Tenaystligne! I stepped on the land of Ethiopia for the first time 4 years ago and had 2 wonderful years in Addis Ababa. Of course, the loyal Addis Admass readers may instantly recognize me as a contributor of articles about the hotels and restaurants in Ethiopia.

My writings focused on the poor restaurant service including unfriendly, almost rude waiters and waitresses and those who never take note when taking order, bring something that you didn’t order to your table, and never apologizes about it. I touched the sanitation of restaurants, dirty table, filthy menu, unclean sugar pot, and waiter’s uniform, and sometimes even about an insect or hair in your food.

I also mentioned about stingy restaurant owners who would not place toilet papers in their latrine, underpay their employees, take all the service charges into their pockets, and those who tries to cheats tax by not presenting receipt to the customers.

After 2 years, I am back to Ethiopia and I think this trip has proven for me how much I like living in this country. When I returned to Addis, I was astonished by the rapid changes in the city. Taller buildings, more cars, more people, plenty of billboards on the roads, many goods to buy. Of course I was very excited to see more appealing restaurants and cafes that I had to rewrite my ‘list’ of favourites.

I noticed more people enjoying eating out meaning their tongues become more acute and they become more sensitive toward bad service. In order to satisfy these matured customers and to survive this ever-increasing competition from rising new restaurants, the owners must be forced to offer better service and good quality food.

Indeed, this is a good sign of the development of hospitality industry in Ethiopia. Among all these exciting changes in Addis, what has really surprised me was the dramatic decrease of jeers or “farenji calls” on the streets, which had been the only thing I really hate about this country. I once wrote an article on Addis Admass on this issue.

I like strolling around the town because when you walk you can feel the town itself with your five senses that you would miss out if you are only passing by a car. However, walking around Addis Ababa at that time was a nightmare. Many foreigners were reluctant to take a walk on the streets because they could not do so without being harassed.

As I walked down the street, people made fun of me by shouting in various ways. Typical ones were farenji, kayu (white-skin), China, Korea or Japan. They just expressed what they had seen. Or I will be often called for “money!” or “sister, I am hungry”, or I saw people placing their right hand to the mouth to show they want something to eat they thought foreigners are simply rich people. I could understand if beggars did such things. Amazingly, it is both adults and children who did not look poor ask for money.

And the worst one was those words and phrases out of spite. Some discriminating words for Asians, F words, and others which I do not want to share in this article at all. Sometimes, they even frightened foreigners by saying “get out from Ethiopia!”, “I hate foreigner!” and other hateful words. Even worse, they threw stones at foreigners! (This is true!)

All these jeers irritate, hurt, upset, and often times make foreigners scared of walking down the streets. In fact, I knew someone who had spent most of her days in Ethiopia inside her house because of the jeers

But what has happened to Addis nowadays? Compare to 2 years ago, when in average every 1 out of 10 people on the streets say something to me. Now the number may be reduced to one out of 50 people or more.

Is it as my Ethiopian friends say, the result or indicator of “development”? Is it because the people in Addis are busier nowadays, running to catch crowded minibuses to go home, or thinking something more important than bothering foreigners on the streets? Or did they finally realize that we foreigners are also the same human being as Ethiopians who also be hurt or annoyed by such jeers?

For instance, think of how you as an Ethiopian will feel if you go to another country and called “Ethiopia!”, “Black!”, or other words on the streets. Imagine how you will feel if you are Amhara and called “Amhara!” on the street in unfamiliar town in Ethiopia where there are not many Amharas and people who you do not know at all are shouting at you to “come! (nay!)” or endlessly shouting “you, you, you, you, you…” until you look at them. How do you feel?

I am now happy to see this positive change in Addis Ababa. However, I am now living in Awassa, where I am experiencing the worst. Again, my precious pleasure of walking has been taken away from me. GAhhh!!!

My first impression of Awassa 3 years ago was a relaxing, cosy town with the beautiful lake and birds, where I could have a very pleasant walk around Piassa (city center) after sunset enjoying a nice breeze. The street jeers were much better than Addis at that time. However, something has changed in these few years. Now, every time I walk, I wish if I have earplugs so that I would not be disturbed on the streets and would not feel bad for the rest of the day.

People may think the so-called doriyes (bad teenagers), beggars, or ignorant people are the one who tease me on the streets. If they were ignorant, I could be more tolerance. However, my concern is that most of them are school children, teenagers youth up to around 30s, and middle-aged men who all look normal. Many of them even carry mobile phones.

I am deeply concerned about the jeers with school uniform children from elementary to high school. Whenever they see me on the street, they shout at me saying “you! money!” or try to touch me aggressively. I thought they were in the process of learning morals and sympathy toward others in their school and at home. But… what happened? The youth are also notorious especially when they are in group. They tease me just to have fun.

Yes, males are worse than females. Both young and middle aged men could be even worse than school kids. They sometimes sexually harass female foreigners. Instead of shouting, they whisper when they passes by “do you want to sleep with me?” or says other indecent words.

It’s not only foreign females, but they also victimize Ethiopian, especially young females asking them demeaning and very disgusting questions like “how much are you?”. I also noticed that Ethiopians from minority ethnic groups or those who look different from the majority are also targets of such malicious jeers and harassments.

One can tell that this phenomenon brings to light the dark side of the Ethiopian society, the existence of discrimination and bullying; the existence of people who are not considerate of others feelings. Indeed, those people who disdain others, interestingly, would not jeer to the one who looks stronger than them.

Also, they always make sure that they can run away after teasing somebody that they will do it from inside the car, or with their friends. Some whisper nasty words and quickly pass not to show their face. They do it in such a way that only the victim will hear. For example, they will not tease me when I am with my Ethiopian male friend.

I am sure if one researches about this jeers and harassments on the streets, the findings will be very interesting. I must also add that in Addis, the jeers toward foreigners have been decreased, but I don’t know whether it is the same for these Ethiopian minorities. Nonetheless, we must make sure anybody is able to walk on the street peacefully.

Jeers on the streets are hurting the tourism in this country. By mocking tourists, you are deteriorating the image of your country and that would not attract more tourists. I heard from tourists that Lalibela and other tourist destinations are worse than Awassa. You may have seen tourists followed by 10 children and adult Ethiopians who are after money or just to tease them. You see the tourists perplexed of what to do because they never had such an experience in their country.

The Ministry of Culture and Tourism advertises Ethiopia as a land of hospitality or people with courtesy, but the jeers can be put that image into drain. The frightening thing is that nowadays, these tourists write their horrible experience in Ethiopia on the Internet, which seems the effective way to spread the negative image of this country.

I have already started seeing those negative comments on the Internet. For example, one Japanese traveler who had been cycling around Ethiopia wrote in his blog that everywhere he goes, Ethiopians were shouting at him “you, you, you, you, you, you,…”, “fxxx you!”, “give me caramela”, “give me highland (water bottle)”, “give me money”, etc.

He said people run and follow him, try to grab his bicycle. They not only throw stone, but they throw soil on him as well. So he concludes that these people were like wild animal. He wishes to bring these people to Japan and let them do the same thing. Japanese society will immediately think these people have mental disorders.

This is just an example, but if you browse the Internet, you may find such unfortunate experiences of tourists. Therefore, for the tourist sites, let me suggest something. The Ministry of Culture and Tourism need to take initiative to mitigate this problem by:

1) Increasing public awareness through TV or radio commercial (I will volunteer to be an actress for the part of foreigner being jeered on the street).

2) Asking for cooperation of schools, religious institutes, kebele (sub-cities) and other place where people can be given a sermon on respecting others on the street.

At last, I must reemphasize that I believe most of Ethiopians are courteous and they are very sensitive toward others as I have been so many times moved my heart because of their kindness. I wish these people could stand up against these jeers and harassments. They just have to try to make sure that their family members, community, or friends are not doing such things.