Some Background for You
Ethiopia has the second largest population in Africa (behind Nigeria) at just under 80 million, is the second oldest Christian country in the world (behind Armenia) and in 1991 a brief period of authoritarian Communism was ended by a civil war. The victorious rebels set up a democratic government, which is stable and somewhat free, though most media is state-controlled and independent journalists are harassed and intimidated and probably subject to worse by the government. Ethiopia has multi-party elections, but both the Carter Center and EU election monitors have expressed dissatisfaction with them, to varying degrees (according to wikipedia).
The biggest pop star in Ethiopia is a guy named Teddy Afro, who sings a catchy amalgam of reggae and Ethiopian folk, and while many of his songs are about freedom and love, he occasionally runs into trouble with the government for not towing the party line. While riding in a van to see the Blue Nile Falls, a Teddy Afro song came on the radio and our guide told us he was in prison that week for singing an anti-government song. Later this same guide was accused of being a thief and revealed to us that he was a bit unstable (more on that later), but the information seems consistent with other things I have heard and read. All I can say to Teddy is, fuck yeah, buddy. Live free or die. Click here for an NPR story:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10819101&sc=emaf
That being said, things seem to be improving within the country. From the eight days I was there (I know, I know, I'm an expert), I seemed to get glimpses of the government working for the people, and of an improving standard of living. Roads and bridges are being built (a lot by Japanese and Chinese engineers), people have access to mosquito nets and cheap malaria pills (a serious threat during the rainy season, when mosquitoes reproduce in huge numbers), and the country does have some valuable exports, mainly coffee and fresh water from Lake Tana and the Blue Nile River. Coffee is originally from Ethiopia, and Starbucks gets a good portion of its beans from there. In early spring of 2008 the government trademarked Ethiopian coffee. The motivation being to protect farmers by getting them a bigger percentage of retail sales.
Getting My Feet Wet (If There Was Any Water)
After a budget flight to London and staying there with a friend for a night, I killed the next day at the Camden Market while she was at work, then boarded an Ethiopian Airlines plane at Heathrow that night and flew to Bole Airport in Addis Ababa, the capital city of Ethiopia. I wanted to keep it as real as possible on this trip, hence the use of the local airline, but there weren't any chickens running around on the plane or people packed in like sardines as I had half-hoped (that came later). I sat between a big fat-cat Nigerian with a gold cell phone and a messed up face, either from shrapnel scars or just bad genes, and a stuffy woman with an active baby on her lap that kept grabbing my ear and kicking me with it's little froggy legs while I tried to sleep. I touched down in Addis Ababa that morning, groggy and disoriented, hoping Zayn would be there to meet me.
Zayn Dollie is from Sydney in Australia. His father is ethnically Indonesian and his mother is from Taiwan, so his look is distinct. He has an enormous reservoir of enthusiasm and positivity, a real can-do attitude. It can be really annoying. We met and taught together in Prague last year, and I found myself missing the son of a bitch this year (I had told him to stay and party). Through a friend, he found a volunteer job teaching young kids in Addis Ababa, and with his savings from Prague, some financial help from his parents, and a bit of monthly compensation from the school, he's been living and working there since September.
I gave my $20 and two passport-sized photos to the visa people, but the woman there waved off the photos and stuck the visa into my passport, smoothing it down with her hand. I came to customs with my entry card already filled out, excepting Zayn's address. My phone didn't work on the Ethiopian network, so the man kept my passport and waved me through to get him so we could complete the card. Squinting my eyes into a group of Africans, I found Zayn's brown face among the black ones. Soldiers in baby blue camouflage fatigues sitting lazily at the checkpoint initially stopped him from crossing into the luggage area, but allowed him to pass, or rather didn't try to stop him, after he explained our situation using a little of their native language, Amharic.
The parking lot was a sea of blue and white taxis and minibuses, and it was here I got my first taste of the way Ethiopian business was done, especially when foreigners are involved. My white skin being a signifier of money, the drivers waiting around came to life, excitedly offering us rides. We settled on one, and while the guy went to get his car, another tried to escort Zayn into his van. Then the taxi driver came back and got into a brief spat with the van driver before ordering us into his car. I stood wearing my large backpack and watched dumbly from behind my sunglasses.
Addis Ababa doesn't have many tall buildings or much of a city center, but it does have somewhere between three and five million people, depending on what census you believe. The roads were covered with the blue, private taxis and the blue minibuses which serve as the cheaper, public transportation. People, livestock and trash along the roads everywhere. It being the dry season (the rains come in summer), it was very dusty. Not a beautiful place by any means, but teeming with life.
Zayn lives in a complex, a few houses surrounded by a spiked fence. People walking by openly stared at me as Zayn fiddled with a key. We walked around the landlord's house in the middle of the complex, past the sleepy but growling guard dog. The mangy-looking mutt was tied up during the day, but I was still warned to stay away from him. He had already attacked Zayn's roommate Kim once, giving him a nasty bite. Behind the landlord's house was the servant's quarters, and Zayn and Kim lived in the third house. I emptied my bag, and gave Zayn his present, a purple t-shirt with my hometown of Waunakee written across the chest in white. I was pleasantly surprised to find they had running water and electricity. They also had a little puppy named "Machiatto," which Kim found as a stray in the road. I slapped at her head playfully, and she returned the favor, clawing and gnawing at my arm, eventually breaking the skin a little. I had decided to try and keep as clean as possible on this trip, and thirty minutes in I already had a nip from an unvaccinated dog (the guard dog is vaccinated). That plan came to an end quickly. For what was in store, it was just as well.
Zayn's school was only a few minutes away. We crossed a four-lane highway to get there, jumping a concrete divider and then walked past the frame of an under-construction multiple story building and some tiny shanties with dark feet sticking out. The school, like Zayn's complex, consisted of several buildings surrounded by a fence. A couple of friendly guards stood at the entrance. One wore a bandana over his mouth. The two teaching rooms were pretty standard, childrens' drawings on the wall, desks in rows, a blackboard, and a globe. I quickly met most of the teachers, and even more quickly forgot their difficult-to-pronounce names. There I met Zayn's friends and co-teachers. There was his roommate Kim, a half-Chinese, half-white from Sydney, his Ethiopian girlfriend, Bezabish, also a teacher at the school and Parya, a teacher from Germany but ethnically Persian.
Crossing back to the other side of the highway with the foreign teachers, we passed by some kids in school uniforms who excitedly squealed the word "ferengi," which means "foreigner" in Amharic. I would be hearing this a lot. There was a restaurant on the other side of the street, and we grabbed an outdoor table. Ethiopians do food by cooking a thin, flat, round peace of spongy "injera" bread and then dump "wot" on it, a spicy red stew. You tear the bread and use it to pick up the stew. The first time I had it: terrific. The 17th time I had it in a row: shit. Quit literally (again, more on that later). We sat next to the road drinking Cokes and watching skinny kids drive even skinnier cows across and sometimes along the road, glancing over their shoulders for oncoming traffic.
After lunch, Zayn and I set out in a blue mini-bus to find an internet cafe and a place to exchange and withdraw money. This was harder than you might think, but after few ATM/debit card rejections, and a couple more from bank guards holding rusty Kaleshinikov semi-automatic rifles (it was closing time), we headed up to the Addis Ababa Hilton and I exchanged my dollars and pulled out some more, which came to 2500 Birr (the Ethiopian currency), the equivalent of $250. This would prove to be more than enough for my seven days on the road in Ethiopia. We found a functional internet cafe in a mall, so I sat down at a computer station while Zayn went to get a Coke at an adjacent mall restaurant. The power cut out halfway through my "got here safely" email to mom, but the cafe had generators and the comps popped back on. I finished up and found Zayn sitting with two Ethiopian acquaintances by emergency candlelight in the restaurant. For the waitresses, who were quickly setting up small candles at each table and using flashlights to tally bills, it was just another working day. One of the Ethiopians at our table was tickled to hear that I was, like him, an Orthodox Christian.
"I think I've found a new friend," he said, smiling brightly.
Orthodox Christianity is the main religion there, and mine too, my mother being Greek. I had come during Zayn's spring break, which ran during the Holy Week before Easter Sunday. I would have rather stayed in the city a bit longer, but because it was one of their few breaks, the foreign teachers were all itching to get out of Dodge. We had to wake up at 4:3o the next morning to be on the road by 6:00. I groaned internally, but said nothing. Go with the flow. We smoked a little before bed, then crashed for about five hours.
First Leg
Waking and showering on schedule, we waited for Parya to arrive, then left the house. In passing, we saw the guard dog sitting under the car in the garage. I eyed him warily, but he stayed put until Kim, following behind the three of us, took the house garbage to the can near the garage. Snarling, the dog charged him. I stood frozen, again staring dumbly and groggily with my big backpack slung over my shoulders. Zayn was quicker to react, and I followed as he ran into battle. Kim yelled at the dog and dropped the garbage on his head, and the rest of us running toward the scene scared him off, but not before it took another bite out of Kim's leg. Zayn jokingly said that the dog had developed a taste for Kim, who was furious. I kept quiet.
The "bus station," if you can call it that, was madness, really just a street where hundreds of people had gathered around vehicles. Children played football on the cracked pavement. And it was still very early. Full-sized buses packed with people were pulling out when we arrived. I could see white eyes peaking out from inside and dark calloused elbows hanging out windows. Kim's girlfriend Bezabish arrived and with her native tongue she found us a man who would take us north to our destination. The man was a little guy in a small gray hooded sweatshirt. He had the hood pulled over his head, which covered everything except his silly, smiling face. While waiting for the van, I noticed a commotion to my right, and turned to see two guys locked up. A few others got involved, and observers yelled as it intensified. Someone threw a punch, then a few more were thrown. Our guy in the hoodie noticed the fray and jumped in, I thought, to play peacemaker. Instead, he grabbed another dude, seemingly at random, and popped him in the face with his little fist. It ended as quickly as it started. Zayn and I nervously emptied our bladders between a van and a wall, and we all gathered to say a prayer before departing. I started with the Lord's Prayer, but my mind went blank towards the end, and I trailed off.
Our destination was the town of Bahir Dar. It lies on the southern shore of Lake Tana, the source of the Blue Nile River, which exits the lake at the bottom and then curls east and north to meet up with the White Nile in the Sudan before flowing further north to Cairo. Though I didn't know it at the time, our first travel day would be the most pleasant. The roads from Addis to Bahir Dar
were quite good, and thus we were mostly able to travel at a good clip. On the outskirts of Addis, loads of Ethiopians were out running alongside the road, training for long distance competitions. We pulled over several times to get checked by soldiers standing on the side of the road, though I'm not sure why. At one of these stops, a group of kids came out to see us. They giggled and stared, and I took a picture of them with my digital camera, then flipped it around so they could see the image on the camera's screen. They elbowed each other out of the way to see, and excitedly pointed at themselves in the picture. Then their parents told them to beg and they grabbed at me and said "money, money, money!" as I got into the car. Brats.Along the roads we would see the occasional military tank. They had been stripped, at least as much as a tank can be, but sat with their cannon pointed in some random direction. In 1997, the Ethiopians fought a war against their Eritrean neighbors to the north over a border dispute. The war killed around 70,000 people, and the machines had probably been left by soldiers heading to the front.
When we came to villages, the driver would slow his frantic pace slightly and lay on the horn. People and animals crowded the road, and they parted slowly, annoyed by the disturbance in their path. We had a few close calls, and eventually did hit a goat lightly. Our driver slammed on the breaks and we bumped the dumb animal in the rear, sending it skidding across the asphalt until it regained it's footing and hobbled off into the grass.
Sitting in the middle of the van, a man had a small bundle of green-leafed branches. Zayn got one and dropped it in my lap, telling me to chew. Bezabish said "Nooo!" and I was suspicious, but the man in the gray hoodie nodded his head at me, and pulled some of the smaller leaves off for me. I popped it in my mouth with a piece of gum, and chewed until the flavor was gone and I was left with plant matter. Out the window it went. Apparently the leaves, called "qat," are an amphetamine, and drivers chew it to stay awake. I didn't feel anything.
Bahir Dar
We arrived in the early evening. The bus station in Bahir Dar was also crazy, but on a smaller scale. Several guys with unclear affiliation approached us and took us to a couple hotels before we found one we liked. It had running water and a double and a single bed in each room, and a mosquito net above the double. I called the double.
While the girls did whatever it is girls do when together, the three men walked through the town, stopping at a pharmacy to pick up some dirt-cheap malaria tablets, then moved on to sit by the lake with a few glass bottles of Fanta. A nice place. Saw a few white people too. Surprised, I stared at the ferengis.
We sat for awhile until one of the the hotel escorts spotted us and began pitching a ride to the nearby Falls the next day, as well as a ride in his boat. He wore a white Kangol-style beret backwards to show the logo and though he was sellin', he seemed like an alright dude. The price he quoted was more than what we had paid for our whole day of riding, but we accepted and agreed to go the next morning to the Falls. Back in the hotel, I offered to sleep with anyone in the double, but took up a spot under the covers and refused to move. I had Zayn put the mosquito net down over me, and though he called me a "pussy," I felt good. He took up the single bed next to me, and as we prepared for bed Parya entered our room and jumped into bed with Zayn. I slept like a baby, safe in my net.
Brawl at the Falls
We woke early, and the dude with the beret was there with his van. The ride was uneventful, but the arrival into the Falls town was an eye-opener. The "town" is just a bunch of dirt-floor tin shacks lining the dirt road. Sad-eyed donkeys pulling carts walked by, and children mostly dressed in worn football jerseys ran out to look at us. Kangol hat guy got out as we first pulled into town and told us he'd meet us later. I was slightly confused but didn't ask questions. At the end of the town we came to a little ticket office, and while Kim and Bezabish went in, we were descended on by men with ID tags who apparently were "official" guides.
While Zayn negotiated, I strolled over to a hut where a man was selling white linen with pretty Ethiopian designs. The man quoted the price at 60 Birr, but I scrunched up my face and gave a thumbs down. He came back with 40 and I picked up a nice white and blue head scarf for mom.
While I browsed, I noticed a child sitting under the hanging cloth. I looked closer and saw he had flies in his face. His eyes were full of life, but also insects, so I waved a hand close to his nose. Most didn't scatter. The boy smiled up at me. I walked away with the scarf, and glanced at him again over my shoulder.
Kim had tickets for us, and Zayn had found an "official" guide, a stocky little guy. We started walking. On the path, the guy in the white beret was waiting for us. When the new guide saw him, he grabbed him by the shirt and told us he was a thief. The shorter man brought back his hand to strike the "thief" in the face, but Zayn, Kim and Bezabish got in-between and tried to explain to the new guide that he was cool. He took out his cell phone and threatened to call the police. Young locals surrounded the conflict, like kids watching a playground fight. I observed from a distance, and took the break to look around, glancing into huts and avoiding skinny cows. The guide calmed down when the guy in the white beret walked off, and we proceeded.
The Falls were pretty amazing, and it was still the dry season. I wonder what it looks like when the rains come.
On the walk back, the local kids pushed goods on us, including gourds hollowed out to hold water, necklaces, and more linen. Even I thought they were adorable, but we didn't buy anything. When, wet from splashback, I took off my shirt so my body would dry, Zayn quickly found out from Bezabish that the Amharic word for "ghost" is "memfas." It became my nickname for the rest of the trip.The fireworks started at the end of the path. There the guy in the white beret was waiting for us with his van. Others were there as well, seemingly some with our first guide, and some with the "official" guide. This time, the guy in the white beret was furious for having his customers tampered with, and his voice raised to a high-pitched squeal. Zayn told me this is what Ethiopians do when upset. The stocky guide remained calm, waving the guy off. Things were said between the two groups, and White Beret came hard after the guide, but was held back. The confrontation inexplicably calmed down, and I got bored and walked away from the group again to look around. A kid in a Ronaldinho Barcelona football jersey followed me around, telling me "Give me 10 Birr." I gave him an "I don't think so" look, and he thought for a moment before saying "Okay, 5 Birr." Amused by his "haggling," I gave him one. He wasn't thrilled with it, and I made a motion to take it back. Brat.
The fight heated up again, and I looked over to see White Beret violently swinging a long walking stick at someone, though I'm not sure who. He was shrieking angrily, but didn't hit anything. It was then we decided to abandon him, and headed back to the road. There Kim and Bezabish went to file a police report with the official guide against the original guide, and Zayn chatted up some locals at a little stand that sold drinks. They talked about Australia, and Australian women. One man said that Parya was beautiful, and Zayn asked the others if they liked her.
"We are Africans," one of them said, pointing at his forearm. "We like chocolate."
Another man, unprompted, looked at me and said "You look like a redneck." Zayn and Parya burst into laughter and I looked at him quizzically. "I'm serious," he said.
My neck had burnt a bit since I'd been there. "Is that good?" I asked, amused.
He said yes, backtracking a bit. I asked him what a "redneck" was, to see if he actually knew.
"They drive pick-up trucks, shoot guns. But they don't learn."
Touché buddy.
Little Guide Boy
That evening, back in Bahir Dar, a bare-footed, English-speaking kid starting following us around. We took a boat trip on Lake Tana, in search of hippos, though we didn't find any, and we let the kid come with us. He spent a lot of time sifting through pictures on the screen of my digital camera, and got excited when he came to the shots of the Slavia/Sparta football game. The boat driver also took us out into the mouth of the Blue Nile. This, mind you, was not the boat of the "thief." We left him and his van behind at the Falls. The public bus we returned in cost a fraction of what he had charged.
After the sun had set, we asked the kid to show us a place where we could eat fish. He led us through the dark to a building no different from the surrounding shacks, and we entered to find a fairly modern-looking restaurant. The kid sat with us, and we bought him dinner as a finder's fee, which came to something around three bucks extra. It being Holy Week, the boy got a fasting dish, beans and whatnot, and a Miranda orange soda. We feasted on lake fish.
When we said goodbye to the kid, he told us about his mother, that she needed 30 Birr (about $3) to pay for a doctor's fee at the hospital. We had been expecting this, and rolled our eyes a bit, but gave him a tenner. In retrospect, I wish we had given him the 30. Maybe he was telling the truth.
the Castles of Gondar
The next morning, Parya, Zayn and I left the other two behind and took a three hour mini-bus ride to Gondar for the day. The roads were good, and scenery was mountainous and beautiful as we drove north to the top of Lake Tana. People standing beside the road held up baskets of fruit and flapping, upside-down chickens by their legs as we passed, and at one juncture the man behind the wheel had to screech the brakes to avoid hitting a yellow-tailed monkey. This being our second experience in a mini-bus, we were slightly better prepared for the aggressive and fast driving of the qat-chewing driver, but being in the shotgun seat and noticing an actual seat belt there, I still buckled up.
We found the city center to be much more modern than in Bahir Dar. Here the roads were paved, and big Italian-style villas which housed a cafe and a large post office circled the roundabout. They were built during the Italian occupation in the 1930's before being driven out by the British. I had brought a small towel with me which I wore
over my head. The sun had burned me up the previous day at the Falls, and I needed all the protection I could get. Redneck indeed.The castles were impressive. They were built in the 17th century by the Emperors of Ethiopia when Gondar was a great and populous capital city. We had fun climbing the stairs of the ruins and peeking at each other through holes in the wall, or in some cases, absences of wall. The Italians had taken up residence here during their brief occupation, so the RAF rained bombs down on the castles. An Ethiopian flag now flew from the tallest building, the former palace. Suffering from the sun, I tired quickly. After walking around in the biggest structures, I found a bench to lie on and draped the towel over my face while Zayn and Pariah continued their exploration of the other buildings. I spent most of the rest of the day in this position.
"Memfas," Zayn called.
The Long Ride to Lalibela
We left Bahir Dar early the next morning, but had already missed the bus to our targeted destination, Lalibela, so we got on one heading in that direction. The five of us plunked down on the back seat of a full-sized bus, and thus felt every bump in the "road," really just an uneven dirt path wide enough for vehicles. At one particularly vicious spot, the back-end was bounced violently and the small spiderweb of cracks in the rear window doubled in size. I slept lightly with my head bouncing around on my neck like a bobble-head doll.
We came to the dirt town of Gaynt after a half day of travel. The bus station was a dirt lot filled with dirty beggars and vendors. I saw a small, dirty child with a blanket over a hump on his back. When I got closer, I could hear a baby cooing under the cloth. Later, another slightly bigger and dirtier kid attacked the one with the baby on his back, throwing (and landing) a few punches at his head before an adult pulled him off. We asked the driver and door man about leaving, and reaching our destination.
"Bus to Lalibela? Tomorrow, tomorrow..."
Shit. Though none of us were eager to stay in Gaynt for the night, there was a "hotel," and I was too carsick and tired for anything drastic and adventurous. Zayn had other ideas. A few English-speaking kids came up to us, wanting to talk to the "ferengis," and Zayn sent them on missions to find us a ride to Lalibela. Wherever I went, I felt every set of eyes was on me. I'm guessing they don't get many pale faces in Gaynt.
The kids came back, saying they had a ride for us on a truck which would take us halfway. The "truck" turned out to be a big-rig with a full-sized, scooped-out trailer carrying hundreds of man-sized grain sacks. Zayn volunteered to ride on the back, and not wanting to be shown up, I
went too. The girls and Kim were to ride in the cab with the driver, and the luggage went back with us. While we waited for our lunching driver, Zayn argued with the kids over the amount of the finders fee. Snarling in Amharic at the kids, he would occasionally turn to me and calmly say something like "Be sure to get into a crevice in the sacks, so you're not thrown from the truck" or "Sit close to this bar, but not so close that you bash your head on it."I imagined our bus ride, only this time in the back of an open truck, and started to have second thoughts. I told him so, and he called me a pussy, or perhaps something stronger. Kim expressed similar thoughts to mine, so I started throwing our bags down to him. Then the driver came, Zayn took charge, up came the bags and we took off.
"Keep it real," Zayn said.
On the slow drive out of town, a little dude in a green camouflaged, military fatigues hat jumped up on the back of the trailer bed with us, and another hopped onto the step on the cab next to the driver. For the first (and only) time on the trip, I panicked and told Zayn we were going to get fucking robbed and left in the wilderness, possibly with bullets in our heads. As my friend Scotty said after I told him this story back in Prague, "No one would ever find you." That was my thinking also. With my heart racing, Zayn again called me a pussy and told me to enjoy the scenery. I growled but didn't respond, and started running scenarios in my head on what to do if the little guy pulled a pistol. There wouldn't be any "I told you so's" when we were all dead.
As we got to the outskirts, the guy hanging on to the cab jumped off and I relaxed a bit. We drove past a large group of people who appeared to be taking part in some sort of food dispersal program. They were receiving grain from large burlap sacks, not unlike the ones we were sitting on, but the ones on the ground had American flags stamped on the sides.
I felt like shit. I wanted to sleep, and though I was fairly comfortable, I was still too scared to do it. Scared of the guy and scared of getting bounced from the truck. Gaynt is up on a mountain, so the first part of our trip was a long descent. The scenery was beautiful, and though I was furious and sick, I noticed. Zayn, in an attempt to cheer me up, pointed out particularly eye-pleasing views. I ignored him, but did try to enjoy it while keeping one eye on the little guy in the Castro hat.
Once off the mountain, we came to a half-built road. Someday it would be two-laned and paved. But I was thankful it wasn't now, because the driver had to move slowly to keep from destroying his truck on the rough ground. We slithered around construction vehicles and piles of dirt. Coming upon roadside villages every now and then, children would catch sight of Zayn's Asian face and my white one. We heard a few "Hey China!" calls, and a lot of "Ferengi! Hello! Hello!" Though my head was throbbing and I wanted to ignore them (or if anything, give them the finger), I kept waving like the Queen of England.
When the sun went down, I stretched out on the sacks and looked up at the stars. Through holes in the clouds, they were brilliant, and I thought of the line from Paul Simon's Graceland: "And he walked his days under African skies..." Of course, I wasn't walking, but the Ethiopians sure as hell were. I could make out the occasional silhouette in the darkness as they moved along the side of the road.
We arrived at our destination approximately four hours later. Gashena is a crossroads town, and though there isn't much, a relatively big hotel can survive. It was an L-shaped building, with the rooms facing inside towards a dirty courtyard where a thatched-roof gazebo sat. A primitive satellite dish the size of a kiddie swimming pool was attached to the tin roof, there was no running water, and the toilets were "squatters," i.e. stalls with holes in the ground. It was heaven. A few women lounged in the dark by a fire. After showing us our rooms, they brought us some shinto, a fasting bean dish with, of course, injera bread. It was the only thing on the "menu" (which actually didn't exist), and was quite good. Ignoring the sleeping bag I had been using as a buffer between myself and possible bedbug or flea infestations, I climbed right into the bed in our room, burrowed deep into the covers, and was out in seconds.
While the rest of us slept late, Kim and Bezabish set out the next morning to find a bus to Lalibela. They returned with the info that one would eventually come, but weren't sure when. We hunkered down in the courtyard, had another order of shinto, and waited. At lunchtime, truck drivers came in, sat down and ate on small blocks scattered around the courtyard. A couple of donkeys with empty boxes on their back sauntered in later and nibbled at some left-behind injera before being shooed away. A little girl, one of the hotel women's daughters, played on the long support bar for the satellite dish, singing as she swung. Underneath the roof where the dish was perched, a television sat in a sparse room. I pictured all the poor and undeducated goat herders, farmers and vendors in Gashena crammed in there to watch a Champions League game or the World Cup final, beamed to them from the sky.
Anticipating the arrival of the bus, I was sure to keep my bladder clear, making frequent trips to the squatter. Luckily I didn't have to deuce. I was planning out my eating and shitting, and had not yet gone using anything less than a toilet. And I aimed to keep it that way.
We made a mad dash for the bus when it pulled up on the street outside the hotel, around midday. Our bags were tied down on the roof, and the bus was half empty when we left. After a short three hour ride, we arrived in Lalibela, home of the rock-hewn churches.
Lalibela
In one of Parya's guide books, Lalibela was said to be a "must see" in northern Ethiopia, thus we paid the day and a half to get there. Upon arrival, I noticed the town was full of energy, no doubt boosted by the tourism drawn to the churches. There were lots of shops, mainly with hand painted signs. I noticed one said "Richard Barber." Next to the name was a pair of scissors.
A few young guys and kids again approached us as we exited the bus and took us to see hotels. Some were nicer than others, and we choose the cheaper one with the toilet. My streak would remain intact! The owner didn't budge when we tried to haggle the price down, so we paid him the 160 Birr for one night in two rooms (about $16).
It was around 3:30pm by the time we settled in, and the viewing of the churches stopped at 5:00. We had to hustle. Finding a guide, we hastily negotiated a price for the five of us, and set off. He was a nice, soft-spoken guy named Addis Alam, which means "New World" (Addis Ababa means "New Flower"). The fingernail on his pinky was very long, which may mean he's a coke dealer. If true, he's the nicest coke dealer I ever met.
The Lalibela churches, named after the Ethiopian Emperor who had them built, were incredible. Large structures the size of a medium-sized house, not built but carved out of the red-brown bedrock. Addis Alam told us it took only twenty-some years to complete the thirteen buildings, because angels would come down and continue the work at night. Those angels did some nice carvin'. All were multiple stories high, and the bases of the taller ones were thirty or forty feet below ground level. Cross-shaped windows were cut out of the buildings, and worshipers prayed inside. Parya, wearing a spaghetti-strap dress, was originally told to go change, but they let her enter when she wrapped a sweater around her shoulders. As we walked between churches, children ran out with woven leather crosses on strings hanging from their little hands. Without breaking stride, I took a closer look, gave the girl a 10 Birr note, and put the cross in my pocket.
The last church of Saint George was the most impressive. Cut out
of the top of a hill, it is hidden to the eye as you climb, then the hole opens up when you reach the top and with your toes sticking over the edge of the pit, you can see the cross-shaped church below you. A priest sat inside and watched us silently as we looked around. After consulting with Addis Alam, I took a small, gnarly candle and left a few Birr. Outside, I saw another kid with flies in his face. They particularly like the corners of his eyes, next to his nose. Waving a hand again did no good, so with the candle wick I tried brushing them off. The boy giggled, and I gave up.Towards the end of tour, Addis Alam said it would take two eight-hour days to get back to Addis Ababa by bus. It was Wednesday evening. My plane back to Europe departed late Friday night. Ethiopian Airlines did fly Lalibela to Addis Ababa, and though it cost about 1200 Birr (more than 10x the cost of a bus ticket), it only took an hour. But after a phone call to the carrier's main office, we were told that everything was sold out. In order for me to be back in time to make my flight, we had to leave the next morning, about sixteen hours after arriving, and ride sixteen hours to get back.
A dust storm blew through the town that evening, forcing us to retreat to the hotel. The power had also been cut as part of the town's energy conservation plan, so we waited it out in our darkened room. To pass the time, Parya sang a few Persian songs, and Zayn and I took turns writing dirty words on the ceiling with a flashlight while the other tried to guess. A response of laughter signaled a correct answer.
When the storm subsided and the power came back on, we headed out to find some grub. I enjoyed our self-amusement, but was also very hungry. Because it was Holy Week, the first restaurant we found only had one thing. You guessed it, shinto. Kim and Parya kept looking, but Bezabish, Zayn and I sat and devoured. Our third meal in a row.
We went to bed at about midnight, and I awoke two hours later to a growling stomach. Only Kim and Bezabish's room had a toilet, so I stayed in bed and tried to calm my bowels. In between deep breaths, I heard high-pitched cackles and growls coming from a distance. I think they were hyenas, which are native to Ethiopia.
At 4:00am I no longer had the luxury of waiting. Not wanting to wake our friends in the other room, I planned to drop trough outside, but a man, apparently some sort of guard, was sleeping near the door in an elevated tin box with the side cut out. Waking up the couple and apologizing profusely, I headed into their bathroom and closed the door. I tried to do my business quietly, but eventually gave in to desire and completely released. The feeling was priceless, and the noise deafening. Kim and Bezabish, no longer even half-asleep, giggled, and I finished my shinto dump into the toilet. To lessen my shame, Kim told me Bezabish had also been sick.
the Last Part is the Worst Part
Completely awake now on Thursday morning, I packed my bag, woke the others and headed to the station to get seats. The bus was nearly full when I arrived, and more were trying to buy tickets, but the doorman came directly to me when he saw my face. Ferengis pay more, and that's fine by me. After some wrangling and help from a young English-speaking man on the bus, we were able to secure two bench seats for the five of us. A brief spat erupted in the aisle between the doorman and another guy, who slapped the bus employee loudly on the shoulder. The two men were quickly separated by the passengers. I watched it in a daze. Apparently Kim and Bezabish had taken his seat.
The following two days were awful, one of the more unpleasant experiences of my life. Buses in Ethiopia must leave very early because the unfinished roads are so rough they need daylight to drive. We were tired from the early start, and there was no sleeping on the jerky bus. Whatever bug I had caught from the bad shinto attacked my stomach, and didn't let up until well after I was home. At every stop I ran to the nearest hole and emptied my bowels. The first came at the crossroads hotel back in Gashena, and my streak ended when I was forced to use the squatter there. I carried several packages of tissue paper in my cargo pants pockets, and over the next 36 hours used most of it. On Thursday a kid two seats ahead of me puked out the window. We quickly closed our own window to stay dry. On Friday I sat next to two guys with shirts draped over their hanging heads. I glared at one when he started to encroach on my space, but then noticed he was spreading his legs in order to vomit onto the floor and not himself. I stood up and took a few breaths, blinking my eyes.
It was very close to Easter now, and on our two-day trip back to Addis, many animals accompanied us. People were taking their Sunday feasts home with them. A rooster held under a seat in the front of the bus crowed to a rooster in the back of the bus, who responded with a call of his own. This continued for hours. An adult male sheep was tied to the top of the bus, and somehow managed to stay up there the whole time, despite the rough roads and lousy shock absorbers. I could hear his hooves clomping on the roof. A flock of chickens were also tied up there, and as we pulled into our stop in Dese on Thursday night, I saw one fall off the side. The bus stopped and the doorman ran out to retrieve it. Removing the sheep required three men. One on top grabbed hold of the animal by its front legs and handed it to a man perched on the ladder on the back of the bus, who quickly handed it off to another man on the ground. The sheep landed in the dirt roughly and shook its head.
Dese, like Gashena a few days before, was a Godsend. We found a nice hotel and I splurged for my own room, with my own toilet. The plumbing wasn't working, so water was taken from a big container next to the toilet and poured into the bowl after. We took bucket showers, pouring a pitcher over our heads, lathering up, then repeating. The water was icy and refreshing. I hadn't bathed in awhile, and was caked with dust and sweat. Sitting on my bed, clean and comfortable, I said to myself, "It feels good to feel good..."
We headed out for a bit that night, trying to make the most of my last night in the country, but faded quickly. We ordered some delicious carbonated mineral water called Amboe (seriously, it was fantastic) to settle our stomachs. Zayn was starting to feel the effects of the bad beans, and Bezabish was having problems as well, but she was a native, and Zayn had built up some resistance. As the rookie, I was suffering. I made multiple trips to the toilet that night. Due to exhaustion and it being our final night, we got a little silly. Zayn became downright giggly, and started imitating the way I dance. With elbows locked to his hips, and forearms and pointer fingers extended at a forty-five degree angle, he laughed hysterically and jerked around the room. I don't think I look like that.
The Friday ride was more of the same. I did gain strength and enthusiasm as we got closer to Addis, but stilll wasn't in the mood for games. During our stop for lunch, a group of young teenagers came up to me when I walked a little ways from the bus. One guy got a little too close for comfort and mockingly rubbed the hair on my forearms. I stood there passively, and after he'd finished did the same to his hairless arms. Then, noticing the leather cross hanging from my neck, he took it in his hand and "blessed" me the way an Orthodox priest would, pressing it to my forehead, chin, then both cheeks. With his boys laughing, he tried to do it again until I gave him a light push. I wanted to bless him back to give the prick some more of his own medicine, but he had a few sores on his face which I didn't want to touch. I got back on the bus.
On the outskirts of the capital city, we pulled to the side of the road and emptied the bus to be patted down by soldiers. We were blissfully dropped off five minutes walk from Zayn and Kim's complex, and I collapsed onto their living room mattress immediately after entering the house.
I wasn't able to sleep, so we all shat and showered up, then headed out to do some shopping. Zayn insisted I take two heavy fucking jars of Ethiopian peanut butter home with me, and I carried them around with me in a bag for 24 hours until they were confiscated at the London airport. He also loaded me up with some gifts of coffee and scarves for his friends back in Prague. I carried similar gifts of my own.
Returning to the complex from our shop, we noticed for the first time a sheep, which hadn't been there when we left, was tied up between servant's quarters and the landlord's house. He was a friendly ram, and Zayn and the rest of the complex ate it two days later on Easter.
For my last taste of Ethiopia, we went to a Lebanese restaurant and ate neither shinto, nor injera. I picked up a Coca-cola bottle with Amharic writing on it as a final souvenir, but accidentally left it at the airport anyway. From Addis, I flew to Rome. On the three and half hour flight, I used the toilet four times. On the connecting flight from Rome to London, another three. Exhausted and sick, I stayed with the friend in London that night before arising early to get my flight to Prague. Due to bad decision-making and bad luck, I missed my flight out, and had to wait for the next one twelve hours later. A good trip, and good to be home.
