While only a week away from my former home in Bole can't give me proper perspepctive, here are some things I notice that I miss and don't miss about being away from Ethiopia:
MISS:
• my Habesha and Fefenge Ethiopian friends
• the weather (well, nine months of the year anyway)
• ubiquitous hawazi
• household help
• home-made dog food [item added by Toby]
• the best meal in town, washed down with the best wine in the house, for $30.
• The best coffee in the world, everywhere, so cheap it's almost free.
• Home-cooked gomen, misera wot, red-tef injera, and shiro
NOT MISS:
• ETC
• The bellowing
• The internet, 1998 style, and censored
• 100% import extortion/duty
• Thinking about journalists still in prison before I post something on my blog
• dust in the dry season and mud in the rainy season
• Ferenge! Ferenge! Ferenge! Gimme one birr!
• ETC (repeated for emphasis)
gomen? hawazi? misera rot? shiro? probably had some of these things but don't remember waht they are ...
Posted by: Jody | February 01, 2008 at 07:53 AM
alllooo allloooo mistah mistah hungree hungree
Posted by: Matt | February 01, 2008 at 10:18 AM
mother dead father dead very hungry
Posted by: Marc Luoma | February 01, 2008 at 10:31 AM
well, i'll miss your posts. For a while there catching up on your posts, i thought janet and toby were your wife and kid. didn't you have one of each? am i making this up?
anyway, welcome back to your home. Thanks for the interesting commentary from addis.
Posted by: mimi | February 01, 2008 at 05:13 PM
idiot mimi,
The guy is an agent. He had to cover up his mission by pretending to be married with a kid there in Ethiopia to do some "humanitarian work".
Posted by: Tade | February 01, 2008 at 08:47 PM
Everybody knows I love my commenters. And it says something about the range of comments I've gotten over the months that I can't tell for sure whether Mimi's comment is tongue-in-cheek or not. Hah!
Posted by: Marc Luoma | February 02, 2008 at 07:52 AM
Welcome to your "one minute microwave" life. Speed was your top of the many complain lists you had, so you're down with one complain. Oh, also welcome to a "beggar free society", yeah right! Go to any American metro areas and tell us your findings. At least, we're very poor and the circumstances made us to beg. Your country is the "richest" country in the world and What's your excuse for the poor homeless and the high tech beggers? Shame on you! you're making fun of those poor people.
I'm surprised you missed a few things about Ethiopia. You seem very disconnected,cluless with the Ethiopian society culture, custom and i always thought you were forced to go or you were in mandatory work assignments. For your next life, stay where you belong or do some research, please read before you step your foot somewhere you're not familiar.
Posted by: Alem | February 02, 2008 at 01:56 PM
we, Ethiopian readers that came to his blog have been enlightened, educated and love his blogs! we love Marc!! leave him alone!
Posted by: reader | February 02, 2008 at 03:59 PM
Wait, he did have a picture of a woman and a young girl and did talk about them. Whether he took them off for privacy (Keep their faces away from the gov agents, who regularly monitor and spam this blog)or his wife packed up and left, it is none of our business.
Welcome home Marc.
Posted by: mike | February 02, 2008 at 06:10 PM
Welcome home Stateside. ...certainly wikk miss your entries from your previous station! Here at the farm, we may have some difficulty finding a replacement agent to slip back in country. Your highly perceptive remarks will be soely missed!!!
Bloody hell, ...first Andrew, and now you!!!!
You young'uns gonna be the death of me!!!
- END -
Will find you on facebook.
Posted by: SZ | February 02, 2008 at 07:07 PM