ferengi/white girl factor

The Ethiopian government is atypical when it comes to baggage checks I find. As soon as you enter the airport, all your baggage (large and otherwise) is checked via xray. Every person I saw was asked to remove their shoes when they went through the metal detector, except your's truly - evidently the white girl could never be a terrorist. Once you enter into the gate area to wait (further) for your flight, there's another carry-on luggage/shoe check. This time, I even offered to remove my shoes but they waved me aside.

On the return, their concern is not so much to do with bombs and such but whether you're bringing something into the country that you can sell and more importantly, they can tax. So your luggage is xrayed again as you leave the airport. I brought some definitely suspicious items in (or at least I thought they were) and a couple of mobile phones (something they could've easily taxed me on) but as my ridiculously giant black bag rolled by, they chatted to themselves instead of inspecting. Fine by me.

I'm very aware of other people's experiences...