At first glance, Addis Ababa feels like a living page out of Peter Kidi’s lines—where the unceasing pedestrian tide moves with a quiet, measured gravity:
We marched with empty stomachs,
our shadows thinner than our hope,
our feet carving pleas into the dust…
Indeed, a tangible haze of fine dust hangs over the streets, kicked up by immense throngs of people who flow through the avenues in steady, unceasing streams—marching onward with that exact, unhurried, mechanical cadence of a moving multitude.
Yet there is greenery and blossom to be found, too. The central Meskel Square (named in honour of the Ethiopian version of the Feast of the Cross, and christened Revolution Square under the communists) and Friendship Park serve as two of the capital’s most delightful verdant oases.
For the sake of variety, behold the flora: jacaranda, African tulip trees, and irises. After all, life need not be sustained entirely by snow, fir trees, and turkey…
By night, viewed from the window of an automobile, the city transforms entirely. After dark, one might even find oneself falling a little in love with Addis Ababa. The city’s tallest edifice—the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia—glows in the hues of the national flag. In the foreground stands a Lada VAZ-21011, a vintage contemporary of mine, which is by no means the sole automotive antique still plying the expanses of Abyssinia. That said, modern electric buses and automobiles are also present in ample numbers. All in all, a city of contrasts.
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