His face brightened at that, but he stood up after sipping the last of his tea. “We can talk more in the car.” This was not a man who let his responsibilities fall by the wayside just to hear himself talk, and of course that only made my infatuation go up a notch. “We should get on the road if we want to get to Awassa by early afternoon. We’ll stop for lunch in Lake Langano. There’s a nice place there. They have good fish—you can’t go to the Rift Valley and not eat Nile perch.”

I stood up after making sure I drank every last drop of my macchiato. “Sounds great. I love fish, and I’m looking forward to seeing the lakes.”

He gave me that grin I noticed came out whenever I showed excitement in the things I wanted to see or do while I was here. I had to be careful not to read into it too much, though. From my own experience with Ethiopian friends, and the hundreds of stories I had heard from my parents, I knew they were immensely proud of their homeland and their history. Maybe that was all this was, not some special thing going on between me and Elias.

Once in the car, we navigated the roads heading out of Addis Ababa, which even at six thirty in the morning were starting to get pretty busy. Driving in Addis was a cacophony of color and sound. There were people everywhere: cars, blue-and-white taxi vans, eighteen-wheelers, SUVs of every make and year imaginable, and motorcycles going in all directions.

Like many a developing country I’d been in, I noticed Ethiopians could get creative with their vehicle passengers. We drove past a motorcycle with three riders, except in between the first and second guy was what looked like a live sheep.

“Nice,” I said, pointing to the threesome. “I’ve seen chickens on motorcycles before, but never a sheep.”

Elias looked at me with amused eyes. “Farenjis are always surprised by that. How are they supposed to get the sheep home after buying it at the market?”

“True.” He had a point. “So, remind me were farenji comes from? I mean, it sort of sounds like foreigner.”

“It’s always been the word used to describe someone from outside of Ethiopia. I think it comes from the Arabic word ‘farenji.’ And you’re correct, it does mean ‘foreigner.’”

I leaned back in my seat as we talked, already feeling way too comfortable with Elias. “I’m glad I’m fulfilling the expected behavior, at least so far. Anything else on the list I should make sure I do while I’m here? I don’t want to disappoint.”