Claire and Hennock were married on 28th February. I first met Claire when we travelled out to Ethiopia together back in 2007. She met Hennock maybe a year ago when she asked him to help her buy a car. Purchasing a car, as we have discovered, is a long process here and thus the romance blossomed.

The venue for the wedding was at the church they attend which meets in a house. As the outside courtyard is larger than the inside of the building, an awning had been set up over a grassed area. That’s where the congregation were seated facing a raised patio where the couple exchanged their vows. The wedding was delayed for over an hour because the caterers were late. Hennock and his best man were waiting upstairs watching television, a distraction for a nervous groom until the power failed. Claire was waiting a couple of roads away. However the wedding went ahead and the caterers managed to slip in unnoticed during the photographs and set out the food inside at break-neck speed. There was a pesky gust of wind just as the couple were about to light three candles. A significant Ethiopian tradition. But none of this detracted at all from a very happy and wonderful occasion that we felt truly honoured to be part of.

Lemma our head guard invited a few of us to his house for an Ethiopian after wedding meal this weekend. I travelled with another couple and was tasked with giving directions. The more major roads were busy despite it being a Sunday afternoon. I remembered the two bridges, or rather low walls where water pipes run beneath the road. Then came the small "souks" on a bend. Yes, that could be the cobbled street we needed. A left hand fork in the road joined so I knew I was probably correct. The next indicator was a fairly deep ditch across the width of the road. Just to confuse me rubble had been spread across the length of the ditch leaving only a narrow car-sized passageway in what I knew to be the shallowest part. Next we wobbled our way across the cobbles avoiding bajajs (small blue and white three wheeled vehicles), as I peered down dirt tracks off to the right to find the correct shaped large tree in the centre of one of these tracks. Bumping over the roots of said tree I noticed with a sigh of relief the familiar corrugated iron gates. An address or a sign post or two would have made life so much easier but would probably have taken away the challenge and sense of achievement.

Lemma has already begun the school improvement project of laying a playground for the children and showed me the pile of fresh cement powder, so that I could take photographs. He explained that making the cement requires buckets of water brought up from the river. Sand he told me was very expensive. It comes by donkey and he has to pay 16p for each bucket load transported. Not problems one would anticipate in the UK.

The happy couple arrived looking refreshed after their four day honeymoon break and we enjoyed a traditional meal together. The "wat" included two meat stews, carrot and beans, cabbage and potato, a beetroot dish and gomen (which is rather like spinach). They kindly also offered bread and rice as well as injera, for which I was very thankful.  After the meal we emerged into the sunshine to find the guard had been washing Claire and Hennock’s car for them. Ethiopian hospitality knows no bounds.

We want to wish Claire and Hennock every blessing for their future life together.