Travelogue 70 – March 28
The Hills are Alive

It’s my last day in Dire Dawa. We successfully managed to get Kevin onto the train to Djibouti, despite a fluid, minute-by-minute schedule for its arrival and departure. To pass the time while the train is delayed, we take one last hitch out of town, arriving in a village along the train tracks. Veiled women sit with their children in cleanly swept dirt yards. The children run from us. On the way back, we stop quickly to watch for a few moments the group of old men in skirts carving up a camel. The beast lies like it might be sleeping, its neck stretched forward, but its mid-section is all sliced open to reveal pink meat. We get back to board Kevin. He wants to ride in cargo so he can lie down and sleep. Hours after he’s boarded, the sad old train lurches forth toward his 118th country or so.

The next afternoon I’m to fly. I spend the last hours of that day strolling straight out of town, toward the north. I love desert landscapes, and I’m dying to be alone, out of cities. I follow dirt paths through the cactus. I steer away from the few collections of houses – the suburbs – and toward a long, flat, uninterrupted plateau on the horizon, sort of like you might see driving through the American Southwest, except for the unbroken length of it. I wonder if I’m looking at the other side of the Rift Valley there. Beyond it is a distant, blue mountain. Sunset approaches; big white clouds above the plateau glow with day’s end. I reach a dry riverbed, where men are mining for stone. Several see me, and momentarily they’re all waving. It would be a beautiful river: lots of white water.

My flight home is a nightmare. I should say the eight-hour delay for the one-hour flight is a nightmare. I arrive home at midnight. My servant, Bakalech, has hung a picture of crucified Jesus on my wall. I contemplate it for quite a while before I retire. He looks like a sweet child sleeping. The sky is green. Jerusalem in the background looks like a Hopi village at the base of purple mountains. John looks like a girl; but then, he always does.

I’ve moved back into the school building since then. I’m back in bed with the bugs. By the end of the first week, my body looks like I’ve got the pox again. I take an afternoon to lacquer all surfaces with bug spray. It slows them down a day or two. I’m back to cold showers. I’m back to waking to the sound of little children, but with the added element of Jack’s yapping. She gets chased around the yard a lot now. The kids alternate between fear of the dog and an impulse to crowd in and touch her. “Jack, Jack, Jack,” they chant. Or they say, “poochie,” which I think is funny -- to find a word like that crossing languages.

I’m back to waking early to the chanting from the church up the hill rather than to the off-key muezzin in the last neighborhood. It’s a much nicer experience. The mezmur, or hymns, the priest sings over the loudspeaker are very beautiful. They are haunting -- even more so floating among the valleys up here.

There are a lot of churches up this way. I get many opportunities to catch a little blessing. It’s a tradition here to genuflect whenever you pass a church. The extent of the devotion, of course, varies with each person. Some just nod three times. Some stop and face the church and bow and do full genuflections. I like standing in front of the church and bowing back. They don’t get it. It’s an odd tradition. Apparently, there’s no rule on the range of your genuflection. I’ve seen people stop at the sight of a church a mile away, on another mountain or across broad fields. Sometimes I don’t even see the church they’re aiming at. I figure that’s why they must be late all the time. There’s always a church somewhere.

Travelogue 69 – March 19
Trip East, Part Four
Kevin and the Isuzu

It’s our last day in Harar, though I don’t know it yet. We eat pastries and drink tea, and lazily we decide on a course of action. I want to get out of the town, see some countryside. Girma decides on a tomb/shrine on the hillside just out of town. We take a taxi; we hike a little ways. We enter the peaceful compound there, and encounter another blue little beehive. This one honors Ali, a Persian sage and missionary. The view is lovely. This is where I get the view of the whole walled city, green and white – the former shade means faith, apparently, and the latter means purity.

“Let’s go in,” Girma says, and I think he means inside the tomb, but he walks away. That’s when I realize we’re in on a family’s small plot of land. These are the descendants of Ali. We enter the mosque, a small, dim room that the chickens keep stalking into. The walls are hung with various rugs and tapestries, quotes from the Koran, depictions of the K’aba. There’s a small platform at one end, and a big drum. An old woman welcomes us in. She invites us for some coffee, and she sits on the floor on the other end of the room, among the paraphernalia for the coffee ceremony. She begins to speak in a chanting sort of way. She welcomes us. She blesses us. She tells us (all via Girma’s translation, of course,) about the many good spirits and angels that abide in Harar. She goes on chanting as she prepares the coffee, her hands working without guidance, it seems. As she chants she stares out the door. I assume a lot of the rest is Koranic. Girma tells us she’s revered around here as a healer and counselor and even fortune-teller. “Wow. Thank you, mama,” Kevin keeps saying, with that charming informality that only an American can pull off. The woman’s daughter enters, a tall, beautiful woman. Kevin is flirting, even after we find out her wedding is a few months away. No one is offended. We stay quite a while, and afterward, climb further up the hill. I certainly feel healed. Kevin waves to the daughter from above.

Back in town, we have lunch: goat meat and beer. We eat a lot of goat meat on this trip. Kevin is heading back to Dire Dawa. He says I should accompany him; his birthday is the next day. I’m game. “But we travel my way,” he says.

We pick up my bag at the hotel, which is on the road to Dire Dawa. We walk up the road a ways, and we wait. He studies the passing traffic with an expert eye. The taxi vans pull over, and we wave them on. Finally, a pickup stops. Two old men are in the front. The back is full of bags of mangoes. They want to bargain. Kevin is obdurate; we have to pay less than the van fare. “You don’t have money?” “No, it’s for the fun, boss!” Kevin exclaims. “For the fun!” Baffled, they finally agree. They invite us into the cab, but we prefer the back. The bags make comfortable cushioning. It’s a great ride, waving at the astounded people we pass. We make it about halfway before the old guys stop, in a village. The clouds ahead are menacing. One of them bustles off in search of a tarp. The driver tells us he was an air force pilot. He tells us he admires Bush’s philosophy. “No, boss. The Bush family, they’re all about control and money.” The driver smiles uncertainly. Kevin keeps a nervous eye on the gang of kids that has gathered. He says he saw a kid get squashed by a bus a month or two before, in some other country, maybe Kenya.

The old man seems to have disappeared on his errand. Kevin flags down an Isuzu flatbed truck. He’s happy. He says these are the best rides; they dominate the highways in Ethiopia. They’re fast. We climb into the back, into the muddy, stinky remnants of the cows they had transported. We’re off. We hit the long curves that descend into the Rift Valley. The boys in front are having fun, cruising at the vehicle’s limit. I’m admiring the miles of desert hills, and the huge, dark thunderheads that have so far missed us. The wind in our faces is cool and moist. We stand in the back and look out over the cab. Sitting in the back is impossible because of the flying dust from the bed. I point out to Kevin how all the hills are terraced. Who knows how ancient that work is. The rain hits, just outside of Dire Dawa. The boys stop to let us in front. There are three of them. We squeeze in. The cab is made up fairly elaborately, with pictures, decorative cloth, and tassels. Kevin chats them up with nonsense and everyone’s smiling as we roll into town.

Travelogue 68 – March 15
Trip East, Part Three
Kevin and the Jib

I’m looking for a guide in the central circle of Harar. The few I’ve seen don’t inspire confidence. That’s when I see an American guy pass in the company of a young Abasha man, whom I correctly guess to be a guide. Girma is a serious young engineering student with big, soulful eyes, and a careful mode of speech. The American is Kevin, tall, lanky, and blonde. If anyone deserves more than Charlton Heston in Planet of the Apes to be called “Bright Eyes,” this is the guy. He gushes about Girma and about Harar, says I can take Girma from him when he’s done. They were about to go ancient knife-hunting in the shops. We resolve to go to lunch first.

Kevin’s about my age. He’s from Maine. He began five months ago in South Africa and he’s been traveling through Africa ever since. When I marvel at that, he dismissively says he’s traveled seven months of the year for twenty years or so. He’s coming up on 120 countries that he’s seen. He works on church steeples in New England those other months. Next year, it’s Antarctica, and then he’s ready to settle. He’s in the market, ladies – he’s looking for a tall Cancer. Much of the afternoon, while Girma meekly guides, I eagerly listen to stories of Kevin’s adventures.

One stop in the afternoon is the shrine/tomb of Emir Nur, the man who allegedly built the walls. The tomb is walled off itself inside a white-washed courtyard. I find it mentioned in my guidebook. “It resembles a spiky beehive.” Yep. That’s it. It stands about a man-and-a-half tall, pointed at the top, and it’s turquoise. We sit in the courtyard a while, watching a man with green teeth grinding ch’at in a traditional wooden mortar that stands about two feet tall. Apparently, it’s for the eccentric old attendant, whom Kevin met on an earlier visit. The old man has no teeth.

Maybe this is the time to describe ch’at. It’s an unremarkable looking leaf that one chews for a mildly narcotic effect. You buy a handful of twigs from the plant and you chew. We’re in the heart of ch’at country, here in eastern Ethiopia, where it’s grown, and where everyone chews. There are different types, according to where it’s grown. I try a little nibble from the pile that the man is making in the mortar. Kevin advises budding leaves as the most potent. It has a sweet, cloying taste. No buzz. A few days ago, I sit down to a formal ch’at session with Diana, Eman’s sister, and a few of her friends in Addis, after lunch. The lunch was a wonderful relief, by the way. It’s a Muslim family, and so we ate meat and rice. Orthodox Ethiopes are in the midst of their version of Lent, in which they proudly outdo the Catholics, with 55 days. During this fast, I’ve found that even some restaurants won’t serve anything but the plainest, meatless sauces. Anyway, I take my handful of twigs, and I graze. The taste is sickening. And my stomach rebels because I find it hard to keep the remnants of the leaf in my cheek, as you’re supposed to do. We recline on our pillows. The boys make piles of leaves; Diana just bites them off the stalk. I get a few twigs-worth down, but I stop, buzzless and disenchanted. I suppose you have to choke down a whole plant to feel anything. Ergo, the green teeth and the green ooze in the mouths of the boys in their ch’at circles on the street.

At sunset, Girma leads us down to the edge of town. At a break in a secondary city wall, we meet the young man who, every evening, plies his version of an ancient trade. He walks out beyond the wall, yelling, summoning. And before too long, they come. They come from the hills below, come out of the scrub brush out there, come out of the night as they have for centuries: the jib. They lope around the dusty clearing, eyes gleaming. The young guy and his assistants bring out the meat, and the jib begin to circle. Most animals have some beauty, but it’s hard to find it in hyenas. Hunch-backed and short-legged in the back, they have a peculiar gate. Their faces are something between a raccoon’s and a monkey’s, with round ears and a short, black muzzle. The dominant one among this group is a big female. She is the one who gets most of the meat. She is the one who approaches the young man most often to snatch the meat hanging from a stick he holds in his teeth. And once we get up the nerve to sit next to him on the blanket, she’s the one who snatches the meat from in front of each of our faces. She doesn’t have bad breath, I’ll report. For Kevin, it’s like an exorcism. Camping his way up eastern Africa, he’s lived in mortal fear of the jib, and heard all kinds of horror stories about their atrocities. He gets the special treatment, a juicy rib held up before his eyes, a view into the maw of the beast. We stroll back up to town with a boost of adrenalin in our systems. Beats ch’at any day.

Travelogue 67 – March 11
Trip East, Part Two
Harar

You follow the guide book’s map to the “bus station” in Dire Dawa, with a lot of help from locals, and you find it’s just a fenced-in lot where the white vans congregate. They shuttle out of there every day, stopping along the road, like normal taxis in Addis, to pick up travelers. I’m there early the second morning of my trip, ready for Harar. I’m picked up right away by an affable, rotund driver who has a golden tooth. We’re on the road. There’s one other passenger and the wayala, the boy who collects money at the van door. We’re climbing as soon as we’re out of town, and the driver is not shy. The faranj sits up front and gets the full adrenalin shot. The driver has the engine screaming all the way up, about twenty minutes of sharp curves, passing other vans and trucks, dodging pedestrians and donkeys on the sides. It’s a pretty ride through desert mountains of peach-colored stone. As you arrive at the top, you expect to go “over”, but instead, in a strange transition, you pass into fertile and populated red-earthed hills. The trees are back, with the farms and the muddy crossroads. What you’ve done is climb out of the desert basin in this corner of Ethiopia, back into the predominant highlands.

Up top, the real traffic begins. We’re stopping at every little juncture for passengers; that is, until the weary engine gives way. The deflated driver shakes his head a while over the machinery, and we all pile out. I walk on a little ways, until another taxi stops. I squeeze in among the stares. An army man wants to talk, though his English is nil. I pull my usual joke when asked where I’m from, replying, “China.” It doesn’t seem odd to him, and a discussion ensues among the passengers about what Chinese look like. Fortunately, the army man disembarks before too long. Just past the abandoned Russian tanks of the socialist regime, you approach fair Harar. I jump out just short of town, at my hotel. After checking in, I walk down to tour.

This entry does no justice to the town, as I discover the next day, when we go climbing the hills on the other side. From there, you can see just about the whole town, spread over a round hill, surrounded by its ancient wall. Little blue domes and minarets abound. This is the heart of Ethiopian Islam, as it was for centuries the capital of an independent Muslim kingdom. When Menelik II (founder of Addis Ababa) moved in in the 1880s, he took over the central mosque and converted it into a church, which it remains today, strange reminder of internal African imperialism. Menelik’s cousin took over the district. This cousin’s son spent a good part of his childhood in Harar. His name was Ras Tafari, later King of Kings, Haile Selassie. You can still visit the house where they lived, now inhabited by a prominent local healer.

Another notable personage in Harar history is Arthur Rimbaud. Fed up with bohemian Paris and with poetry, Rimbaud set off into parts unknown, to end up here, only thirty years or so after Richard Burton became the first white man to sneak into Harar. He arrived just about the time Menelik’s forces were kicking out the emirs. He settled in this area to become a respectable businessman, an arms merchant, that is, and worked all through old Abyssinia and Yemen. Harar was one of his bases. There are two sites associated with him. The first is the shabby old Harar Hotel that still stands in the Feres Magala (Horse Market,) the central circle, where said church stands. He is said to have lived there briefly. This circle is a crazy location, swarming with life, surrounded by dilapidated little buildings. One corner of it is devoted to a bustling ch’at market. All roads in the town lead to this nexus, and all of them are more attractive. It’s a small town, and everything about it is small: narrow, white-washed alleys, those tiny mosques and shrines of Muslim saints sprinkled among mud stairways and mud houses. Mosques inside the walls are said to number 82, and shrines 300 both inside and outside the wall.

The second Rimbaud stop is the “Rimbaud House,” a museum rather arbitrarily chosen to honor his presence. It’s very unlikely he ever even visited this luxurious dwelling, which in reality was built and owned by an Indian merchant. It’s a beautiful old house with three floors. It commands a wonderful view of the city from the top floor. The highlight of the museum is a collection of photographs from that era, a few even of Rimbaud – that is, two of them that he took of himself. And he did a rather poor job of it. They’re blurred and blotchy. But there are some remarkable scenes from Harar a hundred years ago, some portaits of Ras Tafari and his father, portraits of warriors. Worth badgering the attendant to put down the ch’at let you in.

Travelogue 66 – March 8
Trip East, Part One
Dire Dawa

I waste no time diving into my first new town, my first trip outside Addis Ababa in nearly five months. My bag stashed at the hotel, I start walking. This is Dire Dawa, (DRE-dwa) due east and almost to the Somali border, train town established to accommodate the French as they built a railroad to Djibouti. Look at a topographical map of Ethiopia, and you’ll see why. Harar, ancient city with the better claim to a train stop, is over a ridge of mountains, while Dire Dawa lies on the edge of that triangular flatland that spreads toward the Red Sea, a stretch of desert that becomes quite desolate and protects all kinds of secrets about the beginnings of our species.

The town is divided into two sections by a spooky dry riverbed -- spooky because it is about as wide as the Mississippi in Minneapolis. You wonder what kind of crazy torrent comes crashing down from the mountains in the rainy season. But today, it’s a span of glaring sand that townies cross, lazily and reluctantly. I stop on the main bridge crossing it to take a picture of the impressive Italianate government center on a wooded hilltop, but I’m yelled at by the police lounging on the other side in their green uniforms under sparse green cover. No pictures. They direct me to a spot below them on the river shore. I oblige them. I continue along the riverside. The short retaining wall there serves as backrest to scores of ch’at chewers, circles of men with idiot grins who shout invitations. The lane becomes increasingly hallucinatory as I advance. Teetering young toughs approach with green ooze dribbling from the corners of their mouths. Proud old men with hennaed beards and colorful skirts pass. Boys play on the ubiquitous Ethiopian foosball and ping-pong tables. Women leer. “You! You!” they all shout.

I cross the river and enter the more European side of town again, where streets are wide and follow a geometrical plan, where there are occasional circles with dry, plaster fountains like children’s ceramics. One has a couple of rudely realized duckies on top. From anywhere, the desert hills are visible, and I wrestle with the vivid impression that I’m in a California desert town run amok. The hills are alluring, reminding me of my home state. Reaching the town’s southern extremity, I don’t hesitate, but climb right up into the hills, passing stone and mud hovels perched on the steep sides. Kids stare and giggle, the type at home being shyer than the ones in the street. I stop to talk to a few. Even these know a little English. Up I go, among the thistles and the blooming cactus so like the cactus in our Southwest, the kind with the multiple flat heads. Everything is like home, except for that occasional horizontal, bristly evergreen that is so emblematic of Africa. That and the hump-backed cattle clinging to the incline.

Back on the ground, I amble through the bustling Kafira market in the “old town” side of the river, dodging camels and the two-wheeled, wooden buggies drawn by tired horses. The alleys here are narrow and confusing. I’m suddenly at the center, where stand some handsome old portals to the original market, crenellated tops and those Arabian arches so popular here: broken into two parts, square on the bottom and circular on top. Boys accost me. Everyone’s a bit more Somali here. By that I mean loud and brusque. I’m familiar with this interpersonal style from the Somalis in Minnesota. The only way to respond is with the same bravado and a lot of joshing. I take their pictures and bargain rowdily over the price. They guide me among the beautifully aromatic spices arrayed in bags in stall after stall under improvised canopies of plastic and cloth.

I’m staying in the Makonnen Hotel opposite the train station. It’s a classic spot. The station is set on a broad, dusty circle with a dead, silver caboose as the centerpiece. The station looks like an abandoned relic of the early twentieth century, yellow as corn flour and every portal closed and barred, a stylized DE high in its face. But it is still in use, as I’ll have occasion to describe later. The hotel itself is a quirky piece of Italian colonial era architecture. You enter by way of cafe and bar. The way to the rooms is a funny cornered passage the width of one’s shoulders behind the bar. I have the premier room, overlooking the circle and almost the size of my school’s classroom. The bare walls are two shades of avocado, and the ceiling fan from “Apocalypse Now” adorns the ceiling. I have two balconies, one above the circle, and another above the adjoining avenue. The bed is super king-sized, and at midnight I lay watching the blades of the fan in the sultry heat.

Travelogue 65 – March 1
The Hode and Humanity

Nothing enhances that special Long March feeling you get from living in Ethiopia more than the recurrent fit of the hode chigirs – stomach problems. More precisely, that’s diarrhea. It’s become a more or less permanent condition with relapses into good health. You launch into your day’s interminable errands and travels with a map of acceptable bathrooms securely in mind. You break up the taxi rides. You plan on places to sit and allow the intestines to compose themselves. You start the day with mineral water, and superstitiously taste everything you plan on ingesting, testing for a twinge in the gut that may caution you.

The hode chigirs do not help your attitude in dealing with the hordes of crazies and beggars you will face. Today, it’s a man with hides of small animals over his shoulder and a walking stick. “No money,” you say as a reflex to his approach on your periphery. He laughs and begins to shout. He shouts at passing cars about you. He follows alongside and harangues with a great smile. Eventually, he tangles with a taxi at the roadside. It runs over his stick, and you make your getaway. Yesterday, it’s the boy of about sixteen who follows you all the length of your walk toward home, chattering good-naturedly about “No mother, no father,” and how he arrived from Shashemene recently. “My big problem, my big problem is clotheses. Clotheses. You buy nice clotheses for me. God gives me small,” he says cryptically. You are stuck with him because you’ve begun to cross a wide field, intending to enjoy the nice day. Your lower intestine has quieted, and you think you might make it home okay. God knows, a long walk can be easier to handle than the jostling of the taxi. You are regaled for almost an hour about the state of the young lad’s clothes. On the other side, you make a detour and duck into a hotel where you know security will stop him.

There’s a philosopher on the taxi today. He’s in terribly frayed clothes. His hands are rough and dirty. He says hello. “How are you?” you reply. He seems to take the question quite seriously. He rambles on in answer, but his English is so broken, you can’t make it out. Something about the system and challenges and work. “It’s hard,” you venture, that being a safe reply to most any comment from an Ethiopian. He carries on. The theme is definitely “challenges.” “It’s a challenge,” you say. He heartily concurs. Amid the next strophe, you hear “work.” “It’s good to work,” you essay. This doesn’t go down so well. He has some words about that. And suddenly, he’s speaking clearly. “In this system,” he says, “work is dangerous. For the man outside, in nature, work is necessary. Yes.” He descends into obscurity. Something about psychology. More about the system. He sinks into a sullen spell. Before your stop, he emerges from his reverie to ask your name. You answer; he falls still.

The hodes all seem in working order at the concert last weekend. There are lots of faranji sitting peacefully. It’s a benefit. A German NGO has flown down four mop-top cellists for the occasion. They have worked up a program with the university’s music program. Apparently, many of these students had never seen their instruments before they arrived at the university. They handle themselves just fine. Some of them form a choir with beautiful voices. They perform simple songs about Jesus. The mop-tops, after a first set of classical pieces, play some American jazz standards and Michael Jackson. “Michael Jackson in a church!” Sophia and her friend marvel. It’s a German church, so I figure God understands.

Before the show, I need to make my safety trip to the restroom. I ask an Abasha lady at the ticket table where they are. She asks me, “German or English?” I tell her whichever one flushes. No one finds that funny. She explains, “Actually, I was asking so that, etc.” The musicians are meandering about the yard, practicing. The sky is rosy with the sunset. The men’s room is marked with a picture of John Kerry shielding his eyes. Somehow, again, it all makes perfect sense.

Travelogue 64 – February 25
When the Lions Lie Down With the Bugs

It rained again last night. We had a long stretch of beautiful, sunny days that became increasingly hot and oppressive and hazy, so the hills were like mist. Then the clouds started coming. They arrive in the afternoon. When you wake, the sun is streaming your window, like it has for weeks. About noon, the first clouds appear, white and harmless. By four, a grey mass of them is hanging over the mountains, and with darkness comes the lightning.

I leave the house during rush hour in the morning, while the sun is bright and cheerful. The big dirt roads are peopled with the workers, walking to the asphalt road, where they’ll catch their taxis. An old woman shouts, “Bene!” Many of the elderly here are proud of their Italian. The kids find me and crowd around. They know my name. A while ago, I graduated from “faranj” to “faranju” in my neighborhood: THE faranj. Then my name leaked, and the children shout “Dana!” When they see me at the end of the block, and run to mob me and giggle and ask for cookies.

I don’t mind kids. They grow on you. The other day, I went to the school to take pictures of our kindergarteners. I wanted individual shots, so someday I can “sell” them back home, get them sponsorships for later education. These ones also like to mob me. And they know my name now, too. There, I’ve graduated from “Mister.” I tickle them. I toss a couple of them on the slide. I turn a couple upside down. Kids like this sort of thing. The teacher establishes order. I test the camera. This isn’t the first time I’ve come by on this mission. Last time, my new camera refused to work. I have to resort to the old one I left here last year, the one you have to tape shut once the film is in. The spirit of this place is strong. It invades foreign machinery. It isn’t happy until there’s a bit of chaos and improvisation to the simplest activity. We have a good laugh at the kids as they come up in single-file to pose. They aren’t used to it. “Smile,” I say. “Saki,” the teacher says, and they form charming little grins, thinking about saki.

I pay homage to our poor pet sheep in the back. This sheep was a gift from the board, sent via some agency that sends congratulations from afar, with a live sheep, cakes and flowers. I fought for the school pet idea, but it was a lost cause. His skin hangs on the back wall now. Apparently, he made for a good lunch for the school one special day. I lay a twig of grass below the hide, and reflect how he did, after all, have a shabby coat.

I went to see the lions the other day. I was in the neighborhood, waiting for a concert, so I ventured in. They reside in a small zoo, right by the university, down the hill from our school – the lion zoo. They’re the only animals in this little urban complex. They live in a circle of concrete, in wedge-shaped cages, a mom and dad per wedge. The cubs live in a separate facility. The ladies pace back and forth; the men hold their manes high. Or the two of them lie on their sides at the back of their condos. It wouldn’t be Ethiopia if someone weren’t at your elbow asking for money. In this case, it’s one or two of the staff photographers. Most of the Abasha are game. They pose in front of the sneering lions. I try to get away, find some peace with the kings and queens. They are huge. Their tawny hides are sleek and beautiful. They look down their wide noses at me, as they should. “Stranger,” they say. “Commoner.” The head photographer is shouting at us. “Nu, nu, lijjoch!” Come on, kids, he’s saying. It’s closing time. I sigh. The royalty looks away haughtily. I’m off to the concert, which I’ll describe next time.

Travelogue 63 – February 15
Conversation

Until you know a little of the language, you’re amazed at the stream of verbiage between acquaintances and friends in the street. They launch themselves at each other, kiss cheeks or shake hands and embrace, and release upon each other a cascade of words. The warmth is genuine, and wonderful to see. One American passing another may say, “Hey,” and the other, “What’s new?” If it’s been a while, they may stop. A few condensed items of news, and then they shove off. Here is a people, you think, who knows how to converse. A few months of language, and you realize the conversation runs something like this: “How are you? How’s everything? Is everything well? Are you well? How are you? Are you well? How’s work? How are you? Is everything all right? How’s the family? How are you? Are you well? You disappeared. How are you?” Maybe an occasional answer, like, “I’m well, thank God. How are you? Are you fine? Is everything fine? How are you? Okay. Okay.”

Putting two and two together, you solve the cell phone quandary. E.g., it’s the weekend and a couple enters the café. They sit together in silence, clutching cell phones. One rings, and he or she jumps on it. Such sudden animation: “How are you? Are you well? Is everything fine? How are you? Where have you been? How are you? Are you fine?” The partner soon gets his/her chance. After a few cellular conversations, they pay up and leave. You realize that everyone on the other end of the line is at some other café, desperate for “conversation.” There are only so many how-are-you’s you can exchange with a spouse with any real enjoyment.

My landlord and I emerge at the same late hour in the morning, a coincidence I do my best to avoid. He offers me a ride. I know I’ll end up somewhere far from my destination, but it’s a gesture so magnanimous here it’s difficult to refuse. This should be an interesting guy to speak to. He runs a hotel in Kasanchis, a neighborhood known for its seedy hotels. He works strange hours. He looks like a gruff capitalist, with a protruding belly and heavy brow. Apparently, he has a good sense of humor, despite the stormy countenance, because he always makes the servant girls giggle. With me, he’s got one topic. “Did you forget what I asked you to do?” he begins as we pull away from home, in a tone to match the J.P. Morgan stare. I sigh. Ever since I brought Jack home, he wants Jack’s twin. I’ve told him in a variety of ways that Jack was a chance deal. I’ve seen the shepherd boys now and again, but they’ve had nothing to match Jack for cuteness. And it’s only occasionally I see them. This time, J.P. tells me the circumstances behind this obsession. He had a cute puppy once. The vet gave him a solution for fleas that basically sizzled the poor animal alive. “My God, did you go after this vet?” “Yes, I was very annoyed.” “Right. I think I would be annoyed, too.”

The cell rings. He picks it up, stony stare on the road. He growls in Amharic, “Yes? Hello. How are you? Are you well? What’s new? Where have you been? You disappeared. How are you? How’s work? Are you well? What’s up? What’s going on? How are you? You’re fine? Everything’s fine? How are you?” I watch the road, and the strange dance they call driving here. On large, asphalt roads, traffic resolves into three “lanes,” weaving in an ancient braiding pattern. The next time we drift to the curb side, I tell him this is fine. I can catch a taxi. He slows and stops. “How are you? How’s it going? What’s happening?” he continues as I disembark.

It’s pineapple season. I didn’t realize pineapples had a season, but here they are all of a sudden, piled high in wheelbarrows pushed around town by venders. For twenty cents, the guy will slice a bit off for you. Delicious. I’m transported by the taste into a sunny mood to match the skies.

Speaking of dogs, Jack’s latest trick: she’s in the well-known fabric stage of growth. She yearns for fabric to sink her teeth into. We grab opposing ends of a rag and I swing her around as she growls. It’s great fun, particularly when she lets go and is sent sprawling across the tile floor. She bounds right back again, flattening her ears and yanking that rag back and forth for all she’s worth.

Travelogue 62 – February 11
A Thin Line

The Marley wave has just about passed. There are still some scruffy faranji wandering about town. Some appear frighteningly blissful. Some have reached the stage of forcing their smiles. No doubt some of them are returning from Shashemene, where there was supposed to be the party to end all parties. I still get shouts from street kids of “Ya, Rasta!” There’s still an excess of reggae on the radio. I would have thought I’d be grateful for the break from Abasha pop. But I’m eager for the wave to finally pass.

There are some truly ugly aftershocks from the whole affair. A day or two after the concert, I go to a café. A couple of Germans have bullied their way into conducting a video interview there, taking up half the place. Our subjects are a couple “Rastas” from somewhere – France? Brazil? Portugal? I’m not close enough to tell. It’s a mother and daughter. The mother has some fraction of African blood. The daughter is about as white as can be, with rosy cheeks and clean, neatly braided dreads. They’re dressed in beautiful gowns a la Africa, straight from the boutique downtown wherever they live, perfectly pressed. The college-age girl beams, starry eyes and gleaming teeth. The two sing a cute duet, some homespun, sunshine song about moving mountains with good cheer.

Not all was in poor taste this Marley season. By the night before the concert, Meskel Square was looking sharp. The trees on the hill behind the stadium – a very wide bowl with many shallow steps, topped by an old stone wall to what must have been a palace once and now is a museum – the trees are lit green, an appropriate color for an affair of this sort, I think. The wall itself has a line of blue lights attached. The steps have been decorated with fancy street lamps with multiple lights in white globes. Hundreds of people mill about the night before, pleased with the transformation. It feels like Christmas Eve.

And the concert? When I ask Sergio about it the next day, his reply is, “Merda.” He was fine, though. He got to shake Bob’s mother’s hand as they wheeled her out. I stopped by for five minutes or so. It seems the usual concert fare: impressive for a moment, with its sea of humanity, the boom and echo of the music, the festive spirit in costumes, banners and smiles; banal for the remaining moments, when boom and echo is all you get, and the festive spirit becomes the mercantile spirit. You watch the tiny figure strut back and forth on stage. He shouts, “Are you ready?” a half dozen times. The Abasha in the back row practice their characteristic mirth that’s simultaneously for and against you. I’m never prouder of them. I walk away from the event with a shrug. How do you measure a thing like this? Horribly self-serving? Maybe, but it brings in tourism and money for Ethiopia.

Not long after, I’m trooping around Addis with my own video man in tow. I’m preparing a video presentation for marketing the school when I get back to America (see tesfa.org). We’ve taken a group of kids out of school, and we’re tramping around their neighborhood, visiting their homes. It’s another gorgeous day. We walk under brilliant skies. And this neighborhood, so poor, is so pretty, nestled in wooded hills. We arrive at the first house, of mud and grass. The boy’s feeble grandmother invites us in. She kisses my hand. There’s one room for all the family, with a dirt-floor and one old bed. Pots and pans litter one corner of the floor. Cheap poster representations of Jesus and Mary hang from the walls. She has us sit on low, crude benches covered with threadbare cloth. The video man’s assistant sets up the glaring light. The video guy focuses, gives us a cue. He pushes the big, black lens forward. The old woman blinks meekly. After the interview, the video man takes long, sweeping shots of the dark, little house. The grandmother stands by, rubbing her hands together. I feel ashamed. I leave her with a little money, and she kisses my hand again. I feel more ashamed. It’s all for the good, I tell myself, to little effect.

Travelogue 61 – February 3
No Faranji, No Cry

There’s a sudden influx of the hip and grubby. Sunday launches a series of events in honor of Bob Marley’s 60th birthday, starting with a concert featuring every branch and twig of the Marley tree. There’s been talk of a soccer game between the national team and a cast of European stars. There are Marleys in taxi windows and on restaurant gates. There has been reggae on the radio. I didn’t know reggae could be cheesy, but I’ve heard a whole slate of sentimental tribute songs to Bob. Rita, his widow, has recorded a radio ad with lots of forced enthusiasm and wows. “Come on down, Ethiopia!” Quick crops of young, grinning faranji, many with less-than-flattering knit bags blossoming from the back of their heads, with the insouciant shuffles, with the studiously casual hello’s, are met with renewed light in the eyes of every merchant, peddler, and beggar. The taxi drivers are in heat. They slow on busy avenues beside me. They shout, “Mister!”

Sergio is here for the events. I met him at a hotel where I’m watching Chelsea-Birmingham. He’s ended up here somehow, probably a deal between the manager and the taxi driver. He came alone to Ethiopia on a whim and doesn’t know anything about it. He’s faranji; he seems friendly, so I approach him. He doesn’t speak much English, and I quickly discover how much Italian I’ve forgotten, but we manage a conversation. I tell him he could do better for a hotel. They’re charging too much. Sergio isn’t a Rasta, but he says he’s an anarchist. I think that counts. He’s a plumber in Abruzzo. He likes music. I guess the anarchy thing is why he isn’t impressed when I denounce Bush, usually a standard how-do-you-do with Western Europeans.

The next day, I pick him up and take him to the old Debre Damo, my alma mater. I happily make the rounds, greeting the staff. I take him on a short tour of this side of Addis. We stop at Meskel Square, the site of the concert. There must be some money in memorializing dreadlocks and revolution because they’re giving the old plaza a face lift, tearing up asphalt and laying what looks like Minnesota limestone, erecting European style wrought iron lamps at the base of the earthen steps of the amphitheatre. They’ve blocked off half the crazy fifteen-lane road crossing the square to construct a stage. I’m not sure whether it’s fitting or ironic that Meskel Square is still known as “Abyiot,” or Revolution, from the days when the Communist dictator of the Eighties would convene the People for annual harangues.

One night, we tour some night spots that showcase Ethiopian culture. In truth, they’re just expensive bars with lounge-act versions of tribal dances and music. Men and women rush in, garbed in idealized historical dress and jump around in tightly choreographed steps that I’m sure someone in the country would barely recognize. We meet and sit with another Italian, a Moroccan who speaks Italian, and a dark-skinned, intense Eritrean with a scar over one eye who speaks everyone else’s language. I’m left far behind in conversation, but it’s fun. Sergio eyes his compatriot suspiciously. He’s a lawyer; he’s handsome. He pulls out a video camera to record us dining from the mosob, which is the traditional, woven platform for eating, shaped like a fat hourglass. On top is a broad piece of injera with various meat sauces. One is raw meat, and I worry about my perpetually troubled stomach. We discuss driving south to Shashemene, some half a day’s drive south of Addis, by all accounts a dump, but the site of the Jamaican settlement, on land I believe was granted by said Communist dictator. Trying to function in three languages is dizzying. I head home early.

I’m reeling from another trauma, anyway. I found out Jack is a girl. I’d never really bothered to examine her genitals carefully, following a code of honor among men. I saw something hanging, so fine. But as she’s grown, people have made comments. I finally had to have that awkward confrontation with her. It’s a terrible kind of intimacy, this kind of conference between roommates. I turn her over in my lap and take a closer look. She doesn’t seem to mind too much. Sure enough, that is no penis. It’s difficult. I don’t know how to talk to her anymore. And rough-housing just isn’t the same. I’m sure it will all work out in time, but it’s a shock.

Travelogue 60 – January 24
L’Dabbo

The day after Temket happens to be Eid-al-Adha this year. The muezzin across the street warbles with more enthusiasm, if no more talent. As a bonus, they mike the prayer, making the whole thing sound about as sophisticated as my kindergarteners when they march around the courtyard arm in arm, singing some nursery ditty over and over. Somewhere, Mohammed is cringing.

As they do around any holiday, the beggars swarm. You see it in the monthly cycle at the churches. Almost every day has a patron saint. They gather in front of the church corresponding to the saint whose day is celebrated, along with peddlers. They lay out blankets and pet their babies, wave their hands pathetically for money, send their toddlers out to follow passers-by.

My heart sinks when I return home that afternoon, and see the horde in front of my gate. I steel myself for running the gauntlet. I hear, “Faranj, faranj,” like a whispered wind among grass. They start to circle, putting on their most tragic demeanors. I’m reminded of a zombie movie. Most are garbed in country rags, like burlap, all following a three-color scheme: mud, moss, and midnight purple. Most women have the traditional hairstyle of tight braids on top, abandoned halfway down to leave a kind of frizzy shelf on the back of the head. They all have a baby in a blanket on their backs, like part of a beggar’s kit.

It’s no big deal. You have to figure that, on any given day, I probably interact with far more beggars than anyone else, -- students, friends, co-workers, servant, -- by a huge factor. It’s a consequence of my decision to stay “on the street.” So after a cumulative six plus months in Ethiopia, I have my defenses in place. I wade through and knock on the gate. They swarm while I wait.

You never get comfortable with them. A moralist would say “good,” but then I wonder is it isn’t the moralist who would become the cruelest in practice, overwhelmed by the scale. It does funny things to you. Despite yourself, you become a tyrant. On bad days, you find yourself stopping and staring down an old man in tatters with a small boy on his shoulders. A moment later, you may give to a grown, healthy man out of guilt. You make up systems: “I’ll just give to children because they’re the most needy.” Maybe it’s old people. Maybe it’s the disabled. If you’re honest, you’ll admit the rules are arbitrary and calculated to salvage some impression of yourself as thoughtful and good-hearted.

As near as I can tell, the Abasha give as the appeal coincides with sentiment. They aren’t mobbed the way faranji are, of course, but they get their chances. I believe a lot of giving is motivated by religion, something I’ve begun to take a dim view of, since it fetishizes the poor, making them convenient opportunities for scoring points toward heaven. Poverty becomes part of God’s plan. I’m not sure it doesn’t make the beggars themselves complacent. I don’t blame anyone. There are no options. But I wonder if the culture doesn’t explain itself too neatly.

Some of you have asked about Jack. He’s growing fast, a little too quickly in the gut, I’d say. No matter how sparing I try to be with food, the servant comes along and spoils him. He’s turning into a little butterball. After she’s washed and fed him, he’s like a butterscotch ball of fur scooting around underfoot on his stubby legs, looking for something to chew on. He does a dance when I eat. He’s gotten good at balancing on his hind paws. He pricks up his ears and stares with eager, round eyes, and I have little choice but to toss him a piece of injera. He’s all Abasha. He likes the spongy bread. We sing “Allahu Jackbar” with the muezzin.

Notice: in a few weeks, I finally head out of town, for a trip to eastern Ethiopia, to Harar!

Travelogue 59 – January 18
One Year

Today is one year since my first arrival in Addis Ababa. It was a lovely day, warm with high, white clouds. I strolled all around my corner of town. Here are the day’s favorites sights.

I stopped in one fashionable café in Bole to do some writing, the Café Paradiso. The conversation behind me, half on cell phones, half between the two men sitting there, moves seamlessly between Italian and Amharic. I’m enjoying listening. I enjoy looking, too. They look like “half-castes,” as they like to call themselves here: half Italian and half Abasha. There are quite a few of those. Many of the Italian places in town are owned and operated by them. There’s a restaurant in Bole called San Remo where the mama cooking looks like she should be sitting on a park bench in Roma. Her son is John Turturro with extra melanin. Anyway, these two are fun to observe. The larger of the two is Mafia, I’m sure. He’s dressed immaculately in a black suit. He has curly, greased hair. His eyes are light brown, his face kind of leonine. He chain smokes. He even has that patented, Mafia, nonchalant shrug inside his clothes. It’s a chic place. He seems to know everyone of importance coming in. Important Abasha dress like Americans, down to the polo shirts and sneakers; it’s strange. I turn to speak to these two, though I know it’s at risk of my miserable existence. They confirm they’re “half-castes.” The big guy has a charming smile, and he indulges my conversation briefly. The smaller guy is friendly. He runs another café in town, and was co-founder of one of the nightclubs. After I admit I’ve been to Roma, and admit it’s the greatest town in the world when the big guy presses me on the point, the latter loses interest. When I ask what he’s doing in town, he evades the question. He’s getting a sour look on his face. I know I’m pushing my luck, so I bow out of the conversation.

On my out, I say hello to the security guard in the parking lot. I like security guards here. Often, they’re older men. They’re very respectful, and very happy when you say hello. They start up out of their chairs and hold up both hands. This one salutes. Is it because I’m American? I look anything but military now. My lady friends here like my hair and refuse to let me cut it. I figure it’s worth looking shaggy to get petted once in a while.

I get a different salute a few blocks down. A barefoot man in a tattered sports coat and shorts gives me a big, yellow grin and greets me, “Hello.” He holds up a condom and says, “Good!” And the ubiquitous thumb’s up -- it’s hell being an American abroad. I continue down the road. Another man, in an even more tattered coat, is running alongside the road, brandishing a stick like the shepherds do as they run alongside their sheep. But there are no sheep. He shouts and waves his stick, and I realize he’s herding the cars. A few more blocks, and there are sheep. I’m treated to one of my favorite spectacles: sheep being herded across a pedestrian bridge. It’s a sublime and ludicrous sight – all the little legs going as they climb the stairs, the tight clump of them crossing above the road, all with forlorn faces.

As evening approaches, I’m having a beer outdoors. A small parade comes creeping along the street. It’s religious; there are people singing and chanting. I ask the hotel staff. They tell me it’s Temket. It starts today. Temket is Epiphany, the day Jesus got baptized. It’s one of Ethiopian Christians’ biggest holidays. Every church in town breaks out their “tabot,” or facsimile of the Ten Commandments, and a priest carries it on his head all the way to a field on the north side of town, not far from our school. Tomorrow, the priests will gather together, all the tabots on their heads. There is lots of dancing and singing and baptizing going on. I was there last year. Sure enough, there he is, among the crowd, the priest in sumptuous gowns and the tabot swathed in colorful cloths on his head, so it looks like he’s wearing an elaborate headdress. His companions hold up colorful umbrellas. Ahead of him, a couple people are carrying a cheesy, Orthodox print of the Madonna, sheltering it with the beautiful umbrellas. It takes them about twenty minutes just to pass the hotel, and they have a long way to go. They’ll be walking all night. No one can tell me what the tabot has to do with Jesus getting baptized, but it makes for a beautiful ceremony.

Travelogue 58 – January 12
Sightings

I forgot to report that I saw my first hyena a few weeks ago. It was one night when I was walking back from class. Heading down the Ring Road, (otherwise known as the “China Road” because the Chinese built it,) between Bole and Gurgi, I pass one of those crazy fields. This is where I saw him, just a flash of his wide, hairy back as he scurried down a drainage ditch that crosses under the road. He was a big one, more small bear than big dog. I had heard that hyenas roam the streets at night. Supposedly they can be dangerous, but will most likely run before fight. The big, persistent ones, the cops will hunt. If he’s killed, someone will skin him before the night is up to make a triumphal cloak of his hide.

That’s the field that’s closest to home, through which one of the city’s sad rivers wends its oily way. An Addis Ababa river: narrow, stinky, piled high on its banks with trash, its water black and bubbling or a sickly, detergent blue-green. Some farmers have squatted in the field, having dug a rudimentary irrigation system from the river. Presently, you can see haystacks out there, and men digging and cutting down plants. The watermelon men have an outpost near the road. It looks like a little dugout or stockade. They’ve piled the watermelons like sandbags and thrown up a tarp canopy overhead. I’ve passed them at 5:30 am, running. They sleep beside their precious commodity.

That’s the field where I spot the ibises gathered around the muddy pools of irrigated river water. They are a spooky looking bird. I understand why they took on mystic significance for the ancient Egyptians. Their god Thoth, has an ibis head. He’s the god of history and writing, as I recall, the record-keeper. They’re big birds with white bodies and black markings. In particular, their heads are black. They have tiny, beady eyes that you can’t see from a distance against the black of their heads. Their bills are long and curve downward. They have a distinct call when they fly.

I saw Sanbat the other day, the homeless girl I saw so often last spring. I didn’t recognize her at first. The country families gather at the same spots around the city. When the ragged little children run after me, I barely notice anymore. This one was persistent. I looked closely and asked her name. She’s grown taller. Her face is longer. The sunny smile has faded a bit. She’s grown some hair, though it’s still short. She’s lost or outgrown the felt dress. She’s in a scruffy sweatshirt now, and a colorless old skirt. I ask her what she wants in my rough Amharic. She just says, “Dabbo.” Bread. She shows something of her old elfin charm. I used to carry bread for her. Today, I have to settle for giving money. There’s no reason I should feel good that she remembered me. I’m faranj; I stand out; her reasons for remembering me aren’t the noblest. But I do feel good. And melancholy: when one of them gets a name, she has a future.

In the same neighborhood, I saw one of the Pentes from Sami’s café. He remembers me. He wants to walk along with me a ways. “Last year,” he says, “you come in the morning. You eat and eat and you read. Every day you read.” Yeah, that’s me. I can’t remember his name. “I like to read. I read English stories,” he says. But I remember him. He told me all this and more last year. He likes to write stories. He wanted to show me pictures of his dad, who apparently was a high official in Haile’s time, and then disappeared into America. He has found him through some web site. Some day, he had said, he’ll write to him. Today, he’s waiting for a visit from his uncle and aunt. He’s been waiting all day. Are they coming from far away, I ask. He names a neighborhood that’s two taxis away. Okay, he says, and heads back to wait.

Travelogue 57 – January 6
Bugs in Heaven

As Ethiopian Christmas approaches, there’s the familiar rush for livestock. You see truckloads of sheep coasting by, and the men of the house walking home with live chickens dangling by their legs from either hand. There will be a mass bloodletting tonight or tomorrow, and many souls of innocent sheep will be drifting toward their cousins, the woolly clouds. Except, there haven’t been clouds sighted over Addis in nearly a week. It’s going to be a hot Christmas. With each passing day, the haze thickens. Some of it is the morning smoke from household trash fires. You can smell them when you get up. The haze has become so dense that when you approach the hills, they emerge from the glaring haze, looking like some medieval Chinese print.

Both my Christmas and New Year’s, by the European calendar, I spent in the offices of Fortune Newspaper. It’s the largest English newspaper in circulation here. There are a few of them, believe it or not, but when I say largest, it’s like comparing a gnat to an ant. I believe total circulation of all newspapers here, Amharic or English is about 200,000 per week. This place is not conducive to print media. Costs are prohibitive; literacy is low; no language is universal enough in the country; and even the 25 cents or so for the newspaper can be a lot for most people. Anyway, there I was, working as an editor for the business weekly. Right: I know. If they only knew who they had taken on to edit business news, circulation would drop immediately.

I’m doing a favor for this Brit who is their regular editor. He wanted to go home for the holidays. He wanted to see his kids. And his wife had to get her shrapnel checked out. It seems that some time around last Easter they went to a café and a disgruntled ex-military man came in with a grenade. He pulled the pin next very close to them. Four people died. She took some metal in the leg and rump. He got away with a few pieces in his leather jacket. Their friend just about lost his liver, and his life.

So I enter the trenches for him. Looking back, I’m not sure I wouldn’t have rather taken the shrapnel. Nowhere is the newspaper business known for tidiness and efficiency, of course, but now I have seen true chaos. The second weekend in particular is the nightmare. When I report in on Friday morning, I’m informed that we have to try to finish preparing the paper today, because our slot at the one state-owned printing press that handles all orders for major newspapers is early. Usually Friday is about twelve hours of work, and Saturday sixteen, (it’s a Sunday paper,) so I’m wondering how this will be managed. I needn’t have worried, because it wasn’t managed at all. Items drifted in during the day Friday —if anything, at a slower pace than normal. By evening, I’m nearly alone in the building. The owner has run off to the gala at the Sheraton. There’s one responsible editor left, Baharu, a conscientious young man who hasn’t been there long. He begs me to stay and keep working. I do, a little while.

My decision to leave the previous evening is justified the next morning, when I see there was nothing new turned in after I left. Baharu is haggard and upset. So upset, he walks out. The other editors come in at about ten, the owner after that. I get an item here, an item there. By four, Saturday afternoon, I’ve edited four news stories. I decide to question the owner. He’s an interesting man, young and dynamic, ready with a rational and convincing line of discourse about journalism. He founded the newspaper and has led it for ten years. I don’t get far into my query. When he hears I’ve seen four news stories, he runs screaming out of the office. He stops in every room in the building, yelling. After a lengthy and vitriolic series of insults, another editor gets canned. Within a half hour, the building is teeming. The owner runs with stories he’s found off the internet. Writers are improvising right up until midnight. I’m flooded with work for a while. But by 1am, it’s slowed down. One writer is still going. Proofs are coming infrequently. I’m exhausted and disgusted. I exit for a long walk home. Fortune, I notice, is the last paper out on Sunday.

Did I mention that the nights have been very chilly? I made the mistake of telling my new servant that I’d like my blankets cleaned some time. When I arrived home Friday night, there wasn’t a blanket to be found. I got a few hours sleep, fully clothed. Saturday night, the night of the newspaper debacle, ditto. Fa-la-la-la-la….

Travelogue 56 – December 29
A Visit to the Vet, or Surviving the Cure

I come home in the afternoon and Jack is lying in a pool of saliva. He’s foaming at the mouth, his eyes are rolling, he’s shivering. I think he’s a goner. In desperation, I run to the shop down the street to call Sophia. She quickly confers with someone on her side and comes back with a phone number.

The vet on the line asks a few terse questions about symptoms. He asks where I am and if I have a car. I don’t. He says, “Be at Topview in twenty minutes.” Topview the restaurant? Yes, that’s right. He rings off. Okay. I run back and stuff Jack into a bag. Out again and down to the end of the block where I hail a taxi. It’s a quick drive to the Magananya neighborhood, and then up the steep hill to Topview. We get out and stand there, a bit foolishly, at the entrance to the parking lot. A gang of local kids takes up the chant of “money” across the street, seeing faranj. The security guard keeps them at bay. I sit on a low concrete border by the road, looking at Topview’s view. It’s a gorgeous one at this time of day. Almost the whole city spreads itself below, across its geographic bowl. A few high, billowing clouds hang above the mountains, catching the white afternoon sunshine, breaking it into long, translucent rays. Jack staggers out of his bag and teeters along the wide concrete strip we sit on. He slowly wheels over onto his butt and over into the bushes in what I had taken for a shallow planter. He disappears and squeals all the way down the side of the wall, which turns out to be about six feet high. I and one of the money kids run around the wall and down the hill. I hold back the thorny bush while the boy reaches in for Jack. Back in my hand, the poor pup rolls sad eyes up into mine and whimpers.

Eventually, a man in a dark suit and shades pulls up in his jeep. He glances left and right before making shaded eye contact. He smiles wryly at the sight of us. He nods discreetly and pulls into the parking lot. There, he walks briskly to the back of his jeep and opens it up, opening the black bag stowed there and withdrawing tools of the trade. His gaze roves this way and that as he questions me again. He nods at the answers, begins preparing medicines. “Where are you from?” I admit America, knowing full well it’s a question about his fee. Quickly glancing around the empty parking lot again, he tells me he was trained in Cuba. With deft fingers, he readies a needle-less syringe and picks Jack up around the collar. He squeezes out some brown solution down his throat. Jack gags. The vet puts him down on a narrow shelf, says, “Worms.” Now he puts the needle on and picks Jack up. He jabs him in back of the leg, and Jack barks, with his little muzzle wide open. The poor pup begins to squirt blood. The vet tells me irritably I’ve got to hold him. He mops up blood, and then we try again. I hold him around the neck, so small it fits neatly in the circle of forefinger and thumb. First, the vet has to sterilize the new wound. More desperate crying. Then, the shot, and it seems like Jack will never stop barking in pain. Briskly, the man prepares another solution to go down Jack’s throat in the morning. He glances furtively around us and hands me a business card. “Call, I’ll meet you.” He jumps in the jeep, and he’s off.

Jack and I walk home. By this time the sun’s farflung light is becoming yellow and pink. It illuminates the bottoms of the clouds. With Jack in my arms, his head sticking out of the bag, I stroll down the hill to strains of “Money,” down to the roundabout, where the taxis race by, down the new asphalt road. Along the sidewalk, I pass the old men sitting like sages by the sidewalk with blankets spread before them, past the woman selling peanuts and tissues, past the little girl with blank eyes who’s there every day, wrapped in her blanket and making occasional loud appeals for help in her strange, whining voice. Wusha, wusha I hear whispered all around, the word for dog. People smile. “Beautiful dog,” one young man comments in passing.

Travelogue 55 -- December 24
The Game

There’s always something to entertain on an afternoon out in the city, amusing, sordid or anything in between. I’m at the cafe beside the school where I’m teaching a class in the early evening. The usual parade is on, of beggars and students, businessmen and the dirt poor. This is the cafe with the view across the streets into the fields and hills beyond. One use for the field directly across the street is the storage of heavy construction machinery. One big Caterpillar with a big shovel retracted comes whizzing by, and the man who isn’t driving is sitting on top and waving to everyone with a big grin. He winks and mugs; he gives a thumbs-up and waves to us to come along. Everything is a show. Next are the two kids with roller blades. They seem to be trail-blazers here, the first with roller blades. Everyone stares. Maybe that’s because they choose to play on the highway, dodging up and down the middle or the side of the road. And one of them seems to have lost one of blades, so he pushes along on one as though it were a skate board. Next is the elderly British a teacher, who walks by with a young Abasha boy, that is, she walks by until one of the huge table umbrellas at the cafe blows loose in a stiff breeze and smacks her in the head. She bends over onto the ground. No one budges. I run over to check on her. Fortunately, she’s not hurt, just dazed. One or two of the waitresses come and stare at her and go away. When she’s collected herself, she returns to the cafe and lectures the manager. He just smiles. This isn’t a country of civil suits yet. Nor is it one where minor tragedies elicit too much sympathy.

I have some time before class. I walk through Bole, across the field where I found Jack. The shepherds wave a hello and show me another puppy. It’s apparently a relative of Jack’s. When I ask the puppy’s name, they say “Jack.” I’m a little shocked; they don’t know my Jacks’ name. Another strange incident around this little dog. I stop at a cafe in the “Haile” building, as it’s called, built and owned by the famous marathoner, Haile Gebrselassie. It’s quite fashionable, and the haunt of the moneyed classes here. I sit inside, where it’s not too crowded. I’m not there long before shouting and laughing starts up between tables across the room. It seems as though the man at the table nearest me is some mover and shaker. Everyone smiles too much with him. His companion at the table wears too much gold. The party gets up to leave, and I notice one of those “celebrity waves” around the guy, the subtle aura that makes everyone look at him and act awkwardly. When I finally get a look, I realize I’ve been sitting next to Haile himself. As I’ve mentioned before, you’ve got to love a country where a marathoner is a hero.

I came close to attending my first soccer match here. It was the day of the semi-finals in the East Africa Cup. Ethiopia was among the four remaining teams. I was scheduled to meet at the house of a new British acquaintance at 3:00 for a 4:00 game. If he were Abasha, I would have planned for late time, but I showed up on time. He showed up at a quarter to four; we arrived after four. The lines were impossible. Kids were roaming around, either begging for tickets or selling them. We stood in one queue until we realized it was hopeless. I rushed to a hotel where I could watch the game in relative peace. I was happy I didn’t make it into the stadium. Ethiopia played its neighbor, Kenya, and there were fights between players throughout the game. God knows what was happening among the crowd. What could clearly be seen on TV were the fires they were setting to newspapers or something and waving in the air. The game went into extra time, and then was decided by penalty kicks: Ethiopia won. The city went wild. Outside, kids were running around in packs, whooping it up. Screams could be heard from everywhere. Buses and taxis were honking and blinking their lights. Firecrackers were exploding here and there. On TV, they broadcast the winning kick over and over. One of their venerable old singers sang on the field, and all the crowd joined in. And that was just a semi-finals match!

Travelogue 54 – December 19
Life Has to Be Let Go

Does anyone know of a muezzin school? I’m considering offering a scholarship to the guy across the street, the one who does the call at 5:30am. I’ve gotten used to the time; in fact, I find it useful on days I want to run, because that’s the hour I go. But this guy, the way he groans and applies his nursery song sensibility to the fourteen-hundred year-old summons makes everyone who answers look faintly stupid. This is the religion I found beautiful in Istanbul and Egypt? Every once in a while they get in a guest cantor, and I’m reminded of the dignity and haunting appeal.

Hiwot means life in Amharic. Hiwot is the name of a girl. She’s sixteen; she’s got a pretty face, an easy smile. She arrives one night in a flurry of activity and anxiety. “What are we going to feed her?” Sophia asks. “What do you mean?” I ask. “I thought this works the other way around.” Sophia’s brother found me a servant, and now Sophia’s asking me what I’m going to feed her. They’ve been trying to reach me all day, but I have no cell phone. The poor girl has been waiting around Sophia’s house. All I have at home are bananas, so she gets those, and I go to bed hungry. The next morning, we go to the school, where Saba is going to help her shop, and where we’re going to pick up Jack to bring him home. There’s no time for breakfast. Hiwot is fine; I’m exhausted.

The first signs of trouble come at dinnertime. I’m very ready to be served. She gives me soggy spaghetti and soggy potatoes. “Okay,” I think, “she hasn’t had much time today to get settled in and cook.” She hangs around while I eat, watching and smiling. She asks me about America. Here it comes; my heart sinks. Sure enough, she starts in with the line of questioning about how she can get to America. I shrug and try to choke down my dinner. She wants me to meet her family. I smile wanly and nod, and pull out an old newspaper to stare at.

The next day, I get pasta for breakfast and plain rice for lunch. She continues to smile and watch me. I’m getting spooked. She has to go to the store, so she leaves the house when I do. She tells me more about her family, all in Amharic. I catch half of it and respond in single words. Later, I ask Tsion whether servants are supposed to use the shower and describe when I came home for lunch, how she emerged from the bathroom naked and dripping, reaching for her clothes and smiling. Tsion just laughs and laughs. When I tell Sophia, she just says, “Oh, my God,” over and over. The next day, I hide from Hiwot. She knocks at my door and smiles in the window, and I sign her away. “Later!” Sophia sends her brother over to fire her. He has a frightened look on his face. She just smiles.

Now it’s just me and Jack. I’ve become everything I’ve disdained about pet owners. I’ve taken half a roll of film of him. I baby-talk. I carry on about how cute he is with friends. But the charm is wearing thin. I spend much of my time at home wiping up his pee. He can’t go outside, because the compound’s dogs will eat him. They hover at my door, waiting for their chance. I try to potty-train Jack like a cat. When I go upstairs, he whines. In fact, he whines much of the time. He’s regaining his strength from the weeks growing up in the fields with sparse food. He uses that strength to chew on everything and tear up my papers. I’m missing Hiwot. I’ll eat the pasta; just take care of Jack.

Travelogue 53 – December 13
Kwas and Jack

Ethiopia is hosting a soccer championship for teams from all Africa. I happened to catch the end of Ethiopia’s first game in the tournament, against Burundi. I’ve gotten to be a soccer fan, so I was happy to watch. Of course, I’ve gotten used to European style coverage, where they show minutes and the score, and you can follow along in English or Italian. Here, one of two cameras gamely tracks the ball until it approaches the goal. There, you suddenly see the silver edge of the cameraman’s window. It takes them a couple seconds to switch cameras, during which time you’re not quite sure what happened by the goal. There are a couple of other cameras, actually, the sole responsibility of which are the goalies. Whenever one kicks, you get a long, loving shot of him that includes a few moments of him watching the ball sail, and then watching the game, hands on his hips.

I’ve found a nice afternoon routine for free days. I go back to the athletic fields out behind Gurgi. I believe I wrote about them last spring. To call them athletic fields is visually misleading to a Westerner, who will picture trim, lined, green fields among chain link fences. No, I speak only of function. These are lumpy, trashy, undeveloped lots of land out by the airport. Some of the best runners in town congregate here, along with some decent young soccer players. I should call the game by its true name, igger kwas, (foot ball,) or kwas for short. In the last, golden light of the day, you can see them all out here. The runners are doing drills along trails among brown grasses and so many hillocks that it makes my ankles ache to look at them. The view here is very nice, mountains at one’s back and those alluring, dry hills in the distance, turning purple. Eagles are circling above and whistling. The sun is ready to set over the city. A few games of kwas are going inside rectangles of trampled earth. One is for the big kids in uniforms, and the other for the little ones. The game among the little ones is the wild one. The ball rolls toward me, and I kick it back, right into the cluster of kids sitting on the sideline. The goalie yells at me with a big smile, something along the lines of, “Over here!” I shrug, and continue on to the other side, where I sit on a rock and watch in peace. That’s one beauty about this place: it’s one of the only spots in Ethiopia where I can sit outside and not be pestered. Runners wave politely as they pass. Kwas kids joke about me, but they don’t bother me. A couple bigger guys are playing with the youngsters. The tall, grinning one is good, but he doesn’t hog the ball. He just moves it downfield and passes. The kids bounce it around inexpertly among themselves. Someone gets a good run going the other way. He sends the ball into the legs of one of the sheep that is grazing on isolated clumps of grass near the sidelines. The kids pass again, fighting over possession of the ball far past anything you could reasonably call “out.”

Eventually, as the sun begins to be eclipsed by the southwestern mountain, I get up to go. A trio of shepherds hails me and approaches. I figure it’s money, and I’m not wrong, but they’re offering something for it, a puppy that fits into the palm of my hand. He lies there, on his back, drowsing, tiny paws in the air. He’s a ball of golden fluff, but for a white stripe running up from his nose, between round, black eyes that haven’t been open too long. Well, I fall for it. I pay the $2.50 or so and drop the boy into the outer pocket of my backpack. I’m thinking he could be the school pet. I name him Jack for the time being. He’s very cuddly. The problem with Jack is when you’re not cuddling with him, he raises a heart-breaking whimper and howl until you’re back. I can’t even run to the bathroom without the siren starting up. I think Jack may be another administrative project for Saba. She has a cool and efficient way with my myriad problems.

Travelogue 52 – December 8
Prodigies

“Dance, Sami!” they shout. I’m at the Classic Hotel bar, watching soccer. The Manchester United game is about to begin. We hear him coming, the sound of music from the hallway. He enters, a swaying, dark-skinned man with a radio on his shoulder. “Sami!” they laugh, and they bid him turn it down. He’s drunk, and it takes him a while to be convinced. He makes his rounds, shaking hands and making people laugh. I knew it was just a matter of time until he comes to me. “A white man,” he says, and then he starts up in Spanish. Loudly, he tells me about himself. He studied Spanish in Valencia, he says repeatedly. He lived with a white family. He says he loves white people. “Los negros,” he says disparagingly, “he doesn’t like their mentality. It takes me a while to understand why he’s in Ethiopia. My Spanish isn’t great, and he’s excited to speak it again, so he’s fast. And he’s slurring. He’s here working as a translator. He speaks a number of languages, it seems, including French and English and Ashanti, his native tongue. He’s from Ghana. But I’m more Spanish than Ghanan, he insists. Apparently, he’s even studied ancient Greek. He’s been to Mount Athos. He’s all about Jesus he says. His kids speak Greek. That story is lost on me, somewhere in the Spanish. Five children he may have. At least one is in Topeka, Kansas. Some may be in Thessalonika. “Dance, Sami!” the boys at the bar yell, trying to rescue me. I’m trying to watch the game and listen. Sami turns on his radio and shakes a little out on the floor, but stops, insisting he needs a woman. The boys try to encourage one of the waitresses. He has a tape of Ghanan music. He sets about convincing the boys that he’s from the Ghanan royal family. Apparently, they’ve heard it before and laugh. “Blue blood,” he repeats. It doesn’t seem to translate very directly into Amharic. All of this is conducted in high spirits and high volume, while the rest of the lounge, a Saturday night crowd of relatively staid, middle class Ethiopians, watches mutely. “Dance Ashanti!” They ask him good-naturedly if the Ashanti aren’t kings of all Africa. He has no answer for that, but reverts to what must be his default argument, that black people don’t like him, because he’s more black than white. When they question European colonialism to taunt him, he shouts, “For fourteen hundred years, your deadliest enemy has been the Arabs, and you’re complaining about the Europeans. It’s the Arabs!” At that point, he seems to become conscious of all the eyes upon him, and he hushes us, though he can’t resist whispering again, “Arabs are the bad ones. I love white people.”

It’s been a strange day, another day of exploration. I walked around the neighborhood of Kasanchis in the afternoon, trying to locate a nice restaurant I’d been to in the spring. It’s hot, and I eventually give up, stopping in a little Abasha place. It’s typical, in that it’s deceptively large inside the compound gates. There’s the bar and the pool hall, the patio with some nice tables, and the booths along one compound wall. The regulars glare at me resentfully when I sit, but get over it quickly enough. The gates of the compound are guarded jealously, because this is a poor neighborhood. I’m writing, and ironically, I’m writing about pictures that impress themselves upon the mind and never let go. I see the old man approaching outside the gate. I know he’s looking at me, and I know he’s going to try to enter. I couldn’t see he had a companion, a little boy. When I look again, they’re inside the gate, but hesitating to enter further because the staff is watching them. The boy appeals to me from there. At first glance, it looks as though he’s wearing something on his face, something over one eye. The rest of his face is completely normal. But I realize with a chill that he has some sort of isolated growth out of his skull there. It’s pink and blotchy, about the size of a softball, and my mind doesn’t want to accept it, until he turns and I see the other eye, big and red, blinking against a fly, on the side of the growth. The two are ushered out, and I’m left a little dazed. I’ve seen every sort of twisted, torn, and withered limb here, but this is new. I shut the notebook. Some things take the life out of my little projects.

Travelogue 51 – December 4
Eating Eshet

I’ve been eating eshet for days. Apparently, it’s in season. Suddenly the city is flooded with eshet. Guys from the country walk the streets with piles of it on their heads. At first, I thought it was a big new shipment of ch’at from the east, ch’at being the leaf that is the favorite stimulant in these parts. But ch’at has bigger leaves, and everybody is chewing eshet, not just the bad boys. Eshet is a name for chickpeas. Actually, the more exact term is shimbra, eshet being a general category for raw, unprepared foods. Chickpeas are the raw material for shiro, a soupy, brown sauce that’s universally eaten as “fasting food”. Everywhere, people are sitting around eating chickpeas, picking them right from the stalk. That’s how you do it. You buy a little bundle of the plants, roots, leaves, and all, and you sit down and graze. The plants are of a modest size, growing only a couple feet tall. The leaves are small and similar in shape to locust tree leaves. The peas come in light green pods, from one to three in a pod. These bright green little pods are all over the streets. The chickpeas look like lumpy peas, small and dark green, nothing like what I’m used to calling chickpeas. But they taste good. Yesterday, I’m sitting with my bundle of plants at a new café. It’s a place with a patio that fortunately gets nice morning sun -- that unfortunately overlooks a busy road -- that fortunately, also has a view past the road of the distant hills and the open fields near Bole. People passing on the sidewalk beneath the patio chuckle to see faranj eating eshet. I smile. I wave away the blind man and his begging companion, the old man with blessings, the country girl. A street person strides by happily shouting into a rolled up piece of cardboard that he holds by his ear like a cell phone. He’s laughing and swinging his arms about. The waitresses watch him cheerfully. A truck blows by honking and leaving a billows of black, diesel smoke. A distressed aheya, (donkey) goes crying right out into the street. Somehow he makes it across without getting hit, and without breaking stride. I believe they are magical animals; I’ve seen this miracle before.

I’m exploring the neighborhood. I’m still looking for the cafes where I can sit in the sun. I find another courtyard with tables off the main road. It’s just a square of concrete, half parking lot, half patio, encircled by a bar, a café, and a pool hall. I sit at one table, partially in the shade of its umbrella. I examine the intriguing bit of sculpture in front of the restaurant. It’s standing in the basin of what once must have been a fountain. Inside the basin is pretty blue tile. The sculpture, of plaster or concrete, sits atop a shapeless pile if concrete. It has three interesting figures in the group: to the left is a white woman sitting naked and smiling, pulling a blanket over herself in a kind of dazed and uncertain modesty. Beside her stands a strong Ethiopian woman, gazing into the distance with resolution. Her hair is braided traditionally. She’s garbed in heavy robes. Under one of these robes is a child. All you see of her is her face peeking out shyly. With one hand, the determined black woman shelters the girl. With the other, she holds up a red, metal table umbrella. I’m puzzling over this piece, having given up on being served my coffee, but I’m distracted by the table of giggling young women nearby. I know the giggling is about the faranj. As I pass, they invite me to join them in their lunch of shiro. As it happens, I may like eating eshet, I’m not fond of shiro. I decline. As I’m leaving, one shouts after me that she loves me. I’m just passing a group of men hidden in a leafy alcove. One of them bitterly grumbles, “She loves him.” The others laugh grimly.

I head back toward the hotel where I often dine. The staff knows me and smiles. I read and write at the bar. I try to extract some world news from the confusion of sound coming out of the TV. The set receives several signals at once. But soon, the young man starts up at his keyboard, and the TV has to be muted. This is the latest trend among hotels, the latest notion in luxury here: live lounge music. I sigh and give in to it. Suddenly, it all stops. The place goes dark. It’s a blackout. As they pull out the candles, I gratefully read by the sun’s last light. There’s a small window by my end of the bar. Outside, shadows are settling across the city’s hills, on the forested mountains above, and on the dry hills to the west.