Lion Hotel Addis Ababa

... be a trick to get money out of us (we had been warned about the coffee ceremony ploy) Marvin and I apprehensively sipped the lovely dark liquid…secretly waiting for the massive bill. In Ethiopia (the home of coffee by the way – it was used as a stimulant by the monks to stop falling asleep whilst praying) drinking coffee is a ritual – ‘The coffee ceremony’. First the coffee beans are roasted on the fire, some incense (Weihrauch) is then thrown on the ...

... were able to begin it was 10:30. We voted on a President (Greg Swartz) and Secretary/Treasurer (Flavia Everman), and went over the mission statement and salient points of the bylaws. The meeting was held in English, so I translated into French for Mr. Mundeli and occasionally for the other board members who are still more comfortable in French than English. Another dentist from the Butare Hospital was up for a visit, so she was ...

... much back and forth (I felt pretty horrible about accepting their off**) I relented aft** they wouldn't take "no" for an answ**. So Lydia arrived as planned in the wee hours, at which point between bouts of laught** I explained that all the luggage in the room wasn't mine but some guy named Phil's who had graciously given us his room and who would just be back at around 7:30 am to change his clothes. In fact we w**e sup** lucky since a Kenyan woman had come in right ...

... and daub construction, about the size of our living room, no electricity or gase or running water. It held a double bed made of dried mud with a stuffed mattress on top plus 4 single beds adjoining the walls. There was a small wooden bench and small table. The food preparation and cooking was done outside. The family had a mule which was used to go and fetch fresh water from the river a couple of kilometres away using ...

... up the mountain we could see many women, sometimes even young girls, carrying wood on their backs. On the top of the mountain are the Maryam Church and the palace of Emperor Menelik. The last visit of the day was Merkato. You can buy anything in this market! Here as well people with incredible loads on their backs! Can you believe this guy?

... evidences of Ethiobamamania are everywhere.  Within the past five months, "Obama Café"s have sprung up all over the country.  The largest and most prominent of these is in Bahirdar, where you can eat the best steak-and-cheese sandwich in Ethiopia under multiple images of the man himself, smiling endearingly down on you from the walls.  Unsurprisingly, the most extravagant display of Obama exuberance can be found in the capital city of Addis Ababa ...

... heard all the circumstances we knew would eventually push her to go: a lack of meaningful work at her assigned office, active efforts by her supervisor to prevent her from working elsewhere, haunting first-hand experiences with the devastations of poverty and disease in a developing nation,unresponsiveness on the part of the Peace Corps office, feelings of helplessness, isolation, and utter frustration. We sympathized, being faced with similar situations ourselves. But we ...

As I indicated before, Ethiopia has 13 months-12 months have 30 days and the 13th month has 5 days except every 4 years it has 6. The other oddity aside from the fact that this is Ethiopia's millenium year 2000, is that they start their "zero" hour at sunrise every day while all their ...

... cheese made locally (also smoked gouda!) and garlic dressing from Holland. Keep your eye out for a little hole-in-the-wall bakery outlet with small loaves of Italian crusty bread - the Baro serves the equivalent of Wonder Bread. Bring these back and doctor up the egg burger. Get a seat by the TV and enjoy the soccer game. February 9, 2008 Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Arvid had read in "Dark Star Safari" Paul Theroux's account of his adventures in the town of Harar, it's a walled Muslim ...

We arrived in Addis Ababa around 6am. The visa on arrival was easy to get. When we got out, my HC host Michael was there to pick us up. It was nice to have someone to welcome us to a new country. He took us home and then we had a few hours sleep. We started the day with a nice breakfast at the building where my host's office is. The hot chocolate was amazing! We then took a taxi to Ethnological Museum but the taxi driver dropped us somewhere else. We got in and had no idea where it ...