Table for Eight

Last night 4 other colleagues arrived in Addis Ababa to begin a separate project, so we all went out to dinner together to welcome them to town. The restaurant was Da Tang, a Chinese place in Gerji with great food and large tables. There were eight of us so we were shown to a "party room" on the third floor which had a big, round table with a glass lazy susan on top. First things first, we ordered a round of St. George and Dashen beers. Then M ordered about eight dishes; some veggies, some pork dishes, their famed (at least in our circles) mapodofu. They also brought us a soup we didn't order, but everyone thought it looked so good, we didn't say anything. An Ethiopian waitress stood in the corner of our room and kept our beers filled. After about two hours, it was time for the guys who'd arrived that day to get back to their hotels and rest. We each put down about $10 toward the bill and thanked the servers on our way out.