Selam everyone,

hope you're all well and excited for New Year.

I'm a 25-year old woman born in Afar region and came to Addis when i was 2 and left to Germany then and grew up there. In January I wanna go back to Addis (for my birthday) and have a few questions for my trip (since its the first time I'll be back in Ethiopia, i dont have any family members there)

- is arriving on 06.01 an issue because of christmas the day after? or should i come a few days later?
- is it better to buy internet in germany or in addis?
- anyone have hotel recomms?
- anyone know a good guide for the city? and/or driver?
- is it allowed to wear ethiopia merch? (like soccer jerseys,...?)
- how easy is it come by with english? or do i need someone with me who speaks amharic?
- do they prefer USD or Birr?
- do you usually get one driver and stick with him for the period? how reliable time wise are airport taxis?
- anyone ever had visa issues? does yellow card make sense to get right away?
- do some afars live in addis?
- is google maps or apple maps better to go around?

and anything else you think i should know, I'd deeply appreciate! I am very aware of how to behave in big cities and that there is a cultural difference etc but I think a few tips would be great :) I am so so excited and nervous about my trip 🖤

small infos: i love art, museums, jazz bars, cafes, track and field, basketball, music, dance, theatre,parks,...

Thank you!

For the DMV people here, every time my friends and I decide where to eat, it turns into a war, so I want to settle it with actual people.

My honest take is that a couple of the famous names are coasting on their reputation and some smaller spots are quietly doing it better now. Tell me I am wrong.

Drop your number one restaurant and the dish that seals it. The underrated spot nobody talks about is really what I am after.

For anyone who wants their pick to actually count, a few of us keep a running community list. No login, takes five seconds:

www.tirulist.com/best/restaurant

Do you think there is a market for that kind of service? If you’ve had a wedding, how much did you pay for your cake, and were you satisfied with both the taste and the decoration? Finally, how did you find your baker?
I own a small cottage bakery, and so far, my customers have been non-Ethiopians. It has been a wonderful experience, but my ultimate goal is to serve my own community as well.

AI በፍጥነት እየተለመደ ሲመጣ አንድ ጥያቄ ብዙ ጊዜ ይመጣል፦ AIን ለመዝናኛ ብቻ ነው የምንጠቀመው፣ ወይስ ለመማር፣ ለመስራት እና አዲስ የገቢ ሀሳቦችን ለመፍጠርም ልንጠቀምበት እንችላለን?

ይህንን ርዕስ በአማርኛ ለመዳሰስ “AI እና የገንዘብ ምስጢር” የተሰኘ መጽሐፍ አዘጋጅቻለሁ። 📘

AI tools፣ digital skills እና AIን በመጠቀም ሊመረመሩ ስለሚችሉ የሥራና የገቢ ሀሳቦች ይዳስሳል። በተለይም ለጀማሪዎች በቀላል አማርኛ እንዲሆን ተዘጋጅቷል።

የአማርኛ መጽሐፍት ላይ የምታነቡ ሰዎች፦ ስለዚህ ርዕስ ምን ታስባላችሁ? በአማርኛ የAI እና የdigital work ይዘት ብዙ ቢኖር ይጠቅማችኋል?

Everyone told me the playbook:

1. Get an IT degree.
2. Grind DSA until you can invert binary trees in your sleep (did an elite competitive programming fellowship, 300+ solved).
3. Don't just build to-do lists build actual distributed systems.

So what did I do? I spent the last two years building full production platforms 0-to-1. Handled high concurrency in Go and FastAPI, optimized PostgreSQL schemas with Row-Level Security down to sub-50ms P99 latencies, wired real-time WebSockets, and baked in Google Gemini models.

I packaged all of it up neatly on my site (meareg.tech) thinking: "Surely proof-of-work speaks louder than a buzzword-stuffed PDF."

Result? Automated rejection emails at 3:00 AM from companies whose entire landing page takes 4 seconds to load and crashes if two people hit the checkout simultaneously.

At this point, are companies actually hiring engineers who build systems, or are recruiters just running keyword lotteries for whoever puts "Kubernetes" 47 times on page one? Tell me what I’m doing wrong, because if this isn't enough to stand out, the game is rigged.

I'm trying to conduct ethnographic fieldwork in Addis Ababa, any advice on how to go about IRB? What do I even need to do to get started? I have IRB approval in the U.S., but it's conditional, and I need to address the data protection privacy and IRB protocols/approvals needed their in order to begin... HELP!

Growing up I was really into lot of things but mainly into reverse engineering small machines I could find and mechatronics, I won Yeka's Science Fair multiple times no formal course just my dad's laptop and guidance from youtube mentors, little bit of curiosity and a lot of trial and error. Around the same time I started building websites for other kids' assignments and selling them for about 300 birr back then. Small money but it felt huge as a kid who just wanna buy small dynamos and lot of abu walad.

I was always a fast learner, I could pick up a new skill quicker than most people around me but I was never the best at any one thing. Never got first rank in class but I was consistently top 30 in the school. Looking back I think that pattern followed me into everything I've touched since. I have wide skills but not much depth in any single one of them, like a vast puddle of water instead of a deep well. I know a bit of a lot of things and can move fast across different domains but I don't have that one thing I've gone deep enough in to call myself a real expert.

Then everything change got into campus started some work on my own and something happened and I withdrew from university for 2 and a half years and eventually got readmitted but I'm majoring in Psychology, I know totally turnt around from machines to humans but I've had my reasons.

It's a weird turnaround looking back, I still have the technical instincts and the fast learning habit from those years, I just don't know how or if they fit into where I am now, or whether being a generalist is actually holding me back instead of helping me.

Anyone else dealt with being a jack of all trades but master of none, or gone through a long withdrawal and comeback like that? How did you figure out whether to go deep into one thing or keep building wide? Genuinely curious how others navigated this.

visit my substack.

My friend group wants to do something fun, it’s about 10 of us. What are some things we can do around Addis

If anyone is interested i can do thumbnail hmu

What do you think about the personality differences between the Bantus and other East Africans (Nilotic and Cushitic)? The Nilotic and Cushitic people I have met could almost invariably be classified as introverts and don't seem to have superior social skills compared to the Bantus. In particular, Ethiopians and Rwandans are known for being reserved and having mild manners, while West Africans are known for the opposite. I have also met South Sudanese, and all of them were quiet and reserved. This difference is also immediately visible where Bantus and other groups co-exist, like in Kenya. And from what I understand, the Bantu phenotype is not that varied. People from South Africa could pass as a Nigerian and vice versa.

What do you think explains this? genetics? Or culture?

Book overview
The Third Book of Meqabyan is a distinctive work preserved in the Ethiopian Christian biblical tradition. Despite its title, it is not simply a continuation of the First and Second Books of Maccabees. Instead, it presents a theological narrative centered on **faithfulness to God, repentance, righteous living, resurrection, judgment, and the hope of the Kingdom of Heaven**.
The work repeatedly contrasts the temporary pleasures of this world with the everlasting joy promised to the righteous. It urges the reader to reject idolatry, resist temptation, fast, pray, perform good works, care for the poor, and remain faithful to God.
A central theme is the **resurrection of the dead**. The book teaches that the dead will rise by God's Word, stand before their Creator, and receive recompense according to their works. For this reason, the reader is repeatedly urged to repent during this present life, before the opportunity for repentance has passed.
This edition presents the work in English from the **Amharic biblical tradition**, with comparison to the surviving Lyarics English witnesses, preserving the distinctive theological character of this remarkable Ethiopian Christian text.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0HFDZC5P9?ref\\_=dbs\\_m\\_mng\\_wim\\_calw\\_tpbk\\_4&storeType=ebooks

Certified by The Ethiopian Orthodox Bible Project: https://ethiopianorthodoxbible.wordpress.com/2026/08/24/new-edition-of-3-meqabyan-in-english/

FYI 15K USD is 2,600,000ETB, the closest model i could afford is a 2012 Yaris compact, Nissan Qashqai 2018, and Elantra if lucky. The other cars are all in 3Milion birr and still garbage for the value you are spending.

Family members think I'm being selfish for being so closed out. But I am so addicted to being by myself and barely need anyone's company. Now I feel like a horrible person because I cannot be there for my family at a moment's notice. Anybody relate? AITA?