Out of town with Tagel

Another gloriously sunny day in Addis. Today was my second trip out of the city wiith Tagel. I was supposed to go to his house to meet his family. They ended up having other plans so it was him and me again. I started the day with a waffle breakfast at La Parisienne which has quickly become a breakfast hangout for this ferenge. I then played tennis with Hiruy and, duh, practice makes perfect. Now that I am serving and serving and serving, my accuracy and speed is improving. He is happier with my forehand too. Tagel and I drove 120 kilometres northeast from Addis, to a town in the Oromia region called Waliso. We passed through a gamut of lovely small towns, each on its own a gem. There were people all over the place in these towns, busily doing this and that under the hot sun. There was at least one grocery store in each town not to mention a place of worship and a clinic of some sort. We stopped along the way to pick up an interesting green pod that has peas in it not too unlike edamama. They were a bit more sour but very appetizing. One of their most popular fasting foods is shiro, which we though was made from chick pea, is actually made from this pea. Fasting food the orthodox Christians eat Wednesday and Friday; it is forbidden to eat animal fat those 2 days, so the likes of cheese, eggs, butter, etc. are off limits. I have recently found out that cheese is not a big part of the Ethiopian diet; that alone could help explain their being more healthy than your "average" ferenge. It was fun seeing the houses along the route as we were in the Oromia region next to the city. Each region has a unique style of house, driven by the raw materials that happen to be available in their individual locales. We ended up in the biggest town on the route so far in the Oromia region and stopped for a lovely lunch at a resort. I had fish, he had steak. I gobbled 2 bottles of Ambo (sparkling water) and then we toured the resort for a while. All the cabins are designed after the locale/region specific houses all over Ethiopia. Some were especially fascinating, all having grass roofs. Some walls were mud some were stone or some wood like bamboo. The flashing on the roof in all cabins was bamboo. On the way back we enjoyed pleasant conversation as we always do. I understand about 95% of what Tagel says and he I :) We politely ask each other to repeat when we do not understand one another. There were some interesting sub-divisions along the roadside on both ways. Periodically we saw a little enclave of 3-5 huts surrounded by a fence of sorts. These little communities were very sweet and the people hanging out all over the place were gabbing away at a feverish pace. There were gaggles of donkeys, lamb, cows, bulls, and goats all over the place, and from time-to-time we had to avoid one or more in the middle of the road. I now have 2 soon to be 4 audit items completed/just about completed so I will try to wrap up some more details in the AM. I am playing tennis Wednesday and Thursday this week which is all I have planned so far.