Ethiopia vol.1

I visited Ethiopia in east Africa. Yeah, with preconceived wrong image as usual. Ignorance is terrible thing. However the more ignorant you are, the bigger true fact you'll find.

For me "Ethiopia" was the name of long established curry diner in Tokyo. So I really expected eating a delicious curry at the home country of it.
But during my two week stay in Ethiopia, I'd never seen a curry. Instead of it, I knew the staple food of the country was "Injera". It's a crepe like flatbread made from fermented teff flour. Injera has a extremely sour taste as unsweetened yogurt. Crepe with yogurt flavor? You think it sounds tasty? Yeah, so did I. But the taste was gradually being burdensome to me. That's too sour.
I should bear in mind that the king of Ethiopian food was not curry but injera.

When I hear the word "Ethiopian", I pictured very skinny people, never fat, and who runs very fast. The figure is very sharp like a cheetah maybe. But in fact I saw many fattie Ethiopians who seems not to be an excellent athlete. Well, I know I had the quite stupid preoccupation for Ethiopian. It's same to be said "Are you really Japanese? Why are you such skinny and don't know any Sumou trick?"
However it seemed to be true that "Marathon is the most popular sports in Ethiopia" In fact, the city marathon meeting was held at very center of the capital city, Addis Ababa. Thousands of people ran on the main street and appealed Ethiopia was ready for 2012 Olympic Games. In London, Ethiopian athletes actually stood on the podium as if it's quite normal thing.

"Ethiopian land is baked under the scorching sun" this preconception was partially incorrect. Actually Ethiopia had all kind of terrain but seaside. Most of the land was highland. There was a canyon, lake, volcano, hill and African savanna. Because of rainy season, I got a lot of rain and temperature was low. The land was covered with lively green. That's the biggest difference to Sahel countries I'd ever visited.

I got a bunch of discoveries. On the other hand, there were a few facts as I had expected before. In the case I smiled with huge satisfaction.