Disconnected

In Japan I almost always have Internet access, so it feels a little odd
to learn about a culture only through what I hear from the people around
me. Most of what you hear must be taken at face value and to make sure
you understood correctly the best thing to do is ask a few more people.
Also, since Amharic is written in a different alphabet, it's hard to
figure out the exact pronunciation of words used here. Of course I
contended with this challenge when I first studied Japanese, but
comparatively Japanese pronunciation is pretty straightforward whereas
Amharic has inflections and clicks of the tongue I don't usually relate
with words. In any case, I spoke with the manager at Chez Glo and since
his English is pretty clear I was able to ascertain that the 1st day of
the month is known as "Ludata" and they refer to Mary Magdalene as
"Mariam". He then told me nonchalantly, "By the way, all 30 days of the
month have a specific meaning". I've got a lot of learnin' to do!
Something has to be really important to take the time to look it up on
the Internet--each item of a page virtually loading one-by-one on their
own sweet time--so I will use my time talking with people to try and
explore these cultural specifics a little more. Each piece of
information is malleable and subjective, yet, at the same time, primary
and significant as it is passed from person to person without resorting
to Google or Wikipedia to mindlessly cough up "the answer".