My tall Gojame friend called Thursday afternoon to kindly give me some information that I needed. He enquired about what I was writing about, and I had to confess that I was struggling for a good topic. He suggested I consider writing something on the light side.  "You've been too serious lately", he scolded, before hanging up.

That was it. I immediately grabbed my favourite baseball cap, put on my cool shades to protect the eyes from the rays of the bright Addis sun, and sneaked out the back gate to avoid being detected by my dog.

I should have worn a mask over my nose to avoid ingesting noxious fumes from all the diesel burning monsters on the road at that time of day, but I have decided not make a habit of this and I chose to remember to hold my breath every time a Land Cruiser drives by.

It is a seven-minute walk along a grimy kerkasa-road to the dusty intersection with Namibia Street, just west of the Bole Medhanialem Square. We arrived at the heart of what must be the fastest growing area in Addis Abeba, at least when measured by the shear number of construction sites in the area, and by the volume of Café Americano that is consumed.

Bole is also habitat of some of the wealthiest residents in the capital, so the story goes. Accordingly, Kaldi's Coffee on the corner, will rob you blind for a cup of coffee but then it is continuously mobbed by customers who seem permanently parked there. There is definitely room for hiking the price up even more. In the new Adam's Pavilion, at Pushkin Square, a new Kaldi's Coffee is minting money, and the Old Airport gang have their own Starbucks now.

For the Diaspora in season, this is almost like home. The only thing missing is a good old McDonalds. Christmas has come and gone, its time to plan the return trip to the land of the Stars and Stripes and Freedom Fries over a tall frappuccino.

On the café scene the latest arrival in this crowded business area is La Parisienne Pastry and Zola Café. La Canada Café sits across the way from the trendy Kaldi's Coffee. Do not be surprised if City Café comes to that corner when the EDINA Building Complex is ready to rent.

Keeping watch over its monied neighbours, the humongous cathedral domes of Medhanialem dominate the skyline. Across the street from the triangular church premises, there are at least a dozen construction sites stretching all the way to the intersection with the ring-road overpass to the east, and Africa Avenue to the south. Tele still controls a ridiculous amount of land to operate a couple of telecommunication antennas.

If you are coming from the ring road, as you approach the intersection, cranes, scaffoldings and cement blocks dominate the area to the left, right up to the roundabout. Piles of gravel and sand have taken over the pavement and the right-hand lane. Pedestrians have to walk along the middle lane here. But, at least, the pavement on this section is more or less completed.

Over two years after this road was officially inaugurated we are still waiting for all the construction to be finished. For such a long time there was nothing but deep, rainwater-filled trenches while Tele painstakingly buried thick telephone cables on either side of the road. You needed climbing equipment to navigate any of the intersections that were left in a terribly mangled state after having been bulldozed to widen the old road.

Those days are gone now, the cables are underground and rough gravel covers the cement casings that are waiting to be paved. Maybe it is waiting for marble from Italy. In the meantime, pedestrians have taken over the right lane to reduce the wear and tear to their shoes from the gravel-covered pavement. If these are actually finished before we all 'kick the bucket', I am betting people will find it difficult to give up walking on the soft tarmac.

Miracles never cease, just this last week a construction crew actually asphalted most of the mangled remains at intersections and entrances to homes. Elegantly tall street lighting has begun to illuminate the night and the shiny white poles have already adopted fashionable 'business' stations for the ladies of the night.

Nightlife is at full gallop on the stretch between the Atlas Hotel and Medhanialem. Starting from Bole Tele, the night-time spots are so close together that night owls can be observed stumbling from one bar to another looking for some action. Parking is a hopeless endeavour if you do not get there before 10 o'clock, especially on Fridays and Saturdays.

Virgo, the bar above Kaldi's, provides parking attendants equipped with reflector-striped jackets and flashing wands to direct traffic. Even with these guys doing their best there is almost always a bottleneck at the roundabout after passing a solid line of parked cars that extend all the way to Fantasy Café.

Remember that manhole that you had to avoid immediately after this bottleneck and which used to be guarded by five boulders in the middle of the road as you negotiated the roundabout?  It is still there, thank you very much! Only this time, it has a metal lid on it for the second time around. The last one sank through the manhole when a bus ran over it a few days after it was put in place. So did the manhole cover on the other side of the circle. 

But, behind the ragged fencing of the island a deep ditch is being excavated. Could it be that we can abandon the boat we needed to cross the brown lakes at the roundabout after every rainfall?

Soon, though, there will be a connecting road from this junction to Africa Avenue, joining the two areas of Bole that are saturated with snazzy joints and where attitude adjustment awaits your arrival in places like Utopia, Oxygen, Select, Dioine and Virgo bar/lounges on the north end and Black Rose, The Mask, Maxis and the new Harlem Jazz on the main street of Bole.