Wukro, day 7, visit Mekele

In this morning’s training session, during the warm-ups, we did relay exercises; the players had a lot of fun competing among each other. It has been rather disputed until the end but they were continuously cheerful.

After breakfast we departed by car to Mekele, a nearby city of 1 million inhabitants. On the way we were surprised to find a hyena dead on the side of the road, especially because of its large size. A few kilometres ahead we saw some camels that were also walking on the shoulder without worrying too much about the traffic around them. In general the animals don’t scare easily; they are used to moving around vehicles.

Once in Mekele we went looking at several sports shops in search of an Ethiopia jersey until we finally found them. For lunch we went to a restaurant that had been recommended, the ‘Hotel The Yordanos’, and we were able to have meat which is something unusual at the mission. Being one of the best restaurants in the city we had lunch for 4.5 Euros. After lunch we took a stroll round the city centre and returned to Sant Mary at 17:30.

The impression we were left with is that Mekele is similar to Wukro but more populated and more asphalted streets. Some buildings are being constructed, but in general they are cities that grow in extension as the houses are usually one-storey homes.