Fasting

Fasting, or self-restrictions, seem to be a common element among all religions.  The Ethiopian Orthodox Church is no exception.  In fact, it has a total of 250 days a year, which are supposed to be fasting, including every Wednesday and Friday. Currently, we are in the middle of a 55 day fast for Lent.  For the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, fast generally implies not eating anything before 3 pm and complete abstention from meat, fats, eggs and dairy products, basically a vegan diet.  

This seems, from my limited exposure, to be practiced widely and faithfully.  I have stuck my foot in my mouth a few times making what would seem to be very tempting offers, such as coca-cola before noon or birthday cake, only to be reminded of the fast.  This is such a large part of the culture that every restaurant has noted on the menu fasting and non-fasting dishes.  Luckily for Ethiopians, injera is acceptable during fasts!

House Warmed and Ready for Visitors

We have worked hard over the last two months to get our house organized and have finally reached a point where we feel like we can start to entertain again.  We have had a couple of dinner parties and last saturday we had our official house warming party.  Over the course of about 12 hours, we had about 30 new and old friends join us to celebrate our new home.  Tsegaw had the brilliant idea to rent tables and chairs.  So for less than $10, we got tables and chairs that we were able to set up in the lawn and enjoy the garden.  Now, we are getting ready to welcome our first official guest, Laura Plattner, a friend from Swaziland, who arrives tomorrow.  Book your trip now before it fills up!

Here is a quick tour of our nearly furnished house.

Our front patio now with grill and Garrett's great Mozambican chairs.

 Our living room with our Chinese couches, my little Baobab Batik chair and our Habesha coffee table.  This was made to order and a steal.  I did not even bargain, his first price was so reasonable.

The house was obviously built in the seventies so has a lot of character with its dark lacquered brick wall and lighting fixtures.  All of these little touches have become more endearing as this has become our home.

We found a young man, Nebiyou, in Piazza who crafted the dining room table for us.

We visited a number of different shops including one in a mud and stone workshop.  Where we saw first hand that all of this furniture is constructed with hand tools.  

Nebiyou was the nicest though and gave us the best price.  This has paid off for him as well because he did such a nice job and delivered on time that we have not only used him again, but gotten him other ex-pat business. 

Another Nebiyou creation are the cabinets below, which gave us much needed counter and drawer space.  We are still not sure what to do with that back corner, but we are discussing putting a traditional Ethiopian coffee table and chairs there. 

I am enjoying our new gas stove.  I have even gotten use to the big gas canister standing directly next to it.  It looks a bit excessive with six burners and a large oven, but the other ovens were tiny.  It was only after getting it home and having the delivery man run through the features with me, that I realized there is a rotating spit in the oven.  Who even knew this was a possibility?  Can't I just have another wire rack?  Guess we have some experimenting to do.

 Our bed and side tables were also made by Nebiyou.  It is the largest bed I have ever owned.  Garrett's feet don't even hang off the end.

 For our guest room, we ordered a bamboo bed.  This was our only bad experience with a carpenter.  It required multiple days of me calling and almost two weeks after his initial deadline for us to have the bed and both bedside tables.  The bed is fine, but the bedside tables are pretty crap and not at all what we agreed upon.  They were supposed to match the weaving in the bed and have a door below the drawer.  I paid him because I was ready to be done with him, but I kicked myself for it later.  We were happy to be able to get our mattress off the floor and it served us well until we got our new bed.

 Finally, our game room, which may some day be an office.

The house still needs some finishing touches, like hanging pictures on the walls and finding duvets for the beds, but it is already home!

Keeping Me on My Toes

I set out today to buy a blanket for our guest bed and a few more adapters for our electrical sockets.  This wasn't my first rodeo so I strode off confidently knowing exactly where I was going.  Only, since my last visit to this neighborhood, they had torn down an entire row of shops.  Because there were some stores already opened behind the original stores, it took me almost a entire block to realize that this large scale demolition had occurred.  I guess large piles of rubble on the side of the road no longer seem out of the ordinary so do not catch my attention.

This is a planned line on the light rail system that is currently under construction in Addis and scheduled to be completed in a couple of years.

Welcome Back, Mid-Twenties!

Normally, I feel like getting a new driver's license adds years to your life.  But here, although it was a multi-day, multi-stop process, in the end I left 8 years younger than when I went.  Birthday stayed the same, but according to the Ethiopian calendar it is 2005!

The stress of driving might add those years back pretty quickly.

Happy Hunting in Addis

Circling Addis are probably hundreds of the bird of prey seen below.  I believe they are some sort of hawk, but I am not a birder so am not sure.  

Usually you see a one or two solitary birds slowly circling looking for prey.  Occasionally, though, there are a large number circling the same area and you know there must be some big treat waiting below.   

I have never lived in this large of a city before, but when travelling have never noticed this in any city.  This has spurned a few conversations about why they are in Addis.  My thought was that with poor garbage collection, stray dogs, herding animals, etc., that there is plenty of food to support them so they stick around.  Although I don't remember noticing this in India, which would also meet a lot of those criteria.  Another friend was wondering if it has something to do with the mountain location of Addis.  Any birders who can help give more insight?

Recycling Tires

These young men are burning tires for use in construction of this small local road.

Recycling is good for the environment, right?  And these young men's lungs!