Guyya Dhaloota Gaarii, Hannah

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Tuesday was Hannah’s birthday. She had decided to have a huge party on the Saturday. Hannah’s invitation had said that it was an English party. In Ethiopia, the custom is that if you invite someone for a coffee, beer or meal, you pay for them. Obviously, Hannah was not able to pay for everyone. The party was at the Harar Beer restaurant (sometimes known as Ketema) and started at 3pm. Attota, one of Hannah’s candidates was the MC and told us the programme for the afternoon, which started with an icebreaker (oh, the influence of the Higher Diploma Programme). A second activity involved slips of paper being randomly distributed to some of the guests who had to do the action stated. Holly’s impression of a lion was a definite crowd pleaser, and worth her coming from Addis. We were allocated 20 minutes to eat - while everyone else had shekla tibs, I had tagabino which is a kind of thicker shiro (bean paste) and really good. The next item on the programme was the presenting of Hannah with a gift from her candidates (a traditional Bale dress) then speeches. Predictably, most people left soon after this, but we had already agreed with Dr Dirribsa, the University President, that we would go dancing in Robe. So, off we went to Daniel’s Bar.

The bar was new for me, although Hannah has been there before. The décor is very 70’s and it is a busy little place. The walls are lined with mirrors, which was useful for one of the customers who spent most of the night dancing by himself, watching his moves in the mirror. We were the first people there, apart from the “Bar Girls” lounging, appropriately enough, against the bar. It was great dancing - this is the first time I have done so in Robe - but most of our Ethiopian colleagues decided it was time to leave just before midnight as they were worried about our safety walking around that late at night. I have a policy of listening to local advice; if they thought it was time to go, it was! As it happened, the main problem that faced us was waking the College guard up to let us back onto the campus. The guards do usually go to bed at around 8pm, so he was not too happy at being roused, and staggered out of the guard hut with his gun.

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