Nothing feels the same as it is does for the first time. It was as I was contemplating going to an exhibition and workshop on Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Addis Abeba, which opened on April 15, 2021, that I was taken back with nostalgic thoughts of the first time another piece of technology mesmerised me.

The first motor vehicle I ever went inside was an old Italian car. Before then, I was never far from our village’s dusty alleyway - its ends marking in my little brain the end of the only world I knew. That day, we were given a ride as my mother was taking me to a hospital. It was a mind-bending moment. The truck’s engine is fitted in front of the driver’s cabin, dominating the whole show on its skeletal frame, on which various mechanical parts were loosely bolted. As we traveled, it shook and made a noise as if it would break down at any moment. Its heavy exhaust smoke blackened the air, creating a temporary trail.

Soon I started to go to Mercato with the Anbessa public bus, again with my mother and noted the contrasts between the truck and the bus. It was no small discovery. Yet, this was still a small motorised vehicle compare to my next significant encounter.

That was the train. My mom told me anecdotes about it. I once also saw it, this time from the vantage point of her shoulder. It had generous, gushy smoke burping out of the chimney; the crankshaft and the wheels had a synchronised exhilaration; and finally there was mayhem evoked by the loud shrieks as it pulled to a stop.

For those that lived close by, nightfall was unthinkable without the whistles and the sounds of the train arriving or departing. As our home was in the vicinity, the thunder from La Gare train station used to set my mom’s attention alight, waking her up from memory lane. I used to share her concern why it is sometimes late or early in its arrival.

It was soon with my friends that we started to go to La Gare, all on our own. We roamed around the station first, with a keen interest to sort out how it works. After a while, we graduated to jumping on a moving train as it approaches the station, hanging onto whatever came in handy. That was not the only thing I graduated to, but a fascination with a different type of motor-propelled machine: airplanes.