With the kind and patient help of my friend *T* I finally have my Amharic keyboard up and running. I had actually installed the software (Tavultesoft Keyman 6.0) a long time ago  and it worked very well from day one - it was the letter stickers that were the the real challenge. The stickers that I had ordered from the US did not match with the Keyman mapping and I had to cut all those tiny letters out and relocate them on my keyboard. In the end we had around 15 letters in the sticker mat that were not needed at all because the Keyman software functions with a relatively uncomplicated input method of key combinations, i.e. there is no need to have such a large number of letters glued to the shift location on the keys.

Now my laptop keyboard really looks like a script salad with green Arabic and golden Amharic letters. If I ever decide to learn yet another non-Roman script I’ll need a keyboard with extra large keys! It’s time to put this keyboard facility now into practise and send surprise e-mails to my Amharic-speaking friends… they still have to cope with my very elementary written material though. For reference, read Eugene Ionesco’s Lesson and you know what I mean!