Fortified with my first Ethiopian meal I sat in the restaurant to see if Alfa was going to show up. I’d met Alfa the day before when I arrived at the Palm. He had been sitting at a nearby table with two attractive women. The three of them were dressed to kill as so many of the Palm’s customers seemed to be. I never could figure that out. The whole establishment had a very low-class appearance. I would satisfy myself as to that, and then in would walk an elegant couple, he in a good looking suit and she in a stunning dress and draped in understated jewellery. I would look at him (or her) and be unable to imagine them in that lightless toilet where I spent my mornings and evenings crouched and grunting, desperately trying to keep my clothes off the ground and not pee on my feet.

Alfa spoke to me across the space between our two tables. I was still suffering from arrival shock, and I had trouble making sense of our conversation. But then again maybe it wasn’t arrival shock. It seemed to happen all the time in Ethiopia. I’d be having a conversation with someone (I knew I was because our mouths were forming words and the words flew between us) but it often made no sense. I’d furrow my brow and concentrate but be left with the troubling sensation that I didn’t really know what we were talking about. The conversation would drift and weave like an untethered balloon. With Alfa it was more like a blimp in a tornado.

Part of the problem was that in Ethiopia I lacked the usual cues I would use to judge a person’s character. In my home culture, I could instantly size up a person or a group of people and know if they were good people or a rough bunch better avoided. At the very least, I could judge if these were people I would enjoy spending time with, people like me. But in Ethiopia, with no basis on which to judge, I didn’t know how to respond when someone like Alfa came along.

My instincts told me to stay away from him. I don’t know why. It was just something in the way he held himself, the vague way that he spoke. But he was friendly and well-dressed and it seemed rude to reject his friendly overtures out of hand. After all I’d just arrived in Ethiopia. I certainly didn’t want to start off by cutting myself off from opportunities unnecessarily.

Suddenly the door opened and Alfa popped into a chair across from me. He wasn’t at all like I remembered. Totally bald head with big ears and big eyes. Chomping on a big toothpick. Gold chain around his neck. Slick clothes. We had trouble striking a friendly tone. He just seemed to be looking me over like a cat studies a goldfish. But I went with him out into the city.

Instantly, we were surrounded by the crowds of young boys that hung out just outside the Palm. Most of them were shoe shine boys living on the street. They made their way through life shining shoes and running errands for anyone who would give them a few coins. They were masters at their trade, and they became a staple of my day-to-day existence. One of their particular talents was to create work where there was no work before. They’d descend on you if you looked like you might have some money to spend, read your movements and know what you were going to do before you did. Then they’d rush in and do it for you in the hopes of a tip.

Anyone parking a car was sure to have a dozen of them standing around importantly giving incomprehensible directions. Drivers obeyed their signals at their own peril. What always struck me was the dignity that they brought to this work. They struck poses as confident and commanding as any doorman at a world class hotel. The illusion of authority was perfect, and it was impossible not to believe that they owned this particular piece of the road and that you indeed owed them payment of some kind. When a driver did not tip them, they never lost control and abused him. They kept their air of authority and gave the aggrieved impression the driver was a cheap bugger depriving a simple worker of his rightful payment.

I never did get to know this ragamuffin army outside the Palm very well. There were simply too many of them. But they certainly came to know me and claimed pride of ownership. I was their pet foreigner and was greeted with ecstatic cries of “Mr. Douglas, Mr. Douglas” every time I cycled past. They had their own grapevine and in the weeks ahead I was constantly surprised to find that some young shoe shine boy living on the far side of Addis knew my name and where I was living.

They couldn’t offer to help park my bicycle, but they were quick to grasp the need to ‘guard’ it. I’d appoint one boy out of the dozen who surrounded me as the official guard. If I didn’t, I’d be faced with the entire dozen demanding payment. The guarding was, of course, mostly in the imagination. If anything, I needed a guard to protect my bicycle from the guards I was paying. It was never long before they discovered the tiny bell on the handlebars and a continuous chorus of sharp dings assured me that at least the bike was still there. I learned to judge the tone of the dinging, and when it became frantic I knew things were getting out of control and I’d have to return to settle the boys down. If I didn’t, I’d find the gears totally out of alignment, the mirror facing backwards and worst of all, the cables being pulled like rubber bands.

One of the Palm’s older resident shoe shine boy/hustlers fell into step with Alfa and me as we walked up the street. He was upset over something and spoke in a loud voice to Alfa, pointing at me and then pointing emphatically back at the Palm Hotel. Alfa spoke back sharply. They argued hotly and then the boy left us.

I asked Alfa what that was all about. He said that the shoe shine boy thought Alfa was a dangerous person. He was insisting that Alfa bring me back to the Palm and leave me alone. This took me aback. “Are you a dangerous person?” I asked him. It seemed a good opening for him to respond with some humour. But he simply replied “no” without a hint of a smile. I was getting more and more nervous. Something about him set off alarm bells but I couldn’t be sure.

We walked to the corner and turned left past the OAU (Organization for African Unity) building. This whole time, Alfa wasn’t saying very much. I asked him what he did for a living and he replied “Nothing.” I probed further, looking for some humour or small talk but found none.

We crossed over a small river and ended up at Abiot Square, one of the huge intersections that I had encountered the day before when I’d cycled from the airport. Only one day had passed and already it had a familiar feel to it. Astonishing that just the previous morning it had been so foreign and confusing.

I asked Alfa where we were going and he waved further and mumbled something about a taxi. Then out of the blue he said, “In Ethiopia there are many girls.” Pause. “They like white men.”

He said this just as we reached a group of taxis. He put a hand on my back and rather roughly tried to push me inside one of them. By then I was thoroughly spooked and pulled back. I felt silly doing it and a little embarrassed, but I didn’t know how else to react. Alfa simply refused to respond in any way that would give me some firm foundation for understanding the situation.

On the one hand, he could have been a perfectly nice, perfectly normal guy and we could have been on the way to his family’s home where his mother had prepared a big meal for the foreign guest. On the other hand he could have been a con man of some variety setting me up for something awful. Most likely he was a pimp hustling a customer. I simply couldn’t be sure. “Traveller as child” is all well and good, but it doesn’t mean you have to be a stupid and gullible child.

When I pulled loose and retreated from the taxi, I spoke to Alfa and tried to explain what was bothering me. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings in case he was just this nice, normal guy. I tried to explain that I was new in Ethiopia and that I was a bit nervous about where we were going. I left the door wide open for him to rush in and reassure me but he did nothing of the kind. Just chewed on his toothpick and looked me up and down. I told him I’d changed my mind, shook his hand, and left.

I never saw him again but this little escapade had repercussions for days and weeks to come. I heard one story that the people at the Palm were upset with me because I had gone to look at another hotel, the one supposedly belonging to Alfa’s family. I had been accepted into the Palm family and I was betraying them by rejecting their hospitality. I heard another story that Alfa was a well-known pimp and criminal, and the fact that I’d gone with him had lowered my reputation with the people at the Palm. They’d thought I was a gentle, soft-spoken, nice man and then on my first day in Addis I link up with a notorious hood. What were they to think?

Tags: Ethiopia, Ethiopia Bike Trip, Palm Hotel