One More Day!

Last night we went out to dinner, with Solomon, this is the brother of a friend of ours from America.
He was so kind to come get us and take us out to eat. Now this story gets funny because the Americans don't completely understand the Ethiopian culture in this story. There is no intention to offend or make fun of Ethiopia, only to make fun of the dumb Americans who had no idea what we were getting into (The person responsible for this shall remain nameless).

So Solomon comes to get us from the guest house in the Toyota Corolla he has rented for the day for 120 birr ($12 US). Everyone here is either transported by bus or by a 1980's Toyota Corolla (this is a generalization of course). Now we have been riding in a bus for the past week, up/higher than the traffic and the people. Now being driven in a Toyota Corolla, we are below eye level with the many, many people who approach us in the worst rush hour traffic you can imagine. Solomon sends them away, but it is difficult for me because many of them know just enough English to say "Please Mister. Hungry. Please Mister. Hungry". It is so sad, some of them are very small children that are looking for food and/or money.

So we arrive at the restaurant after 30+ minutes of stop and go traffic - think whip lash type of stop and go, not your basic traffic. You know the mother panick gasp that women make when their children fall? Trent did this on more than one occasion. Solomon told Trent to relax, "Relax, relax no problem". Trent asked him if he ever hit anyone, "Oh, yes. Not hurt but very angry." Solomon insisted that "God is under control" (this is not a typo).

At the restaurant Solomon asks us if we like meat -at the guest house we have eaten enough carbs to explode the basic intestinal track, so meat sounded excellent. He asked us if we like meat with a little fire or medium fire, he would order a good dish called Kitfo. He literally meant how much fire the Kitfo would be cooked with, not the amount of spice being cooked with. Shortly thereafter we were served two large dishes of ground beef, one cooked with a "little fire", one with "medium fire"... this should be read as one completely raw, and one cooked rare (but I didn't know this until hours after eating and a Google search). Solomon insisted this was fresh and we should eat. He even called our friend in America to have her tell us we should eat Kitfo... In any case, I felt very bad not to eat, so I insisted all of the meat needed "more fire". In Amharic the waiter and Solomon discussed that the Americans do not eat so much, so he shouldn't order too much. Interesting, all the Americans I know can eat a lot, maybe, just maybe it has to do with this being raw meat. (you make the call). In addition to this chaos I managed to spill coffee twice and dump the entire cup over after that. Then we moved to a new table and Tamene managed to dump over more coffee and a glass of water. Take note, we were the only Americans in the place. I am sure we made a great impression.

Anyway, trying so hard not to be rude, I ate a very, very large portion of injera (this is a large flat bread, made with fermented mix). The problem is that my stomach is probably more used to eating under-cooked meat than large portions of fermented bread. I'll spare you the details, but I am still recovering from this cultural faux pas. I expect to be well enough to manage the plane ride without too much trouble. Also, do you know if you eat large doses of Pepto, your tongue turns black? Not kind of black, not a little spot, the whole thing turns black - yuck.

So, it was an experience we will remember. But I do have some great words from Solomon that I would like to leave from Ethiopia with:

"In this part of the earth we are closer to heaven and we touch the sky."

An amazing way to end our journey here in Ethiopia!