ETHIOPIA & PRESIDENTIAL ADVISOR
9156 OU30 - Ethiopia - Guesthouse
In Ethiopia, we stayed in the Ghion hotel for the best part of two years. We then we moved to our own government guesthouse.
This was a quite luxurious house. I imagine it had been the house of a government minister in the previous Derg administration. It had two bedrooms, one of which was very occasionally used by other visitors. My bedroom was self-contained and had an ensuite bathroom. It was very comfortable indeed, and had a television, though the English language broadcast only accounted for one hour every evening. I was, incidentally, disappointed that the broadcasting was so parochial. The news items were always of ministers doing this, opening that, and especially of Meles greeting visitors. But when I got home and watched our own television news I realised that most television around the world is very parochial indeed -- global news stories rarely dominate the headlines.
In the context of these meetings with other world leaders, Meles used to go out to greet these VIP visitors at the airport. His cavalcade used to roar down the dual carriageway outside our new offices. The procession was very impressive; with beautiful, classic US cars. Meles favoured (and I coveted) a beautiful 1960s American limousine. All these, of course, were armoured, but they were also accompanied by motorcycle outriders and technicals. All this happened with horns and sirens blaring and with the carriageway sealed off all the way to the airport. It was very impressive, exactly as it was meant to be.
I once asked Meles why he went through this rigmarole. It was some time since the end of the war, and I thought it wasn't that dangerous for the people to come in unaccompanied -- though not long afterwards the Egyptian President was nearly assassinated on his way in. Meles said, quite simply, "I don't need it, but it is what they expect. They are used to having the full royal treatment, and I simply can't deny them that. The real advantage for me is that that I get half an hour or so in the car with them in each direction; uninterrupted by anyone else. That's when we do our business. The rest of the time we are constantly interrupted by our aides and in particular by the press”. It gave me a new perspective on diplomatic relations.
Returning to the guesthouse, downstairs there was a hall and lounge, though I never used that, and a large dining room. In the dining room we had a very large table, which must been able to seat 15 to 20 people. I sat in the lonely isolation at one end of this, while my steward produced the food. I had a full complement of servants which, I suppose, amounted to three or four in total. Some of these did the cooking, others the laundry etc. I suppose you might think this was a luxurious way of life, but as they didn't speak any English, it really did not add that much to my comfort. Pat, when she joined me, was horrified to discover that, although they proudly had possessed a heated tray for the meals, it was never used and the food was lukewarm when it arrived. More to the point was that was how Ethiopians preferred to eat their food.
Breakfast was usually some form of fruit, typically mango, together with coffee and western bread. In the evening it was usually some form of Ethiopian stew, which was slightly strange but quite edible. With this we always had their Ethiopian bread, called Indira. This was made from a cereal called Tef, and was cooked on a large skillet - so that it was very thin and rubbery. The bubbles in it gave it the texture of foam rubber. In actual fact it was quite edible, with a rather vinegary taste. The only problem was that, eating it day after day, it ultimately became quite boring.
For lunch, by myself in the office, I used to just have a Pot Noodle or an instant soup - which I brought in from the UK. The diet was, for once, good for my figure.
Prior to this time we had been based in different suites of offices at various locations in the government compound. Eventually, though, they moved us out of the compound to the building next to the guesthouse; which was an annex for the Prime Minister's office. It was directly opposite the entrance to the Hilton hotel.
What was especially useful was that I could now walk through gap in the wall from the guesthouse to the office, and vice versa, and occasionally did this during the day. However, I was forced to accept the ceremonial whereby my chauffeur picked me up in the morning from outside the guesthouse and drove round the block to deposited me at the office. It was nonsensical, but at least he had something to do. The rest of the day he used to sit outside in the car, waiting in case I wanted to use my car. Incidentally the car was a Mercedes, which in high-altitude wasn't that powerful. More important it wasn't armoured!
The guesthouse was set in about half an acre of gardens, and -- more unusually -- these were patrolled by a detachment of 20 to 30 troops with Kalashnikovs. I was never certain whether they were there to protect us or to act as backups for the ‘New Palace’ across the road which was used by visiting dignitaries. Whatever the reason, they were still there to protect us. Pat was fascinated to find them following her around the garden as a sort of guard of honour! The only people I think they really protected us from were the prostitutes on the road outside, for it was a favourite pick up point for these -- and at night I could hear them calling out for clients.
Our new offices were in a two-storey building which, as far as I could see, was otherwise almost deserted. But that was all right by me. I used to get my exercise by walking around the hallway which surrounded the inner courtyard. More important, I had my own private loo, since the Ethiopians were not particularly good in the use of their own ones.
We had a store room for our various bits of equipment and materials, but essentially the facility contained an office for my secretary -- by then I had one -- and a large room for myself. Once more it contained the obligatory massive desk, but this time the chairs were much more like conference room chairs; but that was OK for a teaching environment.
My secretary was very diffident, and for a long time I thought that she was not very bright. However, I eventually found she was very competent and I began to understand the subservient role played by women in their society. I guess she was also employed by the intelligence services. Certainly our calls were monitored, as was our computer. Once I got back to discover that the spooks must have been in over lunch and – caught off guard by my early return - had got the files back in the wrong order!
Myself and the ambassador actually used this as a device. If we wanted to say something to the government which he certainly couldn't say directly, and in addition would even be difficult for me to say, we used to phone each other and have a long conversation about the matter in question. In this way the government there got to know, through the telephone tap, what the British government's position was; without having to worry about the diplomatic niceties.
I used the same technique when politicking raised its head between the ambassador and the OU. I wanted to make certain the government knew that it was the ambassador was causing problems not the OU.
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