I’m in a perpetual time and date fog, and it’s a very good thing the computer knows the date. The Ethiopian calendar is not the same as the calendar used in much of the western world. In the Ethiopian calendar it’s the 14^th of Timkut, 1999. The system of telling time is also unique with 6:00 am being 12:00 in the morning, noon being 6:00, and the system starting again in the evening with 6:00 pm being 12:00 and 7:00 pm being 1:00. It’s relatively easy to get used to adding or subtracting 6 to tell the time. The trouble is in remembering to check whether it is Ethiopian time or European time, as some people, especially those who spend a lot of time with westerners like me, tend to switch between the two. It’s very easy to be invited for a meal at 6:00 and then wonder if you’re supposed to show up at lunchtime or dinnertime.

I went to Mekelle over the weekend. It was a holiday on Monday for Eid. It was strange to me that everyone took the day off even though hardly anyone here is Muslim; although the country as a whole is at least 30% Muslim. Ethiopians pride themselves of recognizing and honouring each others’ religious practices.

The bus ride to Mekelle takes about 7 hours, which is all about the condition of the roads and of the buses, as you could probably do it in less than four hours. I stayed with Jane and Geoff, a British VSO couple a bit younger than my parents. Mekelle is the regional capital of Tigray and it’s a very different place than Adwa. After beginning to think that Adwa is reasonably advanced, it was a shock to compare it to Mekelle. With only about double the population, it has all the amenities that Adwa doesn’t have: paved roads, bakeries, an incredible number of stores selling everything you’ll need – kitchen supplies, electronics, jewelry, that cheese wrapped in tinfoil – elegant hotels, cultural restaurants, sidewalks, and a bit of a European flavour; also a university (with 60 international professors), a hospital, and a school for the blind (apparently NOT a pleasant place).

There are 7 VSOs in Mekelle, as well as several volunteers through other organizations. We met an American family with four children. The husband is teaching Veterinary Science at the university and the wife is home-schooling the children, aged 5 to 11, one of whom is an Ethiopian boy they adopted. There’s a relatively large handful of expats that I’ve run into or heard about who have children with them.