Alex Little

The internet has been down at the university for the last few days (well actually nearly a week now) – apparently this was as a result of someone digging through the broadband cabling. The whole of the city lost internet connection for couple of days at the end of last week, those using dial-up connections are back on but broadband is still ‘off’.

Over the weekend Andy came over to visit from Abi Adi (a small town about 3 hours bus ride away), he’s doing IT training & advising at the teacher education college there. He’d been invited to a wedding on Sunday, which lots of his colleagues were also coming over for. We had a meal out on the Saturday evening, followed by a trip to a few of the local bars – during which I also got myself an invite to the wedding. The locals were very insistent that we didn’t pay for any drinks, which seems to be the norm here, but makes you feel a little uncomfortable that you can’t contribute in any way – even though it was a relatively expensive night out. The bar we finished up at played a mixture of local and western music so I learnt a few traditional Ethiopian dance moves – which generally involves moving your shoulders with hands on your hips, the best I can describe is that it makes you look like a chicken. Unfortunately I didn’t have my camera, so you’ll have to make do with imagining what I looked like Though I do have a bit of video from Addis that shows some (professional) Ethiopian dancers which I’ll attempt to upload if the internet connection gets fixed.

The following day the wedding involved more dancing (but less beer!). At lunchtime we met at the grooms (Nega) house with all his family and friends, along with the local priest, who did a short blessing, then we all got into taxis and headed over to the brides house on the other side of town (horns blaring and lights flashing all the way). The ceremony (exchanging of rings and vows) were all done at the brides house, followed by a meal, dancing and tilla (the local homebrew). Any leftover food was given to the local children. Tilla is made from barley or maize, fermented for only a few days (3-7) so has a bit of an acquired taste – not so bad after the first glass! Late in the afternoon, after the meal and hand over of presents and money, it was back to the grooms house for more eating drinking and dancing.

Back at work things are slowly moving on. My contract has now been unearthed, it had been signed by the previous head of computing dept (who has now moved to Italy) and was required by the finance & admin team for them to put me on the payroll – but we had a little trouble finding it. Samson, the guy who had been project leader, and would be my line manager now isn’t coming back to the uni, but I have now met my counterpart (Wondwossen) and I think he’ll take over my line management.