Feels Like Home

Just got back from Bahir Dar, the town which houses Lake Tana. Bahir Dar is around a day’s drive from Lalibela and is the regional capital, meaning it’s quite a cosmopolitan town – it has supermarkets, a cinema, a huge variety of bars and restaurants, all of that kind of thing. It also has Moenco, the place which services our car, which means we go there maybe every two months or so to give the car its health check.

I do quite enjoy going to Bahir Dar (it’s a change – and they have chocolate there!) but this time it wasn’t so fun. Power was the same as Lalibela (one day on, one day off), I didn’t have my laptop so I couldn’t do any work, and apart from the cinema, there wasn’t a lot of new things to do. I did do quite a bit of walking along the lake and around the town (Bahir is flat – bliss!), and I enjoyed the break, but I found myself missing Lalibela – the beautiful mountains, my house, my office, my own bed, my own cooking.

Lalibela felt like my home for the first time since I arrived (apart from those magical few weeks when I first got here and I was floating on the novelty of it all!). When we drove back, I jumped into the shower (there was water, albeit a dribble!), put on my comfy trousers and my kaftan thing, made a cup of tea, and padded around the house in a state of deep contentment.

Because I’d been away, I didn’t have very much food in the house to have for dinner – a bit of pasta, some packet spices, and some questionable potatoes. I didn’t want to have to go out as I’d spent the whole Bahir Dar trip eating out, and I couldn’t really afford to anyway, for the same reason.

Around 6, while I was still umming and ahhing, H, A’s girlfriend, came to the door with a steaming bowl of Dorro Wat (Ethiopian chicken curry) for me. Fabulous! Dinner sorted. Then Y, the lady who makes injera for me once a week, came with a large casserole dish filled with Kai Wat (meat stew), potatoes and injera that she’d made for me. There was way too much for just me, so I gave some to Ab and G, the guard’s son, and called a few of the street boys who we try to look after.

I was so touched by the fact they’d thought of me, and that I could pay forward their kindness. Neither H nor Y had to bring me food, and for the first time I really felt part of a community here, not just the stupid farange (which is how I normally feel and, some would say,act!)

Silly – or maybe not – how curry and potatoes can cause me to feel all that!