Buna bet shocker!!! (coffee house / café)

Our college café closed for a day a couple of weeks ago in a big shock. Goran and I were wondering where on Earth we were going to get our daily supply of “sambusa” and coffee. It turned out that the reason was that the café owner had signed a contract with the college to supply drinks and food at a fixed price, and with the inflation in Ethiopia, he was now losing money. The only thing he could do, was close and force them to re-negotiate the contract. Buna (coffee) is now 1birr25cents (up from 1birr) soft drinks are now 3.50ETB up from 3ETB!

One of the instructors got a new satellite pay-TV card from Addis Ababa the other week meaning the TV in the buna bet is on all the time now with films, news and sport and they can all watch UK Premiere-league football when they want to in the evenings. This means productivity in the college has dropped somewhat!!!

The electricity is always on and off, but the other night it went off and we found out later it was just our house. Luckily, with Goran’s background in electrical work, he discovered there was a problem with the underground cable between the meter on the power pole and the fusebox in the house. He has now rigged up an external cable that runs into the house and we have power again… well, actually we don’t as it is off in Gilgel Beles at the moment, but when it goes on there, it will go on in our house.

I’m still on B, A and G with my recorder group, but they are gradually improving. They’re now attempting to play along with the CD that came with the book I am basing some of my teaching on. It’s good fun, and something that is working without lots of bureaucracy!