Zewdu The Waiter

I spent the last eight days in Addis Ababa, stayed in a hostel on-campus.  Zewdu is a waiter at the cafetaria, always with a waistcoat matching his pants, well knotted tie, chef's cap, and a name badge.  He must had been trained by someone western to dress up.

I think his memory is like a sieve.  Nothing stays there.  He will ask what I will have for breakfast, I will say fried eggs, he will take two steps, and forget about it, and loiter.  Then I will call him again, he will attend to me politely, hands held back, standing smart and he will take my order again.  Then you know what happens.  Initially it was a bit annoying, but, then I got used to it.

At times he will come to me voluntarily, and ask if I need anything.  If I say nothing, then he will protest by saying, remember, we are your family here and you must allow me to take care of you.  It was nice.  I saw him saying the same to many people.  He wanted to be hospitable.

One day, I called him, 'Zewdu', and he liked my pronounciation and the tone.  It had a bit of friendship and authority.  He stopped and smiled.  Then he said that my pronounciation was perfect.  He then went on to say, that Zewdu means a Crown in his tribal language.  He was born at the time when a King was crowned.  It must be Halie Salazzie.  His father worked at the palace at that time of his birth, and named him, CROWN (Zewdu).

It was at the workshop dinner, he taught me how to drink.  I ordered a glass of wine, he came with a bottle of beer, and a glass of wine.  I told him that I did not want the beer, for that he said, drink the beer first, that's for thirst, then drink the wine with the food for digestion.  He had it all worked out. I obliged.

I will not remember the food at the cafetaria, it was boring, but will remember Zewdu.

Back to Blogger fromAddis

I haven't been blogging, not that I did not have something memorable to write, but was busy, sick or lazy.  Today, I am in Addis Ababa, and I have time (TV in the room is not working).

As we landed, it was around 6 AM, the landscape looked very neatly laid.  Its a hill country, and I did not see any soil conservation measures to check erosion.  But it looked nice.  Moral is just because things looks good, things are not OK.

There is only one word to describe the weather here, beautiful.  The driver said its a bit warm here, he was warning about temperatures reaching mid 20s.

I am staying at the ILRI campus.  This is another sister institute within CGIAR.  I have been to similar campuses of IRRI, CIMMYT and ICRISAT.  They are all good, well  maintained, and a real professional working environment.  IWMI's one is not great, but not bad.  I can only envy the visionaries who have set up such beautiful campuses for the benefit of the poor.

I remember reading that people from the horn of Africa are the most beautiful, and I have to agree with that statement.  They look nice, rarely overweight, dressed neatly, AND, they look beautiful.

I haven't been around today, slept, replied to emails, met some office colleagues.  But I must make use of the weekend to see Addis/Ethiopia.