It was a shower and shave day for me and I steeled myself for the shock and plunged my head under the ice-cold water. The flow of water was very meagre on top of being refrigerated, which made it even more of a shock. A heavy flow would mean I could leap in and out quickly. With the irregular drip I had to contort my body around to wash off all the soapsuds. Even then I generally discovered a hidden patch of suds that I missed after I’ve climbed out of the tub.

The bathroom monster was active, battering against the door and trying to rip it off its hinges despite my obvious cries of occupancy. I’d noticed that neither customers nor family used the latch that I’d put on the door. I continued to hear them bursting in on each other and apologizing profusely. Perhaps no one had noticed my latch and the bathroom monster was only assuming the door must be jammed. I could see the monster outside the door roaring with rage and pulling at the door. It hears my voice and stops. “What’s that?” it thinks. “Must be the wind.” And it renews its attack on the door.

The sink was still plugged, which made shaving and brushing my teeth take longer than normal as I had first to empty the nighttime water from the sink into the tub. The whole process struck me as ludricous. The sink functioned as just a basin except it weighed a hundred pounds and was attached to the floor so you couldn’t just empty it like you would a plastic basin. To avoid having to bail out the sink a third time (first to start, second after shaving, third after brushing my teeth) I spat out my toothpaste foam into the toilet, which happily was flushable. I just had to be careful not to breathe at the same time or I ended up gagging and spitting foam all over the outside of the toilet, which meant I had to clean it up for the second time (the first time to remove all the urine from previous drunken users) and meanwhile the bathroom monster was still pounding away. I tried to hurry, but this bathroom imposed certain limits on how efficiently or quickly a person could move.

It was a shower and shave day because I had tickets to the premiere of the film “Endurance” showing at the Sheraton on the opening night of the European Film Festival. “Endurance” is based on the life story of Ethiopian athlete Haile Gebre Selassie. I didn’t plan on going mainly because the 150-birr ticket price was outside my budget. But when I walked into the luxurious Sheraton I went a bit crazy and thought I was Rockefeller or something.

The Sheraton Addis was very new with parts still under construction. It was billed as the most luxurious hotel in East Africa. I approached the entrance gate on my bicycle right behind a Mercedes. The guards raised the gate for the Mercedes and gave the occupants a snappy salute. I got the salute too, plus a smile and a thumbs-up.

At the doors a uniformed man took hold of my bike with white-gloved hands and rolled it off gently to the side. My bag was x-rayed as always and I had to walk through a metal detector, but this time there was no body search.

Looking around the lobby and at the scale model of the entire complex I was reminded of the boy in Spielberg’s “Empire of the Sun” trying to entice Basie, the Amercian drifter, with visions of profit to be had in looting the abandoned homes of the British ex-pats in Shanghai. “Opulence. There’s opulence.”

Opulence indeed.

Ticket sellers for the film festival had set up a table and under the spell of all this money where everything seemed possible, I casually handed over 300 birr for two tickets. At the bookstore a beautiful woman speaking perfect English continued the spell and I bought a picture book of Ethiopia for 150 birr, which I had rejected just the previous day as too expensive.

The book I bought was the “Spectrum Guide to Ethiopia”, which was geared towards people who can afford to actually stay at places like the Sheraton. It had no hard travel information but had many beautiful pictures and some cultural and historical essays. I was glad I bought it because the pictures alone would entice me to visit parts of the country I might otherwise not have known about. In fact looking through this book made me very eager to set off.

Abiy came by the Tiru Gondar around 6:00 for what was fast becoming our traditional coffee and conversation. At first he was reluctant to accompany me to the movie, but when he learned I’d already bought the tickets he said yes. 150 birr was a lot of money for both him and me, but the proceeds went to a charity working with displaced Ethiopians.

Tags: East Africa, Ethiopia Bike Trip, European Film Festival, Haile Gebre Selassie, Tiru Gondar