Our Ethiopian odyssey (13): back to Addis Ababa
Our last day in Ethiopia – day 13 (Thursday) – started early with the alarm at 5.45 am. Vee & Roger found that, in spite of mosquito nets in our four-poster bed, we had been bitten on face, arms and hands. The group left the hotel at 7.30 am and proceeded to the airport at Bahir Dar where we took our fourth and final internal flight. This was a return to Addis Ababa which only took 40 minutes.
The last time we were in the capital it was Sunday and it was very apparent now that this was a week day because the traffic was very heavy. Nevertheless we were driven around the Mercato which is said to be the largest open-air market in Africa. It was not just much larger than the three other markets we had seen, but more substantial with most shops located in permanent structures. One area concentrates on recycled materials, while another section is supplied by stolen goods.
At this point, we returned to the hotel where we had started out holiday – the Radisson Blu – where, after lunch, we were allocated day rooms. At 3 pm, there was the final excursion of the trip but only five members – including Roger – took advantage of this. There was still more shopping to be done so we visited a textile factory & shop called Muya Ethiopia and then some other shops. Roger went to the first shop and bought a number of items but he skipped the other shops because, alone of the group, he was very keen to visit the Red Terror Martyrs Memorial Museum.
This museum, which was opened in 2010, commemorates the murder of opponents of the communist Derg (the word means simply ‘Committee’) mainly in 1977-78. All the exhibits in the museum – mainly photographs of political demonstrations and of victims of the atrocity – are labelled in Amaric and (poor) English and an English-speaking guide was available to provide further explanation. According to Amnesty International, up to half a million people were killed in the terror and a small room in the museum features glass cases full of skulls and bones of a selection of the victims. The guide told Roger: “This is our Holocaust”.
Dawit explained that the museum does not provide some appropriate context. Initially the military Derg – who overthrew the Emperor Haile Selassie – were popular with most people because they reformed the land tenure system and controlled food prices. But clearly this was another case in history of a revolution devouring those it was originally intended to serve.