Golf, Walk, 3 days left...

The last few days before leaving are always the busiest but I know my loyal readers deserve better...so here is a recounting of events from the last few days.

 

Golf - Stu and I went to the Addis Ababa Golf Club on Sunday.  Ridiculously awesome is one way to describe it.  We started our adventure on the driving range.  With 200 balls, a 5/7 iron, and two caddies, we were ready to work on our game (correction: Stu was ready to learn the game and I was ready to smack a few).  The club consists of a nice clubhouse, stables for the Addis Ababa Equestrian Society, a 9-hole course, driving range, gym, and spa.  The driving range is quasi-mowed; probably cut by hand with a scythe...like every other lawn in this country; there are markers for 50, 100, 150, and 200 meters and the tee-off area is great practice for hitting out of PGA-style deep rough (knee-high in places).  The highlight of the driving range however is that we each got a personal caddy.  The caddy's responsibilities included placing every ball before we hit it and applauding our every shot/flying divot.  The personal attention made me feel semi-professional (when combined with the magical balls we used that actually flew straight...my nasty slice was nowhere to be found).  Things couldn't get better right??? Wrong...the massage lady was booked, so instead Stu and I (ab)used the club's steam bath.  45-minutes in a 120-degree steam room is nothing less than a delightful way to spend a Sunday afternoon.  Follow it with a cold/hot shower, a 20-minute nap, and a vanilla ice cream sundae and I was a happy, happy, happy camper.  Side Note: Stu, Tom, Leora (Stu's friend), and I indulged in a heavenly calzones @ Antica Pizza near Rick's.  Just thinking about Sunday makes me smile like an Ethiopian beggar at the Sheraton.   

 

Walk - After watching Ratatouille with Katie at Cherokee and then playing 1/2 a game of Scrabble, I decided to walk back to Piazza.  I expected it to take ~2 hrs and was starting out at 6.  Among other notable sights, I walked across a rickety wooden bridge spanning the river, learning to walk on top of the middle beam only after I was halfway across and passed by the locals.  Most of the walk was through back alleys where I received some of the most dumbfounded looks of all time.  I walked through Merkkato at night which was a first; it was still a bustling marketplace only this time the action was in the middle of the street as all the stores were closed.  I ate at a cafe overlooking the city and only wish the Kwanta Fir Fir (pieces of old beef jerky with injera and stew on top of injera) was as tasty as the view; I later gave it to a street kid...enough food for a week.  And then I completed the walk in ~1 hr!  Addis is an interesting, different place at night and although I was happy to make it back to Taitu with all of my limbs and personal belongings, it reignited my love of adventure and getting lost in a foreign city.  

 

3 Days Left - My how the time flies!  I am more excited to leave than I was last year but still know that I will eventually return which makes leaving easier.  The idea of sunbathing with beautiful Russian women in Turkey certainly sounds enticing after waking up to torrential downpours for the last I-can't-remember-how-many-mornings.  The weather has been significantly worse than last year, perhaps because I have been here for three more weeks of the heart of rainy season.  I can't wait for warm weather and cloudless sunlight.  That having been said, I still have a page-long list of things to do before I leave and today was no exception.  Stu and I worked the mission in the morning, which is a pleasure now that most of the volunteers have left and we have the place to ourselves to wrap as we please.  We lunched in Piazza (good tuna melts) and then I went to dance class with Tesh.  Met an interesting guy on the minibus who is an IT Professor/student here in Addis and I picked his brain about the state of IT here.  He guessed 25% of Addis residents have a personal computer (I think this is probably double the real number), he thinks the internet is ok now that it's high-speed (128 kb/s), Ethiopia lags far behind her neighbors (at least Sudan and Kenya) and he doesn't think the government is going to privatize the telecom industry any time soon even though it would be a vast improvement.  He also disagrees with FIFA's recent decision to ban the Ethiopian Footbal Association and doesn't think they should get involved in internal affairs.  Hip-Hop was good, we worked a lot on body rolls and other unnatural movements that don't work on my body.  And then I met Abebe to try and go to his nursing class again.  Unfortunately the teacher never showed and instead Stu and I had (another) romantic candelit dinner.  The time left is slipping away and the list of things to do keeps growing...oh well, if I don't do it this time, maybe I'll just have to return...