Odds and ends from Ethiopia

Here are some odds and ends, mostly photos, from Ethiopia that I think are worth sharing, but got left out before.
Another crashed truck. Yes, I actually have a collection of crashed truck photos. Somebody could just drive around (as a passenger, of course) Ethiopia and photograph crashed trucks. A macabre project – but probably a unique one. I was told that the drivers don’t sleep enough:

The traditional bread is “injera.” This is fairly well-known, but less well known is the traditional table, upon which the injera is served. It’s carried around from function to function, like this:

Here are some children displaying (selling) their baskets in Aksum:

Speaking of Aksum, I was standing near one of the historical sites, speaking with my guide, when all of a sudden I heard a thump and saw something drop right next to my guide’s friend a few feet away. A bird had dropped a dead rat from the sky, and it almost hit the man. It would have been a better story had he been hit, but then again, it would have been an even better story had I been hit. Sometimes the best story is not the best story.
Did you know that Aksum is Denver’s sister city in Ethiopia? Well it’s true, and there’s even a “Denver Street” there:

How basic can a museum get? Pretty basic in the Bahir Dar area. One of the islands features this museum, whose walls are made of corrugated iron, and consists of but one room – with no lighting of any kind, so flash photography is recommended. But it does feature an armed guard!

Dung is used for fuel in much of Ethiopia. One can see heaps of it, neatly stacked:

Here’s a little girl from one of the villages in Danakil. Sugarcane is the snack of choice for kids, and I was impressed at how efficient this girl was in eating it; she’s like a machine!

Here’s our local guide to Dallol, Ali:

Here’s the interior of one of the rooms in the guesthouse I stayed at in Harar:

Here’s the customary Ethiopian handshake. My guess is that it’s used elsewhere as well:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TxCRbp3sF8&w=560&h=315]

Here’s a view of a Somali refugee camp, taken on my return trip from Harar. Incidentally, a large chunk of Eastern Ethiopia is ethnically Somali, and it’s known as “Ethiopian Somalia.”

Here’s the priest at Abuna Yemata Guh. I probably should have included this photo in my original post; it’s practically a tradition for tourists to get just such a shot:

Practically every restaurant in Ethiopia has its coffee station, tended to by the coffee-girl. It’s her job to tend the coal fire for the incense, and to keep the coffee hot. Some people call this the “Ethiopian coffee ceremony,” but it’s not a ceremony; it’s simply the way Ethiopians drink coffee. Here’s one such station at the airport in Lalibela:

Speaking of airports, here’s an interesting scene I shot at the Addis Ababa airport. A little creepy, and a little artsy:

That’s it for now, but I’ve got a lot more, about Ethiopia, to write about.