I started writing this more than two years ago. I intend to add and extend the story whenever I have time. I had a plan to make the text a blog one day. So, that one day is now, 18.05.2009. The daily notes, starting Saturday 26th of January 2008 contain gaps, some of them in excess of a year.
The text under the heading below "Expat in Africa" is intended to contain our history in Africa and thus, hopefully will, one day, have no gaps.

Expat in Africa

Today is Saturday, 26th of January 2008. It is now more than 37 years ago since I first came to Africa early December 1970. My first posting was Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. That time, I left Finland alone, a nth ahead of my family who were to follow me once I had properly settled down myself there. Departure from Finland involved a lot of activities. We had to pack our home; part of it came with us to Ethiopia, part of it we would store in Helsinki. Since I left ahead of others, Iris had to do all that packing and storing by herself. Small Antti being under half year of age, this really was heavy burden for her. I only arranged storing of my professional papers.
I had to arrange shutting down of my consulting business and storing of all the design drawings and other documents so that they could be traced if need be while I was in Ethiopia. Liisa, my cousin became the guardian of the papers. Further, I had to procure suitable wardrobe, worthy to my new position in the coming assignment in Africa. Iris, Viivi and Liisa were a great help in procuring the new wardrobe. They even convinced me to include a purple coloured suite into it. That time it was considered really daringly bold and extraordinary

Departure from Finland to start life on a new continent also had a great impact on the lives of our children. Matti and Esa had to leave behind their friends, relatives and schools. Antti was yet so small he did not react himself, at least not visibly. However, many of our family members and friends were asking how on earth you can take such a small kid deep into Africa, full of strange worms and diseases. This question was troubling us, too. We took all the necessary vaccinations in hope that such a precaution would be enough.

My flight to Addis Ababa was via Athens where I had to overnight. It was the time Junta of Colonels who insisted that Athens was safe for anybody to visit. So, during the evening I trotted around the hotel where the airlines had settled me. I was soon accompanied by a Greek gentleman who asked what I was looking for. When I told him I was looking for a fish restaurant, he told his brother had one just in the vicinity and there food was excellent and prices reasonable. I agreed that he take me there. When we entered the place I was taken aback. The dining hall was huge having a podium with pink decorations in one corner. The only customers were girls in scanty dresses sitting a few tables away from us. I told my guide that this was not what I was looking for. He assured me the restaurant had very good fish dishes. So, I ordered some and really, fish was delicious. When the bill arrived, it had to my surprise eight bottles of champagne in it. Of course, I complained. When I told the host I would not pay any of it, he called his guards, four huge, dangerous looking thugs to convince me that I had to pay. They behaved so aggressively that I consider best to obey. I did not have that much cash with me, so they accepted traveller’s checks. That made a big gap in my travelling budget. Walking back to the hotel I remembered the Junta and searched the nearest tourist police station. There I told what had happened to me in that nearby restaurant. The tourist police assured me I had come to right place, especially since I had paid by traveller’s checks. Together, we returned to the restaurant. There, the police, having questioned the host, told him to return the checks to me. The host was complaining that at least I had to pay for my food. The police told him to shut up and return the checks to me which he did. Thus, I had a free meal with the help of that tourist police.

Once in Addis Ababa I settled to Ghion Hotel, situated in the centre of Addis Ababa, close to the Imperial Palace of Haile Selassie I. That Hotel was then to be our home for the first two months; the first one month mine alone and then, after New Year, another month for the whole family.

I was to commence my appointment as Chief Engineer of the Ministry of Public Works and Water Resources. That assignment, first intended to last two years, took us (me and the family) altogether five years, till the end of 1975. Those five years were among the happiest of my life.

The small Finnish community welcomed us in with open arms. Everybody seemed to be ready to help us getting settled, feeling at home and entertaining socially. All the community participated in finding us a house and servants.

My entry to the Ministry was a lot more formal and rigid. Public relations officer (whom I detested) of the Ministry, who had been receiving me at the airport, introduced me to His Excellency Ato Saleh Hinit (whom I respected) , the Minister of Public Works and Water Resources. (he was to be my boss till Mengistu disposed him mid 1975). I was dressed up for the occasion in my new striped suite which I had, together with Iris purchased at Kuusinen shop in Helsinki for this very purpose. That shop was considered the Shop for diplomats at that time. I had been advised ahead of time by the Finnish Foreign Affairs that in my new position I was expected to dress very formally. According to the official protocol, I now belonged to the high echelon of the Ethiopian society and I was expected to dress accordingly.

HE Ato Salah Hinit, (a potential Eritrean President elect) a man in his mid fifties, with dyed black hair and no wrinkles proved to be a very strict man when it came to work discipline. He had recently assumed his post as Minister of Public Works and was keen to put things in order. Already during the initial presentation he told me that the Ministry had misplaced or lost a number (maybe 100 altogether) of projects that had been entrusted to it for design and implementation. He told me he intended to discipline those responsible and hoped that I would investigate and find out what had happened at least to the ones he knew that were lost. Further, he gave me all the recent numbers of Negarit Gazetta, the official government journal where all the laws and regulations were published. Especially, he asked me to familiarize myself with all the laws and regulations covering the governmental construction business. Reading them took my first week, even all evenings in the hotel. I was not yet familiar with the legal vocabulary and thus, needed time to read and understand them all. The Philippine secretary of the Minister helped me a lot in this and in how to get adjusted to the situation, how to master English and how to get settled with the procedures of the Ministry and the Minister. Without her help it might have been a far more difficult task for me.

Actually, the Minister’s remark about the lost projects led me to contemplate of a reliable and easy system to govern, follow-up and monitor the processes of the Ministry. First, I introduced regular, weekly staff meetings in order to discover and keep track of what was going on. I told the Minister about my plan to have such meetings every Friday and he seemed to agree. During the first of such meetings, I commenced to build up a list of projects that the Ministry had. My Office Engineer, Ato Legesse was a great help in putting up and maintaining the list. Since there had not been any recorded project lists, I commenced my own. The first project we tackled was listed as number 1, second number 2 etc. (by the time I left the Ministry we had reached number 1503). Follow-up of this list took place in these regular Friday staff meetings. With the help of the friendly and efficient Philippine secretary, I managed to build up these lists where we recorded the status of each project. These lists were typed on waxed paper and then duplicated using a hand driven drum. The used waxed paper formed the basis for next week’s list. We managed to use the same wax paper for several weeks by just retouching it and adding new projects to the end of the list.



Here incorporate Erkki Juselius, Kurt Roselius, Paavo Mänttäri, Erik Cederholm, Mauri Uotila, Ambassador Joel Pekuri, Sune Norrbäck


Saturday, 26th January 2008.
Early morning, Mintamir, my secretary came to collect me at my lodgings, EMMAD Guest House, along the Ring Road of Addis Ababa. We had a busy day ahead of us. Balance of our (the company) local bank account was getting low and our sub-consultant desperately needed money to pay salaries and other dues that were coming on. Fortunately, we had some monies tied in VAT reimbursable, owed to us by ERA, Ethiopian Roads Authority. Only, we had to make the claim, otherwise ERA wouldn’t pay. The claim had to be accompanied by copies of all VAT receipts we had, with calculations of the same in tabulated form. We intended to have that all completed before the end of the day. Further, I was planning to have a get together with ERA and SABA staff (our sub-consultant) the next day in YOD Abyssinia, a very popular restaurant with Ethiopian traditional food and dance shows. We had to secure the booking at the restaurant. By the end of the day, we had everything in neat order. I felt relaxed.

Saturdays we work only half a day. I had booked tennis with Shimelles at Yogo Club. Shimelles is actually a tennis coach at the Club. We have become good friends during the years we have known each others. I have spent there a number of weekends, playing with him. Usually, I give him some tennis news and he in turn arranges the opportunity for me to play there. This time I had copied the results of Australian Open Finals for him. He appreciated them a lot.

Sunday, 27th January 2008
This is a post dated records, I had dinner with Sara Mohammed and Arsema, nicknamed Baby. Sara is Fashion Model Agent, running a school for Fashion Models. Arsema is the very good looking friend of hers, tall and handsome. Sara is also a former model herself.

Saturday, 02nd February 2008.
Again, Mintamir came to collect me early morning from EMMAD. The week has passed without me making any notes to my “would-be” blog. This does not look good. I have sort of been passive for reasons I do not quite understand myself clearly. I was planning to write something every evening. When the time comes, I sit in the hotel room and watch African Cup football matches. The tournament this year takes place in Ghana. That might be one of the reasons, seeing Ghanaian places and people feels so familiar. We spent three years in Ghana late 70’s.
Yesterday we finally managed to get the official VAT cash receipt book. Without this book, it is not possible to collect money from any public entity like ERA in Ethiopia. That is one of the peculiarities of the red tape with Ethiopian Inland Revenue. I had commenced the process already last July and now finally we had it. That’s why this (just getting an official receipt book) now feels so great an achievement. Mintamir left the office right after her breakfast with the receipt book to collect payments from ERA (Ethiopian Roads Authority). She came back with three checks, all related to the reimbursement of VAT that we had paid. Checks could not be deposited to our bank account yet; the issuing National Bank was not open Saturdays. I hope Monday we can deposit them.

Ato Bekele, chief of ERA’s Planning and Programming telephoned in the evening asking if I had a map of Sudan. I told I had just a very small pocket map with no details. I suggested he should try and take print outs of some Google Earth maps. Just as I had finished my conversation with Bekele, Ato Samson, general manager of SABA called. He explained that all of a sudden, our Gog-Akobo road, along the Sudanese boarder, had turned out to be extremely urgent. Some Ministers have urged the progress of road connection. Hearing this I could place that Bekele’s phone call into perspective. Obviously, a high level government move conceived in AU meeting was behind it all. To us, the Consultants this spells trouble. Over 120 km of the route is inaccessible, inundated most of the year. Further more; this malaria stricken area is a high risk area security wise. We would need a military convoy to protect the survey teams.

Afternoon we (I, Mintamir and ITC tennis guys) intended to celebrate the farewell of Shimelles who had received an invitation from UK to attend training courses organized for foreign tennis coaches. Shimelles was scheduled to leave next Monday and thus, today seemed an appropriate day to celebrate. Shimelles seemed excited and happy. However, prior to the “Gudfo” lunch we played tennis at the International Tennis Club. After play we all went by my car to a nearby restaurant specializing in “Gudfo”. Getting all into the same car seemed somewhat complicated and it took quite some time before everyone was inside. The ITC gays were joking that we are a punch of “kebery”, farm workers who do not know how to handle the new technical devices. The “Gudfo”, sort of a raw meat serving, instead was not technical, purely excellent.

Evening at the hotel I felt tired, the stomach was aching. Soon I realised I had an old-fashioned diaries. I hand to visit the toilet a few times before I retired to bed.

Sunday, 3rd February 2008
Having slept early last night I felt a lot better when waking up. I had a lazy breakfast reading a New Scientist. Sara called around 10 and proposed to have coffee together. I agreed and asked Sara if she could help me in getting a Sudan map. She wasn’t so sure if we could get any, now being Sunday. We decided to try first in Sheraton and Hilton. Both of them had nothing of the like. Finally we found a map of Ethiopia in a shop called Book World. That map had some areas of Sudan shown. I decided that would have to do.

Evening at the hotel I was witnessing via TV Ghana’s triumph over Nigeria in Africa Cup. It was a really an exciting match. Nigeria was trying to force Ghana to surrender. Ghanaians stood the pressure and defeated Nigeria 2-1. It was a joy to see Ghana win. I was on the side of Ghana all the way, of course.

Monday, 4th February
Saturday and Sunday phone calls were forecasting a busy Monday. However, nothing happened with Gog-Akobo surveys, bid preparations of NDF projects were slow. Petri Jusi called and urged me to have the Methodology completed. Friday, Samson was sure he would have it ready latest by Saturday. Now it might be ready earliest tomorrow.
I had my car sent for 10 000 km service. I hope they can do something about that black exhaust smoke the car is now puffing. The car is brand new and exhaust resembles a 30 year old diesel truck. I hope Moenco can do something about it.
Mekdes called early morning and told she would be coming back from Nazareth this evening.

Wednesday, 6th February
I got the car back form service yesterday evening and noticed immediately that the puffing black smoke had not gone anywhere. I have been concerned about this quality of exhaust because the air quality here in Addis seems to go down very rapidly and every car in traffic seems to contribute to the pollution. I even took a photo one morning from my hotel room window just to prove my case in this matter.
Early morning I had sent Mintamir to the bank to deposit the checks we had got from ERA as payments of Assela-Dodola supervision project. She called back from bank telling me that she had some bad news for me; the bank wanted a confirmation letter from ERA for the checks before accepting them to be deposited into our account. (this again is one of the peculiarities of Ethiopian red tape). I joked asking her if this was the only bad news she had for me today. She confirmed that she had another one, also. ERA’ counterpart engineer Konjit (while she was in ERA) had told her that VAT (value added tax) we had paid on SABA services and were claiming back would not be reimbursed to us because ERA had no budget for that. This was really bad news. VAT we had already paid on SABA services exceeded half a million Birr. (1 EUR=app. 14 Birr). Our contract with ERA clearly stipulates that all such taxes as VAT shall be reimbursed to us in full. However, if ERA has no budget and thus no money for it, even in the best case it might take years before we could get that compensation. This really was the bad news of the day. I decided I have to have talks with the highest level in ERA.
More bad news of the day was in the coming, though not now from Mintamir. ERA’s counterpart engineers kept telephoning me about the January progress figures of the projects. The contract required us to submit bimonthly progress reports and the next was due by the end February. However, on ERA’s humble request I had agreed that instead of a full report we’ll give them progress figures for those months the full bimonthly report was not coming. These figures, I had promised would come on the 5th on the next month. (ERA had to report the progress to the Parliament every month and I wanted to show we were ready to co-operate). Ato Molla, SABA’s project co-ordinator who was in charge of the matter had gone on site visit. He had left without telling me where, why and for how long. I had difficulties giving the ERA guys the numbers since Molla had stored them into his own laptop he carried with himself to the site. Since this was not the first time he disobeyed my instructions I took the matter to the management of SABA sending a letter to Molla, copy to SABA management. I explained in the letter that Molla had left for a site visit but had not told me where he was going and why. Further, I told Molla in the letter that in future he had to report to me all major undertakings he was planning to take before undertaking any (Samson, GM of SABA fully supported this). When Molla saw the letter he went berserk, threw the letter to my desk telling me I had no right to write such a letters to him and insisted we have to meet the manager of SABA immediately. I agreed and thus, we went to see Ato Samson right away. During this meeting it became obvious that it was not I only Molla was mad at. When Samson asked him about my letter, Molla kept telling (in Amharic) about an incident a months ago not related to my letter at all. Samson tried to bring him to the subject of letter with no success. Molla kept mincing about that past event accusing Mintamir of putting him in a compromised situation. I managed to interrupt and told Samson my letter had no references to any such incidents; the letter was just discussing the situation of today. At the end of the meeting, we agreed that Molla would be released of his duties as co-ordinator of Finnroad projects. I told Samson I agreed.
Also, I told him I valued the services of Mintamir more than those of Molla. I hope SABA will really remove Molla from the project since he is the source of major tensions within the office. I have grown tired of his childish tantrums.
I had intended to use this evening writing down these notes. Conditions in the hotel seem gloomy for writing. We had a thunderstorm within this area and lights went off. However, I’m writing this in the candle light. The laptop battery had charge enough carry me here.


Sunday, 10th February
I woke up already before 7 but stayed in bed till 8.30 enjoying the cool breeze that came through the half open window. Sunday mornings are usually serene, traffic noise is calm and leisure stay in bed feels good.
Yesterday afternoon I had my lunch at Hilton pool side. Sara and Arsema popped in and treated me with a cup of coffee. I told Arsema that I met Assefa, our sociologist the night before. I told her he asked if I knew the name of that tall beautiful lady he met in our Sheraton cocktails. She wanted to know what Assefa exactly had to say. I told her he simply admired her beauty, colour and stand. Sara asked yellows didn’t he ask about her at all. Arsema told her she wasn’t around when she was talking to Assefa. Sara and Arsema told they had an appointment elsewhere and disappeared soon. I returned to my hotel and watched Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire play for bronze medal of African Cup of Nations. Ghana won the match by 4 – 2. I felt happy for Ghana and so seemed the loud Ghanaian audience in TV.
Sara called me around 11 am and asked if I knew which weekday would April 20th be. I told her it was Sunday and asked was she planning something for that day. She told she was planning to have African exhibition and had to tell the exact date to the Mozambique’s Ambassador who had promised to sponsor the event.

Sunday, 17th February
One week has passed without me making any notes. The week that passed has been busy in the office. I managed to finalize the Inception Reports of all the four roads. In addition to that we have, together with Finnroad Head Office been compiling the proposals for an offer for additional three roads that NDF intends to finance. Closing dates for the offers are Feb 26th and 28th. Pekka Kosonen, the acting GM of Finnroad will travel here next Saturday just to bring the offers here by himself. The proposals thus should be ready latest next Thursday for him to take them down here.
In the afternoon Sara invited me for a coffee at Hilton. We had the coffee at Hilton’s Pastry Shop. They do have tables outdoors for coffee and cakes. The breeze was cool; our table was having an umbrella to protect from direct sun. I told her we’d have a cocktail party next week Thursday there at Hilton. I took her to see the premises where this party would take place. That was an open patio surrounded by hotel room wings. Sara got inspired by the place. She offered to organise a short fashion show on red carpet to make the party even more attractive. I’m excited to see what comes out of this show. On the other hand I’m afraid the whole thing might be a fiasco, fashion show in general, does not have anything to do with road design. Sara insisted that road design should take into account the culture of the country and fashion shown would portray the Ethiopian culture very well. So, I decided I’ll go ahead with the show and see what comes out. I hope our guests will see things the way Sara was putting them to me.

Monday, 18th February
Today, we had meetings to finalize the arrangements for the Survey Team to be sent to Gambella to undertake topographic surveys, soil investigations, environmental and socio-economic studies along the most difficult of our project roads, the Gog-Akobo road. When I put it like this on the paper it sounds simple enough a task. However, there are additional complications. The area is not accessible by cars, thick forest and swamps prevent accessibility. Security is another factor that complicates things there. The area is close to Sudan boarder, not safe for civilians, ripples of Darfur are felt also within this area. Therefore, we have to have a strong enough military convoy to protect the team. Gambella officials told me that the convoy has to be large, heavily armed and strong enough to scare off those who might harbour plans to attempt an attack. Now it seems we are getting forward with the arrangements. Shiferraw, our man in Gambella has found some boats that can be used to transport the team, materials and supplies along rivers to certain strategical points in the field. The same boats will be used to take back soil samples taken during the survey. We have now offers from a specialized company, TRIG Spatial to undertake an aerial photography and produce a digital map of the area. This digital map would not substitute the topographic survey as such; it would simply speed up the gross section surveys at least by a month. Speed is essential here, the rains may start already by mid April and then, the area is really inaccessible. Further more, the shorter the stay there, the less safety risks we’ll encounter.
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In the afternoon, I had a meeting the two of ERA counterpart stuff guys and their immediate boss. The boss had just returned from a honey moon and this was his first day in the office. I had called for the meeting. The counterparts in absence of their immediate boss had commented our progress reports in quite opposing ways. Both were demanding we have to follow his instructions. Following the instructions of the aggressive counterpart would have meant a lot of difficulties for us in future. The section head, boss of the counterparts had an inkling that the aggressive counterpart was staging a coupe against him. The department head, boss of the section head may have supported him in this attempt. This was a serious case and I felt that we had to take some action to counterbalance the mutiny. However, later in the afternoon, the section head called and told us to follow the instruction of the other counterpart. He sounded relieved while telling this. Instructions of the less aggressive counterpart were based on logic and easy to follow. Now, this may have solved the problematic situation for the time being. However, I have to be on the look out of this aggressive guy, he might try something else in future.

Wednesday 27th February
Pekka Kosonen, the acting GM of Finnroad had arrived last Saturday to submit the Finnroad proposals 26th and 28th of February. The sole purpose of his trip was to impress ERA and make sure the proposals would be in time in Addis Ababa, We had planned that the last check-up of the proposals would take place in Addis Ababa. The check-up turned out to be really well thought, proposals he brought contained several errors. Fortunately, we discovered them when reviewing the proposals before submission. We had to work hard to rectify them all in time, the deadline was so close. Time and again we tended to mix up manning schedules and tasks of people in the proposals. Monday evening half desperate we heard rumours that the deadline might be extended again.
“Sigh” Yesterday morning; few hours before the deadline we finally got the confirmation of a new time extension. We felt now we had all the time we needed to complete the proposals. Thus, I invited all the staff involved in the run to a dinner at YOD Abessinia, the most famous cultural restaurant in town. I thought such an occasion would serve as a reward for a work well done.
Early morning we then finalized the proposals, wrapping them up again into neat packages with all the labels ERA had instructed the candidates to stick to the proposals. Packages now ready for submission we had time to concentrate in other burning matters at hand. Finnroad had signed a contract for construction supervision of a 100 km stretch of asphalt road from Asseala to Dodola.

Toukokuun 17. päivä

Olemme parhaillaan Iriksen kanssa Haapsalussa, aiomme olla täällä aina 25.05.2009 saakka. Olen juuri avannut tämän blogin. Sain kimmokkeen avaamiseen, kun tutustuin Suomen Taiteilijaseuran Ateljeesäätiön blogiin ja yritin oikaista siinä olevia, Haapsalua koskevia tietoja.