Day 9 - Shopping and Museum

Ethiopia Trip Day 9

Shopping and Museum

Brian here – I am writing this in the Frankfurt Airport while Lori holds Sela, who is fast asleep. We are waiting for our final plane, the one that will take us home to Denver. Today’s blog is not about our trip home, it is about the day we spent after the Embassy. So, without further adieu, let me start the telling.

If you recall (that is, if we wrote it) from last night, we had made tentative plans to go shopping today. Lori and I woke up fairly late, probably around 7:00 or so and showered. Then we called Mulat and asked him the plan. He said that if there was room, we could go with the main car to the shopping at around 9am. If there was not enough room, he would call Yonus, another driver, to take us to meet there. So Lori and I went upstairs to eat breakfast and then went downstairs to meet the group.

We found several members of our group in the lobby of the hotel; some of them had to change money. We learned that there would be enough room in the van for us, so after a short while we went out, got in the van and left.

The first shopping center is nothing to really write about, it was essentially a mall with four or five levels. There were some shops selling Ethiopian handicrafts, and the prices seemed pretty good, but we decided to wait and buy at the bargain area, where we went next.

The bargain shopping area is just a line a shops selling stuff. No prices are marked on anything, so bargaining is possible. Lori and I bought a whole lot of stuff to give to friends and family, trying to bargain along the way. I pretty much stink at it, but later in the day I did manage to get a good deal on a Manchester United jersey with Ronaldo on the back with his number. There were a good number of people begging around this area, probably because there were also a number of Western-looking faces.

We left the shopping area after only one hour; believe me, we could not have taken any more of it, and headed back to Horizon House for lunch. Lori and I learned that the group was going to at least one of the museums in the city after lunch and up the mountain and to a place to buy coffee. We decided to stick with them since we really did not have other plans.

After lunch, we decided (the group, that is) to only hit one museum, but that it should be the one with “Lucy” in it. Lucy is the name of the skeleton of the oldest known human fossil. This exhibit is located at the National Museum in Addis Ababa, since Lucy was found in Ethiopia. In order to get into the Museum, we had to be searched, which wasn’t a really big deal. Then Mulat told us to go in and he would meet us later, he had to get gas for the van.

The entrance fee for the Museum is 10 Birr. For those of you not current on exchange rates, that is about $1.11. Pretty inexpensive to see the skeleton of the oldest known human, if you ask me. The ground floor of the museum is dedicated to the garments and trappings of some of the emperors of Ethiopia. The basement houses the fossils and other ancient artifacts. To get to Lucy, you have to walk past every other fossil and exhibit in the place. Which makes sense, since Lucy is the big attraction here. I would have to admit, though, that one skeleton we saw, which was probably a 2.5ft diameter spheroid, was also very impressive. Just to think about the size of the animal this thing came out of…amazing. There are also other fossils from some dangerous-looking creatures three times the size of a man.

When you first walk into the room with Lucy, the first thing you see is her standing up. Not that her skeleton is really standing up, but scientists have pieced together what was left and what the rest would look like to make a standing skeleton. At first glance, she is about as tall as I am…until you realize that the case she is in is standing on about a 2 foot pedestal. I took some pictures of Lucy, no flash allowed, so they are not great, and we looked around the room at the rest of the explanations. The whole room has only to do with Lucy, so after looking, we moved on.

The first floor (the first above the ground) is dedicated to art, both old and new. A couple of the pieces were very striking, so I took some pictures of these. The top floor of the museum contains exhibits of old religious artifacts and games and section dedicated to the greatest runner in Ethiopian history, Haile. Of note on this floor, I thought, were the hand carved Mancala game, the Quran and the Bible. Normally, a Quran and a Bible would not attract attention, but there were hand-written on goat-skin paper. Two rather long books, hand written. Both were stunning articles. After looking around the top floor, we left the museum and Lori shared some thoughts after we went outside.

She felt it was heartbreaking to see these items: the skeleton of the oldest human found, some of the other ancient items from a country which has played a part in world history for millions of years, kept in a building that is somewhat shabby compared to some other great museums we have seen. What just a little bit of money could do…but is it more important than survival, than feeding the people or providing medical care?

Ok, so we left the museum and started up the hill. By hill I mean one of the several hills that surrounds the city of Addis Ababa and supposedly provides a great view. Prior to getting there, we stopped at a weavers shop to watch workers weaving some of the fantastic patterns. We took some pictures and some of our group bought a couple of items. After the weaving shop, our next stop was another museum, (which was rather uninteresting, so much so I am not even going to describe it) the outside of an Ethiopian Orthodox Church and the first palace of Emperor Haile Sellasie. The palace was very basic, but it was obvious that at the time it would have much better than anything else around, plus it was on a hill. It was from this location that Sellasie’s wife picked out the spot of the real palace, which is very grand and opulent, although we didn’t see this one.



We left this area and finally drove up the top of the hill. We paid our entrance fee, not surprising here to have pay to get to see something, even if it is only a view. Lori impressed some Koreans that were also up there by saying hello in Korean and we took some photos of the city and a group shot. Since there is nothing else there, we left and went to find the coffee shop to buy some coffee. At the coffee shop, of course Lori and I got coffee from the Sidamo region of Ethiopia…the very same region where Sela is from. We got 3 pounds of washed coffee, un-ground, so we will have to acquire a grinder to brew it. After the coffee shop, we finally headed back to Horizon House. While there, Lori and I decided to take Sela “home” with us that night.

At the hotel, everyone was very happy to see our new daughter. Everyone smiled at her and tried to tickle her. She is not very ticklish, so this did not work so well, but everyone still loved her. The girls on the 12th floor thought she was especially cute and spent quite a bit of time holding her.

The night was interesting, Sela still wakes up every 2-3 hours for food, but we made it through ok. The sleeper we brought was too hot for Ethiopia, so at one point we changed her out of that and into a onesie. Other than those two things, we slept ok for our first night together.