Back to Addis

Our flight is early the next morning. Daniel picks us up and drives us to the airport. As we wait for the plane to arrive we notice a large group of people standing on the edge of the tarmac. The plane lands and parks in the corner of the tarmac. People start walking out and to the door. The large group moves as one towards the plane following a pick-up truck decorated with flowers. Scott speculates that it’s a funeral. I’m skeptical, but I don’t have a better guess. Sure enough we soon see a casket emerge from the luggage hold. It is carried onto the truck as several men weep. One appears to be on the verge of fainting several times. The truck starts to drive off the tarmac and the group follows behind. It turns out that the casket holds the former mayor of Mekele.

Our flight back to Addis is uneventful and on time. Dan has about three hours before his flight. Not enough to make it worth leaving the airport, so we say goodbye to him and head out to the curb. We haven’t been able to reach Lensa so we get a cab over to her house. Scott comes out of the house a few minutes later. We’ll come back this afternoon before our flight back home.

We head over to the Sheraton. It’s a weekday, so there’s a lot more traffic than we’d had the prior Sunday. As we sit in traffic beggars and kids selling things frequently approach us. Our driver buys a box of tissues from one of them. Another boy who’s begging tells us that he used to be a “tissue boy”, so apparently selling tissues in the street is a recognized profession. We spend a relaxing afternoon at the Sheraton, just sitting around the lobby taking advantage of unlimited Internet access, reading, writing postcards and having lunch.