Abyssinia

After my maiden visit i was back again to Ethiopia, this time round to attend the Rotaract 22nd District Conference and Assembly and also double that up as my holiday. Sunday 25th April at 6am the plane landed and at 6.45 i had met my host and we were on our way home. I had travelled with 4 of my friends and we were 4 days earlier to the beginning of the conference.

After some consultations and advice we decided to go to Awasa on Monday 26th, the foreigners made up of 3 gals and 2 boys together with the map given to us set out to find this Awasa which is located to the south of Ethiopia about 250 km from Addis. The journey was about 4-4.5 hours, everything went well besides language barrier since majority of the people in Addis speak Amharic and now that we were not in the capital center it was even more difficult to find people who speak good English. Nonetheless i think i have learnt that the beauty of being a tourist is getting lost and discovering new areas in the process. Eventually we found a nice hotel close to the beautiful lake Awasa and after checking in and refreshing up we hurriedly left the hotel to venture into the night clubs that was of course after i had my first lovely injera fir fir dose for the 8 day holiday.

Our first stop was club yougovia and being a Monday we were shocked at how full the place was, until we realised that Awasa is more of a tourist town and thus most of the people there were out to have fun. There was a live band playing some lovely Ethiopian music (the beat of what ended up being one of my favourite tracks is ringing in my head something like.....injiga...injiga)and it didn't take long for us to start shaking our shoulders needless to say un-rhythmically! Our next stop was club climax which was more of hypee joint playing international music all. After a few hours we were totally swamped and went to sleep.

Day 2 in Awasa, we first went to the fish market to look around and the tourist aroma in us attracted some unwanted aroma and made us leave after a short while. Our next stop was to go and have lunch besides the lake which later lead me to my very first boat road. I must confess that i was thrilled not even feeling an inch of fear, being in the middle of the lake brought about some rejuvenating feeling, and we also saw Haile Gebrselassie's new hotel. We later on enjoyed the sight of sun setting and the night was spent partying and dancing to Ethiopian tunes.

Wednesday, was the day to hit the road back to the capital city in preparation for the conference. We arrived in the late evening and i went home to catch my rest before the beginning of yet another exciting 3 days and nights of the long awaited District Conference.

The venue for the opening ceremony where all the Rotarians and Rotaractors converged was Hilton Hotel and the place was packed with members and guests from Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Ethiopia. The president was there to officially open the ceremony and after the morning session the Rotaractors proceeded to their meeting venue at Dreamliner hotel. It was great to make friends and re-unite with old ones that i met during the last conference here in Nairobi. After all was said and done we had our dinner at Karamara cultural restaurant and went to tam tam restaurant for some brief but lovely night out.

Friday was spent in the meeting room discussing Rotaract affairs, past projects that have been successful, planning for the next year, saying thanks and goodbye to the outgoing District Representative and welcoming the new DRR. We later on went to the DRR banquet and partied the night away at Bailamos and Voltage (my favourite club in Addis, needless to say that i made friends there from my previous trip).

Saturday was the last day of the conference and after the official closing ceremony at 1pm we went for lunch at Ambassadors Park and spent the afternoon shopping. We had the District Governor's dinner at the Hilton and partied the night away at the famous Platinum.

On Sunday, was a day to start slowing down on the events. I went to the National Museum were i saw the remains of the famous Lucy, these are skeletons of the first remnants of man which were found in Ethiopia....talk of tracing my history all the way to Ethiopia :). After some lovely makiato (coffee with milk) and a light snack for dinner it was time to call it a day.

Monday was our return date back home. It was a hard day, after some small shopping i was on the road saying goodbye to the dear friends that i met and also exchanging some souvenirs. Big hugs and lots of kisses sent me to the airport.
10.30pm and we were boarding the plane back to Kenya holding on to many memories including a cd with my favourite Ethiopian tracks that brings back fresh memories of my best holiday so far and Lalibela, the teddy dear that i named after a holy Ethiopian city.

"It is better to have traveled, than to have money sitting in your bank account"