Afternoon stroll

After lunch today I walked around the premises with one of the course
coordinators. He told me what the companies across the road were making,
like the soap/detergent factory and a tannery, or what organizations
were in other buildings, like the CRDA or Christian (R?) Development
Association which is a large umbrella NGO in Ethiopia. We walked by some
old machinery on Center grounds that was no longer functional, like the
rusting 80m drilling rig donated by Russia. He told me that when he was
younger he lived in the Soviet Union, in present-day Kyrgyzstan. After
that he lived in Norway for a year or so before returning to Ethiopia in
the 90s. Considering the destination of his travels, it was a little
surprising when we started talking about music and he told me he liked
Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton and that American country music was very
popular among people of his generation. After that we were talking about
names and I found out his name means "appointment" in English. He was
named as such because as soon as he was born, his father, a policeman,
was appointed to a higher position. While many Americans have three
names (first, middle and family), Ethiopians also use three names but
these are their given name, their father's given name and their
grandfather's given name, so technically no single "family name" is
handed down. When a man and woman get married there is no custom of
taking the other person's name; each of them maintains his or her own
name, father's name and grandfather's name. After that we had gone full
circle and were back at the entrance of the Center, but it was a nice
afternoon stroll.