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Published: August 16th 2009
Le Chateau
Ubiquitous citroen/renault/peugeot parked upMay the fleas of a thousand scabby camels infest the underwear of my children's children for being so slack on the blog front.
Not because I haven't done enough entries over the last month, it's just I still haven't finished the updates from our trip the UK and France!! (I know. What a slacker).
I could use the excuse that the power here is still only available 50%!o(MISSING)f the time...
...so, hmm, yes, why don't I?
Yep, sitting in the dark while the rain pings so loudly onto the tin roof that you can't hear Sara speak is hardly the most creative environments for my blogging. And I'm on a *no-booze* week too.
(Don't worry that ends today - good job really - the Premiership starts again and I have a bum-sized slot reserved at the Bamboo for Everton vs Arsenal).
The power situation has improved in Addis now, and we even met volunteers at the VSO Ethiopia Annual Conference who have had power 24x7 throughout?!?
A rumour this week was that given the lack of foreign currency in Ethiopia, the power is being sold to Kenya and Sudan for
Looks a bit posh!
All that wood and no termites? cold hard cash leaving the local punters without. Given our region - Beneshangul Gumuz - does not export anything that could generate income, no one can see the power situation improving.
It can't be the rain anymore. We've had tons of the stuff!!
Anyway. Let the glass be half full. At least we have power some of the time.
And here is some news - check this article in Thursday's Guardian.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/aug/12/ethiopia-computer-virus
That Mercer is indeed yours truly 😊
I know that one of the reasons I am so far behind is the amount of detail I put into this blog entries. It has been commented on before; even Sara says she drifts off when reading them!
So to keep those with shorter attention spans happy, I'll try and do a whistle-stop job on the next few entries.
In fact much of this seems so long ago now I doubt if I can recall enough to do anything else...
Allez les rosbifs! The reason we had left Ethiopia at all was to be part of Sara's sister Ondine's wedding to Ed.
And here we were in the vacinity of
Lions vs. SA [3rd Test]
Excuse me ladies, there's an important game of rugby going on! Bordeaux, staying at a gite - kindly arranged by Dee and Dave!
Although I have known Ondine since I met Sara 12 years ago, it was when the four of us - Sara, Ondine, Ed and I - went out to Mauritius together in 2004; partly for a holiday and partly to look up the Hassen family of Sara, Ondine and Howard's father, that I got to know her and Ed properly.
Mark Hassen had come over from Mauritius in the late sixties, married Sara's mum Dee, fathered Sara, married Brenda and then fathered Ondine and Howard 10 or so years later.
Sara knew relatively little about her father's life in Mauritius - he kept it to himself by all accounts - so we had very little to go on.
The end of a fabulous holiday was marked by a call from the British Embassy, who has phoned all the Hassen's in the Port Louis phone book before finding the relatives!
We met up at a party to meet them all. Sara and I even returned to Mauritus the following year to catch up with some of the Uncles and Aunts.
I remember thinking
Ondine and Ed did very well putting up with the pair of us that holiday! Well, mostly me I guess. You can't help your sister, but putting up with her mid-thirties boyfriend when you are 22 or 23??
Luckily it was Euro 2004 and given Ed is a fellow Arsenal fan, we had plenty to occupy us at the bars in the evening; besides both Ed and Ondine are very easy company to get along with.
I remember how weird it was hearing the local Mauritians - who all speak French - cheering for England during the England vs France game. They were even giving some (clearly brave) French tourists - who were also watching the game - grief about their team, in French!
The Gospel of the English Premier League had clearly spread further than I realised, same as it has in Ethiopia.
Whether there was any real friction between France and Mauritius I don't know. It had been a British protectorate, but some deal with France in the mid 1800's when the Brits stole it, allowed the country to continue to speak French, rather than forcing people to speak English.
I know that
Reunion, an island just south of Mauritius, is actually considered a district of France. They even use the Euro.
The locals were telling me that they get fed up with people from Reunion coming on holiday to Mauritius.
They told me that families on benefit or low paid domestic jobs are paid so well in Euros that compared to Mauritans they are loaded. They come over on holiday and lord it up like big style gangsters, much to the irritation of their Mauritian neighbours.
White Wedding So the wedding was on Saturday July 4th. Weather was beautiful again. Blue skies and warm.
In the morning Dave and I had been off to the local supermarket; Dave to buy provisions, me to buy a pair of wedding shoes.
We hadn't anticipated needing any posh shoes for 2 years so I had lobbed all mine into storage in some aircraft hanger in Gloucestershire.
Unfortunately the best I could do was a pair of deck shoes! Not very stylish.
In the end I said sod it and wore my mud-hopping Brashers - great for Assosa's rainy season and the rocky pavements of Addis but a
Hey! Sara's little sister
(nice day for a white wedding!) bit shabby for the wife's sister's wedding.
Nevertheless, we had come 5,000km via Addis, Rome, Hastings, Bristol and Bordeaux. A minor social gaffe; and if that was my only one at the wedding I'd be delighted.
Sunny weddings, with buckets of free booze, surrounded by strangers were inclined to result in a few sharp words the next day about my behaviour the night before 😊
It took and hour or so to get to the chateau, but boy was it worth the drive. This part of France is very pretty. Lots of little villages with low stone houses and farm buildings, row-upon-row of grape vines, winding narrow roads.
Once there, Dave set off to fulfil his duties as official photographer and I, after a brief panic around hunting down the Sky TV remote, settled down at the bar to watch the final Lions test verses South Africa.
The guests started to make their way into the bar - some keener to watch Wimbledon than the rugby - but there were enough rugby fans (Ondine and Sara's brother, Howard, included) to quell any rebellion.
Finally, as the players came out for the second half, Lions
Ondine...
and her superman! in ascendency and looking good, we were called to the lawn for the ceremony was about to begin.
I quietly hoped Ondine would be fashionably late.
Maybe like 40 minutes (plus injury time) late?
We had been to some friend's weddings where the bride took so long to appear we actually thought they'd done a runner!! (How long do you wait before you up and off? 45 minutes? 1 hour?)
Not so today. After some fannying around with candles, a famous flutist (I think) started up and here was Ondine. Looking like a princess. It kind of reminded me of our wedding and I got a bit choked up.
The ceremony was conducted by a very nice woman vicar who we got to know better the following day - back at the chateau for a lunch on the lawn. Everything seemed to go smoothly and we retired to the back gardens of the place for snacks and pictures.
Shiny, happy people By this time I was enjoying the champagne. As, I think, were all the guests 😊
Dave was busy herding family, friends and followers into optimum positions for pictures. I was
trying to identify which of the various foodstuffs were (a) decoration (b) garnish and (c) edible.
Then, once identifed, I needed to know if they were vegetarian dishes and therefore safe to eat?
I got a bit of a 'come on love, this is France' attitude when I asked the English hostess. The French waiters and waitresses didn't have a clue what I was on about. Fair enough. Liquid lunch!
Ultimately I spotted people picking pieces of tomato off some decoration and dipping it in some sauce, so I did likewise.
Sara was off chatting with the rest of her family so I wandered around, taking pictures and enjoying the atmosphere. There were a few guys with instruments plucking out tunes and it was all very convivial.
It's a beautiful day... Time slipped by.
Champagne slipped down.
Lots of beautiful people milled around.
Quick detour to the bar to check the final Lions score and catch a rerun of the highlights.
Called over to one of the converted barns for food, I was introduced to a help-yourself bar with a barrel of rather tasty French lager.
Having spent
Fine looking bunch of lads
Ondine looks pretty good too! 6 months surviving off the same-tasting holy trinity of - usually warm as no electricity - Bedele, St George and Dashen beer, this was like an oasis in my desert.
Food was served. Very good vegetarian.
Speeches took place.
Food finished and the band started up.
Had a boogie.
Drank some more.
As you can tell, my memory of these events are, um, kind of hazy.
...so maybe just look at the photos 😊
I remember being in a world of happiness...
...until, uh-oh, time to go.
You get that 'batteries are flat' feeling.
Luckily everyone else - Dee, Dave and Sara - were ready too...
..but hang on? What's this?
A group of people has started inflating pillow cases, setting them on fire and watching them float off into the night sky?!?
Er, Sara, are you seeing what I am? (presumably she was; but in slightly more focus)
I think this brush with the surreal finished me off. That's the last I can remember!
(I still haven't a clue why someone got all pyrotechnic on them home textiles?)
It was over.
Ed & the bridesmaids
Wow! Nice bouquets... A great day. A memorable wedding and, hangover permitting, we'd be back tomorrow for lunch.
Any regrets?
Not spending more time with Ondine & Ed; but they had lots of friends and family to see and look after and we'll catch up with them for some quality time in the UK when we finish our African adventure...
...maybe just in time for the 2010 World Cup!
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