Kathmandu Vs Addis

Every morning I take a walk around the area. There are parks, high rise buildings - many of them are under construction. The wider road, with trees on both sides, chain of vehicles, functioning traffic lights and big public buses are exactly what we were told what development looks like. The city mayors of Kathmandu in 1990s vaunted it. And I had been believing this until I visited Scandinavian, where I see one or two-story buildings, narrow two-lane roads with wider cycle lanes, and almost no overhead crossings. Scandinavian countries, no way, meet Nepali definition of 'development'.

As per the Kathmandu major's definition, Addis is a developed city. The roads are wide with overheads, and no dust on the street. There are pizza hut and McDonald's. And this morning, there was no water in my hotel. I called reception. A few minutes later, a water tanker delivered water to the hotel. I came to know that there is no sufficient city water in the hotel. As a Kathmandu dweller, I console myself, there are problems in every city. But then I thought, Kathmandu is a step behind, because, in Addis, the tanker arrived in a few minutes, contrary to a couple of hours in my city. I console myself again, Malachi water is almost complete and we shall soon wash our dusty street with it.

So, Kathmandu wins. End of logical argument. 😁

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