Wedding Bells!

I made it back home after a quick trip to a completely different world!  I really feel like I was a whole world away from here, though it's really relatively close, distance wise!

On Thursday afternoon, I flew off to Addis Ababa, the cosmopolitan capital of Ethiopia.  I love that place, and I've been through the airport so many times in the last few years, that it's starting to feel rather a lot like home!  My dear friend, Hiwet, was getting married on Saturday, and I wasn't going to miss this wedding for anything.  I met Hiwet about 6 years ago, when we both lived in a different country.  Hiwet and I really hit it off, and we have been such good friends, ever since.  She's one of those kinds of friends that even if you don't see each other all that often, as soon as you're together, you pick up right where you left off.  Of course, I also know the rest of her family a bit, so it's always a bit of a party when I get a chance to visit.  Ever since I've known her, I've thought that whenever she gets married, I would be there.  I'm just glad that she ended up getting married while I'm living relative close by :)

Of course, she was pretty busy on Thursday, so she asked one of her friends (who I've also met before) to meet me at the airport and help me get a taxi to where I was staying.  I felt so honoured that Tizitu would take a few hours out of her day to come and meet me at the airport and make sure I was taken care of!  She's also just great, and it was nice to see her again.

Normally when I go to Ethiopia, I stay with Hiwet in her little apartment, but of course, since she was getting married, that wasn't going to happen, so I had the opportunity to stay with a Norwegian friend who I met while studying back in Canada.  She has since gotten married, too, so it was great to see her and meet her new husband, and hear more about their work and life in Ethiopia.  So Thursday evening, I had dinner with my Norwegian friends, then met Hiwet for a nice macchiato at the local cafe.  In fact, Hiwet's old and new apartments, her parent's place, my friend's house and our organization's offices are all within about 10 blocks of each other in one part of town, which centres around a major public transport hub and four cafes/restaurants, and a bunch of little shops.  So I know those cafes quite well, and it's SO convenient for grabbing a macchiato at pretty much any time of the day or night.  And considering at macchiato costs about $0.25, it's not breaking the bank if you drink, say, 4 of them, in one day :)

Anyway, Thursday evening was spent with Hiwet, which was SO nice!  I love that girl, and we had SO much to catch up on.  We made plans to meet the following day, as she had to go get her hair washed and curled, as well as getting her pedicure and manicure in preparation for the wedding.

So I went home, had a wonderfully peaceful sleep, under a cozy warm duvet, in a quiet, sealed house.  It went down to 4.5C outside that night!  I couldn't believe how cold it got, though I stayed cozy and warm in the house!

The next morning, I had a beautiful Scandinavian style breakfast with freshly squeezed orange juice, cheese, homemade strawberry jam and homemade whole wheat buns.  It was beautiful.  And the company was pretty good, as well :)

I then walked myself over to Hiwet's new apartment, where she is now living with her new husband!  What a cute little apartment they've got.  It's just one bedroom, with a sitting room, a little kitchen and a bathroom.  But it's all set up and organized, and I know they will be so happy there!  It's a lot bigger than her old apartment, which was just one room (which doubled as the bedroom and the living room), a kitchen and a bathroom.  It was so much fun to see all her new stuff and know where she is going to be living from now on.

From Hiwet's house, we took a taxi to the Bole area to the salon where she had arranged for all her beauty treatments.  Of course, we stopped for a macchiato on the way :)  But it didn't take us too long to get to the salon. I LOVE salons in Africa.  This one was quite a posh place, and full of women getting their beauty treatments.  Really, quite the place.  I just wish I knew more of the language so I could engage in the whole experience a bit more.  Everyone is always chatting and laughing in the salons, but without knowing the language, it's a bit difficult to join in!  But the universal language of beauty speaks louder than words :)

I felt bad for the poor woman who was scrubbing my feet.  Straight from the craziness that is Jb, they were pretty nasty.  She earned herself a pretty nice tip from all the scrubbing and buffing.  And I came away with beautifully soft feet and lovely decorated toes and fingers - all ready for a wedding!  I even got to enjoy a cup of Ethiopian coffee and a bit of traditional bread while I was being scrubbed and buffed.  And the grand total for over an hour of pampering - $3.17, including tip.  Have I mentioned how much I love Ethiopia?!

After we were beautified, we went for lunch at another pretty posh place.  Again, the total bill came to something like $3 for both of us for more injera and tibs than we could eat, along with some french fries, which was a bit of an odd addition to the meal, but tasty all the same!  Have I mentioned how much I love Ethiopia?! 

From there, we went over to the compound where her parents are now living, so Hiwet could show me where I was meant to be in the morning for the wedding festivities.  It was so nice to see her parents and her brother again, after being away for so long.  And the compound was a very, very busy place.  There must have been 20 women there, peeling, chopping, stirring... all in preparation for the wedding feast!

And as they worked, they were all singing and clapping and having a ball!  There were so many beautiful faces - those women have so much character in their faces, and they way they wrap themselves up in all their traditional scarves... I wish I had a better camera and a chance to really make some portraits of them!  They were all so impressed with my ability to greet them in a language that they knew, and were amazed that I had come from a different country just for Hiwet's wedding :)  It was great fun to meet them all for a few minutes.

Hiwet's dad was also hard at work, separating the meat from the bones of the cow that had been slaughtered that morning for the feast.  A whole cow!  Dad, how would you like that job the day before your daughter's wedding?

Once I'd seen where I was meant to be the next day, Hiwet deposited me near where I was staying and had to run off to get some last minute things done for the wedding with her pastor. 

The folks I was staying with had actually gone away to a cottage on a lake for the weekend, so I was home alone for the evening!  Of course, I was staying within a block of a cafe which serves really nice pizza, so I drank a macchiato while I waited for my takeaway pizza (didn't want to be out too late on my own, so thought it would be better to take the pizza home to enjoy at my leisure).  Again, the total bill for a huge chicken pizza (well, huge by African standards!) loaded with real mozzarella cheese and a macchiato was less than $3.

So I had the best evening.  Me, pizza, Coke and a movie, while wrapped in a blanket because it was so cold!  I slept really well- it was quiet and cool, and I snuggled under a duvet, looking forward to a hot shower in the morning!  And actually, I could really use a cold shower right about now, so I will leave the rest of the story until tomorrow :)