¡Feliz navidad!

Merry Christmas! 

It´s Christmas Eve here, but tonight is the big night of celebration so I will be having my big meal about the same time as you in Australia.

Tonight I´m heading to the house of Edy, the woman who manages the place where I´m living. Here´s a photo of her  in the garden of the house next door to mine. Awesome view...they grow corn in front of their million dollar view and have the house facing the street. ???

A few days ago I had lunch with Edy's extended family. Here's a photo; tortillas and steak were on the menu, along with delicious freshly-made watermelon and mandarin juice. 

I made one of those classic language mistakes during the meal, and I´m sure they now think I´m a total jerk. Edy´s family are all from the capital, San Salvador. We were talking about how peaceful Suchitoto (this town) is, and I meant to say, ¨Yes, it is, but I haven´t been to San Salvador yet.¨ Instead, I got my words a bit messed up and said, ¨Yes, it is, and I will NEVER go to Sal Salvador.¨ Oopsy. 

Rule no 1 for making friends in Central America: don´t insult anyone's patria chica (home-town)...even if they are so crime-ridden that police dealing with gang violence have to wear balaclavas all the time in case gang members identify them and target their families. 

Yesterday I felt good for the first time in a couple of weeks, so I and my Spanish conversation teacher, Marvin, went on a walk down to the lake. He is a passionate bird-watcher, so here is the one-and-only photo of me as a twitcher, and a few photos from the walk.

The Christmas festivities have been ramping up here; last week they had a big parade of all the local beauty queens who each had their own extravagent float. Check this one out - there is a fully-functioning concrete ¨water feature¨ on this float!! 

And here´s a photo of me with my lovely Spanish teacher. After an hour with her I feel like my head is going to explode. She already has a degree in English and is now studying public relations, so she´s really interesting to talk to. 

Feliz Navidad! 

Suchitoto - El Salvador

I've been in suchitoto for a week and am really liking it here. It's a small town of about 20,000 people an hour's drive from the capital city. I can't believe there are that many people living here because the town is so quiet - there is hardly any traffic. I think everyone walks everywhere, except when they have weddings, when they all cram into the back of a truck! (The bride gets to ride up front though...)

Maybe they´re going to be sold at market, or maybe they´re going to a wedding reception. Who knows?

Suchitoto is often called the cultural capital of El Salvador. It has the best preserved colonial architecture, lots of cultural events and is also quite left-wing and very organised. (It was one of the left-wing guerrilla centers during the war.) There are almost no tourists here, but there are a handful of US volunteers here working on different kinds of community projects.

This stencil is painted on the outside of almost every house in town. It says, "In this house we want a life free from violence against women.".

The woman who's living in the same house as me is a volunteer who is here for a year running workshops on non-violence. There's also a beautiful ex-convent next door to where I'm staying which is now a centre for arts and peace. There's a nun who runs the centre and has all kinds of classes there - everything from harp lessons to yoga. I just took this photo yesterday at the opening of a photographic exhibition at the centre.

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The old convent

The gang violence that is such a big part of life in other parts of the country seems to be kept at bay here. You can see that the locals are putting a lot of energy into diverting kids from becoming involved in the gangs.

Unfortunately, this isn't the case in the rest of the country. Last week, I did an interview with Gilles, a Belgian guy who lives in the surf town where I stayed for a month. He and his family run the hotel where I stayed. I interviewed him about his experiences being an immigrant to ES for the travel website I write for. 

Playing with Gilles´CUTE son 

He was telling me that tourists are almost never impacted by the gang warfare, but he has had extortion threats and has had plenty of friends who've been caught up in it in some way. He said that because tourists buy drugs, they are fairly protected from any violence. This is because if tourists are harmed then they will stop coming and the customer base will dry up. So, they aren't targeted. (So, a big shout out to all those dope-loving US surfers who are keeping the rest of us tourists so safe.)

But he said that, particularly for young men here, they are lucky if they don't get caught up in it in some way. He has an 17-year-old nephew who is living with him because he comes from an area of the country where there is a lot of gang activity. The gangs often try to recruit from schools, and the boy's father sent him away because he felt like he could get caught up in it. The boy's mum lives in the US and he hasn't seen her for years because she's there as an illegal immigrant and if she leaves she won't be allowed back into the US! 

Even though the war ended twenty years ago in some way it is still continuing because the war led, in different ways, to the big gang culture here.  This is the sign outside the local Internet cafe. 

What? You can't pack heat while surfing the net!? Weird...

Here are a few photos from the house I'm staying in and around town. I don't think I've ever had such a huge bedroom; this photo shows 1/4 of it. (And, I´m only paying $175 a month!!)

This is the view from the garden next door to my house...not too shabby!! 

El Tunco Photos

Hi all, 

I have been putting together some photos from here for the travel website I write for. They wanted a photographic essay of the town where I´m staying. I´m still not quite sure what a ¨photographic essay¨ is, but this is my attempt at one! 

I´m staying right next to the beach in a very quiet place and really like it here. The locals are friendly, but not overly-so, and there are no hawkers or annoying hassling sales people everywhere. Hardly anyone speaks English, so I am being forced to speak in Spanish, which is great and was just what I was looking for.   Here is the piece...

Located just thirty-minutes drive from El Salvador´s airport, the village of El Tunco offers swaying palm-trees, some of Central America´s best waves, and a laid-back welcome from its friendly residents.  During the weekdays, El Tunco is tranquil; surfers from all over the wander down to the sea to catch waves whilst women stoke wood fires and fry El Salvador´s national dish, the pupusa. On the weekends, the village comes alive as residents from San Salvador escape the heat of the capital city and enjoy a few day´s break by the sea. Here is a photographic essay — From Dawn to Dusk — which features this quiet beach-side pueblo.

Tijuana Paranoia

Hola!

I thought I´d put up a few photos from Tijuana. 

I crossed over  the US border with no problems, except for a woman on the tram asking me if I was homeless. (Maybe it was the pillow that I carry Linus-style everywhere with me, and the fact that it was filthy after being dragged (also Linus-style) across the floor of multiple airports.)

Once I was across the border, a woman stopped me and asked where I was going. I told her the area and she said she was going to her dentist in the same part of town (yes, she comes to Mexico to go to the dentist). She suggested that we share a cab, because she was worried about getting one by herself. I couldn´t believe that she was afraid to get a cab in the centre of town, at 10am, for a five minute ride! I´d only been in the county two minutes and even I could see that this was carrying the Tijuana paranoia a little too far. 

The view from my hotel 

I stayed in a little hotel near the entertainment and surgical centre of Tijuana. It quickly became obvious that tequila and giving anaesthetic is the primary source of income here.

The tequila part is obvious: heaps of young American gringos come here to party.  But, there are also dentists, optometrists, doctor´s and medical-supply offices everywhere. Having dinner one night I saw two Americans wearing pyjamas, with little IV bandages on the back of their hands. I started listening in and realised they'd both had lap-band surgery. I'd feel fairly confident going to the dentist in Tijuana, but I'm not sure I´d be undergoing stomach surgery in a hurry. 

Turns out, for all its bad press, Tijuana is pretty safe. The manager of my hotel was telling me that from 2006 until 2010 there were fifty murders per DAY in the city! (Which has about two million people). It was all a drug turf-war; the cartels in Tijuana wanted to charge other cartels to transport drugs through the border region. Eventually, they all reached a settlement amongst themselves, and now there are ´´only´´ around two murders a day.

A revolutionary-style mural opposite my hotel with the heading - Mexico and Cuba are brother countries.

Of course, when I told the manager that I was heading to El Salvador he said, "Are you crazy? It´s so dangerous there!" And I said, "Ummm...do you know what the rest of the world thinks of Tijuana!?" "Oh, that's rubbish," he said. I  said that maybe it was the same for El Salvador; unless you attempt to take over another drug cartel´s territory, you aren't likely to get into any trouble at all.

Overall, I really liked TIjuana. Despite everyone looking as though they´d been clothed by the drug lord section of Target (c. 1985), the people were very friendly and happy to let me inflict my creche-level Spanish on them.

I´ll do a post with a few photos from El Salvador next week, but here´s one of the Mexico City airport, which I´m thinking was built for the Mexico City olympics. It has  60´s architecture, with the walls and ceiling of the whole airport constructed with these holes cut through them. Don Draper would feel right at home!

Ethiopia II - (not as long as the first one!)

Hello again, 

I am back in Addis after another few weeks in the countryside so I thought I'd post a few more photos and have a bit more of a whine about proselytizers. One of my friends here, Yared, says I must have 'please save me' written across my forehead because every second person is exhorting me to embrace Jesus with all my heart.

This is a conversation i had with my cleaning woman, Emabet.

Emabet: why are you lying on your bed Emma? Are you sick?
Me: just a headache.
Emabet: But Emma, are you Christian
Me: (trying to head this off at the pass) Yes! I certainly am a Christian.
Emabet: but what kind?
Me: ummmm.... I am Catholic?
Emabet: (gives me a shocked look) Oh Emma, you are not Pentecostal? I ask you to please, please start reading the bible. Jesus Christ can do anything, he can heal your headache, pleeeease look in the bible...

At this point I was wondering what she thought Catholics read - Playboy? 

After a few minutes of this  just pretended to get a phone call from an imaginary friend to stop the tirade and get Emabet to focus on what she was supposed to be doing - cleaning the bathroom of a rich white woman for 5 cents an hour.

That's no joke about the 5 cents, which is why the cleaning ladies at this hotel are well known for stealing. I am trying to bribe Emabet into not stealing from me by giving her bananas and other extremely cheap things, but one of my friends here tried that and said they just stole more, because they thought she was so generous she wouldn't mind! Amongst other things she has lost two iPhones, a cashmere jumper, deodorant and her underwear. I have locked up my passport but I can't quite work out how to lock up my deodorant and undies. Maybe I just need to start reading the bible.

The street outside my hotel

 Speaking of the Bible, it is Lent here now, and all the Ethiopian orthodox Christians stop eating meat for the duration. In the run up to Lent they get ready for two months without protein by eating a tonne of raw meat. I went to two lunches of raw meat over a couple of days and found it quite psychologically disturbing to see people slicing up meat into big chunks and popping them into their mouth instead of into a fry pan. 

 

This is actually how they serve the raw meat - just a big platter of...raw meat. 

On Easter Sunday the two month meat fast is broken and there will be so much raw meat around I think the whole country will look like an abattoir.

I am staying in Ethiopia's oldest hotel which looks quite nice from the outside, but I think the bathrooms are the worst I've ever seen. Mine is doubling as an Ebola breeding laboratory. 

This part of the hotel looks OK, but...

...the footpath outside is another matter.

The good thing about the hotel that it has a piano, which I am loving, except that I think it was tuned about the same time my bathroom was last cleaned.

 

There are some really interesting people staying here, also long-term, like me. So far I've met a photographer, a film-maker from the UK who is writing a screen-play, a weird guy who is making a documentary on Armenians in Ethiopia (yes, that topic is as obscure as it sounds) and a German novelist. It is a little bit like living in an artist's colony - not quite what I expected from Ethiopia, but extremely interesting and I'm enjoying it a lot. 

My news is that I am doing a bit of marketing work for Salayish (the place near the lake where I was staying). The idea came when they showed me an ad they had in a local magazine which must be pretty much the worst ad I have ever seen (apart from Brad Pitts Chanel no. 5 ad).

This is what the ad looked like:

If you are saying, "what IS that?" You are certainly not alone. None of us could figure out what that photo actually was or where it was taken. It looks like the light of a steam train heading straight for the building. (I think it is actually the sunset).

So, I approached the owner with some marketing ideas, and Yared (the owner's nephew) convinced them that they had to try some proper marketing. Which resulted in the following conversation:

Me: so I'll need to get into your email account. What is it?
Ayelew (the owner): ummm... I think the password is xxxx.
Me: ok, but I need more that the password, who is it with, google? Yahoo?
Ayelew: I don't really know, my daughter in the USA checks the email when she has time.
Me: wait a minute - so no-one here has email? Derese, can't you get email on your smart phone?
Derese: not at the moment.
Me: does 'not at the moment' mean 'not this morning but it will work this afternoon' or 'not ever'.
Derese: yeah, not ever.
Me: but you have an email reservations form on your website! Who is responding to those emails?
Ayelew: my daughter in America, when she isn't busy. But she is quite busy at the moment.
Me: whaaaaat?
Yared: I think the form is really there because it looks good. It's just something nice to have on the website.
Me: whaaaaaat?

Up until this point I had been worried about my marketing capabilities, but now I realise that absolutely anything I do will be an improvement. 
 

Ayelew and one of the Salayish staff members.

Yared and me, having the MOST delicious roast chicken evah!

Yesterday I helped set up what I hope will be a nice little marketing deal for Salayish. One of the film makers staying here is going to make a short promo video for Salayish, which we can put up on their website, and we are also going to team up with a local tour company who will put an ad for them in a really stylish brochure that is going to travel agents and travel trade fairs in Europe. All for $250, which I think is a great price.

The owners of Salayish freaked out about actually spending money on marketing (they are paying me with free accommodation), so, in the typical Ethiopian way, there were days of protracted discussions with every member of the extended family having their say, and finally the owner said yes. 

The tour company owner came to see me after the meeting and offered me a job, which was nice. Marketing and managing - full time or part time. I will think about doing a little bit of part-time, after I've finished with Salayish. It is a nice little company and I know someone here who is already doing some marketing work for them who says they are great to work for and very chilled. Also, their office is about twenty steps from my bedroom - very convenient! So, we'll see.

Little donkey, little donkey, on the dusty road...

Ethiopia - Addis Ababa and Salayish

Finally, I am near a computer again and can do a blog post!

I've been in Ethiopia about three weeks now and my first impression was that the plane had touched down in Tullamarine; there were lots of gum trees and the type of dry, summer landscape you see around Keilor. About 100 years ago, one of Ethiopia's emperors realised that gum trees were good for firewood and he bought a heap of different types over here and now they are everywhere.

If you live more than 5kms out of town, this is your taxi. (Gum trees in background). 

My first ten days I spent in Addis, surrounded by lots of gorgeous, bootilicious, blinged up Ethiopian women with enough chemicals in their hair to run a nuclear power plant. I wanted to take some photos of them but I was too scared to because if they saw me they'd have slapped me. These women have attttttiTUDE...kinda like this...

(I didn't take this photo but it's pretty typical of the street fashion here). 

The most recent prime minister was married to a woman who was a resistance fighter and he used to give speeches about how Ethiopian men need to respect women, but that he had no choice with his wife because she knew how to shoot. I think the women in Addis have whole heartedly adopted the prime ministers message, you wouldn't be dissin' those women in a hurry! In the countryside, which is 90% of the country, I think it's a different story.

Addis grocery store 

Typical building in the old part of Addis.

I had a fairly eventful first few days. I spent one night, accidentally, in a brothel, because the place I was staying in was booked out and the brothel was masquerading as a guesthouse. (Apparently this is quite normal in Addis, places function as both.) It seemed very quiet and peaceful, but that was during the day! DOH!

I spent one night there thinking "don't touch anything" (it was filthy as well), then I went back to my first guesthouse where I had to share the room for a night with a humorless phone technician from NZ. In the morning I was lying in bed with an ice pack on my head, exhausted, and discovered he was not only a humorless phone technician but a proselytizing Christian humorless phone technician with a captive audience.

He stood at the end of my bed telling me that I too could have a wonderful relationship with Jesus if I let him into my heart and accepted his healing blah love blah the bible blah blah. I didn't hear the end of his rant because I was thinking two things: 1) I am about to make criminal history by killing someone with an ice-pack and 2) given a choice between the prostitutes and the proselytizer I know what I'd choose.

All this was in the first 2 days, and fortunately things improved because I was about to take the first plane out to Pat's spare room if they didn't.

Addis has a real buzz to it - there is obviously a lot of development and building going on, and the women's fashions are great, so it's an interesting place to just walk around and 'people watch.'  But there's also a lot of dust, Chinese building sites, shoe polish boys and what seems like a charity or NGO for every one of the shoe shiners.   My charity work was getting my shoes shined, which I needed to in all that dust. (Yes, I know I am committing some heinous fashion crimes in this photo but it is bloody freezing here in the mornings.)

I did end up meeting some really interesting tourists at the place I was staying, a couple of photographers , some UN workers , and local jazz musicians studying at the university.  But after ten days of dust in my lungs, beggars on the streets, snipers on the rooftops (there was a big meeting of African heads of state), and Christians in my bedroom, I decided it was time to get out of Addis and see some of the countryside. 

People were a lot friendlier once I got out of Addis!

 So I came about 1.5 hours into the country to what I have been reliably told is one of the most peaceful spots in Ethiopia and after the  car ride here I would believe it. (3 hours to go 40kms). This is a photo I took at sunrise. 

I'm staying in a town that has seven crater lakes dotted around it and I'm staying on one of the lakes, at a place called Salayish which has a small African style huts dotted around a garden - very peaceful, and the surrounding scenery is gorgeous.   The town it is outside of fairly scruffy, like all African towns I'd say;  utilitarian, clogged with traffic and of course, dusty, but it has it's own rough charm, the locals were friendly and it was very peaceful next to the lake. 

My hut. Cute!

Salayish has its own distillery which makes honey wine (absolutely delicious) and araki, which is a type of vodka which they drink as an aperitif and for stomach problems but which I would only drink if I wanted to kill myself, quickly. (I think I might know what is causing those 'stomach problems.')

The distillary

Once you get out of Addis it is easy to see why Ethiopia is still one of the poorest countries in the world. it has a different kind of poverty to what I've seen in Asia, (I'm thinking particularly of Laos and Sumatra). There, even though people were struggling I had the sense that almost everyone had enough to eat, that most children went to primary school, and that people could buy clothes for their children. Here, the literacy rate is only around 65%, many farming children don't finish primary school, and kids often look undernourished. 

Lots of young children have to look after the family animals,
instead of going to school. 

These people are really on struggle street and I get the sense that for many of them there's not much hope of a leg up and out of grinding poverty; it's just about survival, no more, and often less.

Baby Tsuenat, and mum (who was married at 13). 

I met a really lovely Swedish woman who works with UN health program's here. She said one good thing about Ethiopia is that you don't have to spend a lot of money on medications or hospitals to make a significant difference in health outcomes because education is what is really making a difference. She runs basic campaigns which educates families about the dangers of marrying off their daughters off at 9 or 10, because they get pregnant way too young and have all sorts of problems giving birth. She also runs campaigns to reduce FGM, which is still at a staggeringly high rate of 75% across Ethiopia. 

This boy reminded me of Cally - very funny kid!

This boy ALSO reminded me of Cally! (That poor donkey) 

Once you are introduced to people and get to know them a bit they are really friendly, warm, switched on and very, very proud of being Ethiopian. They are a bit like Australians in that they always ask, "what do you think of Ethiopia? What did you think it would be like before you came?" The problem  have here is that the world still thinks of images of starving children whenever anyone mentions Ethiopia, and no one really appreciates the richness of the culture or  landscape.  They all seem surprised when I report that I fully expected Addis to be a modern, busy city (which it is).  I think they think that everyone outside Africa thinks they live in mud huts and don't wear clothes (hello Mazzy!).

Morning tea at Salayish

Just like Australian's the Ethiopians seem to have national pride in some unusual things (shrimps? Barbies?). I was talking to an architect last week and he was talking about Injera, their national food, which looks like this:

(The injera is the big pancake thing under the food). 

It's sort of like an enormous fermented pancake, made from a grain called Tef. It tastes OK, but I can only have it once a day.  Anyway, this guy was telling me, "You people in the west, you eat your bread and pasta and maybe you go to the toilet, what?  Once every three days?'" He makes a sad face, looking very sorry for the poor, constipated western world, and says,  "In Ethiopia...we go three times a day, at least! The Injera is full of fibre!"   

The Ethiopian tourist board's logo used to be: Ethiopia - 13 months of sunshine.  (Because the Ethiopian calender has 13 months )  After this conversation I thought it could be changed to 'Ethiopia - 13 months of sunshine and at least 3 poos a day.'

Here are a few photos of my pitiful attempt at making injera, in the kitchen at Salayish. You pour the mixture straight onto the hot plate and then somehow, lift it off again. I spent quite a bit of time hanging out in this kitchen, and the women were just lovely.   (Notice the big sticks sticking out of the fire, and the baby! There are also chickens running around the floor.  It was all very OH&S compliant.)

I am meeting some  interesting locals because the place I've been staying  by the lake gets a lot of weekenders  from Addis, and also expat Ethiopians returning for holidays.  So, I've been hanging with developers, architects, artists and some musicians (who had been to Melbourne on tour.)  I am pretty much getting to see the 2% of the population who are well educated and have money. 

As people have told me, there is really no middle class in Ethiopia.  There are the few percent at the top who have money, and then there is everyone else who has nothing.  It is very obvious on the streets of Addis.  Yesterday I was in a lovely Italian cafe having cake with a couple of guys I met at the lake and I could have been in Melbourne. But then, when we walked out onto the street it was the normal chaos of beggars, hustlers and shoe-shine boys, all of whom could only dream of eating Tiramisu at a classy cafe.  Eventually the 'have-nots' are going to get impatient waiting for a few crumbs to drop from the table of the 'haves' - and who knows what will happen then. 

Today, I was walking back to my guesthouse foolishly holding a couple of bananas instead of putting them in my bag.  Two shoe-shine boys asked me for them, and I was in a bit of a quandary because I needed at least one for my breakfast tomorrow and I didn't have the energy to walk back and buy more.  So, I said I'd give them one and they could share it.  They had a bit of a fight over it but I kind of stood over the one holding the banana til he broke it in two.  Seeing this, another group of shoe-shine boys ran up asking for the other banana. I said no, then, as I was walking away, this poor mother with a little baby asked for it.  All I could hear as I walked away were  pitiful cries of 'banana! banana!' coming down the street.  I will feel bloody guilty when I eat my breakfast tomorrow. 

In the kitchen at Salayish.

The problem is that as soon as you give something to one person, there is a crowd of ten more asking for something too, which makes me not want to give anything to anyone! I have developed  little rules of giving - I usually only give money to disabled or elderly people, and never give money to children.  I usually get the kids to shine my shoes, or give them some food.  But, then I wonder if buying food is such a great idea for the children.  It's all very complicated.

This is what happens when I am silly enough to walk around with my camera showing!

Overall, I love it here.  The people are really genuine, helpful and really interesting to talk to. Despite the problems with beggars  I never feel unsafe here and the men are very respectful and never hassle me. (Yes, men of Sri Lanka, that comment was directed at you. You freaks.)  I think the countryside is beautiful; it's stunning, in a stark kind of way, very much like the Australian outback.  I'd love to do some long bus rides and really get out into the more remote areas, because they are meant to be even more stunning,  but I don't think that is going to happen.  I will have to make do with Addis and Salayish - which is a bit like flying all the way to Australia from Europe and only seeing Melbourne and Bacchus Marsh, but at least it's something. 

OK - here are a few more photos, if you haven't seen enough already! 

Baby Tsuenat is coming with me in my backpack when I leave.
Even if she doesn't want to. 

Aidan - orange is very popular in Africa too! (with t-shirts on their heads!?)