Trip to Africa 2

Excerpt from an e-mail to my little sister.

My visit to Addis Ababa and Accra was eye opening, confidence building, and relaxing.

Here is what made me want to go back to Africa. I love the people, the food, the sky, and the water. Majority of the people are hardworking, sweet and beautiful. The traditional foods are chip, organic, healthy and fresh. The sky is closer and full of bright stars. I often went to a place where you could take a shower with hot spring water, which is soft and does wonders to your skin.

The fact that our brother is there made my stay pleasant. Johnny picked me up from the airport around 10pm and took me to a very nice restaurant that has Ethiopian traditional food and dancing. After we eat dinner, because of the time differences, I was wide-awake and I told our brother that I was not ready to go to sleep. So, we went to different nightclubs and drove by our old neighborhood, which is called Piassa.

The next day, I slept the whole day because it takes a day for your body to adjust to the high latitude in Addis Ababa. For the first week, because I was writing a research paper on remittances to Nigeria, Ghana, and Ethiopia, I stayed in our brother’s house writing. I would weak up early in the morning and sunbath in our brother’s front yard.

I spent time with a very pleasant woman who works in our brother’s home. She made me laugh and cooked all type of food for me, including burgers and fries. At first, I was a little nerves leaving the house but after a while I enjoyed going to computer and international phone center around the neighborhood.

Originally, I was thinking to visit Axum, the historical place and where we have family members. But I didn't have enough time because we also have many family members in Addis and the surrounding areas and I felt like I want to spend time with them this time.

During the day, I visited museums and galleries. Sometimes, at night, I went out to clubs: Jazz, traditional Ethiopian, reggae, and all kind of other music with our brother.

I also gave a lecture at the Addis Ababa University on U.S. trade policy towards Africa to graduate students, which was a lot of fun. It was a dream come true to step into the University.

I was also trying to get an Ethiopian ID. They were giving me a hard time because they needed evidence that both my mom and dad where pure Ethiopians. They wanted the copy of my parents ID.

I visited our grandfather often. Unbelievably we have four aunts and uncles that are much younger than you are.

I also found some family members from my dad side.

Accra is green, clean, quite and beautiful. Because I didn't know anyone in Accra, it was kind of adventures to be in a place I never seen before. I meet Ghanaians on the flight from Addis Ababa to Accra and they took care of me during my stay. I took a four our drive from Accra to Elmina to visit the "door of no return," which was an existing point for Africans who were taken to slavery in America.

The hypocrisy of the slave traders was overwhelming. While they held thousands of people in a horrible situation in the lower part the Elmina Castile, on the upper level they used to hold church services.

I learned a lot from seeing "the door of no return." It made me question how people could commit such a horrifying act and what we should do for a history not to repeat itself.

Unlike in Ethiopia, I didn't see any panhandlers in Ghana. Most of the beggars in Ethiopia are from Tigri.

Just like in Addis Ababa, buildings are being constructed in Accra and the surrounding area. You see lots of Americans and Europeans in both places investing and living comfortably.

Similarities between the Accra and Addis are enormous. For example, there is resemblance in languages: in both places, samuna means soup. In addition, both places have Christians and Muslims and they are very religious, in general not everyone.

You also could visit our brother at any time. He would be delighted to have you.

Africa is calling.