Saturday brings us back across town to the community center. We stand outside the gate for ages, knocking and calling the guard. A little boy stands at the next door gate, looking shyly at us and laughing. Two older guys show up to help us bang on the door, and the guard eventually appears, horrified that he let us wait so long. We paint the underwater scene and finish everything but the outlines, leaving just before we all pass out from the paint fumes. The kids repeatedly sneak into the room to giggle at the painting and yell, FISH!! before B chases them away.

When we get back to the house, Genet has prepared another buna ceremony, so we all sit on the porch in the late afternn sunshine, with Genet and Iope teaching us new Amharic words. We drink endless cups of coffee and crack up at our mispronounciations and Genets explanation of how one of our guards has a baby: Mifta touch woman…baby. After the coffee, I make M cut my hair, because I cant stand the snarls anymore, and at the end, there are piles of hair on the ground.

Since were going out for dinner, Genet gets all dolled up in a sparkly red dress, and she looks hot. M and I both do our best, and Genet tells me l look good with my new haircut and that I should wear my hair down more often, because it is more better. Were going out for dinner at Habesha Restaurant, a local place that has dancing. We order a giant plate of food, with injera and fasting food and shiro and some kind of lamb wat that Genet picks. I literally cant eat fast enough.

And then the dancing begins. It is hands down, the greatest thing I have ever seen. Two men and two women shake and snap their bodies in ways I never knew possible. I could take dance lessons for the rest of my life and never be able to dance like this. For hours, we are all completely riveted, until we finally leave the restaurant at eleven, crammed into a taxi that takes the long way home, down all kinds of bumpy unpaved roads.

On Easter morning, we wake up early to go to the Orthodox church, which is supposed to be the biggest Orthodox church in all of Africa. M is feeling sick, so B, T and Genet and I take the two taxis across town to get there. Before we go to the church, we stop to watch a run for womens rights, with thousands of pink-clad women running and walking down the street, with the occasional boy sprinting alongside.

The church is enormous, with a brightly-colored dome with murals in the center. on our way in, Genet stops to kiss the ground numerous times, and when we get inside, there is a woman kneeling with a small boy lying on the ground in front of the altar. B, Genet and I accidentally sit on the mens side, until a man appears and asks us to switch to the other pews. All the women in the church are wearing head scarves, except for me and B, and we watch as a devastated woman cries and rants in sorrow in the front of the church, completely inconsolable.

On the taxi home, a man tries to get in the front seat with T and B. He climbs into the back with us, and apologizes to me. I tell him no problem in Amharic, and he congratulates me on my Amharic skills, and is impressed when I tell him I have been in Ethiopia only a week. We talk about how he lives in San Diego, how the American Embassy is a nightmare, and how I should beware in Ethiopia. Most of the time, Im not sure exactly what point hes making, but I am glad that he recognizes that I am an Amharic Master.