Welcome to the Machine

Addis Ababa 03.01.2012

Happy New Year!

2012 has started, and man, it’s going to be a real exciting year. Today I visited the South-Sudanese embassy and it seems I can go that way. The road (if existent) is not passable at the moment because of rain, but if the rain has stopped (as I think), it might be possible in about two weeks.

The people who expected me to have a lot of time to sit around and read over Christmas (me included) were very wrong. On the 27^th, the whole family climbed into Wombosi, and we set out for the west. I got to admit that I feared a lot of crying and problems with Sophie’s two boys, Markus (2 years and 8 month) and Jacob (8 month), but they were angels, sleeping most of the time, even on 14-hours-in-in-the-car days.

We went to Boji (West of Nekemte) and down to the Blue-Nile-Valley and back. We were back in Addis after dark on New-Years-Eve.

The trip was very nice. It is different to travel with a family of 8 people, including small children, but nice for some days. My parents work in this area, so we could sleep in the company’s guest-houses.  

Ethiopia is a wonderful country, at least to look at. When coming from Sudan, the Ethiopians seem almost evil. This is, partly because they aren’t a very friendly people, and partly because the Sudanese are. The scenery here though, is fantastic, and I’ve only seen it in the dry season, when everything is somehow grey. Baboons and other apes are often seen, and we even stumbled across a hyena crossing the road.

Wombosi was jet again a very good boy, but on the way back he lost some of his exhaust on a bad stretch of road. Having some hundred kilometers to go, Mparany offered his belt, and we tied up the rest of it. Tomorrow the whole thing will be welded back into place.

The days here in Addis are full of program. Wombosi needs some attention, gathering information on the newest state in the world does, and of course I want to spend time with the family too. Next weekend I might be heading north to Lalibela with daddy and Roger.

The title of this post is of course referring to the arrival of Roger. He arrives on Wednesday, and we’ll be driving all the way to Lilongwe in Malawi together.