Friday, August 01, 2008

ETHIOPIA: Another Day in Addis


I am sitting on an outside patio of a small café enjoying my afternoon macchiato. I am gazing southward down the street for no real reason. As my eyes turn back in front of me I see a few oxen loping slowly down the middle of the street. A few feet behind these lead animals are a whole lot more oxen. They take up the entire street and in their measured ambling they separate themselves around the parked cars on either side, occupying the sidewalk. If I was inclined to do so, and with a bit of effort, I could almost reach out and touch one as it passed by. There must have been 30 – 40 in total. One lone man, brandishing a short, stout stick was running loudly behind them from one side to the other. I imagine him like a gymnastics coach of young girls. Cajoling them to do something they don’t really see the sense of doing and something they normally would never do. The oncoming traffic stops in the face of these beasts although they don’t seem the least bit perturbed by the honking and yelling they are causing. They walk slowly past these metal machines. Behind them traffic is snarled. I crane my neck and can’t see the end of the stopped cars and minibuses. I briefly wonder where these cattle came from and where they are going. But then they are gone from my sight. I return to my macchiato. A few minutes later a donkey comes careening down the sidewalk with a different man in pursuit. Just as they pass the café the man thrusts out an errant hand and grabs hold of the harness and slows the donkey down. With a smile on his face he leads the donkey back in the direction it had come. I figure the oxen scared the donkey into running, as that was the fastest donkey I have seen in Ethiopia. By now my macchiato is finished and so is any animal related excitement. I pay my couple Birr and return to the office.

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