The unpaved road continued for about 200km from the border to DireDawa, was especially bumpy in the first half. Continuous vibration gave me mustle ache on my belly at the end. Was it so wobbly? Shame...
Foods has changed after crossing the border. (I mostly had 'soft' spagetti with meat sauce in Djibouti because it was the cheapest.) They have now coffee (not Nes Cafe but real coffee!), beer, and Injera.
Injera is thin, fluffy stuff like crape, but the color is greyish, the surface on one side is full of small holes which looks like one of cow's stomachs (we call "beehive" in Japanese), and the taste is sour. Gross, in short. I'd read about it on web or on books and had a negative image. But it was actually not so bad. It goes well with greasy fried goat meat (tibs) and beer. The sour taste works like adding vinegar to the meat.
Tibs & Injera were often the only menu in a restaurant in a village. I soon remembered the new word because I had "tibs" for breakfast, "tibs" for lunch, and "tibs" for dinner. Well, I hope I can live with that.
Kids in villages came running to me when they found me, excited and exclaiming. But when I stopped or got close to them, they often turned around and run away, kept distance from me (only in the beginning). People were naive and kind in that area.
I didn't see anyone using a mobile phone in those villages. Once a "hotel" was free as I had dinner there. (There was only one dining space in the hut, and I slept there at night with the workers.) There was no toilet in the hotel. No shower but water in a bucket once till I got to DireDawa. 
I heard DireDawa was the second largest city in population in Ethiopia. Yet I found it a small rural city. There were some internet cafes. But the connection speed was so damn slow! I had to kill time with playing a card game while waiting for a page to open.
Water was cut off on one night. Electricity was also cut off. Complete darkness in alleys at night with no street lights (amazing people could still recognize me as a foreigner). However, it was still a city life after those villages. Good shower, toilet, and internet. I enjoyed that.
24-26 Apr 2009, DireDawa, Ethiopia, 17387km
