15 birr hotel room in Filakit

As I headed toward the outhouse, a young cleaning woman motioned for me to wait. She filled a bucket with water, indiscriminately sloshed it into the tiny room, and with a proud smile deemed it ready for use. Combined with last night's disbursement of plastic chamberpots, Filakit was getting surreal.

Tourism in Ethiopia for Sustained Future Alternatives is a program run almost entirely between the office in Lalibela and the community of Meket Woreda, a district in the highlands. Additional support comes from the TESFA office in Addis, where British founder Mark and his Ethiopian co-worker Hanna work on the website, answer requests for information and schedule bookings. Save the Children UK was also affiliated, and had an office in Filakit.

Through numerous questions to Hanna and her patient replies, I'd arranged to join a solo trekker named Jodie to save us both money, but needed help meeting this schedule with my limited time. A couple weeks before I left, Hanna informed me their contracted driver Habtamu would already be in Gondar, so I'd get the ride for half-price. Once Jochen joined up, the private ride—merciless as it was—cost less than flying to the usual starting point of Lalibela.

Filling gas in front of the hotel

We expected our trekking partners to show at 10AM, and had little to do other than watch the blanket-wrapped drivers negotiate the gas pump in front of the hotel. We moved down the road a bit to watch students heading off to school, a sea of forest-green uniforms whispering ferengi, ferengi. After exhausting Filakit's possibilities, Jochen and I headed back for coffee. With Habte already on the road back to Lalibela, we were stuck trying to communicate on our own in a town devoid of English speakers.

Students on their way to school

Our initial request for 2 cups of coffee (hulet buna, my mangled attempt at Amharic) was met with gales of laughter. We lingered over the strong brew but when conversation began to fail us, we tried to flag down the happy waitress again. She was in full-on "ignore" mode, yet she kept throwing quizzical glances our way. Was she wondering why we were still there?

Hard-won cup of Ethiopian coffee

We watched Amarigna-speaking families enter, eat, and leave while we continued wondering about coffee. Eventually a waiter we recognized from the previous night came over. We tried asking for "hulet buna" again. He told us the price. We nodded OK. He waited a while, then left with questions still hanging in the air. We didn't get any coffee.

Perhaps he thought we had simply wanted to confirm the price. More than an hour later we eventually convinced someone to pour us a second cup. My guidebook was sparse on Amharic restaurant directives, and Jochen's phrasebook of course only translated from German, but I figured if I stared at it long enough it would all make sense.

What a relief when Jodie and Nina finally arrived after 11! With a warm smile, our trekking guide Mulugeta asked us to call him Mulay and insisted we eat lunch before starting off. The five of us easily shared a big vegetarian plate similar to the one Jochen had ordered for himself the previous day. We regaled our new companions with stories of the drive and of Filakit, most especially of the various toilet experiences. We had five days together, so we might as well get friendly.

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