Right, as usual, it’s been ages since I’ve written. I mean really, it’s only interesting if I’ve been up to some good high jinx! So, after my debacle getting home in December, I returned to Addis and resumed my normal life. Nothing too interesting there. I requested to take a one-week course at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (on infectious diseases and humanitarian emergencies—because well, frankly, it’s cool!) and after copious approvals and a quick “we’re full—no we have a spot!” I headed off to London for a week after a quick visit to my sister and her family in Tanzania.
I arrived in Dar on a Thursday afternoon and just started sweating. Now Addis, climate-wise, is an ideal location. It’s generally in the upper sixties or low to mid seventies. And at night I get to snuggle into my comforter. But Dar in April is heat and humidity central. By the time I got to my sister’s office (after being stuck in traffic for some time) I was essentially soaking. After a day in Dar we headed off to Zanzibar. The boys promptly started a race on the beach and I think the pictures are telling of how much fun they were having. Graham is the younger one—and more victorious, but Miles still looks like he’s having fun. After some more time back in Dar, I headed back to Addis and was on another plane to London less than 24 hours later.
After a few nondescript days in London, news of the Icelandic volcano eruption was the news. Since my flight didn’t take off until Monday, I figured my dreams of an extra day in London weren’t going to become a reality. So I empathized with my fellow classmates—especially the one trying to get to his brother’s wedding on Saturday in the US—and didn’t think much about it. On Saturday, I took the train to Bristol to visit a friend from Ethiopia who is on maternity leave. Nine-day old babies are cute!! And as usual per my visits to England, it was beautiful weather. Kids were running around in the fountain in their bathing or birthday suits!
On Sunday, I figured I didn’t have a chance of flying out but I needed to head back to London to try to make plans. I emailed my office on Sunday night and said I had two options: stay in London and wait or try to make my way to Rome where flights were taking off. And there’s a daily flight between Addis and Rome on ET plus a few others.
On Monday, the decision was—get a move on. So I booked in for another night at the hotel (it was quite nice really—I recommend the Montcalm near Marble Arch) and headed to St. Pancras Station which I mentally refer to as “pancreas”. I mean—it’s not that hard a switch to make right? I got to St. Pancras and walked a least half a mile from the tube stop to the actual terminal, where of course I found the queue.
Eurostar, being one of basically two options out of England to mainland Europe, was quite popular. I joined the queue and listened to other people’s chatter. The woman behind me worked for a publishing house who was trying to get a very old author who only had one shirt with him back to his house in France. The woman behind her was traveling from South Korea and wanted to get back to her planned trip. A very loud man much further back in line but who insisted on talking to any other Italian in the queue—despite the distance—was talking about what I assume was a family emergency and why he should be able to skip to the front of the line. (At some point he disappeared from the line so maybe he did manage to convince someone though not the people he was trying to cut in front of—including me—yeah right, I live in Africa so I know how to be pushy and queue). And the stories went on and on. After a mere three hours (and even in Dansko clogs your feet will hurt) I got to an agent. Oh—I forgot to mention that the Eurostar website was down because so many people were trying to buy tickets! So seeing a friendly agent was very exciting. Of course, like many people in the queue, I wanted to go to Paris. Was I able to go the next morning?? Well yes, I could. So I purchase my (expensive) ticket and headed into the planning the next phase of my journey. Of course, everyone else had the same idea so the queue at another office for European rail travel was extremely long; and after 3 hours in the first one, I just couldn’t handle it.
So on Tuesday I checked out of my hotel and headed back to “the pancreas” for my Eurostar trip. It’s all very civilized I must say as you jet through security (beverages allowed), get your passport stamped, and wait with your fellow rail folk.
After a mere few hours we were deposited in Gare du Nor in Paris. There I promptly queued up, yet again, for a ticket from Paris to Rome. Fortunately, that queue wasn’t more than 1 hour and I got a ticket for the next night. That’s right—a night train. Fortunately it was straight through from Paris to Rome without stopping. Unfortunately that meant a 15 hour + train ride. Now I like trains, but 15 hours is a bit much even for me. But before I bored my express to Roma I met up with a friend from the US who is now back in France. Pictures below are of my walk around Paris and looking at lovely blooming flowers and having lunch with Solene and Livi.
When I downloaded these photos, I still had the ones from my December stranding so you get both Copenhagen and Paris!
Now for those of you who haven’t been in the 15-hour version of train’s economy class, I must say it’s better than I thought it would be. The little cabin had two benches facing each other—each with three seats. Of course, all seats were full. Then later at night you convert the seat to beds. One hangs down from the ceiling at all times, the middle bed is created from the back of the seat and the bottom bed is from the bottom of the seat but is further lowered. I had the bottom couchette and must say that I slept pretty comfortably. We didn’t have any big snorers and even though the Italian couple with colds managed to keep the sniffles in.
So we arrived in Rome late—for some reason we stopped for about half an hour around 11 pm and then I think there was another delay. But I hopped into a taxi and headed for what would be my 5th and last hotel of the trip. A mere 10 hours later I was on a flight to Dubai and after many lines at the Dubai airport between flights—which I somehow managed to avoid—I arrived back in Addis.
Of course, since I was in Europe for an extra week I’d lost some time. And my desk officer was arriving a few days later…so it was back to the grindstone. Sorting through emails, planning one trip, preparing for another that was already planned for later that week. Yikes. But we headed down to SNNP—less than a week after I’d been back—to visit a few projects. While I’d been to these areas before, I hadn’t seen these projects and it was interesting. Then we headed back to Addis for a day, and then off again to Jijiga—the capitol of Somali Region. I hadn’t been to JJ either and due to excessive recent rains it was quite lush and green—whereas I’d been expecting a desert–like environment.
In between the two trips I managed a quick trip out of Addis to visit Safia. If you don’t know what I’m talking about read my earlier posts. Safi is doing well in her temporary home and now has some cheetahs in nearby (but she can’t see them) cages. I’ve also been informed that a male lion will be brought out and then will get to hang out together. Safi gets something like norplant before that happens!! And then others will move there too. So her new home is starting to shape up. I don’t think she recognizes me, but I think she growls less at me than at others so I pretend. I’ve ordered her a new toy so she has a little more mental stimulation (though she has one now) and I think she’ll have a good life. Not the same as being free, but better than being dead which I think is the reality we’d be faced with if James from Born Free hadn’t gone to get her. I’ve also learned, from some 6 year old Daisy Scouts, that I’m in a video that Born Free uses to teach kids about what Born Free does, how animals are treated in Ethiopia, etc. So to at least a few 6 year olds in Addis, I’m pretty cool.