Addis Window

Car wheels on the wet tar recreate the sound of rain. Arabic Muslim prayers from a nearby Mosque slightly over power Chris Brown and Jordan Sparks old hit “No Air”, creating a strange symphony. Breaks screech and hooters toot incessantly. Rumbles of thunder cause the glass to vibrate and the broken door to rattle on its hinges.  Shouts echo as they climb the twirling staircase.

I get up to look outside and gaze along the green and grey corrugated iron roofs rusting in age. The rain has made puddles and a slush-puppy of rubbish and mud all along the gutters. Umbrellas are out and people run from covering to covering. The standard half white half blue taxis dominate the road, each with a different sticker on the back; usually religious or supporting some football club.

The rain starts up again, harder this time, and it’s pattering on the tin drowns out most of the noise except my Arabic backing track. A rude bus horn twice disturbs my solitude. Across the road begins a vast shanty town; a jagged desert of tin roofs that continue for miles until a foresty hill covered in grey mist begins. More and more houses, like cans of baked beans on a fire with holes poked in them, begin to let out pillars of wood-smoke, obscuring my view of the distant pallid Mosque.

Everything now seems grey except for a light blue shack selling bottled water and a red and yellow striped tavern branded by the local ‘St. Georges’ beer, ironically a biblical figure. Other than these a fruit store and a shop selling bright pink and green doors are the only stationary objects that add colour to my scenery. Occasionally a person skipping across my slice of Addis adds a brush of colour to the window painting.

This centre of Addis, Marketo Sub City, is a true slum of Africa. Life is hard and stops for nothing. Yet still, the difficulties of day to day living have not stolen the joy that is evident in the brief interactions between its rain dodging inhabitants. Even from my elevated view I can see the smiles and cheerful eyes.

When the sun comes out, noise will increase, shouts will flood through my now quietened window and the streets will fill up as the bustling trading will once again seize to life. Masses of people will paint the grey into an ever changing kaleidoscope of colour.