The Tiramisu Rule

I have this rule - whenever Tiramisu is on the dessert menu, no matter how full I am or how little money I have, I must to order it.  It is part of my greater plan to find the best Tiramisu in all of the land.  I know what you are thinking, that is a massive challenge not to be taken on by the faint hearted!  Psh, no kidding.  But have no fear dear readers!  I do not take this rule lightly and I never back down from a challenge.  That is one of the many reasons why I am so delighted with the Italian influence here in Ethiopia.  There is some interesting history here, having to do with invasions…and people…but I won’t bore you with it (mostly because I don’t really know it), but the punch line is – every restaurant I have entered in Addis boasts a fantastic Ethiopian menu along with spaghetti, lasagna, and pizza.  Never fails. 

A few days ago my mentor took me out for coffee and I shouldn’t have been surprised when I opened the bakery menu and tiramisu was there.  I should mention that my mentor only knows me as the strange farangi (Amharic for white person, I will come back to this later…) who sits at a desk for 10 hours a day entering numbers onto a spreadsheet and shows little to no emotion (those of you who know me otherwise, yeah, this is happening).  So when I began to have a mini-meltdown about the fact that Tiramisu was on the menu I think my mentor was a bit taken aback, to say the least.  Enter waitress to dash my dreams and say the Tiramisu is finished for the day.  Luckily (or unluckily) my mentor was so surprised by my infatuation of said tiramisu that he insisted on driving across town to an other coffee shop that did have tiramisu.  Insert Ethiopian hospitality.  Love.

Moral of the story, I got my tiramisu and it was delicious.  Not the best.  But, still delicious.  They had the right amount of espresso soaking the lady fingers (go figure), but not enough of the creamy stuff.  Hence, my search continues…

So one of my favorite words to learn in different languages is the translation for “White person.”  Well, not only the translation, but the meaning behind the translation.  In Paris, it was pretty easy to translate “Stoopeed Aahmerican!” but I digress…In Samoa I was a “Palagi” pronounced PA-lang-ee.  The “Pa” means burst and “Lagi” means heaven.  We done burst from the heavens yall!  I was told this was for 2 reasons, 1 because we sailed in on big ships that looked like they burst right out of the horizon and 2 because we brought over a bunch of bibles and pictures of the long haired Jesus dude with the heavens bursting from behind him.  Dear ancestors, you are embarrassing me again…

In Amharic, the more or less official language in Ethiopia, I am referred to as a “Farangi” pronounced FA-ron-gee.  I was told that this was because the first paler shade people to come to Ethiopia were the French.  Frenchies.  Fa-renchies.  Farangis…I think I see it.

And on a slightly more hysterical note, remember the squat toilet I mentioned in earlier the blogging entries?  The one next to the Emergency Department, with no light and a running hose from the wall?  Yes, well, the emergency surgical staff unfortunately believed that I am intelligent enough to use said bathroom on my own now, without an escort.  So this morning one of the scrub nurses gave me a key and I walked to the squat toilet with my head held high because I am such a seasoned traveler now.  As mentioned before, the door does not lock from the inside, but I had the key this time!  I locked the door from the inside and went about my business.  Man, I wish I had listened when the original guy that took me to the bathroom told me that the lock was broken from the inside because while you can in fact lock it from the inside with a key, you cannot UNlock it.  So there I was turning the key over and over again in the dark water closet while trying to also hold my cell phone flashlight to figure it out.  After about 30 minutes of this (real time = 45 seconds) I couldn’t even be scared because I was laughing so hard at my own stupidity, I began banging on the door in hopes that someone in the Emergency Department waiting room (directly outside the door) would have pity on this silly little Farangi.  Of course a nice lady did (because who could miss the blond girl going into the bathroom earlier and then mysteriously not coming out?).  There was a hole in the door that I shoved the key through and meekly squeaked “Help?”  She took the key and easily unlocked it from the outside for me with a smile.   Ethiopian Hospitality.  Heart.