Dear Committee Members

Sometimes when you hire a tour guide, you’re buying a formula. Everything is structured, reproducible, and polished. Other times, you’re hiring a friend to hang out for the day. Today was very much the latter kind of day. Because we’d cancelled our trip to Tigray, we had some free days, and our guide Mickey offered to spend the day touring Addis with us.

We met up with Mickey late morning and went up to Mount Entoto, the hill above the city. Addis itself is at around 7700 feet above sea level (fourth highest capital in the world), and Entoto is at nearly 10,000 feet. The hill has a big park with hiking trails and a garden, but our destination today was the Palace Of Emperor Minilik. Emperor Minilik ruled in the late 19th century, kicked out the Italians, and expanded Ethiopia greatly. His very humble palace sits on top of the hill overlooking the city (though not much was there at the time it was built).

The place site also contains a small museum. The docent inside was excited to give us a tour of all the artifacts – gifts given to Emperor Minilik from other 19th century leaders, coats, swords, and so on. The highlight was an amazing quilted tent which was (in theory) used to hold the ark of the covenant. Sadly, no photos were allowed inside, and I don’t need to tempt fate with a sneaky photo of the ark. I know how that ends.

After the museum site we drove down the hill and stopped off for some “juice” at one of Mickey’s favorite spots. Juice is a bit of a misnomer – it was a thick, layered concoction of avocado, mango, pineapple, and maybe some others. It was absolutely delicious. We sat squeezed in with the locals, including a young girl whose mother was very excited for her to practice her English. The child was less excited about the opportunity.

Further down the hill, we went to Mercato. Mercato isn’t just a market, it’s an entire neighborhood, spread over several square miles. It’s the largest market in Africa, and is a regional hub for trading. It’s seriously busy and seriously chaotic – Mickey somehow navigated the streets in the car, and eventually we parked and explored on foot. It might have felt a little intimidating, but as Mickey explained, “everyone here is making money, they don’t need to bug you”. If you need plastic stools, a drill, coffee beans, rebar, or a flat panel TV, Mercato has you covered.

After Mercato, we were ready for some real food, so Mickey took us to a fish restaurant. In addition to some great fried fish, we had an amazing fish soup which might have been the highlight of the trip so far. After food, we looped through a few other neighborhoods in the city before ending up in Bole (where our hotel is).

At our final stop, we got our shoes cleaned by some of the street kids – Mickey explained that Ethiopians value clean shoes even above clean clothes, which is a struggle with all the dust. The street kids are skilled at cleaning even boring sneakers. Sadly, the police showed up and the kids scattered halfway through doing mine. Like in many fast-developing cities around the world, the push to cleanup and modernize the city means the authorities take a dim view of shoe cleaners, street food sellers, etc.

Throughout the day, the best part was just chatting with Mickey about life, politics, family, and everything else. He’s got complicated views about the state of the country and its politics. Anyone who’s tracked the political journey of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed would understand – Addis is by all accounts a remarkably different place as compared to just a few years ago, thanks to investment, planning, and cracking down on graft. But, as Mickey tells it, Ethiopians are a stubborn, hardheaded people, and one can see how a consensus-building democrat could tip into authoritarianism in order to actually get things done. Sort of like being the chair of an academic department.

All in all, it was a lovely day out, and I’m glad we got a broader perspective of Addis. I hope Ethiopia can navigate its very complicated internal and regional politics to continue the upward trajectory it’s on. There’s a lot of positive things happening and a real sense of possibility.