So I finally got a chance to go out to the Rift valley this weekend – although it wasn’t really intentional. We were supposed to be on a flight to Harar (a walled Muslim city from the at least the 12th century), but Ethiopian Airlines gave us the wrong time… they gave me an itinerary … Read More
Girl(fairly senior in an NGO here): FGM (Female Genital Mutilation) is very common around these countries because there are a lot of Muslims here. Me: ? What does Muslim have to do with it? Girl: The Muslim tribes say they perfrom FGM because of their religion. Me: Just ‘cuz they say something, doesn’t make it true… … Read More
Don’t worry – it ain’t an error somewhere – i just haven’t been able to get proper access to my blog for the past couple weeks and that’s why they all went up yesterday… WordPress needs a way to post via email or mobile… i’m sure there’s a plugin for it somewhere…
Woo- hoo! I’m seven years younger out here! According to the Ethiopian Calendar (based on the Coptic Calendar), it is only 1999 here and their new millenium celebrations are on September 27th, 2007 – I’m 26 again! The way the clocks work out here help us party like it too! Their clock system actually makes a lot … Read More
Je n’aime pas des chiens! Hier, je suis allé a la maison d’un ami pour du cafe. Elle a deux chiens – deux grande chiens… (avec grandes dents et claws aussi…) Mais, quand nous partions, le chien a couru across la jardin, et elle est mordu ma cuisse… je sais que je suis la ‘sweet … Read More
In my opinion (and as usual against the norm), this place sucks… I took a minibus from Gondar to Bahir Dar which was decent enough – only a 3 hour drive on a fairly well paved road. Non-eventful but interesting – in particular in one of the towns we passed, a couple of the women … Read More
So maybe the Lonely Planet romanticises this place a bit by calling it Africa’s Camelot, but it also is much better than I was led to believe by other expats. First, if you like architecture and aren’t like most ‘fly-by-seen-it-check-it’ visitors who refuse to pay 5 bucks for a guide, you’ll love this place. Check … Read More
Everything in Ethiopia is sold as ‘Ethiopia’s version’ of something else. Lalibela is Ethipia’s Petra and if the Statue of Liberty, the Eiffel Tower, and the Sydney Opera Centre (?? really??) can be in the running for the Seven Wonders of the World, Lalibela should definitely be in there too. I’ve never been to Petra, so … Read More
Champions League quarter final games were last night and I went with some colleagues to the nearest place showing the game. The main room was packed – not a seat available anywhere. Pushing our way through the crowd, we were ushered into the ‘VIP’ room – not really VIP, just a larger screen and less … Read More
This is the first book published by the IIS that I’ve read – actually, it is the first one that I’ve completed… I’ve tried reading a couple of other ones before but I found that either the book was too academic or my knowledge of Islam was too sparce to be able to understand. This book … Read More