The answers to the GREAT QUIZ

Ok... Here are the answers to the great quiz about life the universe and everything... or let’s be more precise and call it the quiz about random stuff... in which the ‘good’ answers can be even more random than the questions themselves...

1. Which of these activities can be done on Sundays? On Sundays, there never was any running water and even though we could still technically use the toilet and there could be some power outages, watching TV is the best answer – so C.

2. Which food did I not get during my stay here? I never got any Indian food but there are a few Indian restaurants – so A.

3. What do I like the least with eating injera? Sharing a meal with other people is something I love to do so eating from the same plate, with my hands and sometimes getting bites from someone else’s hand is perfectly good with me. I only eat from someone else’s hand in Ethiopia though – in case you ever try to feed me. So the answer is D.

4. What do I definitely not want to bring back with me as a souvenir? I guess that you all know that I collect different versions of Le Petit Prince – in different languages. I found the one in Amharic which I think was only published in the last year. I also found a bracelet to replace my ‘senhor do bonfim’ bracelet that finally (!!) fell off... About the baby, maybe it is not just a souvenir but also a real person, but I really wished I could have taken one with me... So the answer is the shiro powder which is the lentil powder that is used to prepare what is probably my least favourite dish in Ethiopia – so B.

5. What is usually not a result of a power outage? Even though when there is no power, we don’t really have light to see what we are doing in the kitchen (the kitchen light never worked anyway), the gas stove still technically works – so D.

6. Order the things that disturbed my sleep from the least annoying to the most annoying. It was not that bad to have to hear the singing coming from the churches at night time. I could also get used to the dogs. The bugs made me slap my face and bang my head in the wall a few times and actually bit me too. The fleas made me scratch all night and until it bled. This is the right order. So A.

7. Which song did I not hear the kids in Debre Sina sing? I think the kids never heard about Lady Gaga. They happen to know the Black Eyed Peas pretty well. K’naan made a song with them and he also sings about Somalia and Ethiopia – so they know him. Bob Marley is Bob Marley but also a famous Rastafarian – a movement in which people worship a former Ethiopian emperor... so A.

8. What product can’t we get on the street in Addis? We can get lottery tickets, fries (they are now everywhere!) and peanuts easily on the street. We can also get oranges and when the people who sell them say that they are sweet, it only means that they are sweeter than lemons. We can get some orange juice in some kind of fancy restaurants but in some places, it is mentioned on the menu that it might not be sweet at all and that it depends on the oranges only and not on the restaurant. Anyway, C.

9. What didn’t happen when the police arrested two guys who wanted to take me to a student party? I did see the police telling the guys to get on the floor before they hit them. Later, the police asked for my passport which I didn’t have and there was obviously a big group of people surrounding us but in no time did I understand the interrogation that went on between the two guys and the police. I didn’t really care so I just left. So A.

10. What have I never been called on the street? 'You' is very common so is 'Mister'. 'Farenji' was more common two years ago and still is in some smaller places but since there are so many of them (foreigners) in Addis, the habeshas (Ethiopians) are not as surprised anymore so they use other words. C.

11. Which of these animals would I like to have as a pet the most? I am not a super big fan of sheep or goats and I would definitely enjoy owning a horse but a donkey would be simpler and more useful. I also think donkeys are beautiful in their way of being calm. C.

12. Based on a true story, what happened to the Ethiopian woman’s kidney? This is a story I heard about the friend of a friend of a friend... This woman went to the hospital and needed a surgery but the doctors saw that she would never be able to pay for it so they took her kidney. B. The story doesn’t tell how she reacted when she woke up and if she feels better now.

13. Order those products that we can buy in supermarkets from the cheapest to the most expensive one. Thanks Ethiopia - the condensed milk was affordable. It cost about 24 birrs. The wine was a little more expensive if you include the deposit for the bottle which is about 30 birrs. There were bags of apples – 5 or 6 – that we could get for about 100 birrs. Finally, a small box (+/- 300 grams) of Special K was something like 150 birrs. So C. If you wonder what it means in Canadian dollars, it depends on the exchange rate so it doesn’t mean that much. In Ethiopian standards, a very poor person would eat in one year the equivalent of the cost of 3 bags of apples or 2 boxes of cereal.

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