Unexpected Detour to Ethiopia

Remember when I told you about my grand plans to travel to India and Italy after volunteering in Tanzania? Well, that didn’t work out. When we arrived to the Mumbai airport after traveling all night, everything was turned upside down. We were denied entry into India because we didn’t have visas. We had been led to believe by our incompetent travel agent in the US and an Ethiopian Airlines representative that we could get our visas upon arrival (like most places in the world). The airlines should have never let us board the plane. The guy saw my passport and commented on how I had been to India before, but never mentioned needing to have a visa before entering the country.

Because we had somehow fallen through the cracks, Ethiopian Airlines was embarrassed, especially since the Cricket World Cup was going on at the moment in Mumbai, which, by the way, India won and it was a huge deal. They treated us with utter disrespect and tried to hurry us through the airport without telling us why. We said we wanted to talk to the American Embassy, but they knew that would be horrible for them so they made up lies about why we couldn’t contact them.

Finally we reached a gate and it became clear they planned to send us back to Addis Ababa, where we had our connecting flight from Kilimanjaro. I turned on the water works, hoping it would show them how inhumanely they were treating us. It didn’t work and made them want to get rid of us faster because they knew we were innocent and were causing a scene. A security guard gripped my arm and tried to pull me up to force me to board the plane. They took our passports and gave them to a stewardess, instructing her to not give them back to us until we landed in Addis.

“You’re sending us to Ethiopia?!” I cried. “We have no one there, you have no right to send us to a random country on a different continent.”

They tried to give lame excuses about how we are holding up the whole plane, how inconsiderate of us. The security guy got on his phone and tried to make it seem like he was talking to the Embassy to appease us.

“They say you have to get on the plane,” he said.

“Let me talk to him and get his advice directly,” I shot back, calling his bluff.

The guy looked uncomfortable, said a few more words to whoever was on the other end, and hung up the phone.

“They didn’t want to talk to you. Now get on the plane!!”

The security guard tried once more to pull me up even harder and I was about to throw a punch, but, before I could, the Indian airline representative stopped the one pulling me.

“Stop, that isn’t working. Now you have two options; either you get on the plane or we will take you to jail,” said the Indian airline representative.

“We choose jail,” my mom said defiantly.

At first I was surprised by her answer, but then I realized why she said it. We had done nothing wrong except to be misinformed. They had no basis to throw us in jail since we were still in an international airport. Our only chance to talk to the Embassy was to choose jail. The Indian airline rep realized his mistake by giving us that option.

“You can’t go to jail,” he said flatly. More and more security guards gathered. The man explained they couldn’t sort anything out there that we would have to go back to Addis. They would put in a good word for us there and make sure we could figure everything out. Realizing we could not win this battle, we got on the plane, which was another six and a half hours. As we were boarding the plane, they allowed me to call Rachel’s brother and tell him we wouldn’t be able to see him.

When we reached Addis, they didn’t give us our passports right away; we had to track them down in the airport. We found the person holding them for us and we were asked to follow her. It started feeling strangely like Mumbai all over again when we were ushered through security quickly in front of others waiting in line. We stopped her before we went through security and asked her where she was taking us. Just as we feared, she was planning to take us to a flight back to Kilimanjaro. So much for the Mumbai airline rep promising we could sort everything out in Addis.

Somehow we convinced her that we were supposed to stay in Addis to figure out the situation so we could go back to India. We told her how we had been treated in Mumbai and how we hadn’t properly slept in days. I don’t know what convinced her, but soon we were filling out visas to stay in Ethiopia. Unfortunately, our luggage was already forwarded to Kilimanjaro.

We were in a random country in Africa, with no luggage and no where to stay. I think we handled it considerably well. We found a booth  just outside the airport advertising a hotel and decided to stay there. When we got to the hotel, we didn’t just collapse into sleep. We went straight to the Indian Embassy, found out it was closed, went to an Internet cafe to contact a few people, ate, and then took a very short nap before heading back to the airport in hopes of retrieving our luggage.

By some miracle, our luggage was at the airport. They were ostentatiously decorated with tags from their long journey. The final trajectory of our luggage in one day is as follows: KILIMANJARO–> ADDIS ABABA–> MUMBAI–> ADDIS ABABA–> KILIMANJARO–> ADDIS ABABA. Pretty impressive.

The next week in Addis was interesting. In many ways, Addis is an exciting place right now; full of hopeful expectations for the future, construction everywhere, half-finished malls, and well-dressed youth walking the streets. It is way ahead of Tanzania in terms of commercial progress. However, there is a darker side of Addis that even the brightest of trendy restaurant lights couldn’t cover up. Poverty and tuberculosis still grip the country. Underneath the friendly Ethiopian facade lies a prejudice against white people and anyone who appears wealthy. If you don’t tip the proper amount–and let me tell you, you have to tip EVERYONE in Addis and you never know the right amount–you can see someone go from wonderfully helpful to loathsome.

It happened to our taxi driver Afework. He was really helpful and pleasant at first, but when we said we didn’t want to do a second day of touring because we still needed to plan the next leg of our journey, but we were willing to pay him for where he had already taken us, he got ugly. He started yelling about how it was his right, how we were stealing bread from his mouth, this was our agreement, and we needed to go to a police station to settle this. We had paid him the equivalent of $100 for a half day of touring, instead of $120 for two days. We thought this was more than fair but he didn’t think so. It feels awful to piss off someone as much as he was infuriated with us. We couldn’t reason with him, so we were stuck as the bad guys. It really made my mom sad.

As we walked down the street, we passed an Apple Store. Now this is a miraculous thing to find an Apple Store in Africa, much less Ethiopia. We chatted with the guy who worked there and I told him about how I used to work at an Apple Store in America. He told me all about the struggles setting a store up in Ethiopia; how they were always out of stock, impossibly high import charges, the lack of stable Internet to demonstrate products, and other problems unique to the area. It was a small store, he was the only worker. He trained himself using an authorized Apple online training program. I bet in the next five years, that place is going to be booming. (Note August 13, 2011: I’m pretty sure this was one of the many fake Apple Stores talked about in the news, read about it in the New York Times http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/20/the-rise-of-the-fake-apple-store/).

I’m glad I got to see a piece of Ethiopia, but quite honestly, I was ready to leave. I was ready to wander aimlessly through the canal passageways of Venice, sit by the Mediterranean and cruise around the Tuscan countryside. I was ready for a glass of wine, la dolce vita, and mouthwatering Italian food. But mainly, I was ready to feel safe, to blend in just a bit, or at least not have people assume I was rich. I wanted to relax.

My mom and I have been in Venice one whole day, and are thankful of every moment. My luggage got lost (again), so I have nothing remotely warm and the only closed-toed shoes I have are my tennis shoes. One of my bags did make it so I have most of my clothes I used in Tanzania and scarves, so I’ve been using the scarves for warmth. It’s a bummer, but honestly, I’m so happy to be here that it doesn’t matter that much. Stuff can be replaced, but experiences cannot. The first night we ate lobster pasta, wine, tomato and mozzarella, cooked vegetables, and tiramisu. After eating okay lentil soup most days in Ethiopia, this meal was absolutely heavenly.

Did I mention that just hearing Italian makes me swoon? Not for the guys, but just the language itself is so beautiful. Venice of course is the romance capital of the world, but that isn’t why I love it. I feel independent walking through the narrow cobblestone streets and across the arched bridges over canals. For some reason, I never need to use a map in Venice, and can always find my way around. It bewilders my mom how I do it. There is something beautiful about a life where there are no cars, only small boats, and where sitting by the canal eating delicious pizza or drinking a cappuccino is a perfectly okay thing to do all afternoon.

I sincerely hope we have an easier time traveling over the next few weeks. However, looking back, if we hadn’t been denied entrance into India, we would have never seen Ethiopia, gone to Venice, or had the opportunity to visit Croatia. I’ve heard Croatia is gorgeous and where many Europeans like to vacation, so both of us are excited. I’ll keep you posted about how the next few weeks go.

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