Oh, I forgot to tell you something! Yesterday evening, while I was preparing my clothes for the day after, I just realized I forgot something really important, especially for your 1st day of work…: some shoes! I can’t tell you how stupid I was feeling. I finally decided (it was the best solution) to wear my leather sandals; if you don’t look at my heels, it does not show a lot.
Charles couldn’t manage to sleep last night. I was wondering if I should wake him up, as we were supposed to be at work in 30 minutes.
We packed our stuff, the fastest we could, and Miriam, Habiba’s collaborator (Habiba is going to be responsible of our internship management for the 3 next months) was already downstairs, right on time, waiting for us. So for our first day we were driven to the African Union, which was actually just 200 meters far from the hotel.
After having worked all day long, up to 6 pm, we took our trekking backpacks, and then we went back on the road. The owner of the “hotel de France” had told us that he had negotiated a good price and booked a new (and cheaper!) room in another hotel, called “Honeymoon”… This new hotel was even closer to our workplace.
So we were supposed to rent a room for 15 USD (each one of us) that night. When we arrived, the “hotel de France” was not with us, so the staff of the Honeymoon tried to charge us more than it. An hour-long negotiation session followed that, with the staff, and then with owner (in fact he was just his son), and finally with the owner. This man was totally awesomely dressed. Imagine us! 2 tired boys coming to an hotel to rent a very basic (see the picture) room are standing in front of a tall old Ethiopian man, wearing a pink suit and sunglasses… We felt that we were disturbing him, as we could hear the sound of the television in his house. He asked us: “What can I do for you?”. After hearing that we wanted the 2 rooms for the price which was planned initially, he just came back into his house; so we were facing his son again.
I have to confess that I LOVE to bargain. The longer it lasts, the happier I’ll be, and the worthier the item I’ll buy will be. So I started it. But as the conversation was extending more and more, the owner’s son was really starting to get nervous! He was not able anymore to listen to our argument (and I can tell Charles did his best to explain to that guy!).
Fortunately, after having been quiet during all that time, a member of the staff finally confessed that it was the very price which was initially planned, because he was there when it was said. So that was it, we paid 30 USD, and we went into our room to put our stuff.
The room could be considered as poor (it was small, there was no hot running water, dogs were making noise and fighting all night long, the noise of the electricity generator was making our windows trembling until late night, and so on) BUT it was largely enough for both of us!
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