Dante R. Santiago: I was already retired from UP LB then and teaching in a college in Manila. Because Ethiopia is in the Bible, my interest was piqued and I applied. Fortunately, I was accepted by the Ethiopians who interviewed me right there and then. I am one of the first Filipinos to come to Ethiopia as a college teacher. [We were told that, during the time of Ferdinand Marcos, Filipino high school teachers were deployed here.] I teach at the graduate and postgraduate levels and only very recently that I was asked to teach an undergraduate course in order to maximize the benefit of my presence here. It is because of our good performance—the first batch of teachers—that the Ethiopian government decided to recruit more Filipino teachers. Every now and then, we have gatherings and enjoy good Filipino food while drinking and singing songs [videoke]. Also, a regular event is dinner in a restaurant when salary day comes. There are two fine restos near the campus which we frequent. When they realize we come from the Philippines, they call us Philippians, mistaking us for the people to whom the apostle Paul wrote a letter [The Epistle of Paul to the Philippians].
