An exercise in patience

Coming from a culture where everyone is in a hurry, and everything is FAST, meal time here in Ethiopia is a bit of an experience. At least at the hotel we are staying at.

The menu is pretty good, with a variety of food to choose from. Their cheeseburgers are surprisingly tastey, tender and with a lot of flavor. The soft buns they come on are huge! Often, two of us will split a burger just because they are so big.

Unfortunately, service leaves much to be desired. Breakast isnt too bad because its a buffet, but even then it can take a while to get a drink. The hot tea here is delicious, and there is a variety of fresh squeezed juices, with my favorite being the orange juice.

Dinner, on the other hand is an exercise in patience. Since we've now been here for over a week, we all have the menu pretty well memorized and know what we want as soon as we sit down. Fortunately, we have also learned to sit down for dinner well before we are actually hungry, because by the time we get our food we will be ready to eat.

A typical evening goes like this. Pull a few tables together so we all dont have to crowd around 1. Wait 10 minutes or so for the waitress to bring the menus. If we are lucky, we can give them our drink order then. If not we wait another 10-20 minutes for them to come back to take our orders, and hopefully we can get our food orders in at the same time. Then we usually pull out our computers, or settle in for the long wait. It normally takes a good 30-40 minutes for our food to come out, and even then it doesn't all come out at once. We've learned that whoever gets their food first needs to start eating it instead of being polite and waiting for everyone else. Otherwise their food will get cold.

Tuesday evening was particularly bad. There were 6 of us having dinner, and 3 of us got our food pretty quickly (20 minutes). 2 more people received their orders soon after, although one of those ordered cheese ravioli with cream sauce and got spaghetti with cream sauce instead...the waitress refused to correct the order. After most of us had finished eating (and about 40 minutes had passed) we finally realized the last 2 people weren't ever going to get their food. We asked the waiter about their orders and a few minutes of flustered scrambling confirmed to us that their orders never made it to the kitchen. 20 minutes later their dishes finally arrived.

We have also learned to ask for the bill as soon as we are done eating. That will give us about 20-30 more minutes worth of chatting around the table before it actually arrives and we can head off to bed.

So, when I return home...if I go out to dinner with you and start eating as soon as I receive my dish, keep in mind where I've been for the last month and cut me a little slack. :)