Addis Abeba — I am not by any means new to this. If anything I always thought, it was worth visiting under every pretext. When I went there a few days back, I happened to see a trend that I thought was of recent origin. The time I made it to the town was end of the day; perhaps that made all the difference. Anyway what I saw left me gasping for a moment: The streets were teeming with humanity. I have never seen such numbers, even at Merkato at its busy hours. As if that was not enough of a scene by itself, almost everybody promenading was in their teens or early twenties.

I made a cursory attempt to find out if there were any older men or women in the crowd, but hardly big enough to make a difference. Perhaps the time and the pace detrained that. I believe that if I looked for older men and women around churches early in the next morning, I would have found them.

I hadn't closely followed the details of the national population sensus of 2001E.C., but the huge shift in the demographic must be an important revelation. This swing has been long coming in the whole of Africa, of course. In Ethiopia the picture is in your face indeed.

Several towns in Ethiopia seem to be bursting with too many youth. Mekelle is one of them, but it is not the only town by any stretch of the imagination. Shashemene, Hawassa and Bahir Dar are in the same league. Those of us, who had lived in any of the places at one time or another, find it nostalgically disconcerting that nobody seems to know us any more.

On the one hand, you might say that this new demographic reality is good for the country. On its face value, this is even scientific because these young men and women are physically and are supposed to be mentally fit. Maybe. Young men can move mountains and dig up irrigation tunnels. In short create wealth.

On the other hand, everything is not black and white and this is one of them. In Japan the demographics is so skewed towords an aging population that most people are made to stay on and work. The boomer population in the United States, who are in their sixties are into retirement that innumerable studies are being conducted to cater to their well being, thanks they have the money. In Ethiopia, mandatory retirement ages change from government to government. The reasons mostly had to do with politics, ideology and perhaps, BPR too.

Adama town is a crowded place, at least the main streets are. Like other crowded towns across the nation, the population bulge is supposed to being caused by constant immigration both from near and far.

There is one other thing that adds the din and feeling of being overwhelmingly crowded. The fact is that the city being smack in the highway that connects Adds Ababa and the port of Djibouti. So far, and to my observation, any improvement done on this part of the highway was to make drivers happier. Since the people were considered in the abstract, people continue to jostle with trucks, bajajs and taxis. Crossing the main street in Adama one of the most since modern traffic was inaugurated, especially for children and the infirm.

I would like to suggest a thing or two in the matter. The municipality might have other grander plans for the long-term. They have to do with building infrastructures. They have wide pavement roads and pedestrian bridges. They could make the lovers promenade in the city a little less straining.

As you travel in the cities and towns in the country and are confronted by the huge numbers of the young, so many difficult questions come to form in you mind. Are these young men and women prepared to take over the leadership of the country sooner or later? Will they have jobs of their own and move out or will they be adult dependents on their parents. Do they ever read books or newspapers? Do they have their own opinions? Is European football like drugs to them?