This blog could just as reasonably be titled: “Dancing,
Drinking and Other Regrets”, but I figured I’d go with a more wholesome
suggestion.
I was really excited to hear that the Great Ethiopian Run would be going on while I was in Addis.
Basically any expat/Ethiopian I talked with the day before the run asked me if I
was planning on going. It seemed like such a huge event – I obviously
enthusiastically replied “YES!” every time I was asked.
Then I woke up at 10am. The race started at 9am. And was in
the city. So I didn’t make it.
At first, I blamed the dancing, drinking and other
adventures from the night before. Anxious that I only had one weekend night in
Addis, I had called Ishy and INSISTED that he take me out dancing. I never
think it’s reasonable to say you’ve visited a city if you’ve never gotten drunk
with locals – so I saw this as necessary. Ishy was a little surprised by my
enthusiasm to go out drinking after arriving at 7am that morning (and sleeping
next to none on the plane – I have already submitted a formal complaint to
Ethiopian Airlines – I DO NOT understand why they turned the cabin lights off
for the first part of the flight and ON for the second part – the flight landed
at 7am! We should’ve all been sleeping right up til the landing!) but, as I’ve
said, drinking with locals = necessary.
So after a great dinner with Gondar house, complete with
Ethiopian coffee ceremony (a true ceremony that includes roasting beans and
drinking three rounds of very dark coffee out of tiny little cups, often laden
with sugar), Ishy picked me up and off we went to downtown!
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| Injera dinner at Gondar house. Fuzzy picture because - yes - I was embarrassed to be #instagramming my food. |
We started at a
sports pub to watch the Real Madrid – Barcelona match, continued onto a “fancy
place” where they had more Tanquery in one place than I’ve ever seen in my life
and ended at a dance club/ hookah bar where we pushed through the blackout** and
stayed until the wee hours of the morning…where then we really ended the night at a pizza joint. I got home around 3am and
was still so energized that a lucky someone got to spend 20 minutes on a
combination of Facebook/GroupMe/Whatsapp calls with a very drunk and happy (and
sappy) me.
So…needless to say, that 8am alarm got turned off pretty
quickly. (Not that I had a way really to get to the GER since Ishy didn’t wake
up until around noon…)
I did spend most of today in a haze of confusion however
because I have always INSISTED that jet lag doesn’t impact me/ only impacts the
weak. I was a bit terrified that in my old age*, I had become weak.
This was up until I was at Menelik House for dinner tonight
and, after dinner, we started the coffee ceremony again. Eyob kindly explained
to me that it is traditional in Ethiopia to drink three rounds of coffee during
the ceremony (the “Abole”, the “Tona” and the “Bereka”). As we were drinking
the Abole, he asked me if I would do all three rounds. Eager to please and to
accept the hospitality, I said yes. Everybody in the room reacted to my
agreement though – with a universal “REALLY?!? How are you going to SLEEP!?!”
And that’s when it hit me: I have a rule of saying yes to
anything that I am served in somebody’s house*** – it’s actually the reason I started eating
meat before I moved to Rwanda (the reason I continued after Rwanda is bacon). This
rule has given me a generous list of foods that I can brag about having tried
(generally, once) – but I’ve never thought that I should get credit for
drinking something as common as COFFEE.
But for those of you who don’t know me that well…I DO NOT
drink caffeine. This little body has enough energy in it that caffeine is not
only not necessary – it’s probably a health hazard. I mean – of course, I’d say
yes to coffee without a second thought when invited into a family’s house and
when it’s so integral to their culture. But in real life…NEVER.
So now I know why I missed the Great Ethiopian Run. It wasn’t
because of dancing and drinking and pizza – it was because of the famed
Ethiopian Coffee Ceremony!
 |
| Roasting the beans as part of the Ethiopian Coffee Ceremony! Gondar House and Menelik House were both great hosts for my first two dinners in Ethiopia! |
*Note: not that old
**In reviewing this - I feel the need to explain that I mean an ACTUAL blackout. Like...when the electricity goes out. Not a drunk blackout. Although maybe it's a reasonable pun here.
***Entertainingly, I actually broke that rule at the Menelik
house when I was offered tap water. I have seen my system handle tap water
before, but given the short duration of my trip this time around, I didn’t want
to waste being sick for any of it! So I did say “no” to the tap water. And
immediately felt incredibly guilty as Eyob ran out to the market to buy a
bottle of water for me. And I didn’t have any birr on me so I couldn’t pay him
back. And I’m feeling like the worst person in the world as I’m typing this…trust
me.
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