It’s my last evening, and I am in one of Bahir Dar’s less illustrious bars.
You knew that when the table looked like it had been hacked into shape with a panga [machete], and rusted milk powder tins substituted for ashtrays.
The ashtray on my table has a couple of yellowed molars among the cinders.
Healthy blokes these – not a cavity in them, they didn’t fall off because of bad dental hygiene.

The bar is packed with wildly cheering Ethiopian drunks, crowded around the solitary television set.
It’s the world athletics championship highlights – some women’s long distance race, and the Ethiopian runner is laying the Kenyan runner to waste.
I am tempted to cheer the Kenyan, but the dental artifacts in the tin-can point to dire consequences if I do that.

That’s when Ato Yigzaw struts in.
Middle-aged, graying, dressed in one of those suits with Olympic-size padded shoulders, the likes of which have not been seen since the days when mullet hairstyles and communists ruled the planet.

He requests to sit at my table, the only one with free space.
His shifty-eyed stooges pull the chair out for him.
The Ethiopian runner finally wins – the whole bar goes up in one giant scream, and it’s not even a Live telecast.
The old geezer, Yigzaw now turns his attention to me –
Was I a tourist? How did I like the country? Where had I been? How were my folks at home? Hope mommy was fine? And so on.

I give him the works.

That’s the beauty of Ethiopia – tell any poor innocent Ethiopian about how beautiful their country is, and cite a few important dates in Ethiopian history (Emperor Menelik defeating the invading Italians in 1898 is a universal favorite) – and soon, they are ready to fork over their life savings, and ply you with food and drinks. Despite my protests, the lackeys are sent off to get a few more rounds of beer.

I get to know a bit more about Ato Yigzaw – he is the regional distributor for the popular Bedele “monkey” beer. “I would like to invite you for dinner…” he tells me “…special Ethiopian dinner”

Ethiopian cuisine is probably the spiciest in Africa.
Folks here, have the ability to chew vast quantities of raw chilies without batting an eyelid – enough to put any south Indian to shame.
My favorite dish was undoubtedly Key Wott – a kind of lamb stew served in dynamite-hot berbera sauce. The stew is eaten along with traditional staple injera: A flat bread, similar to a giant pancake or a Dosa – but with a texture that lies somewhere between wet parchment and Styrofoam.
The meat stew is served on top of the centrally placed injera – and everyone eats out of the same plate.

Soon, I am bundled into Mr.Yigzaw’s shiny Toyota pickup – the sidekicks are ordered to ride in the back.
Where are we going?
“Kitfo house!!”

Kitfo house is a smashed up apartment block – the ground floor of which, serves as some kind of home-brewed gym – where people work out on wooden benches using bar-bells made out of rusted truck rims.

The restaurant is upstairs, in a dimly lit room with the lingering smell of coffee, spices and death. A scruffy man in an apron greets us, bowing low, the broom in his hand sweeping the floor -- he is the cook.
Classy place though – instead of the usual wall hangings, they have veritable Turner prize nominees -- fresh carcasses strung up on the walls.
Ato Yigzaw scratches, sniffs and prods before selecting the winning corpse – a particularly rotund looking bovine, which seems to be attracting the envy of all the flies playing prom on it.

The meat is taken away to the kitchen for preparation.
What are we eating? I ask.
“Kitfo!” – and it sounds like a delicacy.
Or so, I thought.

The meat soon comes back in a bowl, accompanied by rolls of injera.
Its minced beef, all right – but raw, as in bloody raw, not even heated to the slight– all of it topped with dollops of rancid homemade butter.

And everyone is waiting for the esteemed foreign guest to take the first bite.
At the risk of stating the bleeding obvious, eating uncooked flesh isn’t my favorite pastime -- but there’s no way out.

To make matters worse, I am under a paranoid delusion that if I say no, these eager and anxious Ethiopians will beat me like a sick dog. I don’t normally get such delusions, but it can only be blamed on the rank arack-like spirit served at Kitfo house. Especially worrying is the cook -- wearing his blood splattered apron, with the smooth handled cleaver tucked casually in his waistband. He catches my stare, and sends me a flinty grin – a gaping mouthful of blackened stumps and tiny bits of golden metal.

So I swallow the meat, great gobfulls of it – e-coli, salmonella, anthrax, ringworm and meat. It tastes hideous. The whole cocktail is repeatedly washed down with mind-numbing doses of stiff spirit. Ato Yigzaw and co. are almost rendered tearful by my enthusiasm.

The rest of the evening disappears in a blur of shrill laughter and ribald jokes – none of which I recall very clearly. But we hatched a diabolical scheme to take over Africa’s beer market. Our flagship product was going to be Bedele “monkey” beer – smuggled all over the continent in cattle trucks and sold at rock-bottom prices. That evening, even Heineken and Budweiser were brought to their knees in the face of Bedele 's continental assault.

So ended my chance to become Africa’s liquor baron.
And I haven’t contracted any meat-borne diseases (yet).