A Frightening or Exciting thing that happened to me.

I stayed in Ethiopia for four year before I had moved to New Zealand. One day the Red Cross called my family to sign some documents. We went them and did all the things they had asked as to do. They sent the papers to New Zealand immigration in wellington to approve the visa. As we waited for two months the immigration officer who is in wellington told my father that they had sent back the documents after two weeks to the Red Cross in Auckland. The Red Cross in Auckland had sent the travel document with the visa to another country as mistake. Eventually we received a phone call from the Red Cross in Addis Ababa to collect the travel document. After that we saw that the visa was going to expire within three weeks, we rush to Ethiopian immigration to get an exit visa. My father  brought the ticket and sent as the copy of the tickets. When we went to the Ethiopian airline to get confirmation they asked as to get a transit visa from the Chinese embassy. We were nervous about the situation as the visa is going expired soon. Finally we came here  Auckland for the final day left in the visa. It was relief coming in Auckland as the visa did not expire otherwise we might wait for five months.

Comparing public transport in New Zealand and Ethiopia

There are several differences between Ethiopia transport and New Zealand one. For example, in New Zealand most buses are owned by privet companies where in Ethiopia the government control most of them. There is no bus line in Addis Ababa and it is much busier in the afternoon than Auckland. Another aspect is that cars are much more expensive to buy in Ethiopia so people depend on public transport more than New Zealand. There are two types of buses that work in Addis Ababa mini and coach buses. The coach buses are owned by the government and it is much cheaper than the mini buses. However, in Addis Ababa the government bus stops working at 9am whereas the mini buses work until midnight. In New Zealand the public transport is more expensive than Ethiopia. For instance, hiring tax from the city centre to the airport will cost double the price here. The Ethiopian government have invested more money to improve the public transport because of the population. Addis Ababa is the largest city of Ethiopia and there are four million people lived there so people want more public transport to make their life easier.

Mohamed