Second go at writing this. Five minutes ago I’d settled down, typed the title, and bang the power went off. Only twenty four minutes of battery left, so hasty switch to my work laptop (which hasn’t quite made it all the way to work yet…) which has 90% battery for three hours or so. Welcome back to Addis. Now I’m on a timescale…

The Welcome

Cake

Someone who knows him well said Haile would be far more than a taxi driver if I needed help with anything. Well I needed help on Chris’s birthday – where on earth do you get a birthday cake in Addis? I had seen some cakes in a coffee shop chain, and also in the Hilton. However “I’m just popping out to get a cake” is not something you can say to your staff at lunch time here, because popping anywhere is almost impossible, and cakes are few and far between. Cake is a western introduction to Ethiopia, so the Amharic word for “cake” is … “cake” (or “ኬክ” as they say here).