Beshu Hotel

You know in the movies where a white man, like Michael Caine, confronts some ancient tribe and is put on a throne and made king? We took the students out to dinner again last night and they sat us at the head of the table and went on and on about how wonderful it was of us to treat them to dinner -- even though it amounted to only about $1 per person. We did all eat like kings though, with platters of kitfo, tibbs and a variety of other wat stews, plus a few cases of beer and soft drinks. After dinner, we had a coffee ceremony performed by a young lady from Tigray, Her hair was pulled back, but she had a gold ring hanging at her hairline from a center braid.
It was the end to a great day. The second water supply facility we visited was completely gravity-operated so that the intake was directly from a rushing river, from which the pressure pushed the water through the treatment facility and then out to customers. That means the location of the facility was upriver near the mountains, located beyond lush coffee groves. On the way, we drove past people drying coffee berries, so Dereje stopped the car and a woman gave us a handful of them. T peeled on open and, indeed, there was a pale, raw coffee bean inside. This area of Ethiopia is known for the best coffee available (think Starbucks Sidamo), so I couldn't help but to imagine those berries being dried, processed, roasted and eventually shipped to cafes around the world.