Me-eh

I decided to have lunch at the training center today, although I arrived a little late. I sat with the Japanese personnel, and although they had finished already, they sat with me and drank coffee while I had my lunch. The restaurant only has two meal choices: spaghetti or injera. Their spaghetti makes you wonder if it's from a rejected 1984 food aid package (yes, it's that bad), so I ordered the injera. It was bege kai wat injera, meaning mutton served with a red stew/gravy on a sourwheat crepe. Actually, despite my thumbs-down for the pasta, they are pretty good at their own local dishes. The injera is soft and spongy, like it's supposed to be, and the red stew is rich and slightly spicy, with bits of mutton. They also include a big hunk of backbone meat (on-the-bone) which you have to pick up with your hands and gnaw on. While I ate, one of the guys commented on how you can't get such fresh ingredients back home. As I tore off another chunk of meat dripping with red gravy, he said proudly, "I actually saw them kill that sheep this morning," and then added, "I turned my head when I heard a me-eh!" He went on to describe what he saw, but I'll spare you the rest. Even so, I didn't let it stop me from finishing my meal--afterall, it's true that it's probably better quality here than you could get back home. Plus, I know they buy from a proper butcher nearby, but, meh, it was still an entertaining story.