Ye Mata Mata
I didn't learn quite as much Amharic as I was hoping to in Ethiopia- mostly the necessary phrases to order food, find the bathroom, and tell people I'm actually just photographing birds, not being super creepy. One of the best phrases I learned, however, was "ye mata mata" (የ ማታ ማታ), a slang phrase meaning something along the lines of "at last" (I think it literally translates to "late night"). It's a useful phrase in a country where lots of things take longer than expected- Addis Ababa traffic and internet speeds come to mind. It also seems to be the way I end up seeing lots of the best birds in Ethiopia- at long last, after lots of searching and effort. The last week of July was also my last week in Ethiopia before heading to Asia and then back to the US. I finished my internship the week before that, which was coincidentally the week the survey I'd planned to supervise beginning in May finally went into the field- ye mata mata. Wit