Ferenji Christmas
Fortunately the power held out long enough for us to cook Christmas dinner. About 20 of us got together at Mike & Rafs house, and had plenty of mulled wine, sheep (done on the bbq), roast potatoes, yorkshire puddings, plus cake and chocolate. I’ll spare the photos of the demise of “Rudolph the Christmas Sheep”, so here are alternative pics from our Christmas dinner…
Christmas was bit of a strange day, as it was just a normal working day for everybody else, so all the shops, line taxis etc were open and running as usual. In the evening we decided that we needed to watch a Christmas film, so Terra and I went to the DVD shop to rent a selection. No James Bond, Wizard of Oz or other suitable films were available so we had to make do with the choice of Ironman, Mr & Mrs Smith or Shanghai Noon. Shortly after we were back at the house, whilst trying to decide which one to watch, our decision was made for us as the electricity went off, by the time it came back on, it was a little late to start.
The electricity was also off 6am to 6pm on Sat, then again on Sunday, apparently they’re doing some work as the power station, so it’s likely to be the same on Tuesday and all next weekend. The big advantage of this is that the metal works next door can’t run their angle-grinders and arc welders with no power (no generator either). They usually start up at about 7:30, which isn’t a problem during the week, but not so great you want a weeknd lie in.
Unsurprisingly, post Christmas sales don’t exist here, but I did find an alternative suitable activity for Sunday morning. Going to a garden centre. Yes, Mekelle does have a garden centre, albeit without coffee shop or tropical fish section. My plan was to get a few house plants, but despite there being someone working there, he couldn’t give me the prices for anything and had to try and call ‘the seller’. Being Sunday the phone network was very busy (or due to the phone masts not having power), and I gave up after numerous replays of the pre-recorded Amharic message about network problems – so I came home empty handed.
