"Sorry, you don't remember, our conversation, just a moment ago?" said a man in a long white gown and big glasses. He scrunched his face up in a confused gaze.
I felt like I'd just awoken from one of those falling dreams, and shuddered so violently that I'd awoken myself. I was lying on a bed, slightly raised, in a stark room, which was glaringly bright. A man was sitting next to me and another, in the long white gown and large glasses, staring over me.
"Where am I?" I asked again, tilting my head to the left, trying to avoid the hard gaze from the doctor, who was still staring over me in his over-sized glasses.
"You don't remember being attacked?" came the reply. Although his face was very close to mine, the voice somehow sounded distant. My ears or my brain or both where having trouble understanding what he was saying.
"I don't remember... I don't know anything" I mumbled in low, child like voice. A slight tremble to it. "What's going on?". I put my hand to my face, where I'd just registered the pain. I touched my right cheek. It felt soft, like the cousins on my parents sofa.
"You was attacked" came the distant voice again "and this taxi driver brought you to hospital. Do you not remember?"
On the way back to Wanza Hotel, where the taxi driver was taking me, I remember very little of the journey. Maybe I was still trying to make sense of what the doctor had told me, or maybe I just slept. I can't recall. Entering the hotel via the back gate, which had been opened by the night watchman, the taxi driver asked for the money that I owed him.
"How much?" I'd asked. He'd replied Birr400 (about $35, which was alot of money in Ethiopia).
"I don't have that much" I'd said, remembering, that I needed to change up more US$ with Teddy on reception. I'd also remembered that this was why I'd walked back from Harlem Jazz, rather than getting a taxi. I spent the last of my money on a couple of beers, and only had about Birr10 left. Not enough for a taxi after 12pm.
I half remember the taxi driver at this point becoming aggressive and the night watchman trying to calm him. I didn't know what was going on, and I certainly wasn't about to start trying to communicate with him, as he became more agitated. So I just said "where's Teddy? I need to speak with Teddy."
After discovering Teddy was not at the hotel this evening, and eventually accepting this new piece of information, from the night watchman in his broken English. The taxi driver becoming more agitated. I tried knocking on Matt's door, hoping he was back from Harlem Jazz, where I'd left him. No answer.
Racking my brains further trying to think of someone that could make sense of this, I remembered the old white Algerian man, who had paid for my drinks the other night. I banged on his door. Please answer, please answer, I kept on saying to myself.
"Who is it?" came a voice from inside the room.
I recognised the voice instantly. "It's Kelvin, the English man" I said. My voice still child like, and trembling. "I need your help. Please can you open the door." I heard the key turn.
"What's happened?" came the familiar voice.
"I was attacked and this taxi man wants money from me." I replied. Now sitting on the small brick wall outside his room. My hands cradling my face, in an attempt to block out the confusing world around me.
Again I remember very little of this conversation. I remember I'm relieved to be talking to a familiar voice finally. I stay in the crouched position on the small brick wall. My hands still cradling my face, trying to block out the world. The familiar voice finally tells me to head to bed. He will deal with the taxi driver, he says.
I can't sleep properly. Every-time I close my eye's visions are appearing. I'm uncertain whether they are real or whether my brain has made them up in all the confusion. This scars me more. I try to make sense of the visions. Trying to remember which ones are real and which I've made up. I slowly begin to put parts of the real visions together. Although they're still very hazy, I begin to remember parts of what had happened.
I remember walking along Bole Road. It must have been around 1:30am, as I'd remembered checking my phone in Harlem Jazz to see what time it was. I'd been tied and I was still hungover from the night before, I recall, as I watched the reggae band on stage. Matt, my Irish friend and Lisa, from Canada, who I'd only met that evening, had left quite a while ago. I'm not sure where. I'd decided to leave. I'd only walked a little way up the road when I saw, Matt and Lisa getting out of a taxi.
"You going?" Matt had asked, as I approached him.
"Yeah man. Still really hungover and tied. Where have you been?"
"Spliff man. Catch you tomorrow" he'd said, as he headed back towards Harlem Jazz with Lisa.
I continued walking. I remember having a few people ask me for money, but this was common in Ethiopia, where everyone expected a handout from the white man. I'd just ignored them and carried on up the street towards Wanza Hotel.
Deeply in my own thoughts, I recall three local men, shorter than me standing in my path ahead. I recall approaching them with the intention of continuing past. Still taking very little notice, and still very much in my own thoughts. This was Ethiopia. A place that prides itself on being very safe, especially where foreigners were concerned. So why should I have anything to worry about?
"Give us all your money" came low toned voices from the dark, as the three blackened silhouettes, surrounded me.
"Sorry? What?" I asked in a confused, slightly startled voice. Just being palled from my thoughts, but not completely.
"I said, give us all your money" came the voices again, as they grabbed my wrists, more for effect that anything, I believed. I still wasn't prepared to believe this was anything more than some people having a laugh. So I tried to break free, but not really worrying to much.
I eventually fell asleep, as I blocked the attack from my mind, instead remembering the nights out with friends in Addis. Going to an NGO party where all the guest had been white, and remembering this was the most foreigners I'd seen since leaving South Africa, nine months ago, and the great Pizza I'd had at the local restaurant, the previous day. The best pizza in Africa.
The following day. Easter Sunday, in the Ethiopian Calendar, I headed to the Police station to make a statement. More for insurance purposes than anything else. I went to two stations. One the local Bole Road station, near where I'd been attacked. The other the Sub-city station, but both gave me the same advice. "It's to much paperwork for us, so we suggest you just forget it."
What could I do. If the police are unwilling to take the assault seriously, then who can I turn too?
The following day, after getting the dressing on my right cheek changed, and seeing the cut to my face for the first time (although not long it was wide and deep), I headed to be British Embassy on the outskirts of the city. The Embassy, the last refuge for a British Citizen, was just as chaotic as the rest of Africa. Apart from not being able to speak to a single English person, the tall spender Ethiopian, in her crisp white blouse and skirt, I was dealing with, although very nice, wasn't any real help. She just suggested I go back to the police station to try again.
Getting a taxi to yet another station and then being redirected to yet another, I was told to wait while they looked for a translator. Being moved from one office to another several times in the course of two hours, I was finally seated with a female police officer and a middle aged translator. The officer took a number of details, and when finished the translator read back what she had wrote. If I hadn't been in Africa so long, I would have been shocked, but I knew all about bureaucracy by this point, and the lenghts people will go to, to get rid of you. Three quarters of the statement, was on where I lived in England, what schools I had attended and the grades I'd received. The final four lines where on the incident.
"So when will it be translated to English" I asked the translator.
"They do not do that here. You will have to go to the football stadium" the translator said, after confirming it with the officer.
"But I need it on official police headed paper" I pressed.
"Yes, yes they can put it on official paper for you" he said in a hurried voice.
Again I knew this was not the case at all. It was just another way of them getting rid of me more quickly. I accepted the answer, knowing I could do little else. I was asked to return the following day when the statement would be ready to collect.
"Can I not take it now?" I asked, knowing that if I didn't take it today, it would never be ready for me to collect.
"No, no. Collect tomorrow" the translator said.
I did not bother to return to collect the statement the following day. I know it wasn't any point. Even after being attacked, Ethiopia had still been one of my favourite countries in Africa. After dealing with the police, this view changed quickly. I was beginning to see past the allusion and smoke screen that had been put up by the government, and I was seeing there was little to no real control in Ethiopia. The Police did as they pleased.
