Some first impressions of Ethiopia

05/02/06

Some first impressions of Ethiopia
Cold and wet….. I guess it is the little wet season, which certainly didn’t seem so little as the rain came down in torrents for about two hours today. Who knew that besides kili, I would still be wishing I had trucked around my wool socks. I seemed to have lost my hat as well. Perhaps it is still in the pocket of my rental jacket. It seems that I do a good job of simplifying my life on accident by losing things.

Good local wine. It is sweeter than my preferred cab, but is certainly welcome after being mostly dry of wine for the past 5 months.

Excellent food. While it can be spicy, there are enough varieties where hot is not all you are stuck with.

Amharic is very difficult…. It is a semiotic language with 27 different letters and 7 different forms of each letter to make a total of 189 characters.

It’s really cold here.

The capuchins who I live have a decidedly Italian influence. Why do I say this? They eat Italian chocolate cakes for breakfast.