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The sun is rising over Addis Ababa, bringing light to a purple night. Skirts and scarfs bounce right above the floor as a group of women walks by me. The colorful patterns wave, dispersing color in the floor of mud and sand. The smell of corn and smoke arise, mixing with the scent of garbage deposited in the stream nearby. Buildings in construction cover the landscape of Addis Ababa – “New Flower” in Amharic. Signs with an architect’s sketch and the name of the Chinese company who is building it stand proudly on the same fragile wall some people temporarily constructed their house in. It has a number on it. It has families inside. Right next to the construction, a sign of progress, sign of infrastructure, there are families who are not going to be able to live there once the building is finished. Inside the walls I can hear a rooster, screaming that morning has arrived. In the muddy streets of the capital of one of the oldest lands occupied by men, I wonder whose “New Flower” it is. How does it feel to witness all this foreign investment? Will Ethiopians be a part of it, or just watch on the side-lines, as “progress” parades through their door? Determined to interact with people outside of touristic comfort, I started to mostly walk in my outings through Addis. Here, it is impossible not to notice the people who walk barefoot through the muddy streets, pointing at their mouths when they see you. There are loads of children offering to clean your shoes for a couple of Birr. Irkata, - I’m sorry – I mutter, unable to explain why I’m here and they are there. Anthropology teaches: the first step to try to help in some way is to respectfully look, to notice, to stare, even if it hurts. So I stare and it hurts. The comfort of my condition bleeds out of me every day here. It turns my luck into responsibility and my efforts to see into my one weapon to avoid the blindness that affect most of those who look at the poor from the outside. With time, I started to recognize faces. The man in the parking lot who waves and calls me “Japanese” (I don’t get it either), the guy at the cafe who waves repeatedly and enthusiastically, the armed guard who waves at my spirit saying “Salam”. My spirit acknowledges him and his AK-47. Hello to you too. One of the faces in the crowd is Maza’s. Maza is an 18-year-old girl. Her English is as good as my Amharic. Our interaction consists of us smiling at each other and pointing at things we like. Her necklace, my necklace. The plastic bottles she ties to the bottom of her house to collect water from the rain, the scar I have on my right hand. On the first time we spoke, after days of waving at a distance, I put my hand forward to shake hers. I felt connected to her, I felt for a while like I understood her more. Her hand approached bringing a wave of guilt as I saw that her hand and arms were covered in dark bubbles and scarred tissues. “You know nothing” – I thought, speaking to me in the third person, trying to distance myself from me and the fact that I hesitated before shaking Maza’s hand. The difference between the opportunities I had and she had was clear as the coats of the thousands of doctors who took care of every sore throat, every flu, every symptom I’ve ever had. Irkata, Maza. Irkata. At day’s end, I sat on the floor of the parking lot of the Medhane Alem Cathedral, talking to a local economist about his take on the Chinese new silk route. A priest walks past us, gives my friends their blessing, goes to the ground, picks up a rock and brings it to my feet for me to sit on. As I see his silent act of kindness towards a stranger, I remember home in the United States and agree with sociologist Bruno Latour: “We were never really modern, were we?”.