Last Impressions of Addis

We’ve rented our room for half a day so we won’t be homeless until tonight. Our flight isn’t until 11:30 PM, but we need to be at the airport three hours before departure. As you might have read, this trip has thrown more challenges our way than usual. It’s been really educational, but at times, it’s also been quite tough for us. One of the amusing experiences has been with the taxis. They have NL on the back of the cars. When Holland can’t use their little Lada cars anymore, they send them to Ethiopia. This means the taxis are incredibly worn out, and the models are really old and tiny. Honny can barely fit inside them! When you turn, the doors on the oldest cars swing open in the corners... The tires are so worn down that there’s no tread left. The handbrake doesn’t work, so they put stones behind the wheels when parking. We’ve become “good friends” with a taxi driver we keep running into. He hangs out outside Ras Hotel. Whenever we see him, we always let him take us. He’s even slept outside our hotel a few times just to drive us to the airport early in the morning. He told us he earns about 3000 birr a month and works around 14 hours a day. He lives with his wife’s family along with their two kids because rent is so expensive. Two rooms cost 1500 birr. He’s 35 but looks like he’s 45. Life is tough in Ethiopia, and the average life expectancy is only 49 years.