What's it like - being eaten by a lion?

Well, this weekend has been exciting - it did not rain!

Okay, that may or may not have been a good thing. As I've mentioned, the electricity here is generated by water, and apparently this has been the hottest and driest summer in a long long while. So, every other day there is no electricity between 9am and 9pm, approximately. That makes it for a very dull evening at candlelight.

Recently the guest house I am staying in has been over-run by Spaniards, and their adopted Ethiopian babies. If I had only known, that this guest house has a deal with every adoption agency in the world, I might have reconsidered staying there. There are 7 babies, which means there are 12+ adults, and two 4 year old girls who came along with their family. Now, imagine a reception small room with a few tables and chairs, filled with loud infants, loud mothers, and even louder mothers. It's a hoot, and I don't really mean it in a good way. I wonder when they are leaving. It's become difficult to get anything for breakfast - If I oversleep, they eat everything! Just thought that I'd share this tidbit.

This weekend I decided to be adventurous and go to the Lion Zoo. Yep, that's what it's called. Because, that's all that there is there. There are several dirty lion enclosures, that are way to small, and way too unsafe. This, is as close as I could get to a lion, who could have easily reached through those bars and killed me. Okay, maybe just severely injured me. That thought didn't really occur to me, until I wanted to stand up, and made a sudden move. The lion turned to me and showed his teeth. That was nice.


There were maybe 10 lions and they all looked like a very depressed Mufasa. I wished that they had more space, like in San Francisco zoo. More space to run, to frolic in the grass, to munch on some tourists. But, no, they were cooped up in these little prison cells. They seemed to know that their life could be better. That there could be life where no one pokes you in the butt in order for some tourists to take their picture for 15 Birr ($1.25). Ever since then I've been wondering, what is it actually like - to be attacked by a lion? What a story to tell, eh?


I also went to see Lucy. She is an Australopithecus afarensis, she is 3.2 million years old. She was really tiny and cute. This is just a reproduction, the real skeleton was lying down in a security alarmed glass case. I thought that she was cool, and figured that I'd share these with you. Nothing else major or exciting was at this museum, but it was definitely bigger than any of the others I've been to in Addis. I must also note that this was the first exhibit that did not use fluorescent lights! It was nice and soft lighting that may even have been UV free! Most of the art and relics were displayed in The National Museum will eventually get damaged by the lighting system, which is really unfortunate, because they had some really awesome things (crowns, gowns, art etc.) from back in the day when Emperors Menelik and Ras Tafari after whom many streets are named were rullers and all that jazz. In other words, it was kind of sad to know that some day we won't be able to see all these cool things, just because a 20 birr ($1.75) admission fee barely covers Lucy's security guard's pay.

Well, this should be plenty good of an update. 'Til next time.