Dr Dire

Hi to everyone (anyone) out there. Sorry it’s taken so long to get this going. I’ve been in Dire Dawa for a week now. To give you some context, it’s the second largest city in Ethiopia, a paltry 330,000 people and it’s strange, as African towns go. It was built by the French as a stopover from the port city of Djibouti. Hence, in addition to the odd colonial building, the streets are about 50% cobbled, a nice break from the dust, pitted tarmac, dust and dust of most African streets. They still throw rubbish on the ground without a care.

This is a welcome break from Addis though where we stayed for a week. There is tons to do in Addis, it’s colourful, not too hot (think nice British Summer every day, including rain), but your lungs are in stiff competition for oxygen with the cars and trucks covering the roads, maybe something to do with the altitude – 2,200m – leaving stairs a bit of a challenge, but I’m too stubborn to use a lift. I’ll say more about Addis when I go back.

As for Dire Dawa, in contrast to that constant ‘Capital City’ effect of people being relatively unfriendly*, you can’t go for a walk without folk bombarding you with “HEY FARANJI”, “Hello, how ah yoo!”, “What is yu-a name!”. They aren’t messing about or taking the mick, most people want to meet you and have a halting inter-lingual chat. Little handshake, some pleasantries and you’ve made a friend of sorts. This may have something to do with the fact that it really isn’t much of a tourist town and foreigners are more of a novelty. The Bradt guide pretty much writes it off. As a tourist, there’s not much to keep you going for more than a day or two, but it seems pretty decent to work in. Get a camera out and the friendly effect doubles.

Again, compared to Addis, there are virtually no cars. Plenty of trucks on their way through, but Dire Dawans get about almost exclusively with Bajaj (aka Tuktuk) – picture above. It’s like a Vespa scooter mixed with a car and there are hundreds of them. At any moment, five of them are usually competing for two Bajaj worth of road space. Hauling goods – Bajaj won’t manage that, no for that you need a horse and cart, or a camel.

I’m quietly impressed at the lack of crap on the roads.

Nice way to sign off my first post.

Peace.

*This is not to say that Addis is unfriendly, more that DD is hyper-friendly.