Donc je n’avais plus d’idée alors j’ai eu une idée: demander à mes camarades de classe de mettre la main à la pâte.
Dareskedar, que je soupçonne d’être le meilleur de la classe, a répondu le premier à mon implorant appel. Le sujet était libre.
Quelques précisions: je n’ai pas réussi à trouver de plan de la ville mais voilà comment ça se présente: Shiromeda se situe dans le nord est. La route principale qui en part descend par Sidist Kilo, le quartier des universités jusqu’à Arat Kilo. Toujours sur la même avenue,on descend en passant devant le palais du premier ministre, les bureaux de l’ONU, on traverse la grande place de Meskel pour arriver sur l’avenue de Bole, au sud de la ville.
A lot has been said about the city of Addis Ababa. I am also interested to add to it, for any individual moving from Shiromeda to Bole may feel he/she has gone crossing a boundary that divides peoples of different nations.
Let’s move together.
I am in Shiromeda crowded by a number of children, close to me there are women that carry fuel wood (bois pour faire du feu) on their back. Large proportion of the crowd wear dirty cloth and plastic shoes. Commodities are sold irregularly so that you can see a woman selling tomato, onion, charcoal, potato, carrot and varieties of vegetables altogether. Above all, Shiromeda is the centre of home-made cultural clothes. Most of the shops are supplied with white or colourful clothes as made by weavers.
In terms of cost, most of the commodities are easy to afford by the community. The cafeterias, bars, restaurants give service with cheap prices but their quality is not reliable. It looks that the people are satisfied with the services if you see the number of customers.
I left Shiromeda down to Arat Kilo.
When you reach Sidist Kilo something that you see is changed. Now you can see buildings, University, hospital, and better asphalted roads.
At Arat Kilo the pedestrians road is shared by street marketers, parking and pedestrians. In the streets, every street market retailers shoutly announce the type of commodity that they are selling.
Book, cloth, orange, mango, mirror, images of film actors or football players, and a variety of more are found in the street. There are also loud voices from the churches and moving advertisements. However, don’t forget Arat Kilo is the political and religious centre of the country in that the Prime Minister palace and the office of the Orthodox Church Patriarch are situated there.
Crossing Meskel Adebabay, you start moving through Bole.
Everything is changed. No more similar feature like that of Shiromeda or Arat Kilo. The change starts with the languages that everybody talks, i.e, you can hear English influence Amharic and many more foreign languages.
Commercial activities are facilitated in modern commercial centres, multiplexes and city centres. Supermarkets supply almost all demands of customers. The name of cafeterias and bars are basically American and European names or words, for example, Denver, Paradiso, New York, London, Le Petit, La Prima… The eastern world culture is reflected and you can find Arab restaurants and cafeterias.
In terms of cost and quality, Bole is many times greater or better than Shiromeda. So that a girl from Bole cannot find anything that refreshes her in Shiromeda and any young boy from Shiromeda cannot have the capacity to entertain in one of the cafés or bars.
In both cases, however, the people have something to share. The people are living peacefully in both zones of the town. This is Addis Ababa or what we call ’sheger’ (surnom d’Addis).
Mots-clefs : addis-abeba
