We have had our cheer of excitement for a few days now, leaving Harar with a bad feeling. Not because of the city, but because we stirred up some problems for two translators and two school girls on Sunday afternoon. Cape2Cape is involved in a book project, interviewing children between 11 and 13 years old in all the countries in Africa (that's the aim). We have long planned to include children from Harar in the book, so we organized with one of the city guides to translate for us.

What we didn't know was that the very same guide has been investigated for street trafficking for a while and the police have kept a close look at what he has been doing. When he came with Emma and Maria (12 and 13 years old) to our hotel, the police assumed that the kids were prostitutes and threw both of the translators in jail. As it was Sunday, we were not able to talk to the Chief of Police, but sorted out the misunderstanding the next morning.

We feel sorry for the girls, because we have started the interview with telling them about the book and they were very excited being chosen to represent Ethiopia and talk about Harar. Then the police came!

By the way, we are now 25 meters inside the Somaliland border and Betsy is under arrest because they didnt understand our Carnet (car custom papers). We are waiting to explore more than this of course.