- Jimma, Ethiopia, Gains Access to Global Information

Jimma, Ethiopia, Gains Access to Global Information

America.gov - October 29, 2008

When Michael McClellan, spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, stepped off a plane in the Ethiopian highland city of Jimma on October 24 and walked toward the terminal, a throng of people dressed in their best finery was walking toward him.

"This looks like a wedding procession," a colleague of McClellan's said.

"It might be for us," McClellan answered. He was right, in one sense. A few seconds later, the welcoming party and McClellan met on the tarmac. Women filled his arms with bouquets of tropical flowers. The mayor, the police chief, the head of the tourism office and other dignitaries shook his hand and embraced him. In the parking lot, McClellan and his welcomers piled into a 13-vehicle motorcade led by a police truck with its red and blue lights whirling silently. The motorcade snaked through the city, then onto a rutted red dirt road lined with wild coffee bushes, goats and waving children to a small mosque on the summit of a mountain above the city. There, Jimma Mayor Mohammedamin Jemal made the first of many speeches that would be given that day. Read More.