Elias seemed pretty laid back, but there was no way to tell how he would react once he realized what the book was about. I distracted myself by looking out the window. Everything was intensely green at this time of year, and as we drove, we passed the occasional mango or guava tree heavy with fruit. As we got farther into Gedeo, the area we’d be surveying, I noticed the dwellings looked different than the ones we’d seen on the way down from Addis.

“So are these houses traditional to the area? I know each tribe has its own style,” I asked Elias.

He nodded, keeping his eyes on the road. “Yes, these are the Gedeo houses.”

I looked out at the window at the homes dotting the lush green landscape. They looked almost like beehives: round on the bottom, but the roofs were cone-shaped and very tall. They were all surrounded by plants that looked like banana trees.

“Are those the false bananas?” I asked, aware that the plants were a major source of food for many tribes in Ethiopia.

Elias tipped his chin in the direction of a house on the left side of the road. “Eshi, that’s ensete,” he said snapping the syllables of the Amharic name for the plants. “They look just like a banana tree, but they don’t bear fruit. We use the root to make bread.”

I looked at some of the houses as we drove; they seemed to be built from bamboo and mud. “Right, I heard it’s an important part of the diet here.”

“We eat it with the kitfo.” He said with a nod, but kept his eyes on the road.

“Just so you know, I’ll be asking questions whenever I see a new kind of house,” he laughed but his focus stayed on the road. I missed his eyes on me, which of course was just…not good.

“I’ll be happy to tell you if I can. My family is from the Amhara tribe in the north, so I don’t know all the types of houses down here. But we can ask the guys. They’ll know.” He smiled and spoke in Amharic to the guys in the back, who uttered a barrage of eshis and nods at whatever Elias told them.

After a moment we quieted down, and I discreetly ran my eyes over Elias. He was wearing his Ray-Ban aviators—which looked so fucking hot on him—and an Aid USA hoodie. His curls held back with the ever-present elastic band. His lips were a dark brown, slightly darker than his skin, and they were perfect. The thought of sucking that bottom lip into my mouth and making him moan as I nibbled on it had me squirming in my seat.