Saturday, February 4, 2012

Into Africa

... and my brother Kamal got engaged to Haimen from Ethiopia. They decided to have their wedding in Ethiopia. With that it was clear, my first destination in Africa will be Ethiopia. I combined my trip to Ethiopia with a trip to Germany. I left with my family Germany on a gray and rainy day. A day in Germany in January means the felt 5 minutes between sunrise and sunset. In Ethiopia sunrise and sunset are always at 6. Day and night are always 12 hours long. And the only seasons they have in Ethiopia is rainy season in June-July and dry season the rest of the year. 
We were invited to dinner with the family of the bride Tuesday evening. It was the first time we met. I told Haimen, I want to dance Ethiopian dances on her wedding and need to practice. To see how it is danced, we crushed a party of her neighbors. But you don't learn dancing by just watching - I guess that's why the party guests dragged me to the middle of the dance floor and so I was learning by dancing. Soon, a dozen cell phone cameras were pointed on the ferengy on the dance floor. Before I left, the party host thanked me for crushing his party.
Addis Ababa has a lot of traffic and almost no traffic light. A city without traffic light is cool and frightening at the same time. When you sit in a bus (blue donkey) that is in the middle of a main intersection, you either can trust that the driver knows what he does or you panic.
Sometimes grooms do a terrible mistake and choose a wrong guy to be best man. My brother didn't do that mistake. Instead he didn't want to have a best man. In such a case you can tell everyone you are the best man - at some point even bride and groom fell for that. At least my brother and my sister in law did when I pulled that. And I'm the best in being the best - that's why my sister in law asked me to be her best friend soon after. I'm sorry for Haimen's former best friends to hear it that way: you are history.
Let me come to an end with these words: Kamal's wife, you are now part of the family.

My Bro and my Besti