Hello FML'ers --

I so appreciate the fact that people are looking out for me. It's easy
to feel very isolated here, and then I find that really I am not!

My moving project is slowly, erratically, but definitely rolling
forward. Maybe you remember that Installing two new business partners
is a necessary step in selling the car. Of course that process is long
and complex. On my last trip to Addis, one of them, George, got partly
installed. The other partner could not get time off of work, but might
be able to next week. George went out of town for a couple of weeks
yesterday. When he gets back we can pick up the process. He's acting
in a movie about Rastafarians, and the next shoot is in Shashamane, an
area in the south that Haile Selassie supplied to the Rastas decades
ago.

I spent some time with a new friend, a woman whose physician husband
was tortured and then released by the government a few years ago. He
died not long after that. She is trying to release their property
from the government.

I also saw more than the usual number of car wrecks lining the road to
Addis. Plus I myself caused a little one once I got to the city -- I
backed into a taxi .... but we settled amicably.

A fellow damaged my car as I was driving through the crowded vegetable
area -- we were all diverted off one of the usual routes, and this
person took offense at my being white, I suppose -- used a metal rod
to make a big scratch all along the side of the car as I drove by.
Frightening and enraging. Luckily for my mental health, I was more
enraged than fearful.

ALL of the routes from the west (where I live) into the city have
been interfered with by construction. Each and every one of them now
involves unmarked diversions through little streets of business or
residential areas. The diversions change every few days, depending on
where the construction is being done at the time. Usually this is a
very crowded situation and you just crawl along, adding a great deal
of time to your trip. If it is not crowded, I just guess as to how
to get to my destination. The city is old, and it evolved without
planning -- no road grids in it whatsoever.

Well, you can see that I am grouchy about that trip. So, here are the
good parts. I did get George's first signature. I enjoyed meals with
two new acquaintances, including the woman I mentioned. Also it took
only a day to get the first part of the renewal of my residence permit
done. (It would have expired June 9, and I can't do anything without
it.) Further, I had two wonderful pizzas. There's almost no Western
food where I live, and I love pizza.

When I got home, I found an email of apology from my neighbor Dave for
some bad behavior of his a week or two ago. Most of us expats are sort
of nutty -- some of us having become so -- or more so -- from the
strain of living here under the deteriorating social and economic
conditions. But the apology was welcome. I'm having lunch with his
wife tomorrow. I imagine she'll be apologizing too. This is a god
thing in itself, plus they were talking about buying my car -- and
for a good price -- before the uproar.

I haven't got the energy to describe the whole affair with those
folks, but it came about from a misunderstanding about some trees they
wanted to buy from me.

Dr Chala, the donkey vet, came out this morning to trim Edilegnya's
hooves and see to a wound he has. Edilegnya's trip to the Donkey
Sanctuary has been postponed due to trouble with their
equine-transport vehicle. Also they have no gasoline -- so I paid $40
for them to fill up to make today's round trip. That was ok. Dr Chala
has made the trip for free so many times. The cost has come at a bad
time, but I was still glad to pay it.

As usual, it was great to see Dr Chala. He's changing fields -- going
into biomedical research -- and he's performing and writing a research
paper on human TB diagnostic procedures here. The current procedures
are seriously inadequate, and Dr Chala intends to demonstrate a
better, more modern approach. He's having to delay his program and
therefore his post-graduate graduation (MS, I think) because of the
lack of a certain kind of centrifuge, but he isn't discouraged or
down.

Edilegnya's doing fine. I'm glad for the delay in his leaving me of course.

Here's where you could see the photos of the wrecks on two succeeding
Tuesdays, and also of me and the taxi driver (and his friend and
George) in front of the taxi I backed into.

http://s1144.photobucket.com/user/celebrateoften/library/May%2028%20and%20June%204?sort=2&page=1

I know many of you can't imagine that I would stick this out just to
get the car sold. The problem is one of money. Without the proceeds
of the car sale, I'd arrive back in the US with just about nothing!
Imagine arriving with a single suitcase and one carry-on (the new
limit to free luggage) and your animals, and having to buy almost all
new clothes, shoes, bedding, and bathroom, kitchen, animal, and office
supplies, including your computer, and all the other things of daily
life -- daunting, and expensive! Thanks to generous people and my
own efforts, I have what I need to get all of my animals (except my
dear donkey) and myself home, but almost nothing else. Not a good
situation -- tolerable, but not good.

[Posted in FML 7813]