CITY OF CONTRASTS

Addis Abeba is the capital city of an ancient country with a history of over 3,000 years. But it is only 128 years old. The contrast starts here.

Emperor Menelik II had moved his capital to Entoto Mountain in 1887 and later moved down to where it is at present. My inquisitive mind drove me along the Belay Zeleke Road, the gateway to Entoto. As I was negotiating the winding newly renovated road by a Japanese Contractor, Kjima, I was climbing up the hill and getting closer to the site where the cornerstone was placed. At the same time, I was moving away from the hub of the metropolis.

I bumped with a young deacon who readily volunteered to show me around. First, we had a visit to the ruins of the castle of Emperor Menelik, the victorious emperor at the battle of Adwa.

I was carried away by a memorable saga to Tbilisi, Georgia, where the birth place of Hitler is kept like a national treasure for tourists to visit, not to speak of the Lenin Museum in Moscow, Russia.

Then I was taken to St. Mary’s Church where there is a small museum stocked with religious but historic treasures, embroidered cloaks, crosses, golden crowns, spears, shields, old armament’s, books and paintings.

Entoto is not a religious site, but it is also a small suburban town in the northern outskirt of the capital in its own right. Some athletes, who have made it to prosperity and others who are aspiring to follow suit, go there occasionally to train themselves. The Ethiopia Heritage Trust is doing a plausible job in rehabilitating the indigenous vegetation by establishing a nursery and planting and nursing seedlings.

On my way, walking down the hill, I met an elderly man attending two pack animals loaded with fuel wood. He was in a hurry to make it before it was too late.

He told me that business is thriving following frequent power outage since recent years. His customers are increasing in number and the price of twigs and eucalyptus leaves has been on the rise, curtsey to Emperor Menelik who had covered the eroded and nearly barren land by importing eucalyptus tree seeds from as far as Australia.

I was thinking of the significance of reproductive development strategy and the vitality of interdependence for sustainable development or human life in general.

Urban dwellers depend on productive people in the outskirts of the capital for their fuel wood supply, milk, cheese, butter and grain. Interdependence can be made efficient and more productive by creating conditions necessary for strengthening it.

The only and effective way to combat poverty is not only to vow and swear that the next major enemy” is poverty”. It certainly is. One cannot eradicate or fight poverty by promises and rhetoric, while the poor are struggling to make ends meet; not to prosper but to survive right under our doorsteps. Of course, they seem to know better. Ask any youngster why he decides to cross borders and risk his life to float or drown.

The elderly donkey attendant did not have much time to chat with me as he was in a hurry to sell his fuelwood and bring the proceeds to pay for his idir, an association run by village elders, the common goal being to save money collectively to be used to cover the expenses of the funeral of each member and family. What an irony, I thought, although I too do the same.

The poor struggling to survive engage themselves in the business of forced savings for expenses to be spent on something they may not live to enjoy! We had to part leaving me to contemplate the irony of life and death.

I stood at a site where I was able to have a look at the capital from a full vantage point. Down there, in the middle of an area of at least 650ha of land, lies a jungle of towering edifices and high rising new buildings dwarfing old ones and seemingly competing with the mountains around. Mount Fury and Ziquwala or Yerrer are standing there with the seemingly natural endowment for protecting the over five million or so people living inside their embrace.

I saw St. George Cathedral in the middle of the City, defining the extent and history of the royalty as the Cathedral where the Emperor Haileselassie was crowned. I could imagine why it was always faith that dictated the will of people to live together or separately to this day.

I saw the big and historic Anwar Mosque standing on the brink of Merkato by the side of St. Raguel Church, depicting tolerance and harmony that existed between the two major religions in Ethiopia for decades. I could not see but imagine the paupers and destitute sitting at the gates of the churches, not to pray but to beg.

Would they have an association among themselves to curate their funerals or would they leave such indulgent to the City Hall? I have no idea.

Down below the Churchill Road, in the proximity of the National and Commercial banks of Ethiopia, I saw the new building where the headquarters of the state media are located. The metropolis was historically established and habited by migrants from all over the country, displacing those settlers who had first been there as herdsmen and pastoralists. As time went on, the indigenous settlers were either integrated by marriage or by adoption or forced to move to peripheries of the capital.

The capital expanded from time to time under the pretext of revising master plans. The power that be grips political office over the land and so sets the stage to decide on the future of the capital whether it is reviewing the geography of the capital. This move certainly necessitates the trespassing the sovereignty of regional states everywhere it is deemed to be necessary.

This decision, however, requires a harmonious understanding between neighbouring regional states to arrive at a solution that would cater for the interest of all. What we decide today in a civilized way could bear fruits that could be used by the next generation and after.

I next saw the Addis Abeba University where the leaders of tomorrow breed. I imagined the Kennedy Library loaded with the graduation senior essays or research papers sometimes to have been acquired from degree launderers, allegedly. Some lecturers who claim to have been the first researchers in certain subjects like Inset, not knowing that some of us were students of professors like William Shack who had lived among the Gurage society and produced a book entitled, “The Inset culture”.

We care little for those who claim their academic credentials acquiring them from the market. After all, our capital is full of contrasts and a melting pot of civilization filled with genuine intellectuals and mediocre people clinging to political power by force and stream lining our future destiny. God Bless them.

I then looked at the statue of Emperor Menelik mounted on his horse. I was convinced to have chosen it as the mast post for this page. My eyes turned right in the direction of Merkato.

I could just say that Merkato can never be described any better than the famous poetry entitled, “Ay Merkato” by Laurate, Play Wright Tsegaye G.Medhin. I have to call it a day here with Alemayehu Eshete famous song, “Addis Abeba Bet’ie” (literally translated as Addis Abeba, my home), as a background.


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