Thursday am - ugh
Not an inviting title, I know. It's not really an "ugh" type day. The Fun Zone is just tired from a 3/4 restful night's sleep and weary from effects of the anti-histamine he just took. I've got to crank this page out before I start to fall asleep.
Well, since yesterday, the Battle of Adwa holiday, not much has happened. My uncle did email to tell about a program on NPR discussing the return by the Italians of a 1,700 year old obelisk to Ethiopia. The Italians took the 100-ton obelisk at the beginning of WWII and Ethiopia has been asking for its return ever since. I don't know if my uncle is aware of this little tidbit, but Ethiopia actually had to overhaul the runway at Aksum airport in order to handle a plane big enough to transport the obelisk.
Well, like I said, the Battle of Adwa holiday has come and gone and not much happened in the interim. It was great to have a day off with my wife, though. We spent our day at Mercato (the market), accompanied by my sole employee and the brother of my wife. It was fun. Every time we leave the house now and my wife is around, my brother-in-law insists on driving. Yesterday, he did it twice - my wife is very impressed with how capable he is. I'm getting credited with his driving prowess, so that's nice.
Mercato was a mess yesterday. At one point, given that it was a holiday, my wife made the comment that she wasn't sure if Mercato would be open. Yeah, right. That market is open at least 400 days a year. It's ridiculous. I actually can't stand going there, especially in a car. On foot, you can keep yourself moving away from whatever attention you are attracting. In a car, though protected by steal doors, you are stuck wherever you are. On the plus side, owning a car means that you are probably not a tourist and because of that, maybe you are left alone.
Anyway, the Mercato was jammed yesterday, so jammed that I got a sunburn on the top of my left arm up to the shirt cuff. Driving in circles for quite a while looking for parking where none is available will do that. Well, we got everything we needed, so my Mercato story can't go much further.
But Battle of Adwa holiday events are not done. Last night, my wife and I went for a walk across the field next to our neighborhood. It's a huge field, maybe a kilometer long and half a kilometer across. Actually, it's been earmarked for a football stadium since the 1980s - not clear when or if construction will start. But I digress. The field is big and although you can see houses just across the way, there is a wild feeling to being out in it, kind of like you are in nature where the rules of government don't apply. That might be a bit of hyperbole, but to emphasize my point, even our dog was a little hesitant as he scrambled through the field for the first time, always sticking close to our legs.
So, we had a walk across the field. It was my idea to make our walk a lap around the field's perimeter. The wife agreed, reluctantly. We cut in from the highway on a path leading to the road bordering the field's northern edge when we passed a group of youth stationed around the garbage bins where the neighborhood brings its waste. The kids are kind of the bottom of the social scale - generally orphans, unemployed. They subsist, in part, on whatever people throw away. I know you've seen pictures of people in the Philippines, Indonesia, or Mexico who inhabit the city dumps and subsist by finding food and tossed out items that could be of use in the piles. Here, it's the same, except the kids are at the dumpsters that get taken to the city dump.
Anyway, my wife was concerned because the kids are kind of lawless - you don't really know what they'll do. Nothing happened during our walk, except a few comments which, of course, I couldn't understand, but you never know when a rock might come flying your way or possibly worse (but probably not - the bins are right on the edge of the neighborhood and a well-traveled road). After my wife mentioned the whole "flying rock" thing, I vaguely remembered a time I was running when all the sudden next to me there was a rustling sound like that of a rock skimming across the ground.
Well, I won't be heading that way anymore. Probably nothing would happen, but you never know - better to be smart than to lose a tooth or eye from a flying rock.
I'm off for now. Good day to all and go easy on the anti-histamine.
Well, since yesterday, the Battle of Adwa holiday, not much has happened. My uncle did email to tell about a program on NPR discussing the return by the Italians of a 1,700 year old obelisk to Ethiopia. The Italians took the 100-ton obelisk at the beginning of WWII and Ethiopia has been asking for its return ever since. I don't know if my uncle is aware of this little tidbit, but Ethiopia actually had to overhaul the runway at Aksum airport in order to handle a plane big enough to transport the obelisk.
Well, like I said, the Battle of Adwa holiday has come and gone and not much happened in the interim. It was great to have a day off with my wife, though. We spent our day at Mercato (the market), accompanied by my sole employee and the brother of my wife. It was fun. Every time we leave the house now and my wife is around, my brother-in-law insists on driving. Yesterday, he did it twice - my wife is very impressed with how capable he is. I'm getting credited with his driving prowess, so that's nice.
Mercato was a mess yesterday. At one point, given that it was a holiday, my wife made the comment that she wasn't sure if Mercato would be open. Yeah, right. That market is open at least 400 days a year. It's ridiculous. I actually can't stand going there, especially in a car. On foot, you can keep yourself moving away from whatever attention you are attracting. In a car, though protected by steal doors, you are stuck wherever you are. On the plus side, owning a car means that you are probably not a tourist and because of that, maybe you are left alone.
Anyway, the Mercato was jammed yesterday, so jammed that I got a sunburn on the top of my left arm up to the shirt cuff. Driving in circles for quite a while looking for parking where none is available will do that. Well, we got everything we needed, so my Mercato story can't go much further.
But Battle of Adwa holiday events are not done. Last night, my wife and I went for a walk across the field next to our neighborhood. It's a huge field, maybe a kilometer long and half a kilometer across. Actually, it's been earmarked for a football stadium since the 1980s - not clear when or if construction will start. But I digress. The field is big and although you can see houses just across the way, there is a wild feeling to being out in it, kind of like you are in nature where the rules of government don't apply. That might be a bit of hyperbole, but to emphasize my point, even our dog was a little hesitant as he scrambled through the field for the first time, always sticking close to our legs.
So, we had a walk across the field. It was my idea to make our walk a lap around the field's perimeter. The wife agreed, reluctantly. We cut in from the highway on a path leading to the road bordering the field's northern edge when we passed a group of youth stationed around the garbage bins where the neighborhood brings its waste. The kids are kind of the bottom of the social scale - generally orphans, unemployed. They subsist, in part, on whatever people throw away. I know you've seen pictures of people in the Philippines, Indonesia, or Mexico who inhabit the city dumps and subsist by finding food and tossed out items that could be of use in the piles. Here, it's the same, except the kids are at the dumpsters that get taken to the city dump.
Anyway, my wife was concerned because the kids are kind of lawless - you don't really know what they'll do. Nothing happened during our walk, except a few comments which, of course, I couldn't understand, but you never know when a rock might come flying your way or possibly worse (but probably not - the bins are right on the edge of the neighborhood and a well-traveled road). After my wife mentioned the whole "flying rock" thing, I vaguely remembered a time I was running when all the sudden next to me there was a rustling sound like that of a rock skimming across the ground.
Well, I won't be heading that way anymore. Probably nothing would happen, but you never know - better to be smart than to lose a tooth or eye from a flying rock.
I'm off for now. Good day to all and go easy on the anti-histamine.
posted by AARFZ at 7:58 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home