The town of Awassa is not so much a network of streets but rather, a labyrinth of alleys and
footpaths. The town roads don’t follow a grid or, for that matter, any known geometric pattern.
They were not planned but rather, evolved following a geographical path of least resistance.
Directions can be baffling because none of the roads have names. Amongst the local VSOers,
the local cinema is located "down Sugar Cane Alley, beside the good veggie shop". A map would
be helpful - if you could find one. And if you did, it would likely be from
1976 and half the roads would be currently underwater. Lonely Planet did include a small
map in their latest guidebook. But that map tells us that the road to Kenya passes
through a church and the bus station is inside the stadium.
After 10 months of frustration, I decided to make a map of Awassa. With a GPS in hand, I hopped on my bike and pedaled the length and breadth of the town. As you might imagine, this attracted a bit of attention. Picture a white guy with a dorky hat holding a gizmo that beeps frequently. He pedals 100 meters, stops for 10 seconds, pedals another 100 m, stops again, and so on. Now picture the same guy about 15 minutes later with 50 kids chasing him.
At this point, you are probably thinking one of two things:
(1) "gee whiz, keith must have some time on his hands"... yup
(2) "that keith sure is a nerd"......................................yup again
In my defence, however, my maps have proven very useful. For one thing, people can now
find my house. And more importantly, they can find a local hotel.
These maps would be ideal for tourists. To that end, I have enlisted one of the local street
vendors as my official distributor. The deal is that if he sells a map, he keeps the
money and I get the glory. After 1 week, however, sales have been slow - well, nonexistent
actually. I’m convinced that I just need to create some buzz. So I’m sending
everyone a map. Please let me know if you find any mistakes.
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