The Energetic Loci of Addis Ababa by Winta Assefa

1. Legahar, Addis Ababa

A Sketch of the Leghar Square map with colored circles to show what I sketched from this top view).Those colored dots show where the sketch was made or the location of the sketch with corresponding color block in front of each drawing caption..

–    Lion of Judah statue in Leghar Square. This is one of the iconic symbols in Addis Ababa; I’ve seen it featured in postcards or art that show the city, in illustrations of skylines and all over local media.

–    Two young men holding their skateboards walked up to me while I was drawing and enthusiastically asked me ‘Show us your drawing!’ 

After I showed them two pages, they asked ‘is that all you sketched?’ 

One of them is a visual artist himself, and I took his Instagram to send him the Urban Sketchers Addis Ababa chapter’s Instagram account. I told him that he could join us in our next urban sketching session. They said that they sometimes skate at the Sarbet skating venue in West Addis Ababa.

–    Someone who had been collecting trash with an almost fully covered face in Leghar. They are given rudimentary tools like broomsticks to sweep up large as[halt roads, pick up citizens’ trash and, unfortunately, animal corpses too. The city would be in total disarray without them. 

–    A loaded truck driver impatiently waiting in traffic in Leghar Square, Addis Ababa. 

Traffic laws used to feel more like suggestions, but more recently, there had been more surveillance on main roads, steeper traffic fines and many more traffic police, often causing more problems than helping.

–    There had been more police and military forces along the main roads, perhaps due to the upcoming elections in the country.

–    A woman paused to ask us where a Abyssinia Bank was located. There was an Ethiopian Commercial Bank across the road from us but we didn’t see an Abyssinia Bank anywhere around the roundabout when we were walking around the area to find a decent place to sketch in.

(Leghar, Addis Ababa – 2026

–    A passing train honking overhead. The sound of the hurtling train going back and forth was impossible to ignore while my sister and I sketched. Once we were done, we crossed the road to the ticket station and bought two tickets to Ayat for ETB 20 each. The ticket seller was annoyed that we didn’t have any cash to pay with. Mobile banking isn’t commonly used for this, apparently.

We ended up accidentally getting on the wrong bus and started heading South of the city instead of going East homeward. So, we got off, asked the police stationed at the bus stop for instructions, took the bus going back to the intersection point and waited for our East-heading train. Several others made the same mistake as us. The woman who checked our tickets heard us speak in Arabic and we learned  that she had spent some time in Saudi Arabia too. So, we talked about our lives until our train came along. 

Many people in the train were fully focused on  their phones, and several of them were scrolling from one shortform video to the next without earphones.The awning windows in the cool night allowed for okay ventilation even when more and more people were pushing themselves into the packed train. The energy wasn’t as frantic as I’d seen it in peak commuter hours (5-6 PM), though. It was past 7:30 PM at this point, and it was a Saturday. So, while the vehicle was more packed than I hoped it would be, it was an alright travel experience—even the short video sounds were easy to ignore a few minutes into the ride..

2. Megenagna roundabout, Addis Ababa

The colored dots on the map show the sketches’ location; the corresponding sketches have matching colored blocks in front of their captions.

–    People holding on to and staying close to their bicycles near the Megenagna roundabout.

Many people come here with their bicycles and motorbikes to drop off things, catch up with friends (this place’s name literally translates to ‘where people meet’) and commute to work. I don’t remember seeing many parked cars along the main roads and roundabouts—car drivers are forced to drive into the (usually) crammed parking lots under the high-rise buildings in this area. 

But since motorbikes and bicycles are smaller, people tend to just keep them nearby while they run their quick errand or catch up with a friend. 

–    Small roadside shop near Zefmesh Mall in Megenagna. This place is further away from the roundabout and it’s different from the more commonly seen structure (sketched below) that I see in different parts of the city. The shade looks flimsy but adequate for the non=fragile items on sale. There are rocks on the plastic shade to prevent it from flying away and a rock anchoring one of the plastic’s string to the ground. 

The seller seems to have nicely utilized every surface area around this shelf well, hanging heavier items on the side, adding extra space with a jewelry board that is sitting on a stool and having hangers with more small clothes hanging from the top.

–    This shelf and shade combination is a structure that one frequently sees all over Addis Ababa’s  main roads and roundabouts. This one is in the Megenagna roundabout and has extra shading parts. There are books on display on the shelf and a shoe-shiner with a fluorescent vest. There is also a board with small items like tissues and masks sitting on a plastic bucket. Buckets, boards  and stools tend to form a major part of sellers’ make-shift setups along main roads like this one. 

Megenagna – Addis Ababa

–    Addis Ababa is a city with steep slopes that make  long walks and commutes difficult sometimes. But it sure does create interesting elevations. 

In Megenagna, there are various public transportation modes or buses that go to different parts of town, and many of these exist on different floor levels.When I was newer to the city,  I used to get so frustrated whenever I walked into the wrong floor level and had to walk up or down another slope to get to the right one: it felt like traversing hills and valleys.

This is one of the busiest parts of Megenagna on a rainy day. The busses on Level 1 (in the above diagram) go to places like Yeka Abado (to the North Eastern outer part of the city), the vehicles on Level 3 are heading towards the Megenagna roundabout, and the vehicles on Level 4 are following the train route towards West Addis Ababa (unless they take a left or right at a later point). This place is often crowded and chaotic because pedestrians tend to be very brave in this part of the city and  if there are no traffic police people to control the flow, we’d keep crossing the roads and give the cars very few chances to pass. 

Traffic police near Megenagna, Addis Ababa. This one was in the middle of talking to someone he stopped on his way down to the Eastern part of the city (towards my home).

3. CMC, near St. Michael Church 

Book Shelf in front of St Michael Church in CMC, which is near where I live. — 2026

My sister and I sketching in USk Addis Ababa’s urban sketching session (Addis Ababa –  2026)

People are walking toward and away from one of the main bus stations along the Megenana roundabout. 

I want to show all of the main ‘characters’ in these transportation modes, and one of the people who enforce often arbitrary laws to the annoyance and ire of drivers and passengers alike are traffic police. It became too commonplace seeing them receive bribes to pretend they didn’t see whatever they just saw.

There are lottery ticket sellers who tap on their stalls with sticks to draw attention, corn sellers who catch your attention with the delicious smell of boiling corn on a cold, rainy day, and the occasional book sellers who walk around with their book spines exposed to show their titles. All the business owners seem to try something different to get pedestrians’ attention, and a lot of pedestrians find things they need on their way to or from work amidst this apparent ‘chaos’. 

I’m also fascinated by the sticker choices on minibuses and larger buses throughout the city—there are political figures like Che Guevara, football players like Ronaldo or Neymar, religious symbols and so many random things. 

People are going up a stairway that leads to a bus station uphill. The stairways, slopes and bridges make Megenana a visually stunning and unique place to navigate. This stairway leads to buses that go to the far West and North of Addis Ababa, and the walls on both sides are painted in vibrant shades of blue which engulf you as you walk through them. Unfortunately, many of these stations are not wheelchair accessible.