Amharic postscript

Did I mention that one of my reasons for going with the Amharic book (rather than, say, one of my three titles on Armenian) in yesterday's entry was the fact that I had plans to eat at Ethiopian Diamond tonight? monshu and I are part of this "supper club" with his co-worker and her girlfriend. Last month was Spring World; I've already forgotten the restaurant which launched the whole thing.

In any case, I packed Colloquial Amharic along for shits and grins. Sure enough, we weren't there ten minutes before someone carelessly said, "I don't know what the Eritrean Orthodox say [at Easter]" and I whipped out the text to look it up. The conversation moved on, I sat it on the floor, and didn't think of the book again until one of the waitresses pounced upon it.

Seems she's got a friend who's looking to adopt a child in Ethiopia and wants to learn some Amharic before going there. "I've been teaching him some," she told us, "but my mother says it's all slang!" So he was looking for a good text, possibly with audio. I told her to have a look at it and tell me if she thought it was worth recommending. When she asked me where I got it, I had to confess that I didn't remember any more.

It sunk back into obscurity until Almaz, the owner, came by again and spied it. She asked about it, and I felt a little bad explaining to her that I wasn't really trying seriously to learn her language. I showed her the slip with "I am a powerfully large duck" and I don't think she knew what to make of it, but it didn't dent her graciousness one bit: She treated us to a round of Ethiopian tea.

All the years I've been eating Ethiopian, and I'd never had this treat before! It's spiced with cloves, cardomom, cinnamon. One of our companions likened it to Celestial Seasonings Bengal Spice, which is fair enough, but this frankly was better. Try it next time!