Never Thought I Would Say This About Ethiopia!

                          

 

I never thought I would say this but my trip to Ethiopia was excellent. Our opinions change as we get older so I guess that why what I believe about Ethiopia suddenly changed. I had a bad experience when I was 9 there so I hated the place ever since. What made the difference this time was that my mother and many of my good friends were with me on this trip.

The trip was tiring due to the amount of time it took to get there, but it was great besides that! We sang, screamed, and took pictures on the road there. On our way there, I was anxious. I was very nervous about the SAT which ended up NOT being as bad as I thought. As we get there everything was different. People, buildings, roads were all different than we normally see in Somaliland, which I found extraordinary.  

We had an average first night at Diridhawa and continued our actual trip to Addis, the capital of Ethiopia, at 4:30 in the morning. It was an 11 hour ride. As we get there we went to 3 different hotels and refresh ourselves with worm baths. We then went out for a lunch at a restaurant that wasn’t that far. We took the Friday off since we were taking the SAT’s the next day.

Because I heard a lot about the way the SAT’s in America were done. We were all very nervous. Our teachers tell us that we shouldn’t do anything that would seem suspicious which could be mistaken as cheating like stretching. We were very naïve about the whole examination thing so we did as our teachers told us. Unfortunately, all the other kids who we were taking the exam were cheating.  That was unfair to everyone else who was taking that exam. That act of insincerity made us all unhappy with the test supervisors. I even found myself in the middle of section, a bit absentminded because I was thinking of ways to punish the cheaters and the supervisors too.

Overall, it was fine experience. We had some good food, went shopping and most importantly had a lot of fun with friends who we aren’t going to see each other a year from now. Wherever you go, there will always be something that will disappoint you but you should always focus the good parts because that’s the way life works.