Fun and games with new home in Mekelle
Very early start this morning to get the 6:30am flight from Addis to Mekelle. A couple of Land Cruisers turned up to collect us at 4:30 and the airport is very close to the Red Cross Centre, but they hadn’t brought Vicky’s box (blankets, stoves, water filters etc) so the truck I was in had to go back to the VSO program office all the way back in town to pack a new one for her.
Once we’d arrived at the airport, the others had all gone through check in into to departure lounge, but we found some of Ynke’s luggage was sat next to the check-in desk. It had all
been tagged with her destination, but not put through onto the baggage carousel. Andy spent a lot of time trying to convince the check in staff to put it through, which they did eventually – else Ynke would be without half her luggage when she got to Gondar.
It was quite a relief to be on the plane and en-route to Mekelle, only a 45min flight, when Mike and Tashika picked us up at the airport. To the surprise of Marcel and I, a driver had actually also arrived at the airport to collect us, though they had no clue about where we were going to be living – so unsure how they were going to get us to our new house if it hadn’t been for them following Mike.
Mekelle has a very arabian feel to it, very dry, dusty and lots of dry stone low rise housing. The city centre seems far more up together than Addis was – we’ve seen pavements for the first time since arriving in Ethiopia!
The new house is really big, we’ve got a huge lounge, with spare room/study, then a main bedroom (with ensuite!) and a slightly smaller bedroom with another bathroom next door, then a small kitchen. Unfortunately, I lost the coin toss for the master bedroom, so Marcel has got that one. The house is within a little compound of 3 houses, well, our house and then 2 bedsits which share a bathroom – apparently the bedsits are luxurious by Ethiopian standards, so who knows what they think of our house.
From what I’ve said so far all seems good, but now comes the ‘fun’ part… it’s obvious that the guard has been living in the house (in the spare bedroom) for the last couple of months whilst the house has been empty – so we needed to make sure that he moved all his stuff out there plus giving us any keys. The landlords nephew (Kiros, confusingly the landlord is also called Kiros) and the guard (Tsegay) came round in the early evening and we tried to get things sorted out with them. Doreen (VSO volunteer who used to live in the house & still lives in Mekelle came round too to help sort things out, Kiros and Tsegay (although in their mid-20s) were acting like small children being told off when we were explaining that they shouldn’t be living in the house. They we both very good about it all and moved everything out there and then, and also swept all the floors and mopped up.
Doreen explained that Tsegay is a teacher by day and guard by night – he lives in a small shed type thing within the compound (so it’s understandable that he would live in an empty house when he had the keys) and his sister lives in a little shack built at the far end of the carport. If the whole compound arrangementssound confusing then thats because it is! Apparently it’s common for men here to have their sisters come to live near (or with them) to do their cleaning, washing & cooking.
Marcel and I will also be getting someone in to do all the cleaning and washing – again this is common for people to have someone come in everyday do to the housework. But not sure what this will be like & think it’ll take some getting used to!
Mike and Doreen have been absolutely great today – helping us with so many things – from collecting us from the airport, to sorting out the nght guard, so we’re really grateful to them. Hopefully we’ll be able to buy them a few drinks at the Meskel festival tomorrow evening – not quite sure yet what the Meskel festival is all about, but seems to be quite a big thing…. sure I’ll find out soon.
At the end of the day neither Marcel or I fancied cooking, so we headed out to a local restaurant. It’s the first time I’ve been anywhere that has UN 4x4s driving around the restaurants have guards with AK-47s (Mum – don’t worry it is safe really).
Hope all the above make sense – I’m feeling really exhausted at the end of today!
