Hi David!

It Wednesday evening….We had an other lovely day in Addis. Yesterday was interesting as well even that it did not go as planned. I told you how we were planning to go to the Entoto Mountains yesterday with all the other parents…but did not happen. This is what happened.

We were supposed to meet them all at their guesthouse. We had one of our riders ordered to come and pick us up in the morning (Kirma) but he called early in the morning to tell us his ‘car not working’…(the one we have been pushing around). Then I decided we’ll take a line taxi to meet the rest of the guys there in a certain spot. We got there on time and waited and waited for an hour. No one showed up. We found a phone but no one answered either. Erik and I decided to take an other line taxi and go a little further to our favorite (this far) market place (Postbet). First we had some makiato coffee (like a cappuchino) in a little café.

We did some bargaining for a while (Erik is getting really good in that). I told you how they try get 3 times more money out the ferenzies…so in one store that sold scarves I went beside an older Ethiopian man shopper who was bargaining for the scarves. I asked him what he was offering …together we ended up bargaining the price down to very comfortable figure for everyone. He asked Erik if I have been in other African countries a lot since I am acting like them in the market.

We had missed our breakfast that morning so we were starving…and it was lunch hour already. We decided to find a restaurant. We were walking by a tall building and Erik pointed out something that looked like a restaurant on the bottom floor of the building. So, across the crazy busy street we run…had to go through a security, metal detectors and all…(we thought nothing of that since they did that once before when we went for dinner with the CAFAC families). We were pointing out to the ‘restaurant’ and doing some crazy sign language, pointing our empty tummies. (by the way we both have lost weight while here…our pants are falling) The security people were smiling at us ‘kindly’. Once we got to our ‘restaurant’ there did not seem to be any tables free ‘til one man pointed us to come and sit at the table he was just leaving. One woman remained at it.

We sat down and wondered what to order (no menus)…we stroke up conversation with the woman and she told us what would be good to order. ( Her name was Rahel and her sister lives in Canada (Toronto) and goes to school there. At the end of our lunch we even exchanged phone numbers in case we’ll have a chance to go shopping or something.) The meal came. It was Ethiopian cultural food and looked a little iffy (there was even some raw meat on it)….once our food arrived 3 more ladies arrived to the table with their lunch buckets (they all had brought their own food). My friend, Rahel, was trying to get me to eat all my food but I kept on insisting I am full (I did not have appetite for that food although I tried eating some). Then I ended up sharing my plate with the other ladies (none of us had forks…just fingers all over the food). I think we all had a really nice time together talking and laughing. I am sure they were thinking we were 2 crazy ferenzies eating at their office lunch cafeteria.

It’s a day after that lunch now and neither one of us is sick to our stomachs. We got to go to our Entoto mountain today! I asked Alayu if we could take the Addis Kidan truck there this morning (and a driver)….so that’s what we did. I will write more on that tomorrow.

Love Satu and Erik