Housing, church, and friends

So, I always have designs to post more than once a week, and yet, here we are again with no update until Sunday afternoon. Sorry about that.

I’m still searching for a place to live. This is much more complicated than it seems, mainly because (1) it’s hard to find places and (2) it’s hard to find people to live with you who are looking for the same things (in my case, people as cheap as me :) ). Sadly, there’s no craigslist or anything like that here, so unless you know someone who knows someone who’s moving, you’re stuck using brokers. Working with brokers is a little like…hmmm…no witty comparisons coming to mind…let’s just cut to the chase and say it’s frustrating. Lots of times brokers don’t show up for appointments, and when they do, it’s normally at least 30 minutes late. The majority of them also refuse to work at night (read as any time after 5 or 5:30), which makes it very difficult to see places if you’re employed. Typically, brokers get paid ½ month’s rent if they help you find a place, which, of course, means that they are also incentivized to continually show you stuff that is more expensive than you told them.

However, this has allowed me to live out something on my bucket list. Confession time: sometimes when I visit my parents, my Dad watches the show House Hunters at night, so I’ve seen a few episodes. It always strikes me as strange that people give their real estate agent a range (say $150,000-$200,000), get shown several houses above (sometimes far above) the top of their range, and seriously consider them. I have been given the opportunity several times to simply walk away when the broker talks about the price and it’s significantly above what I’ve said I’m looking for. If it wasn’t for the fact that every time this happens, I’ve missed an opportunity to solve my homelessness, then I’d feel more smug and self-satisfied.

At Church today, I got a calling (which was extended to me in the hallway 5 minutes before Church started). I am going to be a Sunday School teacher in the Beklobet Branch. This led to an interesting little experience during Sacrament Meeting. Everything in the Branch is said in either English or Amharic and then immediately translated into the other. The Branch Presidency was giving all the announcements in Amharic (and the translator was translating into English). Given I can’t understand Amharic, when a speaker is speaking Amharic, I typically just focus on the translator. Therefore, I didn’t know what was going on until the Counselor stopped talking, I shifted my attention away from the translator (who was still waiting for the Counselor to finish his thought before translating) and realized the Counselor was gesturing for me to stand. Apparently, I was being sustained.

This weekend, three good friends of mine from McKinsey came to town to visit. At McKinsey, I worked on the Midwest Business Analyst (BA) Core Team, which worked on making the BA experience awesome (connectivity, helping people think about post-McKinsey plans, etc.). There were 10 of us on the team, Nadia and I both work at ATA, and with the addition of our three friends, a full ½ of the team was in Addis this weekend.

Scott showed up on Thursday, and Thursday night (March 14) we went to a “Pi Party” thrown by my friends Eric & Rachel (whose house I’m currently crashing at). Scott is currently finishing up an around-the-world trip in between his time at McKinsey and his next thing. It’s still TBD; he’s looking at some startups several places around the world, but I’ve got him considering moving here and doing ATA now. The key was to very subtly plant the seed when he arrived…and then mention it every 5 minutes for the rest of the time ;) .

Anyway, he paid 180,000 airline miles to make 6 or 7 stops around the world within a year’s time. That’s a great deal when you consider the ticket would have cost like $5,000 if he hadn’t used points. He’s already been to Japan, Thailand, Australia, India, Dubai (with a side trip to Oman, which he says is amazing), and now Addis. This coming Thursday, he’ll fly to London for his last stop before going home to Chicago. Super cool adventure and we’re thinking about doing something like this as a group in a couple years.

The group grew on Friday when Amandla (who’s currently doing a third-year with McKinsey in Lagos, Nigeria) and Natasha (who just started a study in Nigeria this last week) showed up. Friday, we went to a crazy birthday party that was actually in the Marine House at the US Embassy (not sure how that got arranged). Saturday, we went to the Irish Charity Ball, which I’ve been told is the greatest fancy party in Addis each year. The Irish Embassy sells tickets to a fancy dinner and dancing in honor of St. Patrick’s Day and to raise money for local causes. Pictures and further details on the weekend to come next time.

Corrections/retractions section (probably to be used frequently): Need to give a shout-out to my friends Todd & Kristi, who I forgot to mention in my first post’s list of people who gave me awesome free stuff. Todd & Kristi let me borrow a voltage converter (and the associated plug adaptors), which is really helping me out over here. Cheers to the Kirks!