SURPRISE!
IT’S ETHIOPIA

The giant of East Africa looks like a country on the move.
The UN Special mission to Ethiopia began with the determination of
Editorial Board member Seble Demeke to show another side of her
country to the world.

DAVID WINCH

And the project made sense: Addis Ababa is a major UN duty station and, in the era of mobility, staff should know what the other posts really look like. And too often, the world here seems to end at the canton of Vaud.

So we set off – a team of cheerful amateurs, not special rapporteurs or experts. We had no encyclopedic reports to submit or groundbreaking research to carry out; just the need to crisscross the country, meet people, take notes and observe... which we did.

We found an energetic country, and one that is very (very!) eager to shake off its residual bad image inherited from the 1970s and 1980s. No doubt there remain problems, but...

Let’s see a totally subjective list of some Big (and Little) Surprises we found in Ethiopia:
Building boom. Driving into Addis from its clean-lined modern airport, a non-stop array of buildings rises on all sides, with dust rising from a new ring-road highway under construction. Loads of activity and traffic everywhere.
Flowers craze. Nobody associates Ethiopia with flowers – yet – but the horticultural industry is blooming all over the country, with roses being shipped to Amsterdam, fruit to the Middle East and Gulf countries, and vegetables to Germany. (See our photo essay “Coming up roses”.)
Millennium fireworks. Who knew? Never heard of it before our trip, but Ethiopia is set to celebrate its own year 2000, based on its Julian calendar, starting this month. Hotels are packed and a zillion events are planned (see www.ethiopia2000.com), including sound and light shows over the capital, projects to plant millions of trees, and non-stop festivities.
Unique Ethiopia. A stand-alone country, with its own broadly spoken and written national language, a millennial history, an African country never colonized, a founding member of the League of Nations – Ethiopia is really sui generis as a nation.
Football fever. Everybody here loves English soccer, from the smallest village with its shuttle buses festooned with “Arsenal is Life” posters, to the Champions League final between Milan and Liverpool televised to vast crowds in the central square of Addis. Spectators there jeer each misdeed of the Italian players, while loud roars greet the heroics of the English squad. As one elderly goat salesman in a remote village put it: Chelsea – you like? Well, uh, yes.
Small world.