In Arada, I stopped over by a hotel in front of Cinema Empire. I sat alone inside with my carbonated water, an Ambo. Not too long after a heavily built senior citizen, old enough to be my father, came in and ordered lunch. As the food was presented, he immediately started to ramble to anyone that would listen. He asked the owner to show up and called on a woman whose name he repeatedly mentioned to no avail.

He also talked nostalgically about Arada — a district today but a historic neighbourhood as well that serves as a museum of the city. For much of Addis Abeba’s existence, it was arguably the city's cultural, economic and social hub. The old man said the café was a suave place where he ate injera(flatbread) with doro wot(chicken stew) just for two Birr before heading to the movies.

He did not want to tell me more, but neither was he any less impressed by my story as I was with his. I spoke of the first movie I ever saw at Cinema Adwa, where I was thunderstruck to piece together what happened in the order of events from the far screen, which I thought was on the sky.

Arada has for long been the epicentre of the very heart of Addis Abeba. William Butler Yeats, the Irish poet, said in the great cities we see so little of the world, we drift into our "minority." In the little towns and villages, there are no minorities; people are not numerous enough.

The older man is not an exception. I have friends his age. Just some days before, one of them was telling us about how life looked right at the spot where the headquarters of Ethio telecom is erected, where one of the first traffic light junctions in the city was put up.

Sometime around then, we also argued about the location of Lambordia Hotel & Restaurant. Its picture was present, and thanks to a more senior friend, with further assistance from our younger friends, we concluded its exact location from its surrounding topography.