DON'T SHOOT! Our Run In at the US Embassy.

Wow. It’s been about two weeks since we arrived in Addis. And ohh my, are the good times rollin!! After about a week of sleeping off the jetlag, we began visitng our friends and family here in Addis, catching up over injera and dabo. I was surprised to find that my grandma from DC is in town, and my aunt from NY is in Mekele (a beautiful northern city in Ethiopia)! So, we’ll be making the trip to Mekele next week. Then, we hear Teddy Afro is performing in a few short days, after a long stint in jail (typical African saga, I know)…Teddy is like the crown prince of Ethiopian music, so this comeback is classified history! Stay tuned for our posts from Mekele and exclusive video of our Teddy Afro Experience. 

Fast Forward to Today:

Like any other day, today’s events were authentically “Africa,” complete with a pinch of unnecessary drama (cue the drums).  This morning, we decided to trek over to the US embassy, to register as official US residents of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Exciting right? As we pull up to the Embassy, in all of its tin-gated glory, we see a bunch of Ethiopians baring army fatigue and machine guns. Ok cool, so we have sakurity. Keep it tight. But seconds later, they begin yelling at our driver! “You can’t park here, keep moving!” SO, in a “this is MY Embassy, who YOU yellin at?” move, I jump out the car without a care in the world. Fine, we won’t park here. We’ll just hop out so we don’t have to hike back up the road. Suddenly, the yelling became harmonious, as all the guards started charging at us, yelling in Amharic “didn’t we tell you you couldn’t stop here!?” Ummm park does not mean stop! So I started laughing at a very inappropriate moment, as per usual, which aggravated the hell out of the soldiers. Good thing I had my passport in my hand… I waved that baby like a flag! They let us slide. Our driver however, got his license taken away, only to get it back once we exited the embassy. Extra. I appreciate the security measures but all that hollerin’ like somebody had a gun, was crazy. “Rude.”