'Round, 'round, 'round, I get around.

Color me nerdy, but I think the differences in transportation between here and home, or here and everywhere else I've ever lived, to be more accurate, are fascinating.

Generally, I prefer to walk pretty much everywhere. On the mornings that we're not exactly on time, or we're feeling a little lazy in the afternoon or evening, we'll usually hop in the taxi to take us down the hill. If it's after 9:30 or so, the taxi stops running, so we'll grab a bajaj.

I've mentioned before that walking tends to mean getting stared at, which I'm halfway in between getting used to, and getting annoyed with.
It also means that on occasion, guys, because I have never had a girl start a conversation on the street with me, will decide to stroll along and talk, which is sometimes fun and sometimes not as fun, usually depending on how much English they speak. (Which makes me in my English-as-my-mother-tongue-ness feel all kinds of guilty for not being able to communicate effectively with the locals.) Oftentimes, the conversation starts off with them saying “Are you fine?” which is the direct Tingrinya translation of the typical greeting, to which I smile and respond “Yes, I am.” and then they laugh a bit and keep on walking or staring, whichever activity they were involved with before I came along.
In reading the guidebook I stole from my cousin, and in conversations with other ferengi, it seems like in a lot of places in Ethiopia, the kids are so used to begging that it can be a challenge to get from one point to another without hordes of them asking for money or getting a little more demanding in their begging. Luckily, Mekelle is mostly off the beaten tourist track, so it's not as much of an issue. More often, kids will run up with their hands extended for a handshake, or they'll ask what my name is (one of the phrases I do recognize), walk a little while and then say good-bye. The little girl at the store a few houses down from where I'm staying will now say “Hi Liza! I love you!” whenever she sees me walking by.
Besides the stares, I love being able to really see what I'm passing while I'm walking, which is harder in a taxi, and pretty much impossible in a bajaj.

Taxis are not the yellow sedans that they are in the US. Instead, they're blue and white ten passenger vans, usually festooned with various pictures of Jesus, the cross, or Ethiopia paraphernalia, depending on the driver's preference. They run set routes and have a young man shouting out the route name or destination hanging out the window. He is also the one responsible for collecting the 2 birr (approximately 10 cents US) fare, as well as shuffling the passengers to maximize profits. I use the term “ten passenger van” loosely; I've made it a bit of a hobby to count heads on the ride, and it's usually somewhere around fifteen, but I've seen up to twenty people and a rooster. If I'm trying to grab a seat in the taxi during high traffic times, it becomes of bit of a pushing match to get in and secure a seat. I had dinner with a couple of friends last night, and they said they saw me playing American football trying to get into the taxi. Hey, it worked!

Bajaj are crazy. They call them tuktuk in India and are covered, motorized tricycles, basically, but that description doesn't clue you in to the terror of climbing up a rocky, dusty, unpaved road while the driver is pulling on the string that the windshield wiper is attached to with one hand and using his phone with the other, all while softly serenadinig his shaking passengers with one of the Tigrinya songs that is played on the radio all the time. I've only used a bajaj twice, mostly because it's significantly more expensive; the honest drivers will charge between 25 and 30 birr ($1.25-$1.30), while the unscrupulous ones will quote a price of 100-200 birr for the same ride. It also requires being able to communicate where you want to go, which can be a neat trick. The first time it mostly worked out, with the exception of nearly crashing into one of the many piles of rocks that line the route between the main road and the guest house, but the second time, was a bit more of an adventure. There were a couple of girls staying at the guest house for the night before heading out on a four day trek into the Danakil, and I was awarded the privilege of accompanying them home. To make things even more interesting, we needed two bajaj for everyone and their backpacks, and they separated from the get-go. In my previous bajaj experience, we told the driver “Medriginet condominums” and he took us to the bus stop and we directed him from there. Not so luckily for us, this didn't happen and we ended up somewhere in the vicinity of our destination, but I didn't recognize exactly where we were. Our driver didn't speak any English, so it turned into a comedy of errors, with phone calls going out to a friend of his who we could communicate with, my cousin who was still down in town hanging out with some friends, the girls in the other bajaj, and the director of the orphanage/guest house. Somehow with all of that happening, we did miraculously make it home, the other bajaj arrived shortly afterwards and both drivers got almost double the agreed upon payment for their troubles.
This experience, combined with a multiple hour New Years Eve taxi adventure in Budapest has convinced me that late-night adventuring that involves two parties that don't speak each other's languages is a bit of a Russian roulette. Sometimes you wind up at your destination safely, if a little late and with a few less birr in your pocket, and sometimes you end up stranded at a strange bus depot with an angry taxi driver yelling profanities at you as he drives away.