a couple of minutes of digging, the receptionist pulled out a pair of photocopied sheets with a very simple, easy to read map of the city centre. The edges were cut off, but it was better than nothing.
We thanked her and sat ourselves down at the bar, ordered four liters of water, and spent the next hour talking about anything but maps. An old man sitting next to me suggested we have dinner at the Old Milk House, which was apparently a big UN hangout and not too far from the hotel. We noted his directions and thanked him as he left. Dreams of UN connections – duty free stores, satellite internet, jobs! – ran through our heads. Finally, we decided we were hungry, and decided to step out to the restaurant, which was just around the corner.
As we walked out the front gates of the Hilton, we ran smack into the second Small Boy and what was evidently his brother, who stood grinning from ear to ear. We were shocked – it had been two hours since we left the gate, and they were still here. Impressed, we renewed our negotiations.
“Let’s see what you got.”
The Small Brother whipped out a folded up glossy map and opened it with a flourish. Robyn and I immediately started laughing. It was a colour version of the map the Hilton concierge had given us, the only difference being that none of the edges were cut off. Instead, the map was ringed with ads for a dozen different hotels, car rental places, photo shops and restaurants.
“How much?”
The Small Brother eyed us. “Fifty birr.”
“Fifty!” I couldn’t contain myself and had to turn away. “Fifty! You got it for free,” laughed Robyn, as I bent over, my body convulsing with laughter.
“Okay okay, how much?”
“Ten,” she said.
“Ten?”
“Yes, ten. You got it for free.”
The brothers exchanged looks of their own.
“Ten,” repeated Robyn. “But we want two. Do you have two?”
There was a pause before they agreed. “Yes. Okay.”
I pulled out two ten birr notes, and handed it to the boys. “Thanks guys, check you later.”
They ran up the street, and we headed back down the hill, looking for dinner and then home.
THE WALK HOME...
As it turned out, the Old Milk House was right at the spot where we had encountered the taxi drivers earlier that day. The sign pointed down a wide lane, which was littered with rocks and puddles. There were no lights on the lane itself, but through the shadows and moonlight we could see small groups of men sitting and talking. A few were staring at us. We paused.
“I don’t know if want to go down there,” said Robyn with a smile.
I smiled back. “Maybe. But how bad can it be.” We started walking. The only encounter we had was at the end of the lane, when a taxi driver asked us if we wanted a ride. We ignored him and went inside. The restaurant itself was located on the ninth floor of the building, and the elevator ride gave a spectacular view of the city. The food was equal to the view, and by the time we left, we were quite happy.
Walking out the building to the lane, we stopped for a moment at the gate of the parking lot and looked up the road.
“I don’t know if want to go up there,” said Robyn with a smile.
I smiled back. “Maybe. But how bad can it be.” We started walking. The only encounter we had was with the same taxi driver as before. Before we could turn him down, another one started yelling at him, turning towards us every few seconds. Figuring it was a good time to leave, we spun away and began to quickly walk up the lane. About a third of the way up, we heard a low hum behind us, and then bright lights quickly flashed, projecting our shadows to the top of the road. We turned and saw one of the taxis slowly following us. The driver leaned out the window and yelled at us, asking if we wanted a ride. Robyn and I quickly agreed we were better off walking than getting in his cab, and told him as much. He yelled some more, but didn’t pass us, following us all the way, occasionally splashing mud about as the car thumped off bumpy rocks and rattled into puddles. At the top of the road we turned and the car stopped momentarily, before peeling out of the lane and speeding down the street we were walking.
We turned and soon arrived at Meskel Square. It was brilliantly lit by a giant video screen in one corner and a row immense streetlights towering over the square itself. Turning at the church, we lowered our heads and starting the long walk home. Within a couple of minutes, all the charm of dinner was gone. Prostitutes whistled as we passed. Even though our hotel was on that side of the road, we crossed the street at a set of houses and shops that sat on a riverbank, wary of the stories Semhal had told us of the dangers of people and places by the river. On the opposite side of the street was a sidewalk café and internet shop. A couple passed us, the man glaring, the girl laughing out loud. Why she was laughing was beyond me, given she was wearing what amounted to a cross between a wedding dress and a child’s ballerina costume. We kept walking, giving a wide berth to three drunks peeing against the same section of fence. We dodged the odd homeless lady sleeping on sheets in the street, with only a gabi wrapped tightly around her and her tiny children. Silence settled upon us as we crept through the quiet desperation of the sort you only find late at night on empty main streets. Side by side, we kept humping on to the hotel, not really talking to each other and not being spoken to by anyone else.
Coming up to the brightly lit intersection of EU Road, I spotted an obviously drunk man walking toward us. He met my eye as we passed on the sidewalk, and I could see his head turn and follow us as we walked toward the intersection. I took two more steps and turned to find him walking right behind us. His hand reached out for Robyn and I. “You wait,” he said.
Slowing my pace, I let him grab my arm while I stepped between him and Robyn and gave her a push forward in the back as he flailed at her arm. “You wait,” he croaked again, tightening his grip. Robyn stopped and turned and grabbed at me as I pulled my arm away from him. “I think you should go in front,” she said, pointing at the backpack and pushing me away.
Having lost hold of me, the drunk grabbed at Robyn instead. So I stopped and took a step back, pulling his arm off her. We turned to go up the street, but he grabbed me again with both arms. I managed to wrestle free. Glowering at him, I told him in my loudest non-shouting voice to chill out. “Hey! That’s enough. Let go,” I said as I stepped toward him. He took a step back, and I turned to catch up to Robyn, who was across the intersection now.
Two seconds later, he was back.
He grabbed my arm, I slapped it away, but he grabbed it with the other. I pulled my shoulder and dragged it out of his grip, but he thrust his other hand out and yelled at me. “Tell me I am a good man!” “What!?! Let go!”
There I was, standing in the middle of the street, having a flashback to the time my older brother and I were in school in England in during the first Gulf War and a girl in his homeroom started choking me outside the gym, and none of my friends and I could figure out why this fifteen-year old was trying (very poorly) to throttle a sixth-grader. Fifteen years later, here I was, standing in the middle of the road in Ethiopia, slap-fighting with some drunk while trying to figure out whether he was genuinely drunk, insane or simply learned to mug people by watching old Three Stooges reruns.
“Tell me! I am a great man!” “Christ, no, I’m not saying that.” I shot my arm in an uppercut, but only managed to get free long enough to take another step.
He had both my arms in his and we stood facing each other as he pleaded with me. “Who are you? You are a good man,” he sputtered. “You are a good man. Tell me I will be a good man. Tell me I will be a great man!” I tried to spin out of his grip, but he tightened his fingers and clawed into me with surprising strength. He was strong but harmless, and actually hitting him didn’t seem like the most auspicious start to our stay.
“Jesus,” I muttered. “Look man, don’t worry, you’ll be fine.”
“No! No no, you are a good man. Tell me I am a good man. Tell me I am a good man,” he implored, pushing his face into mine. His wild eyes were milky brown, and his pupils massively dilated. There was a dark spot underneath the right one, polluting the yellow of his jaundiced eyes with a blood red island. We stared at each other, and then he dropped to his knees on the ground in front of me.
Bowing his head, he whimpered, “Tell me…you are a good man…tell me.”
“Goddamn,” I said. Sighing, I finally obliged his pitiable form. “You are a good man. You’re a good man.” I tried to step out of his way, but he grabbed my ankles. Still on his knees, he barked at me again. “No, you are a great man!”
“Okay, fine, you’re a great man.”
“NO, no, YOU are a great man!”
“What?”
“You are a great man. Tell me I am a great man! Tell me I am a great man!”
The penny finally dropped. It was me he was talking about.
“Christ, man, you don’t even know me.”
“Tell me you are a great man!”
I paused. “Okay, I am a great man. I’m a great man, thank you very much.”
He slowly lifted his head, his eyes as unsettled as before. “With passion! Passionately! Passion!”
This isn’t happening, is it? Or am I in Africa, and this is normal? Christ. His head was bowed, waiting for my answer. JEEEZUS. I took a deep breath, and looked up at the sky. The moon was out, and with the glow from the surrounding hotels and shops, I imagined the idiocy of the spotlight shining on this comic display in the heart of the world’s oldest civilization. Was this my part to play? CHRIST. I looked down at him, then up again. I couldn’t look him in the eye.
“I am a great man!”
My ankles shook with his joy. “You are a great man!”
“Yes, I am.”
He shook them again and looked up at me. “You are a great man! Tell me!”
“I am a great man.”
“Passion!”
“I am a great man! A great man!”
“Yes!” The ankles stopped shaking, and suddenly my right foot was raised slightly. “Oh jesus, man don’t do that!”
But it was too late. Before I could move without fear of kicking him in the face, he had kissed my right toe and then the left one. He stood up and clasped me on the shoulders, suddenly a thousand times soberer. He looked me in the eye, and all the wildness disappeared behind an intensely sincere stare. “You are a great man,” he whispered. “A great man.”
With that, he turned away. I stood in the middle of the street staring after him. His drunken gait lifted as he straightened his spine and began walking with purpose down the hill. He stepped out of the light and disappeared into the empty street.
We walked silently back to the hotel.
THE MONEY THING...
The next day, we went back to the Mapping Office. We were almost arrested on suspicion of carrying cameras, but managed to get let in.
Kasse was standing at the end of the dark hallway, bent over some maps piled on top of a filing cabinet with another man. When he saw us, he very politely ushered us into his office and sat us down. He stood away with the other man in the hallway for a moment, before reappearing with a map in his hand.
He paused, and slowly showed us the map.
“You came for the map? This is the map. It is very good.” He spread it out on the table. We stared in rapt awe. It was good – it was large and detailed and had highlighted hotspots and numerous roads no other map had. It was as good as maps got in Addis.
“Yes, this is it. That’s the one we want. Do you have any?”
He shook his head regretfully. “Unfortunately no. We do not have anymore.”
“Oh…do you know were else we could get one? Would the Tourist Commission have one?”
“Tsch!” He kissed his teeth sharply and shook his head again. “No, nobody else has this map. Just us. But you can have it.”
“We can have it?”
“Yes. It is mine, but you can buy it from me. I took it out from our stock because I needed a copy of my own, but you can pay me for it.”
“Pay you for it?”
“Yes. You can have it.”
We looked at each other with unease.
“How much?”
“This one is fifty birr.”
“Fifty?”
“Yes. There is no other.”
I looked at Robyn. “Do you want it?” We stared and shrugged at each other. After everything we had gone through – the two day adventure, the minibuses, the Amazing Race, the Small Boys and prostitutes, the drunk, was fifty birr, barely $7 CAD, that steep a price?
“Okay. Fine, we’ll take it.” We gave him the money, and he began to fold up the map.
“Good. I will give it to you, but there is one condition.”
“What!?!”
“You must roll it up and put it in your bag or your purse. No one can see you take it from here. It is not allowed.”
Our jaws dropped. Three days into our stay, we had managed to bribe our first government official, who in turn was ripping us off for a stupid map. CHRIST.
Two weeks later, I was with our real estate agent Tito, looking at a spectacular house which Robyn and I moved into shortly thereafter. Going through the master bedroom to the balcony, I saw a large, colourful picture over the dresser. It looked familiar, but I just walked past it to the outside in order to negotiate the rent. When I came back a few minutes later, having knocked 2,000 birr off the price, I looked at it again. I stared and started laughing out loud. Tito looked at me like I was crazy. I laughed again. There it was - At the top it read “Addis Abeba”. Underneath, in smaller print, it said Ethiopian Mapping Authority.
I looked at the landlady. “Can I have that?” “That? Of course," she said, slightly incredulous. "What do I want with that? No one uses them here.”
Maybe not, but it's worth having one, if only for the story.
posted by Mango at 2:40 PM
1 comments
