Work trip to Adama (Nazret)

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  Adama, Ethiopia, Ethiopia
Monday, February 16, 2009

We had asked to visit a regional office as part of our work plan. We were sent to Adama (also known as Nazret). This is a town about 2 and a half hours drive south of Addis in the East African Rift Valley so we had to set off at 7.00 am in order to get to our office meeting for 10.00 a.m. The scenery en route was quite different from the scenery north of Addis and much more like the scenes we all get on television of Africa. It was much drier and, as we descended into the Rift Valley, the temperature soared and the atmosphere became more humid. On arriving in Adama there was a camel in the centre of town! The usual beggars flocked to us and we noticed our very senior official companion reached into his pocket for coins - so we did too. There are no pensions nor free hospital treatment for most people in Ethiopia and the elderly, blind and those maimed in the recent war against Somalia are left to beg in order to survive.

Our host was the local office manager and a very jovial and forward thinking man. We did our work interviewing staff at his offices in the morning and afternoon and were treated to traditional food at a local hotel (think bread that looks like tripe and tastes like carboard plus a spicy sauce!). We finished at 4.30 pm and persuaded our driver and official companion to detour 5 miles to a spot known for sightings of hippos. On the way we saw lots more camels, sheep  and goats. When we got to the spot we didn't expect to be lucky enough to see any hippos but to our astonishment we immediately saw a huge crocodile on the opposite bank of the Awash river - not that far away from local children swimming in the river on our side. The children were taking a dip on their way home from school and had left outer clothes and books on the bank. The children were keen to talk to us and try out some elementary english. They were very happy and friendly and pleased to see us. Then, two hippos came into view swimming down the river towards us, past the huge croc on the other bank and away into the distance. It was difficult to photograph the hippos as they only surfaced for a split second to get breath and my camera just seemed to take too long to get the shot! What a wonderful experience this was. The local people looked very poor but were so friendly and happy to see us. One of them was even sporting a Liverpool football shirt so we had a brief (due to language difficulties) discussion about the merits of Steven Gerrard and Jamie Callagher! We got back to Addis in time to grab some dinner at 9.00 pm and collapse into bed to get ready for the next day's work.

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The road south from Addis	Scenery on the road south	More scenery on road south	And more scenery on road south
Scenery on road south	Arriving in Adama	At the centre of Adama   Comments!	Typical building in centre of Adama
Local taxi	Adama main street	Work colleagues from Adama office	just outside Adama
The road west of Adama	Main street out of Adama	On the road west of Adama	Scenery west of Adama
More scenery	And more scenery	The Awash river	Awash river with croc
Local kid in the Awash river	Other local kids	Local kids	Local kids
So where is the hippo?	Hippos was definitely there	Awash river	Sign of Hippo
Definitely hippo in the river	Local scene	From the road back to Addis	Sunset going towards Addis

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