Life on the Ground Floor by Dr. James Maskalyk

Author:Dr. James Maskalyk
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Doubleday Canada
Published: 2017-04-10T16:00:00+00:00

L is for love.

I’m walking to Black Lion. The morning sun is bright, but not yet hot. I pick my way along busted concrete piles, grey dust covers my shoes. Ahead of me, a woman in heels steps deftly from one boulder to another, black bag slung over her shoulder. Her eyes stay forward. She doesn’t teeter.

Bole Road, Addis’s largest artery, is broken. It’s being torn up, crumbled, from the airport to Meskel Square, the wide open-air amphitheatre where holidays are celebrated, political speeches are made, and the best runners in the world start their mornings. Beside it, train stations are being pushed together, rows of old houses pulled apart. Cranes dangle on the city skyline in all directions.

Chinese engineers survey the progress, but it is Ethiopians who are driving the steamrollers. While the U.S. and Canada offer aid, China is helping with roads, railways. When last I left the city, children ran beside the open window of Ermias’s car as it bumped down back roads, shouting, “China! China!”—a word synonymous with foreigner, and means.

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