Lap of Luxury
11/30/2004 11:16AM (9:16PM Addis Ababa)
I was talking to a former roommate once about some financial woes of his, and when I suggested he swallow his pride and ask his folks for money he replied, "They don't have that kind of money! We don't all have parents who are ambassadors." I took offense at that and dropped the subject. After all I felt that I had grown up in fairly standard middle class circumstances, with the only exception being that we lived abroad most of the time. Of course living abroad on a middle class income enables you to have some help around the home, and even when you don't there are copious relatives who are living at your home who help out - frequently one of them was me. In recent years I have come to re-examine my views on the matter. For instance, here in Addis Ababa, there is a lady who comes in early in the morning and does the cleaning and some of the cooking, as well as laundry, before leaving in the evening. My father, on the other hand, has a driver who drives him around during the day to his various meetings. Looking a this, one would think that we were living in the lap of luxury! But the truth of the matter is not quite so simple. For instance, the "maid" doesn't live with us, as she does in the homes of other foreigners who have household help. She goes home to her family each evening and gets paid about twice as much as a schoolteacher does. Similarly, the driver doesn't pick my father up in the morning, nor drop him off in the evening. Instead he simply carts dad around to his daily appointments, and is off home at the end of the day. He is also given ample time to pursue his university studies in economics. Does that make us any better than the people who have people working for them? In our own egalitarian way I think so. All the employees are treated with great respect and frankly sometimes I think we don't demand enough for our money.
Tonight, I accompanied my father to a reception at the Sheraton Addis, which may be the most luxurious hotel on the entire continent. This is not meant to be a snide remark, or an off-the-cuff sort of thing. It's a statement of fact, and in fact, I am willing to go the distance and say it may be the best hotel that I have ever been in - and I've been in places a sight better than the Holiday Inn, Tempe, let me tell you.
The reception was being held by the Minister of Water Resources, to mark the opening of the Nile Valley Initiative. The NVI is meant to head off the inevitable water resource conflicts that are going to occur Nile River basin. Also it is the beginning of a unified power grid for Ethiopia and the Sudan on the way to a broader unification of services. All that is in the future though, and tonight my Dad and I stood around in a room full of minor diplomats and non-governmental organization functionaries waiting to speak to the Minister, who ended up not showing. Still I got to see some of my newly made Finnish friends, and some others. It was somewhat awkward, due to the fact that of all the people there, I was the only one who had nothing to do with either international cooperation or development. In fact, I was just some guy's kid who was tagging along. That makes it all the more hilarious that I will most likely be the one getting shown on television. The cameras were rolling throughout the second half of the soiree, and kept coming round to the group that I was in. Not too bad, for some guy's kid who was tagging along.
The advantage was getting to meet these people and listen to their discussions. They talked about development from the front lines with the sort of cynicism bred of dealing with inefficient governments, overloaded bureaucracies and generally bloody-minded people. This is the sort of experience that can't be taught in any school, and is hard to come by for newbies to the trade. It's secretly made me more determined to get involved with policy in the long run. It also made me proud of my old man, who was the focus of some attention at the reception. He's not just a funny looking old guy, who happens to be my dad, he is also a man of some consequence. It's a sobering thing to see your father as other people see him, but not in a bad way.
I had lunch with both my parents today, which was quite nice. We went to a charming little Italian place about a mile from the airport. I'm sure that Pedro is currently clucking his disapproval, and shaking his head. Before you do though, let me just say that this place is littered with restaurants, representing every type of cuisine there is. Ethiopian cuisine is fairly standard and there is not much variation as far as I can tell in the different regions. They don't eat much in the way of vegetables, and meals consist of the the ever-present injera covered with some sauce or meat, or both. At any rate it was nice to have a meal with my parents in the open, on the patio of the restaurant. We had my father drop us off far away from the house so we could walk back, which was quite pleasant. We had a walk yesterday as well, which allows me to see the city as it really is, as opposed to from the passenger seat of a car. I had access to the camera today, so I would pause every few minutes to take a picture of some roadside flowers, a billboard, or something else that had taken my interest.
I'm really interested in advertising here in Ethiopia, mainly because it's so different to advertising I'd seen in other parts of the developing world. They're very sophisticated, as you might see if I get the chance to put any of them up prior to my return, else you'll have to wait to speak to me. They show a far more advanced consumer sensibility, which I am ashamed to say surprises me. As I had mentioned previously, I was expecting Ethiopia to be virtually identical to Sudan, but it is seeming less and less so.