Things and stuff – Yohay Elam שטויות בשתי שפות – יוחאי עילם
The highlight of my trip was walking in Ethiopia’s nature. I think that these treks are always the highlights of my trips. It’s always fun walking for a few days, discovering new land by foot, and experiencing the journey with fellow travelers.
The first and major trek was in the Simien mountains, northeast of Gonder, in the Ethiopian highlands. I traveled with 5 of my countrymen to the dramatic mountains, with strange rock formations. I haven’t seen anything similar anywhere else.
I’ve returned from a 3 week trip in Ethiopia – the proudest country in Africa. It was an amazing trip: the landscapes, ancient and unique culture, great coffee and food, and interesting people, though annoying too many times.
This is a snapshot post – only slightly touching each place. It took me a very long time to write this post. Routine life, and non-routine just catches you and doesn’t let go. I’ve been following the American elections, been very active in the local elections, and also work hasn’t been so routine lately. I’ve promised to publish it earlier to several people. Sorry.
Here all the pictures from Ethiopia.
I hope to write more detailed post about specific places, or special stories, but I fear that it’ll also drown…Let’s start
The first impression of Ethiopia was strong – I had a truly great coffee, as I had waited for. Then, Addis Ababa’s market kept it’s promise – many poor people, lots of beggars and many other disabled people. Since I was warned of these sights, I wasn’t overwhelmed. Later, the massive religious celebrations of the Meskel were very impressive
The next thing on the journey was Bahir Dar, on the shores of lake Tana. Aparat from the monasteries and churches on the lake’s islands, the Blue Nile falls were an excellent surprise:
The next part of the trip was the best – a six day trek in the Simien mountains. Their strange shapes, the wild animals, and the experience of trekking together with great people was fabulous., but it was quite cold… I hope to write more about this experience:
Next came some historic cities: Gonder and Aksum. Castles, churches and obelisks dominated the next two days:
Spontaneously, I chose to see the churches of the Tigray region – a combination of walking in the countryside and seeing some ancient churches in remote places, that even demanded some rock climbing.
After a long night in a truck (long story…), I reached Lalibella, the Petra of Ethiopia, with mighty churches carved from one stone. This is the highlight -Saint George:
I then went off my plan, and joined a group that went to an ecological trek in the Mesket escarpment. This was an easy walk, with beautiful views, and comfortable conditions.
After a little bit more time in Lalibella and it’s surroundings, I flew back to Addis and went south to Shashamene, the home of Ethiopia’s Rastafarian community. The museum was very interesting, and so was visiting the community
And at the end of my trip, criss-crossed Addis Ababa, visiting museums, viewing the city from the top and some last minute shopping…
That’s it for now!
Obama made it! I’ve followed the elections throughout the night (here in Israel), and I’m so happy. This is one of the most exciting moments.
He did it with great style: At the time of the writing, he’s leading 349-159 in electors, and 5% in popular votes. Some results are still missing, but there’s no doubt that his victory is huge. A true landslide victory.
I had a few doubts regarding the polls, especially when I’ve seen somewhere the following question: Do you know someone that race influences his decision? A third of the people said Yes. Of course, no one admitted that he’s influenced, but a third of the people “know somebody” like that.
Well, at the end, it didn’t happen. The victory is huge, and the change that will happen in America, and around the world will be very tremendous.
What I expect to see
First, changing the state of mind regarding the economy is major. Even if he fails to provide health care for all Americans, putting this issue high on the agenda will help many Americans.
Another economic change is in tax policy: stating “spread the wealth” doesn’t really comply with the American way (McCain attacked him on this), and getting support for these socialist (god forbid) ideas in the US, will have a huge impact all over the world.
Regarding Iraq, I don’t have great expectations: the direction is outwards anyway. He won’t do it instantly, but it will happen soon.
And the biggest change is of course the color. Everyone talks about it. Obama declared that “Anything is possible“. A black man in conservative America’s White House is truly inspiring for everyone seeking for a positive change around the world.
In the meantime in the middle east
And what impact will it have on Israel? Well, we’re holding elections in three months, and there’s nothing to wait for. Our politicians are bad, boring, and cannot provide or even imagine any positive change. Maybe Obama’s victory will impact the next general elections.
But, in the municipal scene in my beloved Tel Aviv, Obama’s victory can give a push to Dov Khenin, my candidate for mayor. His red-green ideas, his dare to imagine while adopting practical ideas from to make these dreams real and his passionate campaign are somewhat similar to Obama’s way. I hope that Obama’s victory will give a push to our campaign in Tel Aviv, ending on November 11th.
I’m celebrating!
I haven’t been writing too much lately. The main reason was that my site was declared by Google as a “Reported Attack Site”. Well, this was removed after 12 dark days.
This wasn’t due to a political post they didn’t like or something that criticizes them. As I figured it out, it was probably a spam comment that I didn’t delete promptly.This contained some malicious script that pointed to evil sites. After removing the spam comment, I saw that Google visited my site every day, and since the day of being darkened, the malicious script wasn’t found again.
This had an effect on site visitors from Google. According to my statistics (Google Analytics, yep, Google again), about 50% of my visitors come search engines, mostly from Google. It also had an effect on visitors from Firefox who saw a scary message instead of seeing my humble blog.
In terms of traffic, I used to receive about 100 to 120 visitors every day on days that had no posts published on them, and when Google banned me, it got down to around 20 visitors a day. The numbers went up again immediately after the ban was lifted, before I wrote a new post.
You can see below my visitor statistics for August.
The days between August 17 to August 26 are dramatically lower than the rest of the month.
So, I got to see, on my flesh, how Google effectively polices the Internet.
Running 10,000 meters isn’t easy. It takes a long time to complete and demands a lot from the body. Adding Tel Aviv’s humidity and a stupid race strategy, endurance and suffering are mixed together.
I had trained for the Tel Aviv night run for over a month. My final result in the lab (aka the air conditioned gym) was 53 minutes. I usually started with 4-5 minutes of a slower race, and then accelerate to a steady pace. This allows the body to make an easy transit from anaerobic effort to aerobic effort.
I expected to score the same result also in the field. I assumed that the adrenaline rush would compensate for the strong humidity. Well, I can blame the humidity, but I can mostly blame my bad running strategy.
Seeing about 10K runners and lots of noise, I started the race at a very strong speed, forgetting all my training experience. I finished the first 2K at a pace of 45 minutes per race. I was talking to the people around me, waving to the bystanders and running far away from the pacers that ran at 55 minutes per race.
My race metrics (very nice graph)
After about 3K, I began feeling tired. At such an early stage in the race, the rest became a struggle. I struggled not to walk, struggled not to go to bathroom, and struggled to keep up with so many runners that left me behind.
Well, I passed the test of endurance, and completed the race at 57 minutes sharp. After it was over, I felt great satisfaction and I regained my physical strength.
Finishing the race (I’m in the middle) – video capture
Both images taken from here.
Next time I’ll save my strength and I’ll break the 50 minute mark!