Hujambo!

If you don’t like the sour Ethiopian bread injera, steer clear of Tibs Firfir! It’s number 50 on the menu at the National Cafe in downtown Addis, next to the National Theater and the big lion statue. In Amharic it looks like this: ጥብስ ፍርፍር. Don’t say I didn’t warn you… I made a bit of a mistake ordering dinner tonight with a friend in Addis Ababa. We decided we both liked tibs, an Ethiopian dish with roasted meat and, sometimes, tasty sauteed vegetables. What we didn’t know is that the “firfir” changes the game completely! Your itty bitty pieces of meat come mixed with shredded injera wrapped in a huge, pancake-like… injera!

I’ve eaten tibs a few times now, and every time it comes differently. I’m going to stop saying I like tibs until I speak better Amharic and I can explain that, “I want the one in the bowl with veggies, not wrapped in injera.” My friend and I had a good laugh when the food came, and we never let on that we were expecting anything different. We did our best to eat it, her continually asking for more water, and me asking for more bread. Add it to the list of things I’ll never forget about Ethiopia.

Live and learn… injera is not for me! Oh, and I need to learn Amharic if ILRI is going to be sending me to Ethiopia more often.

I’ve been in Addis Ababa since this morning. The taxi picked me up at my house at 5:30 and I was in the ILRI Addis office by 10. Not bad! I’ll be in Ethiopia for another ten days or so, mainly doing some capacity building of the ILRI Addis web development team on the Linux platform (they currently use Windows as a server platform but want to move some applications to Linux servers). I was in Ethiopia last year, but I didn’t take a bus this time so I am already off to a better start.

I’ve got a great room in the hostel here at the ILRI campus. The campus is much more beautiful than I’m used to (hard to believe if you’ve seen the Nairobi campus). For example, today I was sitting in my office just before dusk and I saw a dik-dik grazing in the grass just outside my window. The working environment here is much different too. After lunch we all went for coffee in the campus bar, then took a walk around the compound. I thought my counterparts just wanted to take a stroll, but looked behind me and saw another twenty people just walking and chatting. It felt like a walk to cure cancer or something, very leisurely and social. We don’t do that at ILRI Nairobi…
Read more

Since I moved into my new house last week I’ve been exploring cooking again. It’s been a few months since I cooked last, instead I’ve been opting to eat out or make simple things like toast with peanut butter. It was fine with me because I eat something healthy like yogurt with granola before work, then a good, hearty meal at ILRI’s cafeteria every day; meals at home were more of a casual “tide myself over until lunch tomorrow” thing. All other reasons aside, I guess it really boils down to not feeling “at home” in my old apartment. The stove was only 1/4 functional, the pots and pans were funny, the sink was dinky, and there were always people coming and going.
Read more

We’ve reached Watamu! I’m not sure if that’s what it means, but in Swahili tamu means sweet, and the plural form of people is “wa”, like mkenya (Kenyan) becomes wakenya (Kenyans). I’ve been here before with Sara and some other volunteers. It’s a great little touristy beach getaway with lots of Italians. You can tell there’s an Italian influence because the tuk-tuks say “Piaggio”, the kids shout, “Ciao!”, and there is a gelatto shop on every corner. I’ve been longing for gelatto ever since we left Nairobi so we plan on eating it at least twice a day. We’ve also been eating a lot of mangos; there is a great apple-mango hybrid that is really delicious and cheap. Randi swore left and right that she didn’t like fresh mango but I guess they don’t make ‘em like this in the US. Karibu Kenya (welcome to Kenya)!

Here are a few pictures from Fort Jesus in Mombasa and the beach in Watamu:

We’ve decided we’ll kick it here for a few days before heading back to Nairobi. Just about thirty minutes up the coast is the town of Malindi, where there are more mangos and gelatto to be eaten.

I haven’t been on hiatus, I’ve been on holiday! Actually I’ve been working a lot, but I did make it across the border this past weekend for a little rest and relaxation. One thing I realized during my 24-hour stay in Tanzania was that my Swahili is permanently Kenyanized. I’ve already accepted that I’m nowhere near fluent by Kenyan standards, but I’m a disaster by Tanzanian standards. You see, after their independence Tanzania embraced Swahili as the national language in order to unite their country as a common people, no longer colonized and no longer a collection of tribes. They were Tanzanians now! Kenya chose both Swahili and English, and while people here speak Swa, it’s kinda a watered-down, Englishized version (“sheng”). Kenyans even make fun of Tanzanian Swahili; it’s a chore, it’s boring, and it even sounds funny. And I know it’s terrible, but I do too…

To back up kidogo (a bit), I went to Tanzania to get a new visa; both Kenyan and Tanzanian. My one year, multiple entry Tanzanian visa expired earlier this year, and my Kenyan one is due for mid December. Sure you can go to the embassy in Nairobi but that’s no fun! Border runs are fun! Besides, Arusha is only five hours away, so it’s like living in San Diego and going to Mexico to eat tacos for dinner. Besides, I’m a local in Arusha by now. I’ve been there two times before so I’ve got the hang of which hotel to stay in, where to eat, and how to get around. I’ve always liked Arusha because it’s a mid-sized town with lots of local life buzzing around at night; finger food is plenty and cheap, and I’ve never felt unsafe there.
Read more