I have a new family... they're Ethiopian!

So yesterday as I hopped on the bus trying to go to my bank(before the atm instantly and irrevocably ate my atm card- the card that took me ages and dozens of untranslated papers with my signature to get…) we had barely started moving when an SUV pulled up beside the bus and started honking and frantically motioning for the bus to pull over. It took me many moments of bewildered staring before I realized, oh, they’re frenetically gesturing at me. In the car was an older man whom I didn’t recognize and a burka clad woman. Okay… I guess they just wanted to say hi… Upon further inspection I realized that the woman in the car was the sister-in-law of the mother of my family, the man remained unfamiliar. So I hopped out of the bus and hopped into their car. It turns out that the man, Abdul Aziz, works for the UN which is a few compounds over from where I work. To make a long story short he invited me to go fishing with him the next day, and is that something I would be interested in? ummm… OH HELL YES I WANT TO GO FISHING! So extremely early this morning I made my way over to the UN compound, and hopped in the car with two Ethiopians, one Yemeni, a couple of Germans, and some Frenchies. They all knew each other, worked together, were friends. I knew Abdul Aziz…for about 15 minutes… from the previous afternoon. We drove to a sleepy little fishing beach about 35 minutes down the coast, and stopped for refreshments- as we were all crowded around a small store/stall, the two German gals talking excitedly, a French dude with GIANT dreadlocks sprawled out on the roadside, and me helping one of the Ethiopian guys haggle for a highlighter orange, children’s inflatable lifevest, someone commented dryly “wow… we’re not conspicuous at all….”
We hired an old wooden boat, and an even older captain to command it. It was extremely hot, windy and choppy- as every capable fisherwoman knows, choppy, windy days are not ideal for a plentiful catch BUT I WAS NOT TO BE DETERED! I am extremely proud(and feeling rather cocky) to say that I caught both the BIGGEST and the MOST fish!! The competition wasn’t exactly fierce however; one guy went down almost immediately with raging seasickness… multiple times… right into the middle of the boat. The Frenchies proved completely incapable of properly baiting a hook, and then one of the German gals got sick, and the Yemenis were clearly just in it for the qat… so it really bottled down to one girl and I- the competition was ferocious, each of us trying to be nonchalant but both secretly keeping track of each other's catch. But hellooooo, Irish trumps German EVERY TIME, obvi. I think my thrilling victory(which I secretly fist pumped about when we got back to shore) was because she kept trying to use a GIANT fish head for bait.
Mostly we caught small blue and yellow striped fish- which we flung into a garbage sack in the middle of the boat- come to think of it, that sack ‘o fish must have been alarmingly close to the floating pools of seasickness…huh. I didn’t even realize that. But anyway it was fun to catch a little fish and then hack it up and use it for bait for the next round. We were fishing completely archaic- fishing line wrapped around hunks of wood with giant, rusty hooks, and stones tied on for weights. It was a blast. Afterward we went to a little shack on the beach and flopped down on some strategically placed carpets for some refreshments. But get this- previous to going to the UN this morning I stopped at a little bakery and got a sack full of assorted cookies. As we were all reclining in the shack, with a cry of Voile! I brought forth my sack of treats and put them in the middle of our table (and by table clearly I mean the dirty ground that we were huddled around). A short time later- before we had come to the desert part of our snack- a strange Yemeni man came up. He boldly walked up to where we were lounging, surveyed the assorted food options piled around us, snatched the sack of cookies, and WALKED AWAY. Can we go over that one more time?! WE DID NOT KNOW THIS MAN, HE GRABBED MY ENTIRE BAG OF COOKIES, DIDN’T SAY A WORD, AND THEN WALKED AWAY! And get this… nobody even acknowledged him! It’s like it didn’t even happen! I was staring open-mouthed in consternation, unable to draw a breath so much as cry out, and no one even cared! He took all my cookies!!!! About ten minutes later I was like “hey, remember that one time that a man came and snagged my giant bag of treats?” And everyone goes "what! That didn't happen, you're making this up! We were all sitting right here!" and I all, yeah but you were gabbing away in eight different languages and not paying a lick of attention.. Upon discovery that the cookies were in fact gone, they acceded that I wasn't actually crazy. They weren't even mildly pertubed though, and I had to revel in my consternation and outrage privately in my head..
So afterwards Malacko(other Ethiopian) and I ended up going to Abdul Aziz’s house for lunch. It was amazing and delicious! I Now I love him and his whole family, Ethiopia in general and Ethiopian food in particular, have a standing Wednesday night “family” dinner with them, and am meeting his brother in Sana’a to take us on a day trip to Shibaum! All that, and I’m only mildly sunburned!