An early morning walk with Keith today, up the hill with the radio mast we climbed last weekend. Unfortunately Keith turned back early after suffering an overdose of sunshine yesterday. After our walk, we met Fitsum (Vice Dean of the college and one of Gill’s HDP candidates) and Tesfaye (one of my HDP candidates) for breakfast at Pinna Hotel. Gill and I are often aware of how difficult it is to have friendships and social relationships with colleagues who we are also responsible for assessing (and in a few cases on the verge of failing) for the HDP. Despite this, we had a good time with Fitsum and Tesfaye. We discussed some of the differences between our cultures, one of the main differences being how individualist our culture is compared to the communal culture of Ethiopia. How often at home are foreigners, especially non-white foreigners, welcomed, given respect, freely assisted, treated with courtesy and simply smiled at in the street? I don’t always appreciate the social culture here, and can be too intent on getting on with what I want to do instead of being open to people who smile and want to say hello. At least the attention I get is good willed. What experience do non-white skinned visitors to the UK have? It certainly wouldn’t come anywhere near to the hospitality we experience in Ethiopia, and we are supposed to come from a “developed” country.

Breakfast here doesn’t mean cornflakes, coco pops, or any number of other processed sugar-filled cereals. Fitsum and Tesfaye ate Dulette, which is minced meat and offal served, of course, with injera (This is not something I would go anywhere near, except I accidentally had it in Addis when we arrived in Ethiopia – I was told the name for a type of doughnut to ask for in a café for breakfast and mistakenly ordered dulette, which I proceeded to eat to try and avoid looking like the ignorant fool I almost certainly actually looked like). I think Ethiopians would love Haggis, although neeps might be hard to get hold of. Gill and I had “egg sandwich”: an omelette cooked in too much oil served in a white roll. After a few mouthfuls of “egg sandwich” the dulette started to look appetising.

The afternoon has been spent at home. Today is New Years Eve (Hogmanay!) in the Ethiopian calendar. The streets were full of people this morning buying chickens, sheep and goats to slaughter and prepare for the celebratory family meals tomorrow. As is usual during main holidays, everybody travels to their home town to assemble with the rest of their family at the parent’s house. Fasil (our landlord) and his sisters travelled to Yirga Alem to be ready to gorge themselves on meat tomorrow. We were invited to join them but didn’t fancy it, and we have been there before, for Easter. During this afternoon I’ve felt lonelier than I have for a while since arriving in Ethiopia. For us, this is just another Sunday, but for everybody else today is special. I feel left out of something that doesn’t mean anything to me.