Today sees the first mention of the report on the internet. Bloomberg reports that Merera Gudina, the Chairman of the opposition Oromo People’s Congress, is “not enthusiastic” about the report and “fed up of complaining to donors when they are consciously refusing to know and/or knowing the truth but they are refusing to face the reality.”

I am not in a position to state authoritatively what the reality is. However, a casual observer of development and politics in Ethiopia would quickly conclude that the perspectives and priorities of donors and the Ethiopian opposition in relation to that reality are somewhat different.

The former US Ambassador to Ethiopia, David Shinn, called the report a “careful, thorough and rather bureaucratic response” to “highly charged allegations.”

Full Bloomberg report is here. Donors’ report is here.

I wish I were leaving in the aftermath of an election that had not only been relatively peaceful but which had also seen Ethiopia continue its path towards the deepened democracy that I think – as well as being important in its own terms – is important for the country’s long-term stability and sustainable progress on poverty reduction. Sadly, I am not. The next few years will be a challenge. Ethiopians will and should be at the forefront of meeting that challenge. But, with responsibilities shared in a global world, outsiders – struggling to know what to do for the best and juggling different priorities – must not turn their backs. Sadly, by flying home tonight, I am.

However, I will keep in touch and will – because accountability is central to politics and power/powerlessness – keep banging on about accountability and development. Much progress is needed, and is possible, both here in Ethiopia, in the UK and globally. And, I am sure that this won’t be my last time in Ethiopia. Thanks to everyone who has made my time here so rewarding and to Amanda who has had to put up with – and has been very supportive of – my decision to disappear for 7 months.

Owen Barder has an interesting post on this, setting out why he says little about Ethiopian politics. In brief, his view is that Ethiopians’ views rather than his should be listened to and that to give more weight to outsiders views is “unconsciously racist”, and that his time is more appropriately spent helping to fix the policies and practices of his own country’s government.

I agree with much of what Owen says in relation to this. First, the idea that citizens of developed countries have a particular responsibility to try to get their own governments to act in ways that are better in terms of development – to address issues that are, in Owen’s words, “properly mine to help fix”. Second, that the ability of outsiders (eg. me, with much worse Amharic than Owen!) to understand Ethiopian politics is limited and therefore our views should not be given very much weight. And I would add, outsiders should not be seeking to impose inappropriate context-insensitive normative models about how things should be.

However I do think that the phrase “properly mine to help fix” (or my “particular responsibility” phrase above) should be unpacked as states and sovereignty are socially and politically constructed. That is, they are not natural givens and one might argue in some instances, and to some extent, that other principles/norms – for instance in relation to human rights, or justice or accountability – trump that of sovereignty (as in the notion of the responsibility to protect, or the universal declaration of human rights).

I also wonder what Owen would make of statements on the electoral process put out by the EU Election Observation Mission or the UK Government. Are they unconsciously racist? Is reading them unconsciously racist? If a Government that provides aid to country X is concerned to ensure and to assure its own citizens that that aid is not supporting a repressive regime, is it reasonable – or unconsciously racist – of that Government to make an assessment of the political system in country X and the impact of aid on that political system (and of the the impact of that political system on the effectiveness of aid)?

And what of calls by groups within Ethiopia for outsiders to be more vocal in their criticisms? Are those calls unconsciously racist, even if those calls are made by Ethiopians who understand the politics very well?

It seems to me that that things are – and should be – more complicated than a simple “outsiders should shut up, should not be listened to, and should concentrate on problems that are properly theirs to fix”.

Globalisation after all does blur the borders between inside and outside. Should people from developing countries who are affected by UK policies on migration, or climate change, shut up too, or are they stakeholders with a legitimate interest/right in saying what they think and seeking cross-border accountability?

Globalisation goes beyond the borders. So too should and do concerns with rights, justice and accountabilities. The challenge is to find the appropriate balance between putting into practice that principle – of global social justice – and the principle of country-ownership/non-interference/not talking about stuff that is not ”properly yours” to talk about or fix.

So, on Wednesday, I flew to Arba Minch – in the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Region – via Jimma. The flight was fine and it was interesting to see the landscape and vegetation – very very green, coffee and real and false bananas I think. I got a bus – a “blue donkey” – into Sikele, one of Arba Minch’s twin towns along with Shecha. Then I got a bajaj – a tuk-tuk – on a dirt road to Paradise Lodge.

Paradise Lodge is very very nice and comes highly recommended. I had asked for a hut with a view and the view – over Lake Abaya, Lake Chamo and the Bridge of God that separates the two – was amazing. I spent the afternoon wandering around Shecha, getting my bearings and chatting to the locals, to the extent that my language skills and theirs permitted. I was also working out my options for the following day. There lots of police of various varieties around – more than is usual I was told. Someone was being shepherded off with the help of a couple of big sticks with lots of people looking on with concern.

In the end, I made arrangements via Paradise Lodge for a trip to Nechisar national park. Paradise Lodge told me that it was too muddy to go on a road trip, so I ended up taking a boat. Given that the taxi/bus that took us to the boat got stuck in the mud leaving us to walk it was probably a good idea that I’d not tempted fate and risked getting stuck in the mud in the middle of the national park. Boatyard didn’t look too promising, but the boat we were using seemed OK. No sign of a life-jacket, but we did have a gun. Other than shooting things, I’m not sure what the gun was for, but it didn’t reassure me very much.

The trip on the lake was lovely with views of the mountains all around. After about an hour we reached the other side and then went for a bit of a walk into the national park. It wasn’t long before we spotted some deer and then quite a few zebra, really close. Not quite the animal spotting extravaganza I had been hoping for with a road-trip, but pretty cool and the national park itself was beautiful, with or without the big five, most of which are extinct in the park, partly because some folks have opted – understandably – to live in the park and eat the animals.

We wandered back to the lakeshore where my guides purchased some fish and we watched two people fishing and bringing their nets in. The way they clobbered the fish on the snout to kill them – I averted my gaze, which my guides thought amusing – put me off eating fish, at least for a little while. We then set off back to the other side of the lake.

More stunning views and then lots of birds – pelicans, cranes of various sorts – before we got to the hippo spot. They are MASSIVE and can move much faster than you would expect. Thankfully, my guides had realised that I’m a bit of a softy, so we didn’t go too close. And then having got over that excitement we moved on a little way to the “crocodile market”. Not a market at all, but the place where the crocs sun themselves after a busy night of eating. There were maybe 10 crocs visible, within about 10 metres of the boat. Some of them were huge – about 5 metres long. Plenty big enough to swallow me. I hadn’t expected them to be quite so big or, again, so fast moving.

After that, we boated back to shore and got the bus back to the hotel. A bit of negotiation later and I set off – along with an Ethiopian couple, which made the price slightly less exorbitant than the $100 I had paid for the boat trip – into the mountains at the back of Arba Minch, to the Dorze village. This was a great trip, really interesting and well-organised, with a sense that the entrance fee was well-used to support the community.

We got a tour of a homestead – various huts for sleeping, eating and cooking – a demonstration of processing the false banana plant, a taste of the bread that is made from that plant, and the alcohol (75% proof) araki that is made too. They have huts that you can stay in. Another time, I might stay there.

While there, we met a local man who was working for the EU electoral observation mission. It was interesting to hear from him about how he was selected – he was very clear that only neutral people are selected. I kept my views about ethiopian politics to myself, but enthused about the value of good electoral observation.

We then went on – back down the hill a bit – to the market where hundreds of women were selling their produce, mainly potatoes, onions, chillies, and spices. As it was nearly market-closing time quite a lot of the women were sitting around drinking alcohol out of calabashes. The practice is that two people drink from the same calabash simultaneously, to emphasise the sharing.

We wound back down the hill for an hour, back to Paradise Lodge, where I was greeted by news that my flight back to Addis the next day had been cancelled as there were only due to be 3 people on it. Ethiopian Airlines gave me the option of waiting til the Sunday flight, with all accommodation and expenses paid for. However, I was due to have a meeting last night and I had – rather hurriedly – seen the main sights of Arba Minch, so I opted instead to get the bus back. 10 hours is what it said on the tin.

After an early dinner. Shiro, not fish, that night, with the memory of clubbed fish fresh. And a very early start. Up at 4.30 for a taxi to the bus station at 4.50. Bus station was very chaotic and pitch black which didn’t make things easy, but someone helped me to find the right bus and I was on it and ready to go by 5.15. The bus became more and more packed with people until we finally left, just as the sun was coming up at 6.00.

We didn’t get very far. We had been going about 5 minutes when the bus stopped and turned around. Apparently there was something wrong and we needed to go back to a garage. The problem was reportedly minor, but we sat and waited for 4 hours while various people – mechanics and random people with hammers – hit things and sighed. We then tried again, and gave up again after another five minutes. Tempers were getting frayed as people were keen to get home and be safe before the election and felt that the bus company should have put us on their other bus.

I got chatting to some of the students from the teacher training institute. They were extolling the virtues of the UK’s democratic tradition and saying that they would like it if Ethiopia were the same. I zipped my mouth and said that I should probably not comment, much to their amusement. While this was going on, more things were being hit with hammers and the passengers managed to persuade the driver to forget about the problem and just try to get us to Addis. Not knowing whether it was a problem with the brakes, or a less serious problem, I was not over-keen on winging it, but with everyone else apparently OK with that, I wasn’t backing out.

The first 4 hours were grim. A new road is being built. But the old road is in a very bad way. Huge pot holes. Fords where there once were bridges. That sort of thing. At about 2.30 we arrived at Sodo, in the Wolaita region. I was befriended by a couple of blokes and whisked off for more shiro and injera, before we set off again at 3.00, up until the hills. The problem with the bus, or at least one of the problems, soon became apparent. The bus had no ooomph and uphill could go just faster than walking pace. We spent about 3 hours going up hill, covering maybe 15 miles in that time. The women walking home from market, almost faster than the bus, were most amused. I, being a bit of a worrier, was thinking about whether the driver had a plan, or sufficient brakes, if the bus decided to start rolling backwards down the hill.

We passed through Hosaina (in the Hadiya area) – a strong-hold of opposition political support – with daylight fading. I was trying to find out what the plan was. Were we going to carry on to Addis or stay somewhere overnight? (I had understood that travelling at night was not a good idea, given the state of some of the roads and vehicles). I got mixed messages, so just sat tight. We carried on and on, stopping briefly near Butijira to buy kolo nuts and water, as it got darker and darker. By 10.00 pm it was looking good. We were only 2 hours from Addis. And then the bus gave up.

This time it gave up good and proper. Cue more standing around, this time not even hitting things with a hammer, which is clearly a sign that things are really too far gone. Everyone took it well. There was lots of laughter and joking around. I guess that such inconveniences are what life is like in Ethiopia. I resisted the temptation to ring someone at the Embassy, thinking that I could hardly disappear off in a landcruiser leaving my fellow passengers to their fate, and that try as we might we wouldn’t fit more than 10 people in.

By about 11.30 it was really cold and there was no plan other than wait til it’s light, so people starting going to sleep in the bus. Not comfortable. Very crowded. Very smelly from being crammed with 60 people on a hot day and a long journey. At 12.30, another bus turned up from Addis, but – rather than take us back to Addis it was going to sit there until daylight and then take us on. I wasn’t very happy about this and tried briefly to suggest that the new bus take to addis those that wanted to go now, and return to get the others later. But, most people seemed happy to wait, so – casting aside a brief plan to pay the bus driver to do an extra trip – I moved to the new bus where I could at least lie in the gang-way and get a couple of hours sleep.

We set off at 3.30 and made it to Addis a couple of hours later. All the men had to get off the bus at the check-point. I – as a ferengi – was grouped with the women and children, although a soldier did actually get on to search me and ask for ID etc. He picked up a small notebook from my bag and saw there was nothing written in it, and somehow missed the satellite phone which I might have had a harder job explaining.

By 6.00 we were at Addis bus station, which was very busy with buses getting ready to set off to various parts of the country. I managed to find – with a bit of help – a minibus that was heading towards the hilton, so got on that for what was a thankfully uneventful journey. Last night, sleeping on the gang-way of the bus, I was wondering whether I should have taken Ethiopian Airlines up on their offer of paying my way for 2 extra days. But, the bus journey was interesting. I got to see bits of Ethiopia that I wouldn’t otherwise have done, and got to use my amharic much more than I would have on a one hour plane journey.

More photos here or click on me and the zebra on my photos page here

I’m due back in the UK at the end of May. Before then, there are elections to be held in Ethiopia, on the 23rd May. The elections in 2005 did not go well – disputes about results, violence, people being shot, people being locked up. The Ethiopian Government’s take on things is here. The EU Electoral Observation Mission’s take on things is here.

The expectation is that things will be more peaceful this time around. There are a variety of reasons for that, very few of which are about a strengthening of democracy and human rights in Ethiopia and most of which I would probably be unwise to comment on. I will leave that to others, including the EU’s Electoral Observation Mission, whose interim reports look good – it will be interesting to see whether their final report, which I imagine will have more oversight from higher political levels (of the EU and its member states), builds on or is substantially different from the interim reports.

I’m not supposed to be here – here is in Addis – this weekend. I had been planning to go to Arba Minch for a couple of days, staying in Paradise Lodge. However, there was some uncertainty this week about whether foreigners would be able to travel outside Addis this close to the election. The authorities here don’t want foreigners to risk getting caught up in any election-related trouble. Or something like that … So, my trip has been cancelled or at least postponed until things are clearer.

Has been a wee bit frustrating travel-wise the last few weeks. A couple of weeks ago I was due to go down to the Somali region – on the border with Kenya and Somalia – on a work field-trip. Turned out that because of my contract – I am in effect a consultant – I am not insured in the same way as regular British DFID staff. My personal insurance would not have been valid so close to the border and DFID (rightly) felt that if I got injured on the trip and needed medical evacuation they would be obliged to pay, and as the cost could be as much as £150k they could not take that risk.

All a bit disappointing, but also thought-provoking. Not easy explaining to Ethiopian colleagues – dependent on the Ethiopian health system – who were going on the visit that I wouldn’t be going because I didn’t have coverage for medical evacuation. I was surprised how easily I put aside any principles – or imagined some new ones – in order to look after my personal interests. My Ethiopian colleagues must think I’m a right wuss, although I guess that foreigners having options that they do not, and making choices that they cannot, is nothing new for them. On a related note, there’s been some discussion in the blogosphere of an interesting piece by Ravi Kanbur about the cushy life of people who work in international development.

As well as elections in Ethiopia, elections in the UK have of course been a hot topic amongst DFID staff. DFID was set up in 1997 so has never served a non-Labour government. It will be interesting to see what changes the Conservatives/Liberal Democrats make. Owen Barder has done a useful primer on the new UK Government’s Development Policy. In his introductory speech to DFID staff, the new Secretary of State, Andrew Mitchell MP, bigged-up Clare Short, which I thought was a nice touch!

Some of the things that the new Government have said they will prioritise – more focus on results, independent evaluation, greater transparency, more attention to accountability, possible introduction of Cash-on-Delivery Aid – have the potential to be good (although I trust that there will be serious discussion about the limitations as well as the potential of the results agenda, impact evaluation and techniques such as Randomized Controlled Trials – for instance, on results, it might not be the case that everyone in the aid chain will prioritise the same results). It will also be interesting to see how the new Government manages the relationship between poverty reduction objectives and other more security-related objectives, and – notwithstanding the Conservatives commitment to meet the 0.7% target by 2013 – what that means for spending on poverty reduction.

Once my time in Addis comes to an end, I will be returning to Brighton – in recent years, and not discounting the fact that I am NOT A SOUTHERNER, my spiritual home, along perhaps with Arsenal-Land). I didn’t vote for Caroline Lucas – I didn’t feel that it was the best option tactically – but I am very pleased, even proud, that Brighton now has a Green MP.

Work-wise, from June I will be working 60% with both the “politics and state” and “fragility and development” teams in DFID’s policy division, focussing on accountability-related issues. So, I’m very excited about that. And then the plan is to use the other 40% to make sure that what I do in policy division is well-informed by the realities of governance in developing countries. I don’t want to be designing frameworks and models and writing How To Notes that aren’t useful for DFID’s country offices. So, I hope to remain engaged in governance work in Ethiopia, and through being involved in other governance/accountability programmes in places such as Ghana, Rwanda, Tanzania …

Non work-wise, I’m very much looking forward to being back with Amanda and to enjoying the Summer in Brighton. There’s plenty of wind-surfing, mountain-biking and swimming in the sea to be done and we’ve booked to go to Benicassim music festival in Spain. The weather here in Addis has been rubbish – not sure whether it’s been good for the farmers, whose interests should take precedence over my desire to sunbathe! – so I’m looking forward to a bit of sun too.

Fingers and everything else crossed for the Ethiopian elections.

Early start on friday, for a 5.00 am check in. Having checked in to fly to Lalibela a few weeks ago with no delays at all, I thought 2 hours was excessive but when I saw the queues (throngs would be a more accurate word) I realised the importance of getting there early. Everyone was travelling for Easter weekend. The throng was getting a bit agitated by the prospect of missing flights, but fortunately I had latched on to someone who is a peacekeeper for the United Nations – I figured that he would help to defuse any rows!

Anyway, we made our flight and 50 minutes later arrived in Dire Dawa. I had been here maybe 7 years ago, en route to Somaliland with a bunch of MPs – I still have the wooden camel that was left for me once the MPs had shared out the souvenir spoils when they got back in Addis! I hadn’t expected to return. There were 4 foreigners – farengos in this neck of the woods – on the flight. We all piled into a taxi to take us to Harar, skipping the hassle of going into Dire Dawa and getting a taxi. It was an interesting trip, up into the hills – or perhaps onto the plateau – from Dire Dawa, the hillsides much greener than expected, with lots of chat cultivation to be seen and lots of small dusty chat-filled market towns.

On arrival in Harar we first went to look at a couple of hotels that the taxi driver recommended, before making it to the Heritage Plaza, which is where I had a reservation. Plaza is a bit out of town, and not in the walled city, which is the main draw of Harar. However, room was OK. A bit shabby, but clean and with a balcony. And the hotel had a nice terrace with a cafe that served great coffee-with-milk.

Friday was spent having a look round the walled city – a maze of cobbled and uncobbled alleyways, houses arranged round courtyards, lots of churches, lots of mosques, and, as the afternoon progressed, more and more people (mainly but not only men) lying on the ground armed with their shopping bags full of chat and a big bottle of water to help the chewing process. By this time I had acquired a guide, with a couple of other young men competing for my business, a competition that was given extra edge by the fact that at least one of the guides had had his fair share and a bit of chat.

In the evening, we went in a tuk-tuk to see one of the hyena-men. Not half-man-half-hyena, which would have been even better, but some nutter who feeds a pack of hyenas meat with his hands and from sticks held in his mouth. Hyenas are big! Very big. Like a very very big dog. And they can crush a skull in their jaws. Frankly, it was all a bit scary. I stayed firmly in the tuk-tuk, wishing that I were in a vehicle with solid sides and trying to explain to the driver that no, I did not want to go any closer, no I did not want to get out, and no I did not want to feed the hyenas myself. We escaped, with me very glad to be in a vehicle rather than walking away from the hyenas in the pitch black.

Me plus my guide plus my would be guide had dinner at Hirut (oh, I had had lunch – a great pizza – at Fresh Touch, where we met an older Spanish woman and I dusted off my spanish skills, well hidden as they were by more recent french and amharic efforts). Hirut was good. I managed to get meatless shiro (pea stew) with bread rather than injera, so that was very nice. Also bumped into a bunch of Irish folks, one of whom I had met previously on the first night of the TESFA trek. I think that illustrates that there’s a fairly limited circuit of things that ferenge/ferengo tourists do! We swapped stories about continuing open wounds caused by the bed bugs of some weeks previous.

After Hirut, I was taken on a tour of various bars and clubs. Samson Hotel. National Hotel. Tourist Hotel. Family Hotel. However, what would have been a good evening was spoilt; lesson learned – one guide good, two guides bad. Can’t say I blame them for competing for my business – I should have realised earlier that the concerns of guide 1 that potential guide 2 might cause problems were based on years of experience. Anyway, I managed to extricate myself from the situation without annoying anyone too much (paying guide 1 what we had agreed and paying guide 2 something too, despite his – and guide 1 as I remember – previous claims that “I am not a guide” (I was reminded of a Peep Show sketch that went something like “the first thing to note is that this is not a pyramid scheme …)  and got a tuk-tuk – of which there were many – back to the Plaza, which by this time was all locked up with gates that I didn’t much fancy scaling. Fortunately after 10 minutes a security guard arrived and, after some pleading, let me in.

Saturday morning, I decided to leave the over-expensive Plaza and stay for one night in the Rewda guesthouse in the heart of the walled city and near the Shoa Gate and “Christian market” – not a market where you can buy Christians, but to distinguish it from the Moslem market and the Oromo market. (Harar is a mix of Harari people, Oromo people, Somali people). I had had a lie in. By the time I got to the Rewda – 250  birr rather than the plaza’s 600 birr (£25, which is a lot in Ethiopia) – the room had gone so I was directed to the owner’s sister’s nearby guesthouse – Zubeyda Waber. I left my stuff there. The other occupants were a south african couple who were spending the afternoon chewing chat with their guide, a man who was dreaming of moving to greece (because of its philosophers) rather than the US (whose get-rich-appeal had no appeal). I agreed that greece would be better than the US, and apologised that I couldn’t get him a passport to the UK. We chatted about the forthcoming elections. I did my best to defend the idea of elections, to no avail.

Saturday afternoon was a different sort of harar cultural experience. Watching Man Utd lose – always good, even to Chelsea – in an underground unventilated boiling hot fire-trap cinema along with maybe 500 others.  After that, I bumped into a colleague from DFID who also happened to be in Harar. The rest of the day was spent relaxing – but not chewing chat (yes, I had tried some on the Friday and concluded that the investment of time and leaf-chewing required was too great to make it worth it) – at the guesthouse and then wandering around a couple of bars. By this point I had told my guide that I didn’t need him and paid him – I wanted to have a wander around on my own.

Slept very well in the single bed in an alcove at the guest house, disturbed only by the all night chanting from the orthodox churches. Not sure whether they were chanting more than usual for easter or not, but their persistence was impressive. Sunday morning was a lovely breakfast of honey and pancakes and tea. A bit of chatting to the South Africans about their travels and mine and then off to the bus station to catch a minibus to Dire Dawa. The driver took good care of me, and my main bag that was on the roof. Was a stop-start journey, picking people up, making sure that there were not too many people in the bus at points where it was going to be stopped and inspected. Stashing bags of something or other in hidden places. Made it in an hour and then got a tuk-tuk to the airport from Dire Dawa, finding out somewhat to my surprise that Arsenal had managed to sneak a late goal.

Airport check in was easy and all was going well, until about 2 seconds before take-off. We were away, nearly, early, and I had texted Teddy to pick me up at Addis. However, the plane – or the plane’s left engine – decided that it didn’t want to take off. Was a wee bit scary as in maybe 100 flights I’ve never had an aborted take-off. More scary was wondering whether we were going to have another go in the same plane once the mechanics had had a look at the engine. In the end we didn’t, and after much delay and lots of confusion we were bused to the Ras Hotel in Dire Dawa, to be fed – or to be fed if you were OK eating meat – and then back to the airport where a bigger plane was expected to take us and the afternoon flight’s people back to Addis. There was a lot of nervousness and jostling as it wasn’t clear that everyone was going to get on, but Ethiopian Airlines had sorted things properly and we were all back in Addis by 7, only 5 hours late for me.

So, was a very good trip. A bit difficult in places, with big queues, delays and guides fighting – very nearly literally – over my business. But very interesting. I’m not sure that having 50% of the people spend 6 hours per day chewing chat is the recipe for a very productive economy, but the people of various ethnic groups and religions seem to live together peacefully – maybe the chat helps for that? Maybe a productive economy would too? Other thought was that for a place to develop, what you need fundamentally is for the people to have at least some sense that they can – by doing things differently – help to shape their own prospects. Perhaps that’s what “empowerment” means? Perhaps I should know?!

In Harar, the people I talked to felt that they were totally powerless to shape their own lives, whether that was because of bad politics or because they felt that god would decide what would happen to them. And perhaps chewing chat for 6 hours per day is not particularly empowering?

More photos are available here.

First night was a meal at Fasika’s with a bunch of friends – Dagnachew and partner, Mekdes and friends, Mesfin from DFID, Mesfin from way back, Yared, Jillian and partner, and others. First Sunday was a day of lounging by the pool. And then in the week when I was working Amanda went to up to the Entoto hills, had a day on the Embassy compound (swimming and horse-riding!), and a day of exploring the markets with Teddy. Oh, and we met up with Alex - a long-time friend of Amanda’s - as he was passing through Addis.

Then on the Friday we flew up to Lalibela and checked into the Tukul village hotel – with Amanda with her Kate Adie get-up on – before spending the afternoon having a look at the first group of underground churches. I’m not the biggest fan of looking round old buildings, but these were something different. Think Indiana Jones. That’s me. And Lara Croft. That’s Angelina Jolie. And there were some pretty cool – and entrepreneurial – priests. After a beaker of tej, we were well set for an evening of amharic dancing, where I suspect that we were the entertainment.

On Saturday morning we went off to the weekly market and saw stalls laid out selling all sorts of grains and pulses and vegetables, and plastic pots, and clothes, and areas for selling cattle and sheep and goats, and shoes made out of car tyres. And people walking to the market carry huge bags, or with convoys of donkeys, from miles and miles around. All very interesting. And then – with a short delay while we (I) was trapped in a tej house with a ferocious dog blocking my exit, while Amanda laughed at my extreme dog-aversion - we went round the second group of churches, before being picked up to begin our TESFA (Tourism in Ethiopia for Sustainable Alternative Futures) trek.

We drove an hour and a half out of Lalibela, along a very rough road, through a mountainous landscape reminiscent of the grand canyon. The first afternoon was very easy. Just an hour and a half until we arrived at the huts we’d be staying in, although the pace set by the guides and the shaggy donkey was a bit more Ethiopian marathon runner than not very fit English. On arrival we had tea and pancakes and then a few hours to explore the site – and spot baboons and hyrax – before a dinner by firelight and then sleep (although it was freezing cold, especially for me as Amanda had wisely brought a sleeping bag).

Day 2 started with a breakfast of eggs and bread and then a day’s walk along the escarpment with amazing views all day. Lunch stop was for injera and vegetables, where we met a bunch of irish folks heading the other way and were joined by an indian/american woman would be with us for the rest of our trek. Site 2 was down a bit from the top of the escarpment and was more part of a village than site 1. Tea and “pizza” and an explore preceded a dinner of spaghetti, followed by music, dancing and popcorn. Oh, and my offer to buy a beer or two for the guides being mis-interpreted as me paying for everyone’s beer for the whole night! All the locals were suitably grateful. And drunk.

Day 3 saw us trek up and then across a plateau, away from the escarpment to Meket Mariam, perhaps the most stunning of the sites. Amanda was now perking up after a day or so of possible altitude sickness and we had a good evening which included chatting to the local political leader (who had previously been a leader in the Derg – my efforts to understand his/the village’s changing political allegiances came up against a linguistic barrier, which may have been a good thing) who told us that German radio would be the one that he would trust out of the BBC, Voice of America, German and Ethiopian radio. He also said that he had been to Lalibela only 3 times in his life of 50+ years – an illustration of how local the worlds of the people of the rural highlands are. With the donkeys loaded up the next morning, we set off early down into the valley to catch our long and bumpy bus-ride to Bahir Dar - five hours down from the mountains to the lake, along a partially asphalted (courtesy of China) road with some very bleak and dusty towns along the way - after a quick lunch of injera.

Bahir Dar is on the southern shore of Lake Tana, so the main day there – Wednesday – was a day of boat tours and watching the pelicans. The half-day boat tour took us round 5 different monasteries, which were full of very colourful paintings – used, in part for sunday (actually, probably every day) school for people who couldn’t/can’t read. We also went round a museum and were shown shoes with bi-directional hoof marks on them, for getting around un (or confusingly) detected. Must be a market for them amongst philanderers and ne’er do wells. Then we spent a few hours in the afternoon on a floating jetty moored off mango park, eating lentil samosas and watching the pelicans. Oh, and we had a swim in a pool, in preference to going to look at the Blue Nile Falls. A wee bit lazy, but very refreshing. And then more dancing and music.

Thursday morning saw us up early and off in a tuk-tuk to the airport for a 20 minute flight to Gonder and a quick look round the Royal Enclosure before flying back to Addis. Gonder was our least favourite place, probably because the taxi driver there had us over a many-birr-barrel as it was 20km to town and there was no competition. My efforts to pretend to be ringing up for another taxi – to magic up some competition – failed miserably. Still, was good to have a gander at gonder, although by this point Amanda had had enough of old buildings and had taken to playing “spot the amanda” in the photo. I had had enough of Gonder too, but as it had been my idea to go there I was pretending to still be keen.

We got back to Addis on Thursday afternoon, just in time to get ready for dinner at one of the poshest places in Addis – or at least it’s the place that DFID folks from London HQ get taken to. Food was amazing and we had a great time. But what with hindsight was a risky choice of rice led to Amanda’s downfall, which meant that Friday – her last day in Addis – was spent recovering and bracing herself for the flight back to London. We nearly went halves on our main courses, so it was a narrow escape for me too!

Nevertheless, we had a great couple of weeks and a wonderful time in Lalibela, trekking and Bahir Dar. Whether I managed to sell living in Ethiopia – or a different developing country – to Amanda is a different matter. It may need to be somewhere less dusty and with a coast. Sierra Leone? Tanzania? Ghana? Brighton? My money’s on …

With my development hat on – rather than my Ras Tafari lion of Judah baseball hat – the three things that struck me on our adventures were:

1) How local the lives of the rural poor in Ethiopia seem to be, and yet how they are shaped by global forces too – climate change, food prices, migration.

2) How little technology – or at least what I recognise as technology – the people have; wheeled carts were rare and things like plastic buckets seemed to be the cutting edge in some places (although in the trek area they had got mobile reception a month ago, which might lead to interesting changes)

3) How up-beat the people seem to be – as I have always found in Africa – despite the fact that many of them live in conditions that would drive most of us to despair.

PS: More – far too many – pictures can be found on the six tiles starting from the picture of just Amanda on this page

I wandered out mid-morning wondering whether I’d missed the festivities and not planning on going very far. I had heard that Jan Meda – a couple of miles away – was the place to be, with holy water being hosed on the crowd. I quickly acquired a very helpful and friendly guide – Dawit, who is a student in Jimma but was in town for Timkat. He spoke great English and humoured me with my amharic.

We wandered up past Arat Kilo and Siddhist Kilo and nearly made it as far as Jan Meda before the crowds got a bit too much. I’m used to celebrations of Arsenal winning the double and the open top bus tours of north london, but these crowds were something else. There was lots of dancing and music, lots of people dressed in white shawls and cloths. Bullrushes and sticks being waved in the air.

Turning back we took advantage of my relative wealth and escaped to the space of Blue Tops restaurant and the shade, for I had forgotten my hat. After lunch, we zipped past parliament and into the grounds of the palace (where Prime Minister Meles lives). Today was one of only a couple of days per year when Emperor Menelek’s church was open. He was the person who founded Addis about 120 years ago and brought lots of modern things – electricity, running water, cars – here. We went inside, saw the resident Michael Angelo painting, and then went into the vault to see the tombs of menelek, his daughter and wife (zaitu and zewditu I think), and various other old artefacts.

I paid the various priests, being reassured that the hefty fee I was being asked for was for orphans who the church looked after rather than just for the priests, and we just about made it back to near Arat Kilo to see the Ark of the Covenant – I think that’s the thing that the stone tables with 10 commandments on were kept in (this country is really testing my memory of things I used to know!) – process past. The crowds were amazing. Huge. At least half a million I’d say. Very colourful. Full of energy. Lots of priests and sub-priests in purples and greens. And then bright colourful umbrellas/parasols being held by the more senior priests. And then the ark itself – to be honest, I have no idea what it looks like, but maybe it’s a box – being carried by the most senior priests and perhaps the pope of the ethiopian church.

Anyway, despite the fact that I didn’t completely know what was going on, it was quite an experience, and Dawit was an excellent guide. Oh, nearly forgot. Earlier in the day, I had given 10 birr (50p) to a very bedraggled man. He was so pleased he gave me a big hug, span me round and gave me a big kiss, much to the amusement of the people walking past!

Photos and movies are here.

Shimeles picked me up at 8.30 for the drive to Bishoftu. Debre Zeit is the Amharic name, but as the place is in Oromia (a different region of Ethiopia, where the Oromo people tend to live – Ethnic Federalism, ask me another time) it makes more sense to use the name of the place in Oromifa – the local language – Bishoftu.

We drove through Addis, along the ring road, and then picked up what still gets called the Debre Zeit road. This road is the road from Addis to all destinations south (Awassa and Kenya) and east (Harar, Djibouti, Somalia). So, it’s a very busy road, full of lorries bringing construction materials and food aid from Djibouti into Ethiopia. There is a railway track from Addis to Djibouti but it doesn’t work, or at least doesn’t work for much of it; reports are mixed, which is putting me off doing a Paul Theroux.

Close to the road there are quite a lot of factories – building materials, metalworks, a garment factory – and, on and off, settlements with lots of shops and cheap hotels. Shimeles commented that one of them – Dukul I think – is a popular hangout for truckers, with ready supplies of raw meat and other questionable pleasures. We didn’t stop there.

It took us about an hour. We turned off the main road at Bishoftu and went first to the Airforce Officers’ Club at Shimeles recommendation for a drink. We then left the car there, having agreed a payment to circumvent the fact that the rules said we couldn’t, and set off on foot. First we had a look at lake Hora. There is a big new resort planned here – owned by the bloke who owns the Sheraton in Addis and much else in Ethiopia – but progress is slow. There were some lads doing their washing, quite a lot of exotic birds (a purple kingfisher type bird, a yellow weaver bird, a pelican, little red birds) and a couple of boats. The lake was pretty and if I have more time sometime I might walk round the rim of the crater.

We then carried on walking north around the lake and rejoined the secondary road. It was good to walk as it meant I got to see more. Lots of donkeys carrying heavy loads, cows scratching themselves, goats being whipped. Small shops. Smaller houses which the word shacks would flatter. The road was not tarmac so it was very dusty and it was getting hot, but we kept going. I was keen to see another lake. We didn’t quite make it to Bishoftu Guda but we did make it to Kuriftu, where there is a posh hotel on the slopes leading down to the lake. We had a quick look round and I pondered whether DFID might agree to put me up there rather than at the Hilton in Addis!

On the way to Kuriftu resort there was a small hut with a big cross on the top of it and a man collecting money for the church. I gave him some money, but then when I asked whether I could take his photo he brandished a cross almost as big as the one on the hut at me and hid behind his parasol. I took that as a no, having not previously been made to feel like a character from the Omen.

We were going to get a horse-drawn taxi (a gari) back to the car, but it was getting very hot so we bundled into a tuk-tuk. Back at the AirForce Club, we paid the agreed fee and then headed back to Addis, stopping first to have a quick look at what I guess was a goat market. I was glad to have Shimeles driving as there were some pretty risky over-taking manoeuvres being undertaken by some of the other drivers!

More photos here

Wobbly films here