Can't get the rhythm!!?? No offense, bu that was funny. I can certainly see your reluctance to do the clap, being a white man in a black country. Actually, I appreciate your sensitivity to the issue and your respect for your fellow man. But I think her comment may have to do with the failure to understand your reasoning. I don't mean to sound like an expert in the matter, but we Ethiopians are not as well versed on Imperialism and its evil as other Africans, having never been conquered by a Western country. The closest we ever came was with the Italians and I am sure you know how that turned out.

Now, all this is assuming that the woman was an Ethiopian, but if she was a non Ethiopian African, please, kindly disregard the above. :)

Ok Mr. Heavens, it is not fair for you or your friend to learn to speak Amharic or Oromifaan when you live in Ethiopia but is fair when I am expected to speak English when I live in England or the U.S. The working language in Addis is Amharic and I think it is only fair to expect people who intend to work there to speak the language or move around with an able interpreter. By whatever measure you have I think Ethiopians are much more friendlier to outsiders than most of the people I see in my host country.

Andrew,

You are a stranger and a spy at that. Go back to Britain and indulge in racist campaign against immigrants, in support of your extreme right party.

Some foreigners feel they need to raise their voice and be assertive in order to get things done in Africa, but that will have the opposite desired effect with Ethiopians. It's unusual for a policeman in Addis to refuse assistance to your friend, a foreigner, after the collision. A few years ago during Meskel celebrations, I was trying to take a picture of the ceremony when a policeman nearly broke my ankle with a stick. My crime was taking half a step off the curb to get a shot. Adding insult to injury, that same policeman bowed and smiled ear-to-ear, ol' Sambo style, to three young White backpackers who were walking along street. Not fun to be a second-class citizen wherever you live. Hard to sympathize with complaints of foreigners, when overall they're treated like celebrities...Minus the overcharging, of course.

These things happen practically all over the world. If anything I find them really amusing as an Ethiopian I too find cultural idiosyncrasies rather amusing I rememeber once when I was in Dire Dawa that I was offered to have dinner with a famliy the the food consisted of rice and goat meat. The manner in which the food was consumed was to put it mildly distressing [I am not trying to be judgemetnal here] but the eating experience was different from what I was brought up and experienced before. In the end I had a fabulous dinner accompanied with excellent conversatons with the family, I learnt a lot and later on my hosts were honest enought to tell me in great detail how they were amused with me being uncomforatble. And as passing remark in Burundi apparently peopel do not clap their hands or snap their fingers but rather hiss to get the waiters' attention I wonder how this works in a pub full of peopel having loud conversations?

Save us from this we've never been colonized line.
All Africans had been fighting agression as much as we did.Ours had been one part of the strugle.
But in this country( or perhaps anywhere else) people are reluctant to discuss coluor issues.
While people talk gender issues freely,race is not much of a discussion, with potential of sounding bigotist.Whether we Ethiopians are racists or not, I can't say.
But I don't understand why we shun away such issues, though they are on the back of many people's mind.

I sympathize with your predicament. My brother got into an accident within his first month back in Ethiopia. He barely spoke any Amharic, having grown up abroad, and the police and standers-by took the other guy's side. Why? My brother was the obvious victim, but the fact that he was from outside Ethiopia, at least in a cultural sense, made him automatically guilty. It isn't the money, because if you own a car in Addis you are already a person of some means -- so nobody was the economic underdog. It was simply a matter of cultural arrogance and us-v-them. Pisses me off. Who exactly is "us" and who is "them?"

I'm always amused to hear or read Ethiopians saying they are different from the rest of humanity! Unfortunately, after having spent over 5 years in Ethiopia, as a Black non Ethiopian African woman I have been called "baria" several times (I'm not dark skinned so spare me the complexion excuse) and "nigga" quite recently (influence from the west maybe?) when walking down the street. So when a policeman is able to say "Come back when you learn Hamaric" (in English!)it's out of cheer unwillingness to help that person because they are not Ethiopian. Hundreds of thounsands of Ethiopian are accepted as people all over the world, so it's time they opened their eyes and accepted foreigners in their country as well.
BTW, in my country we sometimes snap our fingers, in others they wissle and in Ethiopia the clap. Calling a waiter "Garçon" (boy) is not an insult either. "In Rome act like Romans" is what I say.