After several years away, I recently returned to Dire Dawa with my wife and daughter, joined by my wife’s colleague, her husband, and their two children.

We travelled from Addis Ababa by air. We could have taken the train, but we opted to fly. We had heard that the train slows down to avoid camels wandering onto the tracks, and that children sometimes throw stones at passing carriages. When I mentioned this, a friend reassured me: “Don’t worry—the windows are tough and don’t break easily.” With children travelling with us, however, we decided to skip that adventure.

What surprised me most was the number of people flying from Bole Airport. A decade earlier, when I worked as a tour guide, domestic flights were largely the preserve of European tourists, government officials, and wealthy merchants. Today, people from all walks of life fly, driven in part by growing concerns about robbery and kidnapping on long-distance bus routes.

After dropping our luggage at a hotel in the Sabian district, we split between two tuk-tuks—locally known as Forces—and headed to Kezira to visit the former Chemin de Fer station.The once ubiquitous Peugeot taxis that long dominated Dire Dawa’s streets have now disappeared.

Unlike Addis Ababa, which has become almost unrecognisable over the years, Dire Dawa has changed remarkably little. Many of its old hotels, cafés, and buildings are still standing, preserving much of the town’s former character. While waiting for our guide, Kadra, we stopped for a macchiato at Makonnen Bar, housed in an old building opposite the railway station—a place I used to frequent when I lived in Dire Dawa more than twenty years ago.

Kadra, a Somali woman from Dire Dawa, had once worked for the railway. Now in her fifties, she wore a green headscarf and a long skirt reminiscent of the styles commonly seen in neighbouring Djibouti. She guided us in fluent French, once the working language of the railway.

Built by the French between 1897 and 1917 during the reign of Emperor Menelik II, the railway linking Addis Ababa with Djibouti transformed Dire Dawa into one of Ethiopia’s most cosmopolitan towns. At the station, faded signs in Amharic and French recall the days when the railway was the country’s main gateway to the sea. In the railway yards, rusting locomotives, Haile Selassie’s private carriage, abandoned Renault staff cars, and rows of old bicycles remain as silent witnesses to another era.

Yet the railway is not merely a museum piece. The historic workshops are still operating, keeping the ageing line alive. Inside, lathes, milling machines, grinders, and other heavy equipment—many dating back several decades—continue to manufacture and repair parts. Their survival reflects a culture of ingenuity, where machines are maintained rather than replaced and continue working far beyond their intended lifespan.

Until the 1970s, Dire Dawa was home to a sizeable French community. That legacy survives today through the Alliance Française, one of Ethiopia’s principal French cultural centres alongside the one in Addis Ababa. It offers French courses, organises cultural events, and maintains links with the railway heritage through the Railway Workers’ Club, where pétanque is still played.

When we visited, preparations for the national elections were underway, with campaign posters and tissue-paper advertisements hanging at the Alliance gate. Although we arrived a little late, we were welcomed by the director, Jean-Michel Neher, who spoke enthusiastically about reviving the institution. He described an expanding programme of cultural events, French language teaching, and outreach activities designed to reconnect the Alliance with Dire Dawa’s Francophone and railway heritage.

One initiative particularly caught our attention: bilingual poetry readings bringing together French and Ethiopian languages. One of our travelling companions, Mikias G. Michael, himself a poet, quickly became engrossed in conversation with Neher. Before we left, the director presented him with a copy of Passages, an Amharic translation of poems by Arthur Rimbaud.

The following morning, before setting off for Harar, we visited the Dire Dawa African War Cemetery. Immaculately maintained but almost devoid of trees and flowers, it contains the graves of Commonwealth soldiers who died fighting Fascist Italian forces during the Second World War.

The cemetery recalls the East African Campaign of 1940–41. Following Italy’s entry into the war, Commonwealth forces advanced from Kenya through Somaliland before liberating Ethiopia. Harar fell first, followed by Addis Ababa in April 1941, enabling Emperor Haile Selassie to return to his capital.

The cemetery’s stern caretaker, a man who tolerated no nonsense, watched us carefully throughout our visit. As we were about to leave, he asked us to record our impressions in the visitors’ Golden Book. We gladly complied.

Leaving Dire Dawa for Harar, we caught a final glimpse of the Greek Orthodox church from the car. The town’s small Greek community, established through trade and the railway, has largely disappeared, but the church remains as another reminder of the remarkably cosmopolitan city that Dire Dawa once was.