After a couple of eventful, but emotionally exhausting days in Nakemt’, our crew was ready to head back to Addis. Nakemt’ isn’t really a destination for anyone… Its sole attraction is our extended family. It’s a big dusty, pretty small town, and the best hotel is quite underwhelming. The one attraction, the cultural museum, didn’t fit into our schedule. In other words… I don’t really recommend going to Nakemt’, unless you have a good reason for doing so.
All that said, Sugar told us that she liked Nakemt a lot better then Addis. The reasons? Less people, less busy, and they use animals for many things, so there are more horses and donkeys. Spice, the urbanite, was happy to leave and get back to the big city.
We took our time coming back to Addis, and saw many things that I haven’t seen before. There were a couple of funerals, for instance, including one that blocked the entire highway. Men on decorated horses road in flocks to town, while many mourners on foot swarmed the roads towards the churches. With people holding pictures of the one who had passed, and our van crawling along at the pace of the mourners, I felt like, somehow, we were part of the procession. I just wished I had known something about the man who had passed. We were told he must have been very important, or very rich, to have attracted such a crowd.
We stopped at some of the usual haunts on the road, but through kids’ eyes, we saw the same places differently. For example, one restaurant I’ve been to a handle full of times… I had no idea the garden was full of tame rabbits.
Also along the way, we saw the largest group of baboon that I’ve encountered, with thirty plus members. It was neat to see them interact in a big field… The alpha male was huge, and you could hear his screams from almost a kilometre away, clear as a bell.
We were accompanied on this trip by our driver, Nahom, and our translator, Solomon. So if you see some Ethiopian men in the pictures, that’s who they are…
