Settling in in Addis Abeba

 Here I am, on monday 18th of november at 10 a.m., sitting at the back of our big house, in the shade, at a plastic table which I have covered with a very old Indonesian tablecloth that I brought - it makes me feel at home.  There is a lot of wind, I had forgotten about that. And since there is a mountain climate here at 2600 meters (8500 feet), the nights , mornings and evenings are rather chilly. So I draped the Ethiopian Airlines blanket (which I didn’t steel but asked to take home as a souvenir) around my neck and body not to catch a cold. Throat aches  and colds are common here since the air is very  dry and there is a lot of dirty dust in the air.

Our house is in a new suburb reserved for ‘Diaspora’ Ethiopians at the very East of the city, past Bole International airport.  Diaspora Ethiopians are people who have fled the country when Mengistu took over from Haile Selassi in the 1980ies; 
they are mostly higher educated, English speaking  and wealthier Ethiopians. The present government likes them to come back to help build a stronger economy, so they were provided with this area to build their houses.  As everywhere in this city, they build houses first  and infrastructure (roads) later or never. So to reach our house you sort from the newly constructed and only halfway finished ring road onto a recently built tar road, with views onto the heaps of trash and the countryside further away; then you turn right at the sign ‘Tiny Tots’, towards  what must be a childrens’s nursery school in the neighbourhood,  into a very bumpy stony dirt track in between walled villa’s. And that’s where we are.

Garden and birds. Robert choose this house – I am sure! - because of the small but lovely garden, with roses, oleander, Pelargonium (Geranium in Dutch). He has already organised pots on the veranda with different Fuchsia’s, his hobby. We are frequently visited by a variety of special birds: a Lark (leeuwerik), a  White collared Pigeon (Duif, met twee jongen op ons dak) black kite (valk) mountain Trush ( soort lijster) Superb Starling( een oranje met blauw en groene  spreeuw), black bellied Starling ( glanzend blauw-paarse spreeuw) , Kamerkop and Black winged Lovebird (knalgroene papagaaitjes) 
Posted on wednesday 20st, the day I got internet!Thanks to Robert, who also organised a car for me to go to my first Amharic lessonthis evening. I 'll write more soon!