Saturday 30 August 2014

About street races and never ending electricity

Hey you

Imagine you are sitting at home, you’re watching an extremely exciting action movie (with many special effects obtained by FanoFx Productions, a project initiated by a YEEP-team. They plan to produce special effects for Ethiopian movies in cooperation with the film industry) and then – the electricity is gone in the worst possible moment.
That’s a problem a YEEP - group wants to solve in the future. They would like to achieve that people in rural areas are independent from the government and can produce their own electricity. They will offer two possibilities to do so, first, a biogas digester and second, the technology chemo hydropower. Both of them only need simple activities to work, like water or bio mass which is easily available everywhere. Sounds like a plan, doesn’t it?

Now let me introduce the common mode of transport in Hawassa: the Bajaj (pronounce: Batschatsch. You may know them as “Tuk-Tuk”). It is a three-wheeled car (actually it doesn’t deserve to be called a “car”. It resembles more a can) where up to three guests find place. If you prefer a more comfortable ride, share the rear bench seat only with one other person otherwise you will – in fact – feel packed like sardines in a can. The Bajaj are coloured in blue and have no side doors which implies a windy and sometimes rainy ride. The drivers are addicted to street races, I noticed one evening. As a bigger group, we had to organise several Bajaj’ to go to the Haile Resort (a great hotel next to the lake). In the beginning, the drive was quite calm but suddenly he switched the gear and started to rush. We were pushed back in our seats. Despite huge puddles of mud, rather poor visibility and animals crossing the street, he drove like he was being chased by a hippo. We outran the first Bajaj and rushed on. The second one – check. Then we were outrun – the whole scene accompanied by shouting and exaggerated gestures of the drivers.



In case of an emergency (e.g. crashing into a goat) there will be soon an Emergency App called “EthioPanic” available for your mobile phone (until then, try to survive). This is a further business idea I’d like to write about. The Emergency App will be available for mobile phones. It will contain a panic-button which will directly connect you with the police, ambulance, etc. (or the vet – don’t tell me you’ve forgotten the goat?!).

Fortunately, we didn’t need any of those and arrived exhausted and – against our expectations – still alive in the Haile Resort.

Tomorrow more J

Keep smiling (it could be worse – you could be the goat),
Ari




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