Trip South - Evening Activities

After checking into the hotel, we decided to head out to get some food.  I insisted we have some traditional Ethiopian food.  Lekeneh and Elsae took us to a nearby restaurant.  I decided to use the shintobait first.  It was a bit rough, but not as bad as the toilet in the Maputo, Mozambique market. And I had a full bladder, so I used it!!

They ordered us up some kitfo with injera.   R kept asking for lentils.  I guess the word “lentils” didn’t translate well because it showed up as “beef”.  Also, despite my repeated requests that we get cooked kitfo, it showed up warmed.  Warmed: meaning heated enough so approximately 0.33 inches out of 4 inches of ground beef was browned. 

In my head, I immediately rationalized. 

• I’ll just eat the browned part.
• I have enough Pepto tablets to stop up any type of bug until we get back to Addis.
• I don’t want to be rude.
• I’ve had years of exposure to Southern African microbes.  I must’ve built up some immunity.  How different can they be?  It’s the same continent.

Well, after sampling it for a few minutes, two orders of cooked kitfo showed up for the picky Ferengi.  It was quite tasty.  The injera was the best I’d had so far. 

 

However, I don’t get what the big deal about beriberi is.  It tastes an awful lot like to paprika to me.

We were also instructed on how to mix the drinks.  Diluting Fanta Orange with Mirinda (tastes like Tonic) cuts the sweetness considerably.  It’s almost like Fake Diet Sunkist. 

They taught us (tried to) Amharic words. R. was a much quicker study than me. They made me practice so much I will be able to say Amesegunallo until I’m 87 years old.

I taught them to say cikilicane (a siSwati word with 2 click sounds, meaning “pinky finger”).  They were also much quicker learners than me.  After debating British vs American pronunciation, Lekeneh was eager to try out an American accent.  So, basically I had him blat out his short A sounds like a calf looking for its mother.  Not an attractive sight, but it worked.

We all ignored the cat wandering in and out of the restaurant.

Of course, I took lots of pics, including of the coffee ceremony area painstakingly decorated with a fake Christmas tree, sparkly metallic garland and a hula skirt.

I had to do several “Take Twos” to get Lekeneh to smile in the photos.  Eventually he learned and didn’t even try to start off with a serious face anymore. 

The whole time, I was pretty sure Elsae was thinking, “Nobody will believe me if I tell them about these two so I may as well enjoy the ride!”  I did try to be on relatively good behavior - he is a minister, after all!

The whole meal (4 meals and 8 beverages) costed 55 birr.  I was admonished for not counting my change immediately. They instructed us on the Ethiopian way to count money.  Flip it forward instead of sliding it to the side.

After dinner, we set about strolling through town.  I insisted on walking down the middle of the road and not moving until the oncoming vehicles honked at us.  (Yet another effect of sleep deprivation controlling my ideas on how to assimilate with the culture.) 

In our wanderings, we debated prices of things.  Avocados, mangos - cheaper in Ethiopia.  Bicycles - cheaper in America.  Gasoline - same in both. 

We bought some roasted maize from some girls.  R and I felt like naughty school girls chucking the empty corncob into the ditch.   My muscles were actually tingling before I did it.  (Oh yeah, did I mention I am a Safety AND Environmental Manager?) We both looked around for the litter police to bust us.  I swear, to me, it felt like spraying graffiti on the side of the high school or something! Elsae and Lekeneh were shocked by the potential $500 fine for littering in America.  It (500 dollars!) became a running joke for us.

After a complete circuit through town, I realized we had forgotten to have our coffees so I insisted we go back to the “Honey Pastry” shop to get coffee.  They asked if we wanted milk with the coffee.  (Didn’t I tell you 4 times I’m from Wisconsin?  Of course I want dairy!)  So they ordered mekados for us.  Eventually, we figured out that “mekado” was really “macchiato” and Lekeneh got macchiato added to the list of foreign words he was responsible for learning to pronounce.  Once again, he mastered it very quickly.  The coffee shop was interestingly decorated with an assortment of Christmas lights.  Definitely a mood booster if you were taking your Honey out on a date to the Honey Pastry.

As a side note:  I ate the roasted peas from the girls selling them on the side of the road.  I ate the warmed kitfo served in the restaurant with the wandering cat.  I ate roasted maize sold from the side of the road.  I shared my water with at least 9 different kids at the orphanage.  I never had any stomach/intestinal problems until after I ate at a not-to-be-named classy hotel in Addis and developed stomach cramping.  The same was true for R. Fortunately for me, I chugged enough Pepto pills to calm my stomach down.