From Addis to Arba Minch, at last!

After one month in Addis Ababa, today, at last, I flew to Arba Micnh. Our 50-place Fokker departed on time form Addis Ababa Bole Airport at 13.50. A first passengers' stop in Jimma after thirty minute and than, at 15.35, we safely landed in Arba Minch.

It was nice and sunny, nothing to do with Addis Ababa, where the rainy season in hitting heavily and it is cold and humid (for those who do not know Addis Ababa lies at an altitude between 2300 and 3000 asl. This can make it quite chilly in the evening).

At the airport I was waiting for the luggage while sending sms and emails. Time passed, the luggage of all the passengers were waiting outside and nobody was there to put them on the rolling band. I do not know who started, when and how, everyone went to collect its own piece of luggage outside. I did the same. Airport people around there were not happy, but they did not stop us. May be someone paid for this.

Outside I expected many minibus-like taxis proposing me to go to the center. Instead, there were only the cars of the hotels, private cars and so-called Bajaj, a Ape Piaggio-style tricycle motorbike used as taxi. I had no choice than taking one of those, but I did not want with all the luggage I had. Moreover, they asked me 100 birr. I activated my circle of people I know in Arba Minch. I called Samuel, an ex-student of mine, who said would come with a taxi. In the meantime a guy I knew, Mamo, came to me. He works for the Catholic Mission and was there with a car collecting two dutch visitors. I went with him.

I knew that car very well. I drew it during the fieldwork period among the Ongota in which Robert Weijs and I made some shootings for the documentary we plan to finish on the death of this language. The trailer is on youtube (search for Graziano Ongota). This is one of the many examples of help that I received from the Irish priests of this mission. They are special. No priests devoted primarily to evangelisation. Their main aim it to help concretely and help everyone, also researchers like me.

I am staying at the Forty Spring Hotel, opened two months ago by Oliver Ryan, an ex-priest of the mission. Wonderful guy. I had some good time chatting with him. Samuel joined us. He came to visit me. We talked about my stay and I could help him with his corpus of a variety of the Gamo language spoken in the area. The documentation of this language is the topic of his PhD thesis. We'll meet tomorrow afternoon to talk about that. The main problem he wants to solve is the synchronisation of audio and video recordings. Using a video and an audio device together is crucial to guarantee good and uncompressed audio quality. So far I have used ELAN to do that, but not always I was successful. Working on the problem with Samuel will help me understand better how it works.

Samuel also gave me a good news. The local authorities, including those of Mirab Abaya, the small town hosting the municipality to which the Bayso and the Haro belong to, will be coming to an open meeting on Sunday in Arba Minch. They will talk about language and culture diversity in the area. It is a good occasion to let myself known both as a specialist in the issue and as the responsible for the project. I got letters of introduction from the Institute of Ethiopian Studies that I look forward to show to get support and assistance.

This is already getting very exciting! But the best is still to come....Follow me!