In an incredibly odd situation for me, I may be having a trip to Ethiopia in the near future. It has been a while since I have visited, and I am unsure exactly how much time I will have while I am there, but as always it is very exciting. It may be that I am stuck in Addis for most of, if not all, my time there.
Addis Ababa is not my favorite place in Ethiopia. The weather is nice and there are cool places and stores to visit but it is also crowded. Finding places to speak in afaan Oromoo can also be difficult as Amharic is the most commonly spoken language. My last trip to the Oromo Cultural Center was less fun as the desk attendant just absolutely refused to speak in afaan Oromoo with me. I am going to try and visit again. This time hopefully it will go more smoothly. The library there is awesome and usually gives me an idea of any books I may not have yet.
Any trip to Ethiopia, my priority is to get out of Addis Ababa. If I can arrange it maybe a few days in Harar or Jimma would be very enjoyable. I particularly like the Jimma area and it has been a surprisingly good place to pick up some hard to find books. If possible even getting further into the countryside would be amazing. I have always enjoyed visiting the smaller villages and towns.
Local Dialects
One of the things I enjoy the most about the smaller villages is the dialects in the towns. I talked a little about this before.The dialects here are not too different than the dialect in the general western Oromia region. This dialect is the one I have the most experience with and people will sometimes even recognize that that is the dialect that I speak in when I meet people from the eastern or southern parts of Oromia. Hopefully, I will get to visit some places and can go through some very specific dialect word choice and grammar differences.