After my rant of two days ago I feel a bit more upbeat. I think I should say something about how friendly and hospitable most Ethiopians are. There is a very strong culture of hospitality here. Greeting other people, asking how they are, etc is very important and time is always allowed to do this properly. When two people meet they shake hands and exchange greetings. There might follow a short conversation which involves asking each other how they are, in several different ways. In English most people might ask "how are you?" and not even listen for or expect much of a response. In Amharic there more than twelve ways of asking the same thing, and sometimes several of them will be used in one exchange! After doing nothing but asking "how are you?", the two people will part by shaking hands again. Simply walking from my office to another office can be a tedious and time consuming business of shaking hands and saying hello with several people, even though I only met them a short time earlier. As tedious as it can be, Ethiopians are so friendly and never never rush. No matter how much there is to do or how little time you have, there is always time to stop and greet.

The level of friendliness and willingness to help in any way possible can be wonderful and frustrating. There are times when I'm in full ferenji have-lots-to-do-and-need-to-get-on mode and all the nicey nice, always accommodating niceness gets right up my nose. When I feel like this, it usually means I have to slow down, chill out and just accept that the culture is different here. The downside is a poor attitude to time management. Make an appointment to do something at a certain time, and you can practically guarantee they will be late or will not show up at all. Half of my HDP group can be 10 mins late for a session for no reason other than poor awareness of time. All the Ethiopians I know have an intellectual understanding that ferenjis take time very seriously, and they agree that they should do the same, but something always comes up. The positive side is that the level of stress that is so common at home, simply doesn't exist here. Of course, life here is hard with few of the choices we take for granted, but people simply don't let time boundaries rule their lives. There is always time for each other. Despite the difficulties this causes with getting important tasks done, and the frustration it causes me, I actually rather like this approach to life. Perhaps by the time I leave, I might have learned from it.