A nice end of week Sunday

So I was up bright and early to go to Dr. Paul's for the famous pancakes. They were great and it was so nice to be out before 7:30 under the Addis sun. I was there until about 9 then headed back to the hotel. I did a bit of this and a bit of that then walked to the birthday party on Bole Rwanda for Eddie, the Irish guy who was turning 29 (again). The road is under serious construction not far from Bole Africa. When I say "serious", I do mean serious. There were two shovels digging earth out of a whole that could have swallowed up a dozen or more cars.

The guest house that Eddie and his fiancee run was very nice. The food was yummy as usual, especially some hot meatballs. There was lots of chicken including a nice shish-ke-bob. The place started to fill up by 4PM and there were more habesha than ferenge. Birthday cake came out about 5:30 and that was scrumptious as well. I was asked to do a few numbers on the guitar and the attendees loved it as much as me. I was worried about negotiating the hole on Bole Rwanda after dark, so headed out about 6:30. They had moved the large machinery out of the way to allow one car to pass the whole at a time. When I got to the hole, naturally 2 vehicles were in gridlock as both of them knew they had the right of way and everyone else must wait.

I watched Sopranos to end my busy day then crashed early. I am still sleeping so well in Addis even in the new hotel with traffic noise. I am waiting for a room at the back of the hotel which should be quieter. I sat for over an hour yesterday speaking with a local who is related to the guy that owns Deker. Binyam, Macdes, and I covered a lot of ground during that discussion and they want to take me out of town one day before I leave in mid-April. My last trip was to Awassa with Tagel et al in October so that would be a major treat.

I am feverishly pursuing 2 opportunities ... one in Toronto, the other Ottawa. I have hopes one of them will work out, preferably the latter.