It never rains in Addis in the summer!!

That's what I thought until the last 2 days. It was very wet yesterday and today except nowhere near as much downpour as in the winter. I delivered my first audit piece to MoFED today amidst much fanfare. I have no real plans yet for the weekend outside of tennis Saturday with Hiruy. We went for Chinese at lunch and it is now official ... we prefer China Bar over the Forbidden City. They have more choice but it is more expensive. A nice 4-dish lunch for 4 at China Bar with white rice was a whopping $40 and it's a mere $30 at the City. Also, rice comes when you ask for it at the Bar. At the CIty you could ask for it 3 or 4 times over a 30 minute period and it could still not have arrived. I will be picking up my white sports coat at the tailor's today after work. Stay tuned for a picture on Facebook. I went with Tagel and priced cameras yesterday. The 12 mpixel Canon was 7800 birr (a mere $700 CAD) and the 12 mpixel Panasonic Lumix a mere 9800 birr (or $900 CAD). I am asking Paul to get me another Casio Exilim for $145 USD when he is in America this week (would translate into 1750 birr here). Even though he already has, Tagel is getting one as well in case he loses the one he's got. For 1800 birr it is an investment. He paid over 6000 birr for the Sony he has now. Maybe one of you out there in BLOG land can tell me why Sony and Olympus (and probably more) use a proprietary storage card (not the industry standard SD format)? Now that so many PCs read SD cards, why would a camera vendor use anything else?

Start your engines

I hooked up with a lady named Pirko to play tennis with. I wupped her 1-6 1-6 (in other words I got slaughtered). We have made arrangements to play at 4PM every Monday and Wednesday and I will see Hiruy for a lesson one day on the weekend.

I had a nice dinner last with two folks from the guest house, one of them owns a restaurant in Angola so we had a small geography/history lesson while we ate. It was quite informative. Still no camera so I may speak to Tagel today, but he is so helpful I feel I may be taking advantage of him. It still has not rained though it has been threatening lately.

I am going to join Bolé 19 tennis club today for 897 birr that will lower my court fees from 35 birr to 5 birr for an hour of tennis. As well, my sessions with the coach will be significantly less than the 60 birr I have been paying. The prices for lessons just went up. We are supposed to go to the Hilton for the BBQ buffet tonight for what seems to be a whopping 342 birr but in the scheme of things naturally $30 for a buffet at a ferenge hotel is normal. I saw Melaku briefly yesterday and we will probably be going to see some music Friday evening.

Yesterday's post (courtesy of ETC)

Two things happened to me over the weekend which convinced me "I have arrived" in Ethiopia. When I was out with Tagel on Sunday we stopped at a brewery near Addis on the way home to check it out. We paid a small fee to park then entered the pub area that was SO FULL of people the fire marshal would have had a field day in America. We go to the bar and stand at one end for 5 minutes. I ask Tagel what the sign on the wall means and he says "No smoking". I then ask him what's going on and why we have not been served. He does not have a clue how to order. Just like a ferenge, and this guy is native Ethiopian with a father from Eritrea ... welcome to "not having a clue what's going on land :)" Then was we come back to Deker where he drops me off, he does not take the shortcut from Bole Africa to my Bole that is the shortest route. I ask him if he would like me to show him the shortcut next time and he says yes. I am going to show a native Ethiopian how to get around Addis ... I love it. My Nike tennis shoes were brick red from the clay on the court in Bole 19. I decided to get them cleaned when I went out for dinner tonight. Wow! The kid, who was no more than 15, spent 20 minutes on them. He wiped, washed with a soapy sponge, rinsed and then washed again. He took out the shoelaces and washed them and ran them between his fingers to squeeze all the water out. The going rate for any shoe shine in Addis is 3 birr. I gave this guy 10 ... it was better than a night at the movies watching this guy work. I stopped at Dembel mall after work to see about replacing my lost camera. Sony digital cameras started at 5500 birr (roughly 500 CAD) and went up from there. I may go out tomorrow with Tagel and hit a place he knows and trusts. No news at work except Dr. Paul is going back to the US tomorrow for 10 days for OSW. The Ileana flag is orange. I found a legal way to exchange birr for CAD ... I spoke with a travel agent on Saturday who confirmed today that he can book travel in North America and I can pay with birr here!! Picture this ... someone I know wants to go to Los Angeles. I find out the details, book the travel here say with Air Canada, an electronic ticket is issued and then I get paid back in Canadian dollars when I get home ... slick or WHAT! Why all the trouble ... when one leaves Ethiopia you can only take 200 birr with you. If one had say 60,000 birr here (worth about 5,000 USD) there is nothing you can do with it. Foreign exchange here will not buy birr from ferenge!

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.

Saturdays are always the best

Slept in until the phone rang about 9:30 when Melaku called. I then went to Parisienne for a very nice ferenge-style breakfast with an Ethiopian twinge to it. I then cabbed to Friendship mall on Bole Africa. That was the best mall I had seen yet! I did see some bright yellow t-shirts along the lines of the Olympic jackets I got for us a few weeks ago but they were 550 birr. I will keep looking. I then walked and walked and walked for over 4 hours, dipping into shops all along the way. It was very nice and each store was an adventure. I ended up at Dembel mall then started the long walk back to the tennis club. I took my walking stick and used it when it seemed my foot was getting tired. I got to the club about 2:45 and was supposed to hook up with a player named Pirko who Hiruy had told me about. Her and I were supposed to meet as she was playing with her husband at 3PM. She did not show up so I came back to Deker and played and played guitar until going for Chinese food. Tomorrow is action-packed ... tennis with Hiruy at 9AM then Tagel and I are going to the country; he is picking me up at 11. I lost my camera today which is a huge drag. I am very good at copying pictures to my PC so will only lose 4 from today. I just bought a nice Coolpix for my ST in Ottawa to the tune of $230. Tagel mentioned that a replacement here could cost 6,000 birr or $500 USD. As well, it is highly possible that when I get one here it will not be dual voltage. I bought an iron yesterday and it is only 230V. I guess I will call it a travel iron. I have arranged a game with Pirko at 4PM next Thursday. When I see Hiruy tomorrow I will ask him how I reserve a court for that time.

The envelope please ...

The Great Ethiopian quiz answers: 2: Five African countries border the Mediterranean. Can you name 3 of them? Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco all border the Mediterranean. 3: What African country is on its own island? Madagascar. 4: Other than South Africa, name 2 of the 4 most southern countries in Africa. Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Namibia, and Botswana are the 4 other most southern countries in Africa. 5: What country is the USA's 44th president "from", even though he was born in Hawaii? Kenya. 6: The names "Rob" and "Robert" share the same root ... "Rob". Two African countries, which border on one another, use the same root for their name; one of these countries tacks the letters "ia" on the end of its name. What are these two countries? Niger and Nigeria. 7: What southern Afican country was mentioned in the title of a song that Bob Dylan recorded on his Desire album? Mozambique. 8: The famous 1976 raid on Entebbe took place in what country in Africa? Uganda. 9: Match up the following countries with their previous names (the matches below are/may be wrong):    Ethiopia ==> Abyssinia    Zimbabwe ==> Rhodesia    Zambia ==> Rhodesia    Chad ==> French Equatorial Africa    Burkina Faso ==> Upper Volta    Tanzania ==> Tanganyika and Zanzibar 10: In 1960, led by Patrice Lumumba, the Congo declared independence from what country? Belgium.

Another week ...

To steal a name from a famous weekly feature in many newspapers throughout Canada :) Thursday was a busy day at work and then there was tennis at 4. I spoke to Hiruy about finding a few people at Bolé 19 to play tennis with. He has a few ideas, will speak with some people, and contact me or they will contact me directly. I asked him if I was "the worst" player at the club, and he said "no" to make me feel better :)

Nothing planned for the W/E except a visit with Tagel and his family Sunday. I am going with Melaku and another ferenge to see some music somewhere tonight. I will post the answers to the quiz this weekend. Things are moving along on the IBEX2 audit now at a feverish pace, just like we suspected would occur the week I was back from Canada. I went to the bank this morning on the way into work and the ATM was out of service.