Hotel Wanza

As I write, a steady and cadenced rain is falling on our tin roof. I can hear the light swing of Ethiopian pop music coming from the courtyard and the crumpled blankets on our bed are calling me. Our tiny room, which was clean just yesterday, is draped in melting clothes again and I just finished a very sad book.

Life at the Wanza. When we landed in Addis, it was the middle of the night and we wanted to stay at Pension Rita. It took forever to find it because we weren’t privy yet to the street name people actually use (completely unlike the one on the map), but our gentle taxi driver persevered and got us there. He knocked, someone came out after several minutes, but there were no rooms available… so with limited options and a tired driver, we looked across the street and saw a darkened sign: “Wanza Hotel.” Perfect. We knocked on the gate, a kid in a hood came out and said, “It’s your lucky night, we have one room left.”

That was the beginning. We thought we’d only stay here a couple of days, until we found an apartment better suited for a long-term stay, but that turned out to be harder than we thought. So, after a while, we gave up and decided to make the Wanza our home. Teddy, the owner’s son is always smiling, the price is right, the location is stellar, and a footprint on the wall never hurt anyone. Ok, there’s also some gum on the wall, two prominent crevices, a creature or two behind the toilet, and the other night when it rained hard, we slept with a bucket beside the bed to catch the leak. But otherwise, life is pretty shiny here, it feels like a neighhbourhood pub and the colourful characters make it home.

Korom, I love him. He’s one of the watchmen and he lives in a little shed by the gate. Every single morning, he beams me this crazy wide smile and does a little happy dance, waving his hand with glee. He thinks he speaks some English, but I don’t ever understand what he says, so our communication is based on really good handshakes, a lot of laughing and affectionate tilts of the head. There’s a second watchmen as well, he’s the kid in the hood who answered the knock that first night. He speaks better English than Korom and is equally lovely, but I’ve forgotten his name and I’m too embarrassed to ask again. The waitresses in the restaurant at the front are slow, and one of them is painfully blank, but the new guy who works the macchiato machine would thaw coldness in any passerby. Lena, who cleans the rooms, has a tender round face, shining eyes and a great sense of humour. Yesterday, I was about to walk into our room with my muddy shoes on and she yelled from across the courtyard: “NO!!!”

But the guests, they take the cake. The first one we met was John, a beefy American here to pick up his “wife.” He’s a merchant seaman who, while docked in Djibouti for a few days, spotted a young 19-year-old girl selling Fanta and decided to chat her up. They were immediately engaged, and when we met him, he was here dealing with the visa paperwork at the U.S. embassy to whisk her back with him. There’s also these two beautiful, very dark-skinned men from Sudan. I don’t know why they’re here, but they hang out in the restaurant all the time, crossing their exceptionally long legs and drinking tea. The Norwegian guy, Tomas, is affable enough, but a bit strange. He’s been here a long time, almost as long as us, and for a while he had this very skinny, high-heeled Ethiopian lady staying with him, but now she’s gone and he has a terrible sunburn. The room next to ours is occupied by the lovely Abdullah. He has to be about 75 years old and lounges around in his white nightgown a lot. He’s a former government minister in Sudan and is currently on a freelance translation assignment for the U.N. Abdullah is sweet-tempered, highly educated, and he always shares his whisky with us. I never thought I’d drink that stuff straight, but when Abdullah serves it to me, I love it.

Out the gate and in the square mile surrounding the Wanza, there’s a whole rainbow of other shades. There’s a young woman, no more than 18 years old, living in the rubble of the alley behind us with her two absolutely gorgeous children. They squeal and run to us every time we walk by, and the other day, the little one latched onto Lionel’s leg and wouldn’t let go. I will forever be smitten with them, but they break my heart and I have to bite down on my lip when I give them a hug. Our favourite taxi driver hangs out by the door and pounces on us as soon as we walk out, but when we say, “We’re walking today, Mustafa”, he says, “That’s ok, next time!” Up the street, there’s a DVD stall run by a giggly 20-something and I always come back from there drowning in envy of her glorious hair.

The first few weeks we were here, I was hit three times. One of the old homeless men in the neighbourhood must have taken a dislike to me because he grabbed me by the neck one day and squeezed hard. Lionel f-re-a-k-e-d out and pulled him off me, but two days later, he did it again. And then a few days after that, he punched me in the shoulder. I haven’t seen him in a while, and I’m thrilled about it, but mostly for his sake. Lionel has vowed to wind up and sock the poor old man in the jaw if he comes near me again… and although I doubt Lionel would ever do that, it sure wouldn’t be good for anybody.

We don’t have a kitchen here, of course, so we’re eating out all the time and we have our favourite haunts. One of them is The Jewel of India, a restaurant that would rival anything back home, and it’s a 10-minute walk from the Wanza. One night, on our way there, we saw a dog get hit by a car. Lionel yelled, “Don’t look!”, but it was too late… I heard a thump, a yelp, and then I watched this poor thing hobble across the street dragging his broken hind legs. I was devastated and a woman in front of me thought that was funny. I went to look for him but he had disappeared by the time we crossed the street. Lionel convinced me someone had picked him up, but I think he had found some place to hide and was suffering alone. I was pretty shaken up, but we managed to have dinner and things were ok again… until we got to the same corner on the way back. While looking out for traffic, I almost stepped on something. I looked down and saw it was a small child with polio hobbling across the street, sliding his hands on the pavement, dragging his twisted legs behind him just like I’d seen the dog do…

I tell you, some days, I’m just down for the count. But this is life. And this is life at the Wanza.

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 14th, 2007 at 3:44 pm and is filed under She Said. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site. Add to del.icio.us.