i am finally settled in the taitu hotel and have so much to tell from the day.  this morning rick went out to meet his boss from jdc i believe and so it was very quiet around the house and too nice outside to stay indoors.  with one of rick's boys, bogut, i walked around the neighborhood for about 5 hours.  We started off just walking, then when he said he used to live in the area i asked him to show me where he had lived and so we started walking in that direction.  we stopped for a lunch of injera and tibs (pieces of lamb cooked with onions and peppers) and then we continued to one of his friend's houses.  these friends are also friends with rick i believe and they invited bogut and i into their one room hut (think a square room made entirely of cinder blocks that is may 10' x 10'.   After sitting and talking for a bit, they invited us to have a traditional ethiopian coffee ceremony.  they start with green coffee beans, and then on a tiny bowl with glowing embers they roast the coffee beans in front of you. then after it is roasted, they put the beans in a mortar and grind them up with a pestle (sp?).During this, an ear of corn is shucked and the kernels placed on the plate where the coffee was roasted.  While the corn is baking and the coffee is being ground, one of our hosts walked in with a delicious bread that was very sweet and is eaten only during the ceremony.  Once the coffee is ground, it is poured into a special clay coffee pot and this is then filled with water and placed on the embers to boil.  While eating the corn, the coffee sits on the embers and we sat listening to ethiopian music and watching bogut dance (i tried my hand at it but it's a little different from the popping and locking we do in bodyhype - you stand relatively still, maybe stepping side to side, while moving your shoulders and back in short, jerky, up and down and side to side movements.  when the first round of coffee is ready, they scooped a spoonful of sugar into everyone's espresso-size cup and then they proceed to pour in the coffee.  You stir in the sugar and then drink...delicious!  the cups are then washed out with boiled water, more water is put in the coffee pot and it goes back on the embers to boil again, and we eat more corn.  after 15-20 minutes, the coffee is ready again so we do a 2nd round, just like the first.  now the corn is finished but again we sit and talk and listen to music.  bogut is like curious george always asking me whether i think "ethiopians are good people? or are sudan people better people?" or "how big is atlanta? addis ababa is very big city, no?"  I love his questions but everyone else in the room cracks up because bogut rarely goes 2 minutes without asking someone a new question.  Another 15-20 minutes pass and we drink the 3rd and final round.  the coffee is sweet and full tasting.  It was a very, very special experience.  all in all we spent about 2.5 hours with these friends and then we returned to Rick's.  Once at rick's I called the hotel I wanted to stay at to see if they had rooms and when they said yes I hopped in a taxi and drove over with Bogut to help me.  I am now settled in a simple $15/night room with twin beds, a private cold shower and toilet (but the water doesn't work between 9 PM and 9 AM.  Shaving and showering will be interesting but I think i'll live.  It is not within walking distance to the mission but tonight, bogut and I took a mini-taxi ( i.e. a vw size van with 15 people ~65 cents) and walked from where it dropped us off.  Bogut is coming again tomorrow morning to show me around some more but i think it'll all be fine.   Tomorrow I am hoping to start my volunteer work but we'll see how the day works out.  I will also need to change money and buy a sim card for my phone.