Chesa writes about Addis:

"i do want to tell you about our full day and night 20 hours in
Addis Ababa.  We arrived from long flights thru Rome at 9am and had 3
wonderful friends of an Ethiopian class mate of mine waiting for
us at the new modern huge air[port.  They all spoke very good English
and had been loaned cars from the National University to take us around
for the day.  We dropped our things at the Hilton where Ethiopian Air
gave us layover rooms and were off on a whirlwind which did not stop
until we crawled onto the plane at 3:55 AM the next morning.

We all fell in love with Ethiopia and plan to return.

Addis is high, 7,000 ft, with great dry sunshine and vistas.
There are 5 million people in Addis and 68 million in Ethiopia.  In
Ethiopia, there are more than 80 different ethnic groups but the most
amazing to us over the long day was the almost 50/50 Greek Orthodox/Muslim
nature of the population who seem to be highly secular as well as quite
religious and thoroughly integrated and cooperative.  Most of
the ethnic groups are represented in Addis as is clear from dress,
physique, etc but the main language is Amharic.  Life expectancy
is 41, and street children, disabled homeless, and prostitutes are a
constant reality.  But of course Addis has its share of Mercedes, Land
Rovers and luxury hotels and sees itself as the center of African
economic union.  The guides told us that the US embassy has over 1,000
people // dealing with terrorism in the region *Sudan, Somalia, Yemen
etc.

First we went to the national university and museum, which used
to be the site of Emperor Haile Selasie's palace and were we saw his
bed, his toilet and bathroom and his clothing.  We also got a brief
introduction to ethiopian history. The university is lovely and filled with
gardens, on a high hill.    We met the vice/chancellor of the faculty of
law, who studied in chicago at Northwestern.  In the front of the
museum/palace is a sculpture of 14 curving cement stairs
reaching up and going nowhere.  Each stair represents one year of Italian
fascist occupation.  

Then we went to one of Africa's largest markets, the Mercado
where we were promptly overwhelmed and bought almost nothing.  It is like
China in the bargaining, like La Marketa in Nueva York, like none of
those. We were surprised not to see food, and much was t/shirts etc.
Lovely fabric.

We went to Trinity Church, where Haile Sellasie and his whole
family are buried.  It and the gardens are lovely with a strange
juxtiposition of stained glass windows of a white Jesus and colleagues, and
Ethiopian nationalism in the person of Sellasie.  The church itself in
terms of both appearance and practice shows the influence of Islam,
Judiasm and Rastaffarian as well as Christianity  // for example there were
stars of David on the ceiling, the lion of Judah is a prominant symbol
throughout, and people are on their knees in a Muslim/like
prayer prostration.  All visitors take off shoes, as in mosques.  In
spite of all this, it is an orthodox Christian church.

We went to a coffee service, with cardamom, some drank beer of
every type.  We talked about the world.

Then we went to a dinner, a huge ethiopian traditional feast at
a tasteful, out of the way, beautiful indoor outdoor restaurant
where we ate wildly thinking of Ficre and danced until the wee hours to
outstanding traditional music from multiple ethnic traditions.
The music and dance were unlike anything we had ever seen, rhythmic
movement focusing on neck, shoulders and chest, with minimal
interest on hips and legs.  The musician, especially the drummer, and the
singers, were world class.  They kept us going even tho we had
not slept the night before. After most of our crew went to the hotel
to sleep for a couple hours before our flight to rwanda, i decided
to stay out and party with our guides, so they took me to two more
bar/clubs and we got to dance and drink ethiopian style all night long. It
was unreal.

We arrived in Rwanda at 5 in the morning, dazed and confused to
say the least.   But hard to miss the stark contrast.  The air here is
heavy with  tropical humidity, the green is lush and lavish, and the
present history is palpable /  at least to me."