Jimma: Part 1 – the bus journey there!

Jimma is a place about 350km outside of Addis where Hanna has set up a
children's home for the children of the prisoners (see blog post 3rd
August!). Hanna's Orphanage is paying the rent for the house over the
next few years, so we wanted to go and visit and see what else we
could do.

This is why Anthony, Danyele and I were at Addis Ababa bus station at
ten to six in the morning, trying to find Hanna in the millions of
people who were also taking busses. I have literally never seen so
many people in one place – and I live in London! – and it looked like
absolute chaos, so I'm glad D was able to walk with us to the
gate. Of course, it was fairly easy for Hanna to find us as we were
the only white faces for miles around!

After a scary moment where I began to disappear under the wheels of a
bus (thanks to whoever pulled me clear – I don't know who it was!), we
found the bus we needed and were squidged onto the back seat between
two quite disgruntled Ethiopian men. There is a section in the Brandt
Guide to Ethiopia which describes something called the 'bus ceremony'
which makes me laugh every time I read it, and although we didn't go
so far as to walk round the bus three or four times, there was a lot
of fuss as people were seated and then moved, and friends and
relatives got on and off. We finally left at 7.00am and began the 7
hour bus journey …

It wasn't too bad, but it wasn't the most comfortable bus journey I've
ever had. Danyele and I could sleep by resting on Anthony's shoulders
or on the back of the seat in front of us, but poor Anthony only had
the aisle in front of him, so couldn't sleep at all. When we weren't
sleeping, we could look out of the window at the passing villages and
fields. One time I opened my eyes and the bus was completely
surrounded by water – I thought we were actually driving on a lake!
But the fields had flooded in the night's heavy rain, and we could see
women wading from their houses to the road, food held above their
heads, skirts rolled up. It's apparently a place which floods
regularly – one house even had a makshift wooden bridge, connecting it
to the road.

We stopped once on the journey, at a town which I forget the name of.
We got off of the bus and all of a sudden we were surrounded by
hundreds of people selling seeds, lemons, mango juice and, of course,
khat. Khat is a plant which, when chewed, produces a mild narcotic
effect (so I'm told!). It's very popular in Ethiopia and surrounding
countries (particularly Somalia) and if you drive along the road out
of Addis, you can see people sitting on blankets by the road, chewing
the leaves and enjoying the sun. Quite a few people were chewing khat
on the bus, presumably to make the journey more bearable. I
considered it myself …

We didn't buy any khat or seeds or anything, we just stood and enjoyed
the sun and got some fresh air. Danyele and I decided it would be a
good idea to find some toilets, and a nice man who owned a pub (next
to a hotel called the Semen Hotel!! Is it bad that that made me
giggle a lot?!) let us use his. They were the 'hole in the ground'
type, but fairly clean and okay – except that there were three goats
in the garden who seemed particularly interested in what Danyele and I
were doing. Nothing like intruding goats to give you performance
anxiety!

The rest of the bus journey passed without incident, although I was
very, very glad to see Jimma Bus Station appear as we turned round the
corner.