Escape From Ambo

by Jenna Flogeras (Germany)

A leap into the unknown Ethiopia

My stomach started to grumble in that familiar, ominous way after my hike in Wenchi, and a restless sleep — interrupted by quality toilet time — didn’t offer much relief. I had been hoping to get away with not getting sick, but those hopes were quickly dashed four days into my trip.   So, while I still had some untapped energy left in the tank (basically my fuel was the burning desire to leave Ambo) and an empty stomach (I felt like even a crumb of injera would quickly end up in the toilet), I was eager to continue my journey west and leave on a bus heading to Nekemte ASAP.   I could not leave Ambo fast enough, but the town conspired against me.   A thunderstorm had passed through the previous night and left the town without power. I was keen to catch an early morning bus, but two parallel inconveniences delayed my escape: the ATMs at the banks were offline due to the power outage (I needed cash for my bus ticket), and no one seemed to know what happened to the laundry I had dropped off at the reception desk the day before, which I was assured would be ready for that morning.   After getting the runaround from the hotel clerk, I was directed to a very confused cleaning lady, eventually ending up back at the reception desk where I started.   I resorted to Endale, the hotel manager, to locate my laundry bag, and he found it exactly where another hotel clerk had left it the day before—at the reception desk, of course—still full of dirty clothes.   I had already paid for the clothes to be washed, but not caring much about 100 birr and desperate to get the hell out of Dodge at this point, I stuffed my dirty clothes into my backpack and headed on foot to the bus station (luckily, the ATMs were back online).   Locating a minibus to Nekemte from Ambo at the station was easy enough, but the driver insisted on packing it beyond capacity, as is customary in Ethiopia, so it wasn’t exactly the speedy getaway I was hoping for. My stomach groaned in discontent.   Just when I thought we were “full,” passengers continued to trickle into the minibus, a few of the latecomers piling onto the laps of other passengers. One woman vehemently protested when the driver demanded she make room for yet another passenger (when there was clearly no room).   They argued back and forth for a good five minutes, and the driver eventually got his way, the woman resigning herself to an unwanted lapmate. When we departed about a half hour after I got on board, I was already ready to get the hell off.   The lone foreigner, I was sandwiched in the middle of the very back row between three other passengers. To add to my comfort level, my back was pressed against the junction between two seats, forcing me to awkwardly shift my body sideways to make myself fit into this grotesque human puzzle.   I had the feeling I would become an expert contortionist before this trip was over.   Making matters worse, my aching stomach added another element of danger to the ride. Every bump off the seat and sudden jolt — and there were many — made my bowels churn.   As the late morning sun began to set in, my seatmates’ arm sweat soon became acquainted with my own, eliminating what microscopic barrier existed between us (just when I thought it couldn't get more intimate). Despite my intermittent requests to open a window, no one budged — or the more likely case, physically could not budge — so, just like the disgruntled woman seated in front of me, I resolved to accept defeat. "At least you don't have a lapmate," I said to myself, proud of finding a silver lining in the heat of the moment.    When the van finally rolled into Nekemte a few hours later, I snapped myself out of my dehydrated, traumatized trance and reconfigured my body to its normal human state. I was really looking forward to that quality toilet time.