Coffee

There are no Starbucks here, no McDonalds, no KFC, NOTHING Western, it is actually very refreshing. They do not know what a hot dog is! The few things I do see that are influenced by Western Culture bother me. Of course there are Barbie Dolls and bootleg movies, and blonde hair dye. Danny, our driver, spent all day yesterday and most of the day today looking for Coca Cola Light for us. It is nowhere in this city.

So back to coffee…we had some extra time this morning so we went to a coffee shop. This shop looks just like Starbucks, but with a different name. We sat outside and drank Macchiato and lattes and had Danny teach us Amharic. First, I had to learn “I’m sorry” since I spilled my coffee all over the table. Then we practiced all the words we know so by the end of the coffee time we were saying: “Ohdelshalo, Ohdelhalo, Salom, Chow, Amaseganalo, denadish, denadirk, errkata, chigeralla, chigerelem, turo, ahlfelegum, ehfelegalo, sentenow…” Which we then translated to English and it sounds something like this: “I like you, hello, goodbye, good day, I’m sorry, I like you, it’s good, it’s no problem, it is a problem, how much, I don’t need.” We were saying all these words over and over in English and Amharic and could not stop the laughter, we thought we were pretty funny. Many people walking by would stop to wave and see if they could listen to what was so funny.

So we sat and drank our coffee and chatted and watched the rain. The perfect way to spend a morning.