PART III – Oli in Wonderlands

A miniature talking donkey came to me and offered me something to drink. I was so surprised that I am not exactly sure what he gave me. It could have been orange neon soft drink called Mirinda that makes your stomach glow in the dark but you don’t know it because your stomach is inside your body. Maybe it was this Addis tea (knowing that ‘Addis’ means ‘new’, it doesn’t tell you a lot about the tea) or a delicious radioactive looking avocado juice. Maybe it was one of the two most popular beers – one has the same name than a bank ‘Dashen’ and it makes me wonder which came first – the beer or the bank? The other beer – which never tastes the same – has the name of the saint of Ethiopia – St-Georges. So I don’t know what kind of powers were involved, chemical, spiritual or simply magical, the only thing I know is that it made me shrink and then the donkey told me to follow him in a hole. Ethiopians say that sharing is caring - actually I heard it from one Ethiopian only but my guess is that he heard it from another Ethiopian so there are at least two people who say that - so maybe drinking is shrinking...

We walked for a while in a cave and the donkey stopped to give me an advice. He told me that I now had a magical toe. That it could go through the colors of the Ethiopian flag. In case you’ve never seen it, it’s Colombia + green or Brazil + red - white. Then he told me to be very careful – that my toe could be very helpful in many situations. I found out that when it’s red, it’s because I ran for too long. When it’s yellow, it’s because I had too much of this chemically colored drink called Mirinda – so I should stop drinking it for a while. When it’s blue, it’s because I’m cold or I’ve been walking on a cold floor for too long – or I just had a shower. When it’s green – it means that I should look for a toilet. It’s usually because I am getting sick for having eaten raw meat. And he made me make my friends promise that if they ever come to Ethiopia and go to the restaurant across the street after the sunset and they can’t really see what they are eating and they have a doubt that the meat is well cooked – they shall not eat it. In those cases, it’s not only your little toe that turns green, but you whole body. So, promise me that you won’t eat raw meat. The donkey didn’t mention anything about my toe turning black – which . I found out, means that it’s dirty or that it’s dead and about to fall off. Every time I washed it so far, it went back to its normal color.

We walked for I don’t know how long and we arrived in a small room that was probably used as a kitchen. There was a table with two chairs and a gas stove but no other food than bread and peanut butter. It was very dark and the donkey showed me two Band-Aids on the wall in the shape of a cross. He told me to put my hand on them – which I did and a blinding white light went on. Then the donkey got scared of something and told me to remove my hand. I asked him what was wrong and with tears in his eyes, he told me that he doesn’t have many people over and that since the last time it had happened, he had completely forgotten how funky the peanut butter looks like. It’s the same peanut butter he uses for peanut tea, peanut macchiato, with bread like jam or separately - 1 to 2 spoons recommended daily. So we ate in the dark and enjoyed the funky tasting (but not funky looking) peanut butter.

I wasn’t aware of the secondary effects of this funky brown stuff until I saw different characters that I associated to play cards walking in my direction and yelling at each other. I went under the table so they wouldn’t see me. As they were coming closer, I figured that they were speaking French and that they had just had a big revolution in their kingdom. The Dames getting educated and studying English learned that in an English card decks, they are called Queens – so they wanted to be called Reines in French. They had been in front of a judge who didn’t see any reason why they couldn’t be called Reines. So they changed the letter D for the letter R. So the Reines had the same letter than the Rois. At this point everybody was happy and no one anticipated that it would degenerate in a big fight after a game of Poker in which some players argued that the Reines could be Rois dressed as women and the Rois could be Reines dressed as men – that nowadays, this was something very possible and that some players were discriminating them. So they were all blaming each other for all the cheating that was going on.

The secondary effects of the peanut butter eventually stopped and the cards disappeared and the kitchen became quiet again. I had not noticed that the donkey had left the kitchen and he came back with a cake with 22 candles on it. I was confused because the day before, I was 28 but the donkey who had never traveled had only looked at my birthday in my passport and made the deduction that because Ethiopia is in 2003, I was turning 22 – which means that I could enjoy the second floor party for seven more years if I stay here but it might get creepy.

I blew the candles out all at once after making a wish. The donkey and I ate the cake and then I started to worry how I would get back home. He told me about Marie. He showed me in which direction I should go. I arrived in a very busy place with many people calling different names. I went to a first person and asked ‘Marie? and this person showed me where to go. I asked ‘Marie?’ again and the same thing happened. After a few times I found what I was looking for and found the entrance of the hole. I had wished getting back to my normal size after getting out of the hole – which happened and I got home to tell Aliez about my most recent adventures.

Oli in real life – Part I - Irrelevant information

Aliez says I’m shrinking. I might have lost a few pounds since I really slowed down on my consumption of beer. I probably have one every... two weeks... But the main reason why I might look smaller is that all the clothe washing is made by hand... I boil water, add detergent to it, let my clothes soak for a while, shake, shake, shake, rinse and... tear them to remove as much water as possible... I hope you didn’t forget that it’s kind of cold and rainy here so the ‘13 months of sunshine’ slogan is a lie. (I say that even though the last few days were actually quite hot and dry.) So tearing my clothes stretches them and also hanging for millions hours make them bigger...

I know I annoyed a lot of people with this story, but my toe really hurt – all summer long – and still hurts. Sometimes. I actually broke it at the beginning of the summer and later, just to make sure I wasn’t making it up, I stepped on it in a pool and heard it crack like I hear people here calling me You! or Farenji! or Mister! So when I wike too much or use my toes to keep my balance on a crowded bus, it does hurt. I also feel it while running in the gym. But what helps me is that the power often goes out so the treadmill goes off. And my toe thanks Ethiopia. People say that there is nothing to do – that broken toes get fixed by themselves – but not mine. It’s my forever broken left little toe.

I told you we had a problem with the lights in the house. They got fixed but something else happened. The kitchen light switch broke. So Aliez found a genius way to fix it – using two Band-Aids so it stays in the ON position. The thing is that Band-Aids are not very strong so it gives her about 15 seconds each time – to run and to do one thing but this quickly goes from funny to frustrating. She wanted to spread peanut butter on a rice cake. But to spread the peanut butter she asked me to come in the kitchen and hold the switch in ON position which I did and as if she saw for the first time, realized that the peanut butter didn’t only taste funky but also looked funky. It also is the fasting peanut butter – which is what some people use instead of milk on fasting days – every Wednesdays and Fridays.

And as I mentioned earlier, Addis can be a confusing city. But all you actually have to know is the names of the different neighbourhoods you want to go to. Megenagna is a major bus station where we always have to switch bus. On our way back home, because we live in the Marie neighbourhood, we have to find the bus that goes there and it is definitely not the easiest one to find.

Oli in real life – Part II – The birthday

In case you don’t already know, I spent my birthday alone in Ethiopia. I mean ‘alone’ because Aliez, the person that knows me the most here – and by super far – had to leave the country because of a problem with her visa. Still, it turned out to be memorable. So here is what I did. Breakfast, shower, bus, bus, walk around a very animated area, Alliance Éthio-Française to get the cultural calendar, lunch, bookstores, bus, bus, supermarket, home, burnt brigadeiros, movie and sleep. You might be wondering what made my birthday memorable... It’s kind of obvious... I just didn’t do anything that would make me forget what happened on this day... Not that this is what I did last year, but... well... Is it what I did last year? This and the wishes which I’m very thankful for!