My driver Abel

I know I am late in my postings and I should try to keep it chronological, but I have to do a small posting on my driver Abel. Recommended by the driver of a friend of mine, Abel is pretty much unique. He is a cameraman (or may be that is the only job he knows in English so he says so, who knows...). He is 29, married with one son of 4. His English is as good as my Amharic and let me tell you, our conversations are very amusing. He perfected the art of saying OK at the right time like if he actually understood what I said. He is a great teacher and already taught me to count, the day of the week and we are on small sentences such as I live in Addis, or we can meet at 3.30 (I haven’t perfected these yet!).
Abel is a real Ethiopian, he speaks in Ethiopian time, so if I want him to pick me up at 10am, I have to translate it to 4 Ethiopian time. First time I got it wrong and had to wait for an hour, not fun. He was late on our first meeting, so he always completes my schedule by a “OK, 4 sharp” which is hilarious when he says it. He does something funny with his eyebrows at the same time which makes it a really serious business. When I stupidly asked him what his name meant, he looked at me like if I am a complete ignorant and asked me: Do you know the bible, old testament? Yes, of course, Abel and Cain, silly me. But now, every time I asked him what a name means, he has the same answer and I am pretty sure that “Tadhu” does not come from the bible!
I got to say I was not a big fan of him. First he was late, then he really can’t speak English and he does not know much about Addis. But he is growing on me, because he tries hard and I would be really lost in Addis without him. Today, we met at 8.30 ethiopian time, sharp; we did 3 times Bole road (a huge huge street) to find a art gallery to print some pictures that I could not find after what he took me to the place where he goes… which appeared to be just under the gallery, we had a good laugh. And then came a unique moment. Michael Jackson came onto the radio and we sang together Billy Jean!!!! You can’t imagine how I felt. I don’t know the lyrics, he does not know English but we were both mumbling at first and then frankly singing. Ah, Michael Jackson, internationally renowned and I felt a bit less lonely. He just won a one month contract with the Embassy!

On another note, thank you so much for the one reading me and for your lovely messages, it means a lot for me (Papa, maman, je suis super impressionée!!!)