Sara # 5 Another Stupid Grin Weekend

It’s been a busy weekend Friday we tried out another restaurant/bar/hotel for our regular volunteer gathering, they had some great food - it’s fasting day again so only veggie fair, and the beer went down well, we’re, as usual the last men and women standing at the end of the night, the culture here does not seem to be late nights out on the town, although one of Al’s colleagues has promised to show us the local nightclub sometime soon. So at about ten after putting the world to rights we happily weaved our way home.

I spent Saturday morning exploring the market with Mulatu again, it’s always a real adventure, there are so many different things to see, people come from all over the region to sell their goods and it’s all so colourful, and there is such a variety of different people, with different features, colours and dress. I would take pictures, but it just feels a bit rude and touristy. It’s actually quite hard to describe, there is so much to take in, smells noises, the whole lot is so very different, there’s people with their donkeys, live chickens been carried around by there feet. There’s actually an area that’s like the donkey car park - well it’s not like the donkey car park, it is the donkey car park!

I had my first visit to the post office, which was very exciting because there was three pieces of post for us - yey - and I sent come letters, it all takes a bit longer than I’m used to, but there were people to say hello to, and interesting Ethiopian stamps to admire.

On Sunday I went up Inzi, which is the hill which overlooks Assossa, we left about 8.30, I expected it to be a lot further away but we were up in about 45 minutes and there is some amazing views. Your not actually supposed to go all the way up,
there’s a guard, but we were able to show our VSO cards and Marta sweet talked him with a bit or Arabic and he showed us up - the views were truly stunning, but there was also another visitor which was pretty exciting as well - take a look at the pictures.

The guard was a lovely man, his name is Daniel and Marta and him were able to have a pretty good chat with her small bits of Arabic (from time spent in Yemen) I was really impressed. There is a real mix of languages here, the Arabic comes because we are so close to the border with Sudan, but there are other regional languages as well as Amharic. We finished off our morning walk with coffee and cake. This will make my friend Kate who I went travelling with smile, as when we were in Malaysia my greatest find was the cake shops - well here we are again, it seems to be my talent when overseas. This is definitely the best cake shop in town, and they have a lovely little seating area at the back outside - what a treat.

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