I just realized that I’ve failed to mention my trip to Ethiopia! (For full disclosure, I had a six-hour layover in Addis upon my return from Bangkok that I am generously calling my “trip”.) My flight from Thailand landed at 5am, so I arrived on a dark, chilly, Ethiopian morning. I left my luggage with the airline (I’d checked it directly through to Entebbe), spontaneously purchased a tourist visa, and headed into Addis with my friend Zelalem, who works for CHAI in Ethiopia. After dropping Zelalem’s luggage at his apartment, he and I went to sit at Kaldi's Coffee Shop (which bears a logo that suspiciously resembles that of Starbucks), where we discussed the service and maintenance database. Zelalem, who built the Access file, showed me the back end of the database so that I can alter the interface if necessary.
After two cappuccinos and a healthy dose of quant work between the hours of 6 and 8am, Zelalem and I walked to one of the largest churches in Addis. Zelalem, who is a photographer in his spare time, took some fantastic photographs, none of which I can currently upload because my internet in Kampala is too slow. (I’ll try to leave my computer in the office overnight sometime soon to get them up on either blog or Flickr page.) The two of us then walked along one of the nicest roads in Addis (or so I was told) and saw exhibition space that was built solely to celebrate the millennium; apparently both Beyonce and Black Eyed Peas performed there in front of mass audiences. Shortly afterward, Zelalem hailed a cab and the two of us returned to the airport, where he dropped me off.
My flight to Entebbe, which was scheduled for 11:30am, was spontaneously moved an hour earlier by Ethiopian Airlines. (I later discovered that they’d thoughtfully sent me an email, time stamp 10:10am—a whopping 20 minutes before the newly slated departure.) Thus, I sprinted through the airport and just barely caught my flight back to Uganda. About two hours later I landed in Entebbe, and for the second time, Paul was waiting for me at arrivals.
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