What follows is a series of posts about our last days in Ethiopia. They were written after we returned to the States but are based on handwritten notes that I took at the time.
********
********
The drive back from Dafe Jema was less pleasant than the drive there. First, the traffic was horrendous. In places the road was completely blocked by the bottleneck of trucks and cars and goats, all trying to cross the same small bridge. Second, Thomas was experiencing the worst allergic reaction I had ever seen. It started on the horse ride back to the car, when Thomas's nose started running like a faucet. By the time we reached the car, his eyes were red and teary, and he had broken out in hives. We called Dr. Rick from the road, and he suggested, in addition to benadryl, that we give him 40 mg of Prednisone, which we did. (Thanks to Mohammed and Fosia, our friends from Ann Arbor who were visiting in Adama and were able to get us the medication.) The medicine helped, but Thomas was miserable the whole ride back to Addis.
When we arrived back at the hotel in Addis, we all were exhausted. Shimeless pulled the Land Cruiser up to the front door, and we piled out, as the doormen tried to help us with our gear. Shimeless was especially tired. He had just driven to and from the village, through some of the worst traffic I have ever seen, and he road almost three hours on horseback. To top it off, being the busy academic, he still had several hours of work to complete at his office, so our goodbyes were brief. When the rest of got inside the hotel lobby, Thomas and Feleke collapsed into some chairs, while Million walked over to the desk to arrange for our room. We had been planning to stay in Adama that night, but our plans had changed, so we needed to make sure our hotel had a room for the night. I went with Million to the front desk so that I could pay for the room. I unzipped by money belt to remove my credit card. Million, seeing me do this, waved me off, saying that he would cover it, and I could pay him later.
This was fine with me, so I put my credit card back in the money belt, which is where I was keeping my cash and our passports, and we headed up to our room. The hotel gave us the same room we had been staying in. However, since we now had Feleke with us, they sent up three women to bring a mattress prepare a bed for him. They were in the room for maybe ten minutes. We were in the room with them at the same time, the boys watching TV and me ordering food from room service. Fifteen minutes after the women left, a young man arrived with our meals, which we inhaled. We then went to bed.
The next morning, as we were getting ready to go to the hotel restaurant for breakfast, I looked for my money belt on my bedside table, where I had placed it every night since the trip began. The money belt was not there. After searching the room two or three times myself, I then tell Thomas and Feleke to help me. Together we basically destroy the room, several times, the first time in a sort of frenzied panic with with no particular plan of attack, but then more systematically, dividing the room into small sections that we checked off as we covered. Nothing. Although I remembered having the belt in the lobby (and thought I remembered having it in the room the night before), maybe it had fallen out in Shimeless's car. We called him just in case. He checked his care and found nothing. We called the hotel desk and explained the situation. They were alarmed. One of the women at the front desk actually remembered seeing me with the money belt the night before (she was able to describe it), so it definitely made it back into the hotel. But where was it? The folks at the front desk immediately had security question the three women who had come to our room as well as the young room-service guy. They all, of course, denied seeing the money belt. I then asked the hotel to question the folks working in the lobby that night, on the off chance they had seen who picked it up. Nothing.
We then called Million, who remembered my having the belt in the hotel lobby. He came over and helped us scour the room again. He was convinced that someone in the hotel had taken it, and he tried threatening the hotel (with bad publicity, I guess) and then reasoning with them. He finally persuaded the hotel to tell the staff to get the word out--that if anyone were to return the missing passports and visas, there would be no questions asked. That didn't work either. Presumably whoever took the belt, from wherever it was left, decided that, even though they could not make use of the passports, it would be too risky to try to return them.
Because my credit cards were also missing, I tried calling my bank to cancel the cards. That turned out not to be so easy, because the phone number for the lost-card department was not toll free, at least not from Ethiopia. And the call quickly ate up the prepaid minutes on my rented cell phone. Using the bank's website was tough too, since, for some reason, the Internet at the hotel had become very unreliable. My consoling hope was that the thieves, or whoever found the money belt, would not be able to use the credit cards. One of the benefits of losing your credit card in a country like Ethiopia is that credit cards are not taken in very few places. That is normally not a convenient fact about the place. Now it was.
By mid morning, we head over to Dr. Rick's house to see what he suggests. His main passport guy, Berhanu, the person who gets the passports and visas for all of Dr. Rick's patients who get sent to other countries for surgery, was not optimistic about our chances of getting Feleke's passport any time soon. Also, he said that we would have no chance of getting a new passport for Feleke without his father's presence, which would mean we'd have to word to Biru back in Dafe Jema that he was needed in Addis. Biru, of course, has no independent means of transportation, but would have to rely on buses to get him there, buses that are notoriously unreliable. It was Saturday morning, and we had a flight home the next night. Berhanu said that there was no way we would make that flight. Berhanu also said that we would not be able to get anything--new passports or visas for us or Feleke--unless we first got police reports recounting the lose/theft of the items. Luckily, we had photo copies of all of the lost items. That should help us, but we would need to reschedule our flights. Our friend Senait, a doctor in Ann Arbor who travels often to Ethiopia and who happened to be in Addis at the time, helped us change our flights to Tuesday, thinking that might give us enough time.
We decided to get started on the police report, but we needed a translator. One of Dr. Rick's adopted sons, Mesfin, who is now a US citizen but was back home visiting Addis at the time, agreed to go with us. So we walked to the nearest police station to make our report. In the ensuing hours, we were sent to three different stations, each one saying that the other one was responsible for taking our report. After doing a complete circle and ending up at the station where we started, someone finally told us what we later learned to be the cold hard truth: Unless you were be robbed or attacked, or robbing or attacking someone, and maybe not even then, the Ethiopian police department did not want to see you on the weekend. Monday morning first thing would be the time to file the police report. That was frustrating, but we took it in stride. We would regroup and start back on Monday morning.
Meanwhile, my efforts to reach the US embassy had to that point been equally unfruitful. I had succeeded only in reaching a young marine who told me I was out of luck, and to have a nice day. But I did finally get through to someone slightly higher up in the hierarchy, the "duty officer," and that person told me that I should come to the embassy first thing Monday morning at 8am and someone there would help us. Cool. So we took Sunday to rest and regroup, waiting for the big day on Monday. We were disappointed not to be flying home on Sunday as originally planned, but we were feeling pretty good about our chances of getting out by Tuesday. I had confidence at the time that the US embassy should be able to issue thomas's and my passports quickly, and the visa for Feleke should not be a big problem, since we had a copy of the old one. But I had a nagging worry about getting Feleke a new Ethiopian passport. That could easily become a serious issue. They could say no. And how would we get his father there in time to help us by Tuesday? We left messages with his brothers, but they had not called us back. What if feleke's passport takes weeks? I can't stay in Ethiopia that long. My classes were to begin in a couple of weeks. Plus Thomas is really ready to get back home. Ever since the allergy attack, his sinuses were killing him, and he was not feeling well. The though of a delayed return was not appealing.
When we arrived back at the hotel in Addis, we all were exhausted. Shimeless pulled the Land Cruiser up to the front door, and we piled out, as the doormen tried to help us with our gear. Shimeless was especially tired. He had just driven to and from the village, through some of the worst traffic I have ever seen, and he road almost three hours on horseback. To top it off, being the busy academic, he still had several hours of work to complete at his office, so our goodbyes were brief. When the rest of got inside the hotel lobby, Thomas and Feleke collapsed into some chairs, while Million walked over to the desk to arrange for our room. We had been planning to stay in Adama that night, but our plans had changed, so we needed to make sure our hotel had a room for the night. I went with Million to the front desk so that I could pay for the room. I unzipped by money belt to remove my credit card. Million, seeing me do this, waved me off, saying that he would cover it, and I could pay him later.
This was fine with me, so I put my credit card back in the money belt, which is where I was keeping my cash and our passports, and we headed up to our room. The hotel gave us the same room we had been staying in. However, since we now had Feleke with us, they sent up three women to bring a mattress prepare a bed for him. They were in the room for maybe ten minutes. We were in the room with them at the same time, the boys watching TV and me ordering food from room service. Fifteen minutes after the women left, a young man arrived with our meals, which we inhaled. We then went to bed.
The next morning, as we were getting ready to go to the hotel restaurant for breakfast, I looked for my money belt on my bedside table, where I had placed it every night since the trip began. The money belt was not there. After searching the room two or three times myself, I then tell Thomas and Feleke to help me. Together we basically destroy the room, several times, the first time in a sort of frenzied panic with with no particular plan of attack, but then more systematically, dividing the room into small sections that we checked off as we covered. Nothing. Although I remembered having the belt in the lobby (and thought I remembered having it in the room the night before), maybe it had fallen out in Shimeless's car. We called him just in case. He checked his care and found nothing. We called the hotel desk and explained the situation. They were alarmed. One of the women at the front desk actually remembered seeing me with the money belt the night before (she was able to describe it), so it definitely made it back into the hotel. But where was it? The folks at the front desk immediately had security question the three women who had come to our room as well as the young room-service guy. They all, of course, denied seeing the money belt. I then asked the hotel to question the folks working in the lobby that night, on the off chance they had seen who picked it up. Nothing.
We then called Million, who remembered my having the belt in the hotel lobby. He came over and helped us scour the room again. He was convinced that someone in the hotel had taken it, and he tried threatening the hotel (with bad publicity, I guess) and then reasoning with them. He finally persuaded the hotel to tell the staff to get the word out--that if anyone were to return the missing passports and visas, there would be no questions asked. That didn't work either. Presumably whoever took the belt, from wherever it was left, decided that, even though they could not make use of the passports, it would be too risky to try to return them.
Because my credit cards were also missing, I tried calling my bank to cancel the cards. That turned out not to be so easy, because the phone number for the lost-card department was not toll free, at least not from Ethiopia. And the call quickly ate up the prepaid minutes on my rented cell phone. Using the bank's website was tough too, since, for some reason, the Internet at the hotel had become very unreliable. My consoling hope was that the thieves, or whoever found the money belt, would not be able to use the credit cards. One of the benefits of losing your credit card in a country like Ethiopia is that credit cards are not taken in very few places. That is normally not a convenient fact about the place. Now it was.
By mid morning, we head over to Dr. Rick's house to see what he suggests. His main passport guy, Berhanu, the person who gets the passports and visas for all of Dr. Rick's patients who get sent to other countries for surgery, was not optimistic about our chances of getting Feleke's passport any time soon. Also, he said that we would have no chance of getting a new passport for Feleke without his father's presence, which would mean we'd have to word to Biru back in Dafe Jema that he was needed in Addis. Biru, of course, has no independent means of transportation, but would have to rely on buses to get him there, buses that are notoriously unreliable. It was Saturday morning, and we had a flight home the next night. Berhanu said that there was no way we would make that flight. Berhanu also said that we would not be able to get anything--new passports or visas for us or Feleke--unless we first got police reports recounting the lose/theft of the items. Luckily, we had photo copies of all of the lost items. That should help us, but we would need to reschedule our flights. Our friend Senait, a doctor in Ann Arbor who travels often to Ethiopia and who happened to be in Addis at the time, helped us change our flights to Tuesday, thinking that might give us enough time.
We decided to get started on the police report, but we needed a translator. One of Dr. Rick's adopted sons, Mesfin, who is now a US citizen but was back home visiting Addis at the time, agreed to go with us. So we walked to the nearest police station to make our report. In the ensuing hours, we were sent to three different stations, each one saying that the other one was responsible for taking our report. After doing a complete circle and ending up at the station where we started, someone finally told us what we later learned to be the cold hard truth: Unless you were be robbed or attacked, or robbing or attacking someone, and maybe not even then, the Ethiopian police department did not want to see you on the weekend. Monday morning first thing would be the time to file the police report. That was frustrating, but we took it in stride. We would regroup and start back on Monday morning.
Meanwhile, my efforts to reach the US embassy had to that point been equally unfruitful. I had succeeded only in reaching a young marine who told me I was out of luck, and to have a nice day. But I did finally get through to someone slightly higher up in the hierarchy, the "duty officer," and that person told me that I should come to the embassy first thing Monday morning at 8am and someone there would help us. Cool. So we took Sunday to rest and regroup, waiting for the big day on Monday. We were disappointed not to be flying home on Sunday as originally planned, but we were feeling pretty good about our chances of getting out by Tuesday. I had confidence at the time that the US embassy should be able to issue thomas's and my passports quickly, and the visa for Feleke should not be a big problem, since we had a copy of the old one. But I had a nagging worry about getting Feleke a new Ethiopian passport. That could easily become a serious issue. They could say no. And how would we get his father there in time to help us by Tuesday? We left messages with his brothers, but they had not called us back. What if feleke's passport takes weeks? I can't stay in Ethiopia that long. My classes were to begin in a couple of weeks. Plus Thomas is really ready to get back home. Ever since the allergy attack, his sinuses were killing him, and he was not feeling well. The though of a delayed return was not appealing.
That night, we were able to connect to the internet briefly, and we learned from facebook that word of our trouble had spread. There were many expressions of concern. People praying for us. That night we talked several times to our friends in Ethiopia--Senait, Shimeless, and Taddese. They gave us words of encouragement, but seemed very worried. I was not able to sleep that night, and we had to be up early to be first in line at the embassy.
