First impressions

'Little Donkey'

This is a quick snap of me at the underground on my way to the airport (granted not the most flattering photo), looking like a pack horse, carrying my life for the next 3 months. I am grateful that once I am settled with my host family I will not have to lug this stuff about, and on my way home it should all be considerably lighter!

After a smooth, but rather long journey I have made it to Addis Ababa along with 18 other UK VSO volunteers. We arrived at sunrise, this was the view from the plane as we came in to land.

Sunrise from Addis Ababa airport

We are currently staying in Addis Ababa University, we have met up with 20 Ethiopian VSO volunteers who will be our counterparts for the duration of our trip. The next few days are about building rapport with each other and making sure we are all on the same page in terms of our purpose here and the objectives of the ICS project.

My first impressions are all very good, Ethiopians offer a very warm welcome (and I don’t just mean the sunshine!). Yesterday we were lucky enough to experience a traditional coffee ceremony, in which fresh coffee beans are toasted and coffee is made from them which is served to you with a healthy helping of sugar and a sprig of 'Tena Adam'. There was also popcorn and 'Diffo' cake to try, much to our delight. I have never had coffee like this, usually taking mine in the form of a Skinny Latte or a Cortado. However, I must say I am most definitely a convert and now worry, that after only 2 days here, I may be returning with a caffeine addiction.

Wearing traditional dress and tending to the coffee beans

'Espresso' size coffee served to me

In order to make sure our cross cultural relationships work in perfect harmony, we had a session of sharing known taboos from each of our cultures. We were advised by our counterparts that in Ethiopia it is not accepted for women to smoke in public, neither is it okay for you to fart (yes, this is the actual word used by the nationals) or burp in public, and you should not raise your voice unnecessarily. These are all things that I will certainly be able to cope with!

Today we had a brief Amharic lesson, and we should have a couple more before we head off to our projects. It is a nice challenge trying to get your tongue around the pronunciation and remembering the male and female terms to be used. I’ll keep you posted on my progress with that!

Tonight there is a very important football match on, Ethiopia are playing in the African Cup  of nations (for the first time in 31 years) so there is a potential ‘once in a lifetime’ opportunity for the nationals to experience their team playing and hopefully winning – you can feel the excitement in the air as Ethiopians are absolutely crazy about football. So much so that they are genuinely shocked when some of us responded with “Oh, I am not into football really”. Something else that I think will change while we are here!

Kx

With thanks to Menelik for the Ahmaric wording used above.