A tale of two Fridays 1500km apart

A tale of two Fridays 1500km apart

Today I did my Friday run.  It was meant to be a 13k, preferable within the hour.  It neither was a 13k nor was it within the hour.  I failed in both.  I ended up stopping the timer at 17k some 1hr 26min later, tired as a rock.  It is those additional loops within the employer's compound that usually seem to be nothing that must have tricked me.  Those loops can take you upto 10min on one way.  And I know that is where the 2km additional distance per loop must have come from, adding the 4k to my bill.  And the starting loop is hilly!  Hilly I tell you.

Anyway, that is not the essence of today's story.  Though I was running that route through Kapenguria road to Mary Leakey school and Uni farm, I was not quite cognizant of much that was going on around me.  My mind had already wondered to last Friday, seven days ago…..  

On that day, last week, I woke up, rather was forced to wake up at around nine in the morning.  That 'forced' condition was necessary, because I would otherwise miss out of the breakfast bit on this BnB accommodation arrangement.  The prepaid BnB meant that a lost breakfast was surely lost, without any chance of compensation.  You either take it or miss out on it.  There is no middle ground.

There was however nothing much in the name of breakfast at that time of the morning.  All the juice brands were already all gone.  Empty vases stood on the buffet table at a place marked ‘Juices’.  I managed some coffee ‘with milk’, the ‘with milk’ part being necessary, otherwise everything is served without, unless you specify explicitly.  

I also managed an omelette with chili, that did not have any chilies anyway.  I also scooped some firfir.  Firfir being pieces of injera prepared in such a manner as scrambled eggs, tasting as sour as ever, but milder than the real injera roll.  I was however now getting used to injera.  There was nothing else on that purported breakfast buffet.  Maybe it was not much on this Friday, or I was just late for breakfast.  In fact, they started clearing the breakfast things while I was still seated, yet it was hardly nine-thirty.

We had on the previous day already setup a ten o’clock visit to Unity Park at the Addis Ababa city centre.  It was a holiday for the staff over here.  The rules of employment over here gives the staff an extended holiday on Friday or Monday, provided an official holiday fall on a Saturday or Sunday respectively.  So, Maulid holiday was on Saturday, October 8, and so was this Friday a holiday.

Sharon and Rachel were to pick the Kenyan team of Rose and I on this Friday.  I moved from my C48 hostel block room and walked four doors along the corridor towards C44.  I knocked the door as I passed by, beckoning Rose to move towards the parking yard where we were to meet the hosts.

I found Rachel in her car, a white Mazda, left hand driven, as per convention over here.  She was in distress, even as I opened the front door right side seat.

“Imagine Sharon not come and she switch phone off,” she greeted me, not even looking in my direction.

“Hello there yourself.  The day is not as hot,” I responded, ignoring her anguish.

“This girl Sharon!  I no longer her friend.  She let me down.  I not want hear her!”

She continued starring ahead through the windscreen.  She was completely mood less.

Soon Rose would join in and seat just behind me.  We were ready to go.

“Where is Sharon?  Do we wait for her?,” Rose asked.

I answered for Rachel who was not in any more mood to discuss the runaway companion, “Sharon did not make it, and she seems unreachable on phone.  We shall have to go without her.”

We left the hostel block admin office parking lot and drove out, keeping right as we headed toward the B-gate.

“Selamta,” the sentry greeted the car.

“Selam,” Rachel and I responded, almost in unison.  Rose kept quiet.  It was her first time traveling to Ethiopia.  She was still getting used to the language.

We soon joined the main roads and started moving around to unknown roads.  She just drove and drove and drove.  It took us about thirty minutes of driving before we came to a stop.

“We park car here.  We walk to park there,” Rachel instructed, pointing ahead, as we disembarked.

We walked some one hundred or so metres and were soon at Unity Park.  We could see the military personnel guarding the massive gate and generally all around the compound fence.  There was a side entrance that we had to pass through, with the big gate being the exit point.  We bought our tickets at that side entrance.  We had already been prepared for this, with Rachel having already informed us the previous day that we would be charged Birr 1,050 each since we were non-nationals.  I believe that Rachel was entitled to half the fees.  

Rachel collected the 21 red notes from me, and another 21 red ones from Rose, that I had to count for her.  Rachel added the 42 notes to her own money.  She gave the big bundle of notes to the ticket person.  We got a single ticket for three, which Rachel momentarily handed over to another staffer in exchange for temporary paper armbands.  Each of us stretched a hand and the band was affixed to the arm.  The red armband read, “Unity Park - Regular”.  The Ethiopian flag was printed along the length of the strip, so was the map of Africa in the image of a fist.

We then moved to the security clearance desk.  We were asked to remove our belts, shoes, all metallic items and then go through a metal detector.  The rest of the items removed and put on trays went through a luggage scanner and emerged through the other end of it.  This was similar to the motions you go through at an airport.  

While awaiting my items on the other side of the conveyor, I did get a callback, while the ladies had already been cleared.

“What be this?,” the guard asked, pointing at an item on the tray.

“Viewing lens, for looking at things from far,” I responded.

He consulted his colleagues in Amharic, while pointing at the monocular.  After a half a minute or so, I got my response, “This not allow, so we keep here, then you take when leave”

Our trio walked past the security clearance area and moved towards the imposing gate.  We met a couple of bride and groom, unmistakably in their wedding attire, also getting through the gate.  We received a map of the park, an A3 paper folded into two to create four pages of information.  The middle section of the paper had a big map of the park.  The front and back pages contained some assorted pictures of the various parts of the park.  

I also learnt from Rachel, who was now quite cheered up after the morning moods, that this compound was also the current Prime Minister’s residence.  She said that occasionally some visitors to the park are lucky enough to see Abiy.  Now I could connect the dots between the security check and the visit.

We were informed by the person handing over the map to ‘follow arrow and go round arrow’.  There was almost a circular path around the park that would take you from gate back to gate, if you followed it religiously.  Of course, you could change course and go around in any direction or even turn back to the gate and exit.  We decided to ‘follow arrow’.  The very first passage was through the ‘lion’s den’!  That den was a real lion’s den, with all the lion noises and all.... and finally, even a live lion lying on the grass patch across the glass window was visible.

We survived the black lion zoo and went through other sections, including traditional houses and the botanical settings of the indigenous plants garden.  At some point we went into the emperor’s throne house.  And the first person that you meet seated at the throne is.... you guessed it, the very emperor Haile Selassie II.  Seated in his royal majesty.  Hail HIM!  And we had no choice than to hail him.  We paid homage to H.I.M, HIM.  We have photos to show for it.

We would then move around the hall where lots of historical literature was posted on poster boards.  Another part of the corridor round the main hall showed the historical account of Ethiopia, from King Solomon to the Queen of Sheba, who not-surprise, not-surprise was one of King Solomon's wifys.  Yes!  That is how Ethiopia links to the big picture of creation, Eden, Adam and Eve.

We even had an occasion of visiting the basement of HIM's hall, to see a different type of history, as we looked through the cells and the dark history of Ethiopia.  The documents, videos and pictures displayed on those former holding cells at the basement level did not have any kind words for Derg, the military council, and Mengistu Haile Mariam, the president in 1977-1991.  If anything, he was convicted to serve a life sentence in Ethiopia despite being in exile in Zimbabwe.  They are just waiting for him to come back to Ethiopia to serve his sentence.

At another separate but nearby building with a big hall, the Banquet Hall.  At this hall we came face to face with Emperor Menelik II, another one of the great kings that has Ethiopian history written all over him.  And he was there.  Right there at the head of the big hall.  I saw him seated.  I took a photo with him, next to him.  I hailed him, but unfortunately this was not HIM.  And when we talk about a big hall, we are really talking big!  As big as half a football field.

After that visit we walked around the roads.  We then saw Sellasie's vintage car displayed right there, outside his throne house hall for all to see and admire, but not touch, since it was encased in a glass covering.  The tour was so far so good and we were already tired.  I had tracked my movements on the app and we had covered just over 5km since the time we got through that gate.  

We took a lunch break.  By then Sharon had already found her way into the park and even joined our party by the time we were paying homage to the two kings, sorry emperors.  The three ladies and I took seats at the small restaurant just next to the emperor’s palace, Menelik II’s palace.  The palace that we did not visit since extra Birrs were needed for the ‘extended’ tour to include a walk into the pace.  This extended tour was not in our ‘regular’ package.  The palace was just next to the emperor’s throne house.  

We sat at the traditional stools at one of the corners of the restaurant and ordered soft drinks and some Ethiopian lunch.  I qualify it as ‘Ethiopian lunch’ since I still do not understand why they even call it ‘lunch’.  It looked more of a snack to me.  They bring a big flat tray layered with a thin white big circular wafer that they call injera.  

Onto that soft wafer, the injera, they put on it some little portions of spices of all manner, then some little veggies on one of the corners of the injera and that is about it.  You then start tearing off the injera as you dip it into the spices and veggies.  Tearing through from the end, as you go towards the centre.  You literally eat the container base as you go towards completion at the centre.  At least we had some tibs, aka fried meat that is eaten from atop a charcoal-heated clay pot.

After the lunch, we had our coffees on those small cups.  The content is hardly 50ml.  We put onto the coffee some rue leaves (Ruta) to spice it up.  We let the bitters sink in for a moment before we took a sip.  We loved the flavoured coffee.  Rose hated the flavoured coffee.  It takes time to get into Ethiopian ways.  She was adjusting too slowly.  We contributed about 400 Birr per person and gave the collection of money for the lunch and tipping.  I was now realizing that giving tips was the way of life.  I even remember having tipped when using a ‘free’ washroom in this same place.  

Thereafter, we moved just next to the restaurant to an adjacent open stall where a prominent sign was hanging on a mid-post within the hut, “Make your own injera”

I pointed to that direction as we were handwashing in the washrooms, “Is that for real?”

“Oh my God, yes!,” Sharon responded, almost jumping up excitedly.

“Do you know how to make injera?”

“On my God, of course yes!  No Ethiopian girl not know making injera”

“Can you make injera now?  Here?”

“No, me not ready now.  I only make with teff that me prepare, not any.  Oh my God, no.”

That is when Rachel came to the rescue, “Me, I make injera even now.  Want to see?”

Of course, yes!

“Yes, sure,” I responded, as the four of us moved into the small hut.  

We sat on the low stools while Rachel talked to the lady in charge of the cooking pot, sorry, cooking pan.  Soon the metallic pan that is about half-metre in diameter became the centre of attention, as Rachel first started by cleaning the hot pan with some oil put on some cloth.  She let the oil-dried pan to heat up for a minute or so, before she poured the teff flour that had already been premixed in water to form a paste, onto the pan.  

She then poured the paste in a circular motion, starting from the centre progressively moving towards the edges of the big pan.  She was soon done, and it was now a matter of waiting for the cooking to take place.  I did not see much of how the cooking was taking place.  I just saw the white paste remain white, but it kind-a solidified into a big circular white soft wafer, the injera.  The injera was then scooped off the pan with a woven plate and set forth onto a big plate on our table, ready for our next action.

“Wow, I did not know that it can be done that easily,” Rose spoke for the first time in many minutes.  I believe the Ethiopian experience was still overwhelming.

So, we sat and started eating.  It is only Sharon who did not make any move towards the injera that had been laced with a thin layer of butter for the expected sweetness effect of a freshly baked injera.

“Hey, Shayy, join into the injera feast!,” I reminded her, a layer of injera in my mouth.

“Oh my God no!  Today be Friday, and me not take no milk on Fridays.”

I had come to know Sharon as the only true Christian in Ethiopia.  The only true Orthodox that I had met.  She takes no animal products on Wednesdays and Fridays, and fasts for more than half the year at various times during the 13-month Ethiopian calendar.  That girl is going straight to heaven when the trumpet sounds.  The rest of us need grace and are likely purgatory-first candidates.

We then moved around to the zoo within the park, the Unity zoo.  We saw the animals in captivity, including lions, cheetahs, zebras, antelopes (nyala, impala, kudu, eland, wildebeest, gemsbok), meerkat and ostriches.  We even walked through the aviary and saw the birds (greater flaming, Guinea fowl, crane, ibis, gull, moorhen, white-faced duck, weaver, francolin, egret, spoonbill, turaco, hornbill, starling, heron), that are living within the grounds and environs of that giant structure that stretches almost ten metres into the sky.  

After that we were just to pass by some traditional houses that depict various cultures (Tigray, Somali, Harari, Oromia) before we were already being reminded by the many staffers on the park that it was time to get out.  It was already past five.  The exit party included one or two couples with their wedding gowns.

Part 2

The day was far from over.  The four of us drove back to our residential place.  They dropped Rose and I at our hostels.  Rachel and Sharon decided to stick around by going to their office to do some work since we were soon having another event set for six.  I however knew the better of this timing when the girls decided that they would be having a ‘make up meet up’ before we go.

I did not even bother to call the girls before seven.  And when I used WhatsApp to call Rose at seven, she said a casual, “we are about through, give us another ten minutes.”

I gave them thirty and we finally congregated at Rachel’s white Mazda at seven-thirty.

We drove through the roads and ended up at a place that was very familiar.  I knew it even before we disembarked.  This was Yod Abyssinia Cultural Restaurant.  I had been there before, twice or even thrice.  It never disappoints.

The place was however not as full as I have seen it before, when you can hardly get a seat.  This time round the four of us identified a seating area at one end of the wall, almost facing the main stage.  There was already a performance on stage.  There were five instrumentalists.  Three harpist, a drummer and a flutist.  They were seated.  A soloist was standing in front of them, on the well-lit stage.  He sang.  They played.  Their music was of the Arabic inclination.  It was soft and went well with the atmosphere.  Occasionally some four ladies and four gentlemen, either singly or in groups would dance in front of the soloist.

We ordered drinks or rather, the hosts ordered the drinks and they were brought to the table.  There was a 700ml bottle of that sweet yellow drink, tej.  They set it on the table.  They also set some sodas on the table.  Some wine glasses were passed around, with none to me.  

A small conical flask of about 300ml volume was setup in front of my sitting position.

“Tej for president Obama,” Rachel announced.

“But... but... but...,” I tongue-tied about, not sure of what to say.

“Not worry, we also help you, not worry.”

Another two conicals were brought and set forth on the table.

It did not take long before another colleague, Mary, joined in, following almost momentarily by her colleague George.  The table of six was now fully loaded.  The drinks continued.  The music continued.  The crowds continued to get in, and get out, but mostly get in.  The place kept getting swollen.  The music started getting louder.  We soon went for a buffet dinner by just walking behind our seating area, picking plates and filling up.  

I did not see much of anything familiar, though there were many different small pots with many different things.  However, injera which is now a constant part of our menu, was there – brown, white and even a brown-white mixed version.  The rest were just veggies, spices, other stuff, other things, some more other food items, and finally.... some raw mincemeat.  I picked some injera, some veggies and was back to my seat.  George ordered some tibs to be brought to our table on that charcoal heated claypot.  Our dinner could not have been complete without coffee.

At some point the soloist at the stage tried to rendition the ‘jambo bwana’ song, making a complete mess out of it.  Rose and I, and even Rachel who was becoming Kenyanized, tried to join in and correct the soloist, but he would hear nothing of it.  Surely, who sings ‘Ethiopia nchi nzuri’ to a ‘Kenya nchi nzuri’ song?  Just talking about how the real lyrics should be, nothing else.

Then the dancers started taking break from the stage and started joining the revelers at their table locations for some jig.  Two or three such sessions of the dancers come up to our table to call us out of our seats for dances involving vigorous shoulder an upper body movement.  This did spice up the evening before we finally called it a night.  It was just a few minutes to midnight as we stood to leave.  Just when we thought we were going home....

Part 3

We got into two cars.  Rachel’s car had Sharon, Mary and I.  George’s car had Rose in it.  We drove and drove and drove.  Twenty minutes or so later and we were not getting anywhere back to the hostel blocks where I thought we should be getting to in such a timeframe.  What was going on here?  Where the hech are we going?

“We arrive, get out of car,” Rachel finally announced, as she started looking for some parking space.

George was just behind us, also looking for a parking space.  I do not know Addis, especially in this dead of the night.  I therefore did not know where we were.  I just followed the crowd.

We got into an elevator at the adjacent building, with an operator minding the elevator doors.  He closed them after we were in, pressed a button and were wheeled up to some floor, I guess the sixth.  The door opened to let in a gush of loud club music.  We had just entered a boom-twaf world, the door at the entrance reading ‘Midtown Ultra Lounge’.  We squeezed through a body-packed club floor as we looked out at where we could find a standing space.  Seating was already out of the question.  

We moved to the very extreme end of the room, just next to Buddha, who was seated in his bronze majesty, eyes gazing straight and down at us.  We looked back at Buddha, said nothing and took a table.  He looked straight at us, kept sitting in medication, and also said nothing.  

The six of us stood round the circular table in the semi-dark room.  We could just make out the height of the table.  Talking was out of the question with the volume of music that had engulfed the hall.  We just nodded along as we gestured.  Bottled water was served at the middle of the table, just before our troubles started...

The waiter soon brought to our table some small glasses on a rack.  Each small glass was about 10ml or maybe my gaze was starting to fade?

“We are doing shots,” someone struggled to shout on the table.  It was hardly audible.

We gestured in the matter of ‘What’?

George pointed at the glasses in the middle of the table and gestured in a manner of ‘take and drink’.

Everyone took a small glass, apart from Mary.  She waved a no.  She could have been useless saying the word ‘no’, with all the music going on.

Soon there was an happy birthday song going on in the hall as it got louder with a cake being brought to the next table.  The cake and candle flares took the attention of the room for a second and they DJ loudly wished some random name a happy birthday, some girl’s name.  

We did not even have time to admire the cake before the DJ put an end to the birthday event and continued the real hits.  People danced around their tables.  In fact, it is the standing and the dancing that kept us sober.  Any seating and being docile for even a minute could have reminded the legs that they were already being flooded with alcohol laden blood and for sure the legs would have already given way by now.

It was not long before George called for another gesture at the small glasses in the middle of our table.  That was not to be the last.  They just kept coming.  I just lost count and let what happens happen.  Who even came up with the deceit that taking a drink in one gulp is a good idea?  Get it from me, it is a bad idea ab initio.  The drink ‘shots’ the centre of your brain and you almost lose consciousness for a minute.  You stay drunk, only for them, that is George and group, to ‘shot’ you again.... and again.... and again....

It was at three when Mary called the three on the table ‘out of order’ to directed them to the lift.  By then we had each thrown a bunch of notes onto the middle of the table.  The amount, a thousand Birr per person, having been communicated through gestures since talking was not possible with all that music.  

Two of our members had already disappeared into thin air.  First it was Sharon who had slipped out quietly when ‘the drinks finally caught her’, hardly one-hour after our arrival, leaving the five of us to test our endurance.  Later on, even George, the shot-man had had enough and disappeared.  Only four people were left standing when the time came to do the counting past three.  Mary directed the three of us to the exit and to the lift area.  The lift operator was still there.  He opened the lift door, let us in, and closed the door.  He pushed a button and the vehicle moved down.

When we got to the parking yard, Rachel went straight to the back seat.

“I not drive in this state,” she declared resignedly.

“President, now you see why I no drink?,” Mary looked in my direction as she got onto the driver’s seat, while I opened the co-driver’s seat and took a seat.  Rose joined Rachel in the back.  The only reason I was still walking was because of the three hours of standing and dancing.  Otherwise, I should have collapsed by now.

We started driving around.  The roads were deserted.  In fact, we did not encounter even one single vehicle either going in our direction or opposite.  We drove around for about fifteen minutes then dropped Rachel at her place.  We lit her body full headlights as we waited for her to get in.  The lights were on her as she knocked the gate for over five-minutes to wake up the watchman.  Her gate was finally opened, and we bid her goodnight, more of good morning.

Mary directed the Mazda smoothly to the hostel blocks.  It was just past 3.30am when we got out of the car and headed to our hostel.  I affixed the ‘do not disturb’ sign on the external of the door, on the handle.  I was not letting the cleaners disturb my sleep, and when I talk about disturb, I mean disturb.  The cleaners ambush the room just before eight!  Who knocks a hostel door before eight?  Surely!!  

And the cleaners usually just knock once, and if there is no answer then they proceed and use their master key to open and get in.  I have been found in bed on several occasions, when I just realize there is someone in the room in the name of cleaning.  The sign would put a break to that disturbance.  Breakfast was not happening for on this Saturday morning, nor was the planned electric train ride arranged by Sharon going to take place.  This one I had just cancelled by SMS at this late night, thanks to the same Sharon for having given me an Ethiopian line to use while there.

Part 4

I was taking a bathroom break around ten on Saturday, when I saw a number of missed calls on WhatsApp, from my phone that was on silent.  They were all from Rose, and there were messages too – “You need to checkout urgently.  They say that the rooms are reserved for incoming guests”

I was meant to be going back to bed, not checking out!  Anyway, rules are rules, and so I hurriedly threw my clothes randomly into the two bags and was soon out of the room in less than five minutes.  I headed to the hostel reception where I found Rose waiting.  The receptionist was glad that I was there.

“Your room be booked for guest he arrive soon,” he said, relief all over his face.

My body was still tired and in need of sleep.

I still had another ten hours before the vehicle to pick me for the airport for the trip back was due.  I therefore still had plenty hours of nothing ahead.  A temporary room is all I needed to enable me take a rest, compile my reports and wait for the evening.  I did that in the new hostel room.  After many hours that went so fast, I finally walked to the restaurant to partake of the last injera before the airport transfer vehicle came for me at 2000hrs as scheduled.  

We left at 2015hours for the short 15-minutes drive to the Bole International airport.  The airport turned out to be busier on this than I had expected.  It took me almost two hours to get my boarding pass.  There was still more waiting minutes ahead before the boarding call came at 2245hrs for the 2315hrs flight back home.......

And now here I was back to the present, one week later, on this Friday, finishing the 17k run in the hot Nairobi sun.

WWB, the Coach, Nairobi, Kenya, Friday, Oct. 14, 2022

Running at night – part 3

Running at night – part 3

Read part 2 here

“This is messed up!,” I almost shouted at the lady at the check-in counter at Bole.

She had just delivered the shattering blow to my otherwise well-planned day.  One minute prior to this particular feeling, she had asked, “What’s your flight?”

“KQ to Nairobi”

“The flight be delay to nan-tati”

This meant an extra two-unplanned-hours at the airport… doing nothing!  What I hated was not the ‘at the airport’ part.  What got me was the ‘doing nothing’ part.  And let no one cheat you – airports are the most boring of places that you ever want to spend your time.

“This is messed up!,” I finally said to myself after the very fast processing through immigration.  There was zero person on any queue.  Nobody nowhere.  It was deserted.  I then proceeded to seat at the first floor lounge, to wait for my five hours of doing nothing.

It would however become worse.  As I sat to start my five hours of nothingness, I noted that the ‘free’ wifi was showing that dreaded ‘no internet’ message.  It took a few tweaks to force it to open a browser page for me to accept their terms and condition before I could finally connect.  I just clicked the checkbox next to, “Please tick box to confirm you read and agree with our Terms & Conditions, Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy” and then clicked ‘Connect’.

Talking of these T&C, who reads them?  That is exactly why they are there – not to be read.  And that is by design.  In that long, small font text of the T&Cs are those illegal forced consent to the collection, processing and use of personal information and browsing history.  But who cares – the cyberworld is already messed up as it is.  An additional continuation of what they do best (take our info and use it for whatever they do) won’t make a difference, will it?.  I however have free advice if you want to make a difference – stop using anything that connects to any network.  Don’t we all just love free advice!

I reflected on my last few hours and it was quite a day.  I remembered reading and re-reading those boring hotel rules on the folder placed on the table of the hotel room.  My boredom was temporary turned to some interest when I saw the special consideration for weekends.  It was clear than on weekends breakfast was served from 7.00am to 11.00am.  That was quite something.  I had to re-read that part and internalize.  

That would mean that even if I woke up at eleven-ish, I could still make it for breakfast.  I had had a busy week in Addis and just wanted to have a one-long night rest that should culminate into a late waking up at eleven-ish.  Thank you hotel management for knowing that weekends are special.  I gave them a ‘like’ with a thumbs up.  I wish there was a feedback form.  Maybe it was there, in the maze of many papers in that folder.

But the Saturday morning started with a mind of its own.  My intended wake-up-late morning did not happen.  I lost my sleep at eight and flipped through the boring TV programmes.  The signal reception was poor – those grainy analogue signals.  The choice of programmes was equally limited – just ten channels.  Six grainy, two news channels, a movie channel and some other channel that was difficult-to-understand-what-it-was-all-about.  It is the only channel where you could be watching an edge-of-the-seat movie at one moment, only to be interrupted by a long display of channel listing.  Before long, you could see the cursor moving live on screen, in a manner of flipping through the channels, only for the channel to be changed to something else – like cartoons – just like that!

I therefore decided to keep flipping through the bouquet of ten, looking for nothing in particular, until I stumbled upon the channel with the soap opera for men.  I was starting to sympathize with myself over how I have been cheated for so long over what goes on in our view.  I infact was now knowledgeable of all the ‘lies’ that I now could spot them live on screen.  I recognized that trash talk as fake.  I knew that those apparent ‘painful’ kicks and high falls were made to ‘sound’ painful than the real pain.  I was now even enjoying the moments, with truth on my side, when the screen just went off!  The room become dark and life came to a standstill.  It was hardly nine and we were having a power fail.  

I was confident that this would be short lived, after all no hotel can be worth its star-rating if it did not have a power-backup right? Wrong!  It would take almost an hour before the power was back.  I struggled to get something to do in the sixty-minutes, but nothing could keep me contained.  I tried sleeping, I could not.  I tried pacing, I got tired after a look through the window of the second-floor balcony.  I tried doing something on the phone but the wifi was off.  I tried packing – that seemed to work, but I was through pushing stuff in my one hand luggage in the shortest of time.  It was now just over five minutes since the power fail and I had exhausted my arsenal of ‘doing nothing’.

The men’s soap resumed with the power around ten.  By then I had bathed, thanks to the centralized heating instead of an instant heating which would have meant no hot water.  I had read and re-read that notice in the washroom….

“Think of the tonnes of towels being laundered unnecessarily in hotels throughout the world. And of the huge quantities of detergent polluting our water.  Please decide for yourself…”

Below this heading were four options.  The first one was that if you put a towel on the floor then it shall go for laundry, any other placement meant that it shall not be touched.  The third bullet point was that a green card placed on the bed meant no change of linen, a red card gives those linen a red to the laundry.  It was my last day here.  I was meant to check out.  I was to ‘decide for myself’.  What to do?

But this was not my first room.  I had ‘nomaded’ over three places during my one-week stay.  I started at the employer’s operated hostels.  Those were just in a different world.  I big room in a secure premise.  A kitchenette with fridge, albeit empty, an electric kettle, a bowl of sugar and eight sachets of tea bags.  Two bottles of water topped it all up.  These consumables were on daily replenishment.  The screen had a dedicated decoder for one to flip through and watch anything in full HD on an equally gigantic screen.  

I only stayed there two nights.  I was then moved to this hotel, but to a fourth-floor room.  The room was ‘OK’, until I took a bath and the bathwater overflowed out of the shower cubicle due to blocked drainage.  This wastewater would soon flood most of the bathroom cubicle and start flowing towards the living room.  I had to arrest the situation with a towel.  The towel remained soaked through the night.  My visits to the washroom in the night brought a sobering moment every time I stepped on that wet cold towel.

On the next day, Thursday morning, I had asked for a repair of the blockage.  I came back in the evening to get an offer for a change of room instead.  My interpretation was that they must have known that the situation in 408 was incorrigible.  The second-floor room 204 was better.  The TV was newish and bigger.  The bathroom had a tub, unlike the previous room.  The room felt hot when I first stepped in.  However, an air-conditioning unit was standing on top of the archway to the main room, just past the entrance, and past the washrooms.  The TV programmes of course turned out to be a big let down and more was to come.  

After opening the water tap and waiting for three-to-four minutes for the shower water to finally be warm enough, I stood in the tub and started to absorb the volume of water from the giant square showerhead on the ceiling.  It could have been a good shower had it not been for the water that started soaking my feet in the tub.

“What is going on here?”

The bathtub also had a blocked drainage and the wastewater was starting to fill up with every flow of the shower waters.  Not wishing to continue standing in the waste water, I had to cut short my otherwise enjoyable shower.

Nonetheless, I managed to stay two nights on the second floor and made do with the room condition.  After all, what do you need in a sleeping room?  Just a bed – and it had one.  Everything else was a bonus to use or not.

I had survived my two nights and it was now time to check out.  I had already experienced that one-hour blackout.  I had already been subjected to ‘’decide for yourself’ moments… twice!  I had already watched the men’s soap.  If anything, I was just enjoying the last moment of the ‘big lie’ on screen.  I still went along.  It would be rude to burst anybody’s bubble, even if they are on screen.  Just play along… or at least pretend.  When the soap ended with a predictable result, with commentators screaming “What a surprise!”, and the ref knocked out ‘unconscious’ for one minute only to come to after a minute, to do a 1-2-3 count, then you can imagine why I had to play along.

It was now just 10.30am.  I wanted to stretch this breakfast thing to its very limit.  A heavy breakfast around eleven would brunch me for the day so that I just await my evening travel back home.  But I had nothing else to do at this moment, and so I walked downstairs for breakfast at ten-thirty.  You can imagine my surprise when I got to the breakfast diner only to find the attendants clearing the last bits of serving plates from the buffet serving area.

“Where is breakfast?,” I asked, assuming that maybe the venue had been changed.

“We close breakfast!”

“But why?  It is not yet eleven.”

“Today not eleven.  Eleven be weekend only.”

“But it is Saturday!?”

“No, eleven be weekend only.  Tomorrow it be eleven.”

“But the information in the hotel room clearly indicates that you serve breakfast until eleven on weekends!  Today is a weekend, right?”

“That be no true.  Eleven be weekend only.  Only tomorrow”

The lady then just left me standing and joined her crew in clearing.  She did not seem bothered that one of their paying customers was about to miss breakfast.  She did not want to bother about thinking of an alternative.  She was just about to retreat to the kitchen when someone seated at the diner, to my left, next to our exchange intervened.

“Serve him,” he told the lady who was retreating to the kitchen.  He added some other utterances in Amharic, then continued his own breakfast with a colleague.

He looked at me, still affixed, “Just take a seat there.  They serve you.”

I sat and waited.  However, it was not long before I got an ‘anything goes’ conglomerate described as breakfast, served by the same person, egg on her face!  I did not care.  It had all ingredients that can make up for a missed breakfast.  I only missed the injera, the meats, the sausages, the flakes, the rice, the fruits – Eish – I did not know that I missed a lot!  But toast, egg and tea is just OK.  However, if you promise breakfast until eleven, then please deliver breakfast until eleven.  If Saturday is a weekend, then let Saturday be a weekend.  

Before I could put this matter to rest, I actually had to go back to my room and re-read those hotel rules, specifically the issue of when breakfast shall be served.  As sure as the sun rises from the East, it was still there, in black and white…

“Breakfast time

From Monday to Friday from 6:A.m to 10.00A.m

Saturday and Sunday from 7:A.m To11:00Am

Room check out time @ 12:00pm”

I am even surprised that the concept of ‘weekend’ that we were arguing about so passionately was not even mentioned at all in that notice!

Lost

Back to the moment, I identified a secluded spot at Bole and took a seat.  The ‘secluded’ place was more by design than by choice.  I needed a power socket and one of those pillars turned out to be the ideal place to seat and get connected to the juice.  I decided to MYOB and covered my ears with the giant muffs of the headphone.  

I was seated just next to the clear glass window facing the airport tarmac below.  I could see the runway about half a kilometer in front of my view, with planes touching down and taking off.  I had nothing to do but massacre the four hours of waiting.  It was hardly six, despite imagining that I must have been waiting for hours.  I had just finished an hour of waiting, with another three to go.

Despite my muffed ears, I was quite alert to all the going ons near gate A7 where I was seated alone, twenty of so other seats were empty on this section.  As I said, by design.  I then noted this guy who came and sat two seats from where I had sat.  He seemed a bit restless, as I gauged him from the corner of my left eye.  My specs were fixed straight to my laptop.  My head did not move an inch, but my eye took in his every restless move on that seat to my left.  I kept gazing on the screen.  

He kept being jumpy.  He stood up.  Walked around.  Came back.  Sat down.  Stood up again.  Held the rail of the structure holding the large windows in front of our sitting place.  He sat down again.  He momentarily left, only to come back and take the same seat once more.  I guessed that it must have been the fatigue of a flight or the apprehension of the next or just the stress of travel.  Traveling ain’t easy.  

I kept pounding on the keyboard.  My left eye doings its corner thing.  Absorbing every moment.  I later got used to his restlessness and continued with MYOBing.

“Excuse me!”

It did not come as a surprise.  I acted surprised.  I looked up.

“Yes!”

“It is Sunday right?”

What is it with today and Sunday?  First the hotel and now this?

“No. It is Saturday.”

“You sure?, which date?”

“December seven.  Saturday.”

I started doubting whether it was a Saturday myself.  Maybe it has been a Sunday all along!  I started having that panic attack.  Could it be true?

“See,” I clicked the lower right part of the laptop screen, where the clock was displaying 6:30 PM.  Momentarily, the popup showed up as “Saturday, December 7, 2019.”

“So, tomorrow is Sunday…,” he said almost in deep thought.  He then went ahead to count loudly, “Then Monday nine, Tuesday ten and Wednesday eleven, so I get there twelve.”

I had stopped typing.  He was just standing and gazing over the vast tarmac ahead.  He went back to his seat, two seats away.

I had hardly resumed my typing before he was back, “Can I borrow your laptop?  I need to send email, urgent.”

I started weighing my options.  A few what-ifs ran through my mind.  I started disconnecting the USB cables ready to hand over the machine.  I was just about to unplug the power and give him the laptop when he continued, “I lost my phone today, and I must send an urgent message to my people in India, before I fly at eight.”

I hurried the process of handing over the laptop.  He resumed his seat, two seats from where I was seated.  He pounded on the keyboard.  It did not take long before he asked me to get him a clean Gmail logging webpage to enable him access his email.  I walked to his sitting position, logged out my accounts and handed back the machine.  

He started his work.  He worked in full concentration.  I was taking a break, just pretending to listen to something on the muffs, which were now off.  It did not take more than ten minutes before he handed back the laptop.

“Thanks.  Imagine losing a phone!  It had my everything!”

“Bad things happen,” I found myself saying, for lack of a better consolation.

Mmmhhh, so that was the issue!  That was bad!

“What do you think can happen?”

“It is likely that the phone shall be erased and sold,” I told him.

“That would be good.  That phone had everything!”

“It is unlikely that something shall use it for ulterior motive like ransom or identity theft,” I reassured his dejected physique.

“I hope so.  I had put a lock.  I sure hope so.  The phone had everything!”

I had never known that a phone can be so dear.  When I lost my Infinix in August, my only thought was the resale value for the big 128GB SD card.  Now I was getting a whole new perspective about phones.  This particular episode got me thinking about phones.

My thoughts must have been for long, since I now realized that I still had two and a half more hours before I left.  Reducing the waiting time from three hour to two point five hours was a small reduction in waiting time… but a reduction in time nonetheless.

It was now almost eight-thirty.  Instead of preparing to land at Nairobi at this particular time, I was now just about to board, in one hour, then start my night run to NBO.  Just another day when I have to face another night run.  The runs that I am now so much accustomed to.  

But no one would have prepared me for ‘the flight is further delayed’ message that showed up on the screen at Gate C2 from 2100hrs when we should have been boarding.  The delay persisted even at 2145hrs when we should have been taking off!  This run in the night would be longer than I imagined!

WWB, the Coach, Addis Ababa, Dec. 7, 2019

Running at 36k feet – the unwritten story

Running at 36k feet – the unwritten story
I was supposed to write this story two weeks ago, February 16 to be precise, but this did not happen.  Read the original script to discover why this story was not written after all…

Writing this at 36k feet was not my idea of a blog story, but when you are stuck with 2hours of nothing, you are tempted to get busy.

When I set off with fellow runners from the accommodation quarters at the outskirts of Addis, we had that first delay when a colleague decided that there was ‘no hurry in Africa’ and kept the six of us waiting for her in the chartered van.  That 20 minute delay passed unnoticed, or unvoiced, though you could see it on the faces that none was amused.

Waiting
We were kept waiting at the departure lounge for another hour – just waiting for the boarding time.  When the clock hit 0955hrs, on this Saturday morning, the impatient runners could not take it anymore, so they went ahead and queued on the check-in counter within the formal invitation.  Finally, with a queue already formed, the lady was forced to allow the people through, down from first floor to ground level, where a taxi way bus was waiting to move the bus load to the waiting plane.  Yet another check-in and I was finally seated at the extreme rear of the 767-300ER, the 33rd row.  I have never been this far, but two ‘bodyguardesses’ kept me tamed.  This bird was full to capacity – 237 passengers in total.

The 1040hours departure did not happen, until fifteen minutes later.  Ten minutes before departure, 16 overhead screens, 8 on either side of the aisle, each about 10inch size dropped from the overhead compartment.  We were subjected to 10 minutes of safety demonstrations, which went a long way to unsettle us – but life continues.

Temperatures
Takeoffs have a way of unnerving the body, but seating next to the end of the plane makes it... worse.  During the inflight three days before, a colleague had suggested that he preferred the rear seats.
“Hapa katikati si poa,” he had started, as we cruised at 35k feet on the 154-seater Boeing 737-800.  The vitals were indicating 10668m altitude, 811km per hour speed, 11km per hour headwind and an outside temperature of -44 degrees Centigrade.  The machine also indicated a ‘ground’ speed of 805kph.  Why would you need ground speed 10k up there in the air?  This trip took us just 1hr40min, having left JKIA at 1820 and reaching Bole at 2005.

Back to the discussion on comfortable sitting position, I wondered loudly, “I thought this is the best place, strategically between the vessels.”
I was referring to our almost mid-vessel position on the middle seats.
“From experience,” he continued, “The rear seats are the most comfortable.”
I now wished I was seated next to him so that I could pinch him hard, as the tossing-about began, 40 minutes into the return journey.  The 300 did not display any stats to the runners – maybe it was cruising in 4 digits and the folks would not handle the facts.  It was also gliding 10k feet above the path of the inbound bird three days ago.  This machine was mean!

Chicken
I know chicken when I taste one, and what we took was not chicken.  They labeled it as chicken, but this is the real world.  If horse meat can be labeled beef and consumed as such, then the chicken was even smaller to deal with.

Advise to runners – it is possible to run at 10km up there, but it has its challenges, including extreme temperatures and food that pretends to be the real thing.

Experiences
However, there are experiences that the running track exposed me to over the three day event that I must hereby mention:
Taj – honey beer that is as orange of orange juice: that was a lie, there is no way honey beer can be that colour.
Tradition – went to this Abyssinia place and they exposed us to their tradition. This I agree was traditional music, though I shall take some time to differentiate this from Somali music.  Their buffet however presented some familiar foods.
Left hand drive – I am already used to running on the left when here, so it takes the mind some getting used to, but it sinks in a few days (or never)
Amharic – let me not even try. They told me they have over 300 letters? You write as you pronounce, but they just write symbols!

Raw meat
I sat and watched in awe, every mouthful painful on me that the one before, as two colleagues feasted on raw meat both sides of my seat, during a lunch break.  On my right raw mince was served – red and spiced red.  On my left raw meat cubes – read and spiced.
“Want to try some?,” asked Gebre, directing a pinch or mince in my direction.
“Mmmhhhaa, sweet,” he continued, as he shoved the same pinch into his mouth.
“You should try it.  It makes you feel like a lion,” he finalized, fully enjoying himself.
I cringed, loosing my appetite for a moment.  I did not have anything ordered, since I failed for the second occasion to fest on injera.  I could not get used to the sourness of the tef pan cake.  I had asked for rice, but this was not available.  Ugali was definitely out of question.  Chapo neither.  Their alternative was ‘bread and spiced beef stew’.  What a day!

It is this raw meat issue that made me not write this article.

Wanjawa, Wamkaya Barack – Nairobi, March 3, 2013