Travelogue 180 – April 6
Shoes and the Cross
It’s Good Friday. Every year, Jesus is nailed to the cross, and every year we celebrate. The churches are loud. The neighbors are loud. They commemorate the event with synchronized moaning. And then, duty done, they crank their Ethio-pop and laugh through the thin walls.
It’s Good Friday. Christ dies miserably again, to rise from the grave in three days. In only two, on Sunday, we will celebrate the resurrection – the point of the drama, if I have understood the gospel.
As if to celebrate the Resurrection symbolically, lyrically, the city is engulfed with choruses of cries of the cockerel. Every family has bought one for the occasion, but the motive isn’t life everlasting but the lusty wring of the neck come Easter and the end of the long fast.
Toward a similar purpose, bands of hawk-eyed shepherds in sandals and long blankets and rude switches have crossed the hills and mountains to enter Addis Ababa behind large flocks of sheep. Tonight they take positions along all major thoroughfares to stand vigil beside their beasts and to haggle with city folk hungry for meat.
A man in a business suit passes you, a parcel of green grass under one arm and a live chicken under the other. He’s grinning with great anticipation, and you wonder what it is about holidays that makes people so happy. The day off work? A day with family? Unconvincing. Food seems the most plausible argument: a resurrection of the senses.
The kite guy returned to Addis for a few days, bringing with him stories of desperate people. He’s been to Chad, where he was determined to reach the refugees from Darfur. It’s not a well-travelled route. He bought one of two astronomically-priced tickets on the market, flew to the capital, crossed the entire nation on a UN plane as a kind of charity hitchhiker. He arrived at the last major town in the east, a place that looked in his photos like scattered mud bunkers among sand and dust and withered, solitary acacias, home to wild men in white and wild men in jeeps with rocket launchers.
He found himself stranded there, behind barbed wire with an odd assortment of fiery Europeans. Among this set, it isn’t ‘how could you have voted for that man?’ It’s ‘why haven’t you killed your president?’ The ‘you’ is personal, and the stare is accusing.
The rest of the trip to the camps proves impossible because of cost and because of time. He ventures out among the local kids. They play a bit rough. They mob cars. They stone him. They swarm over the largest kite when it lands and tear at it with claws and knives.
Here at home, things are tamer. This time through Addis, the kite guy says it feels like Beverly Hills, except the people have manners. I see through his eyes: people are gracious and gentle. The smiles are genuine as they shake your hand. They look at you like children as they struggle with their faded grade-school English.
Last night, we go to a play. It’s a production by Graham’s charity. It’s something written and performed by the teenage sex workers. My Amharic is not up to the task but, with or without language, it’s poignant. It’s a short piece and plot is reduced to a small tableau on the side, where a girl is sick on her couch, attended by her mother. Center stage are the rest of the girls singing together in a series of sad meditations, moving in simple, coordinated lines or circles across the stage, subdued and sincere and almost like church processional. The only dramatic moment is when a man enters in order to push one tender young girl onto the ground. All in all, a beautiful effort. I was touched, anyway. The kite guy was lulled by the darkness and the melancholy voices and the momentary lack of danger into a sleepy daze.
My children in Shiro Meda enter their holiday in new shoes, thanks to Margaret in Minneapolis. Thank, thank you! She sent some money express, concerned that the kids be happy on their holiday, concerned that they have good gear on their feet, but especially concerned that our girls have something pink to wear.
So there they are at our Easter party, beaming in sturdy, blue and pink footwear, lining up to bow to Laura and hand her pages of art they made for her during the week, saying, “Thank you, Miss Laura” – beaming, as I say, like kids will though the occasion is a sad one. It’s still an occasion, still a party, even though it’s time to say good-bye to Laura. She leaves Saturday.
How can they understand? Shoes arrive. They love them. They’re instructed to say thank you. Wonderful people arrive from across the seas. After a few weeks, they’re shouting, “Miss Laura, I love you!” Nobody asks them to. I’m not even sure where they learned the phrase. Then one day, they’re told, “Say good-bye.”
Good-bye, Miss Laura. Thank you for everything you did for us.
Friday, April 06, 2007
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Travelogue 179 – March 29
The Bourne Conveyancy
Dreams are funny. In one, I’m crippled beyond repair in an auto accident, disfigured. I have no hands. In the next, I’m Matt Damon hanging out with his buds. Waking in the morning is neither too consoling nor too disappointing. I’ve got hands, but I’m not Matt Damon. I can tie my shoes, but the ladies are still indifferent. So it goes.
I may not have Damon’s paparazzi at my door, but I still generate some buzz. At the bus station, the shouting wayalas gather around and tug at me. Once I’ve boarded one of their buses, the proud wayala struts away, advertising that he’s got the nich-so on his bus, the white guy. He’s riffing in the brassy, high-pitched rant of these boys who spend a lot of time on the street. He’s making a good joke out of it, and everyone in the van laughs and turns to look at me – though in a kindly way.
It’s a tight fit. A row of broad-shouldered men share the back bench with me. Still the wayala is trolling for more passengers as we bounce along through the southern Addis suburbs. We find one, a young woman who sits in the fold-out aisle seat directly in front of me, pressing back into my knees. I’m wedged in tight for the rest of the trip, which might be a good thing. It might help with motion sickness, which I find almost inevitable on these Ethiopian buses, what with the exhaust that pours into the bus, and what with the Ethiopian superstition against opening car windows. The breeze will give them a cold. Everyone draws curtains against the sun, so we bump along in a sweaty cocoon.
The bus driver is talking to himself. He’s a stout old man who appears to put a lot of muscle into the steering wheel. I can see his round face in the rear-view mirror. He’s put on an Eastwood grimace. He’s narrating a noir tale from his days on the force. The wayala sits after a while. He keeps glancing back at me over his shoulder. He’s trying to come up with a crack about me and regain some of his glory, but seems cramped by the restricted theater.
An older fellow in a green plaid sports jacket is telling stories. He’s turned in his seat so he can address the people behind him. I wonder how he has space to do that. en his neighbor speaks, he listens with a spooky intensity. I think of the kite guy’s observation about Ethiopes.
We’re having beers at the old Hotel Taitu and spinning theories. He says, “Even the Rastas here, they’ll say, ‘Take it easy, man,’ but it’s not, ‘Take it easy, man.’ It’s TAKE IT EASY ... MAN.’ You know?” And he imitates the stare.
I remind him of the long, proud history. I remind him that it’s almost as much a Middle Eastern culture as an African one. I think of the impressive stares of the Arabs, stares that could be visitations of the old souls of warriors who rode for the Caliph. Indeed, they would have to be to justify such a gleam of pride.
We arrive at the outskirts of Debre Zeit. The Addis end of DZ, the west side, is the upscale area, where the town’s nouveau riche can’t put up houses or offices or hotels fast enough. I call out for a stop and somehow dislodge myself. Outside, I stand at the side of the highway, sweaty, woozy. I take a deep breath and straighten my clothes, my knees, my back. I still have my hands. That’s a plus.
I take a seat at the Pyramid Paradise, my preferred hangout in DZ these days. They have a pleasant courtyard, spacious and cultivated with a nice variety of flowers and trees. They have a tasty egg sandwich. I call Saba. We’re supposed to meet at the station but Saba’s always late, and you never hold still in Ethiopia, so I board. Saba says she’s on her way. She’ll be here momentarily.
At the next table sits a local businessman. He has a belligerent look about him, a scowling brow and a heavy bottom lip. He has a mobile phone ear-piece that makes him look even more menacing. It’s 8 a.m. He starts with a beer. Once that is down, he orders a black coffee and adds three spoons of sugar. A few minutes later, he’s off to his day of cracking knuckles.
What is it that makes people happy? Matt Damon just wanted peace on his tropical shore with Run Lola Run. This guy looks like he wants to strike terror into the hearts of peasants – just another backwater tyrant. A Cheney without missiles.
Baboons organize themselves in cozy and violent hierarchies. If it weren’t for the language barrier, Cheney would find a sympathetic community in the hills around the Blue Nile. It sounds like he needs one these days.
I haven’t heard of many baboons that enjoy leisurely strolls in quiet places. I’m obviously one of the failed mutations among primate evolution. When our morning meetings are done, and Saba has left to check on a few things around twon, I opt for the walk along quiet dirt lanes, a chance to scrutinize this resort village that might, if all goes well, become home for the summer.
I like it. It isn’t Damon’s beach town, but it’s something of a paradise for a guy of lesser genetic virtues. Everything is ambling and genial: the clouds, the cows, the old men in green plaid. Even the occasional ‘money’ boy is amiable and shy and unconvincing. There are no crowds to navigate, though a fair share of dust. I find a broad lane that doubles as a gully during the occasional rains, and I aim for the next lazy curve in the road, there beyond the cows hanging their heads, where the shrubs and palms overcome the view of where we’re going.
The Bourne Conveyancy
Dreams are funny. In one, I’m crippled beyond repair in an auto accident, disfigured. I have no hands. In the next, I’m Matt Damon hanging out with his buds. Waking in the morning is neither too consoling nor too disappointing. I’ve got hands, but I’m not Matt Damon. I can tie my shoes, but the ladies are still indifferent. So it goes.
I may not have Damon’s paparazzi at my door, but I still generate some buzz. At the bus station, the shouting wayalas gather around and tug at me. Once I’ve boarded one of their buses, the proud wayala struts away, advertising that he’s got the nich-so on his bus, the white guy. He’s riffing in the brassy, high-pitched rant of these boys who spend a lot of time on the street. He’s making a good joke out of it, and everyone in the van laughs and turns to look at me – though in a kindly way.
It’s a tight fit. A row of broad-shouldered men share the back bench with me. Still the wayala is trolling for more passengers as we bounce along through the southern Addis suburbs. We find one, a young woman who sits in the fold-out aisle seat directly in front of me, pressing back into my knees. I’m wedged in tight for the rest of the trip, which might be a good thing. It might help with motion sickness, which I find almost inevitable on these Ethiopian buses, what with the exhaust that pours into the bus, and what with the Ethiopian superstition against opening car windows. The breeze will give them a cold. Everyone draws curtains against the sun, so we bump along in a sweaty cocoon.
The bus driver is talking to himself. He’s a stout old man who appears to put a lot of muscle into the steering wheel. I can see his round face in the rear-view mirror. He’s put on an Eastwood grimace. He’s narrating a noir tale from his days on the force. The wayala sits after a while. He keeps glancing back at me over his shoulder. He’s trying to come up with a crack about me and regain some of his glory, but seems cramped by the restricted theater.
An older fellow in a green plaid sports jacket is telling stories. He’s turned in his seat so he can address the people behind him. I wonder how he has space to do that. en his neighbor speaks, he listens with a spooky intensity. I think of the kite guy’s observation about Ethiopes.
We’re having beers at the old Hotel Taitu and spinning theories. He says, “Even the Rastas here, they’ll say, ‘Take it easy, man,’ but it’s not, ‘Take it easy, man.’ It’s TAKE IT EASY ... MAN.’ You know?” And he imitates the stare.
I remind him of the long, proud history. I remind him that it’s almost as much a Middle Eastern culture as an African one. I think of the impressive stares of the Arabs, stares that could be visitations of the old souls of warriors who rode for the Caliph. Indeed, they would have to be to justify such a gleam of pride.
We arrive at the outskirts of Debre Zeit. The Addis end of DZ, the west side, is the upscale area, where the town’s nouveau riche can’t put up houses or offices or hotels fast enough. I call out for a stop and somehow dislodge myself. Outside, I stand at the side of the highway, sweaty, woozy. I take a deep breath and straighten my clothes, my knees, my back. I still have my hands. That’s a plus.
I take a seat at the Pyramid Paradise, my preferred hangout in DZ these days. They have a pleasant courtyard, spacious and cultivated with a nice variety of flowers and trees. They have a tasty egg sandwich. I call Saba. We’re supposed to meet at the station but Saba’s always late, and you never hold still in Ethiopia, so I board. Saba says she’s on her way. She’ll be here momentarily.
At the next table sits a local businessman. He has a belligerent look about him, a scowling brow and a heavy bottom lip. He has a mobile phone ear-piece that makes him look even more menacing. It’s 8 a.m. He starts with a beer. Once that is down, he orders a black coffee and adds three spoons of sugar. A few minutes later, he’s off to his day of cracking knuckles.
What is it that makes people happy? Matt Damon just wanted peace on his tropical shore with Run Lola Run. This guy looks like he wants to strike terror into the hearts of peasants – just another backwater tyrant. A Cheney without missiles.
Baboons organize themselves in cozy and violent hierarchies. If it weren’t for the language barrier, Cheney would find a sympathetic community in the hills around the Blue Nile. It sounds like he needs one these days.
I haven’t heard of many baboons that enjoy leisurely strolls in quiet places. I’m obviously one of the failed mutations among primate evolution. When our morning meetings are done, and Saba has left to check on a few things around twon, I opt for the walk along quiet dirt lanes, a chance to scrutinize this resort village that might, if all goes well, become home for the summer.
I like it. It isn’t Damon’s beach town, but it’s something of a paradise for a guy of lesser genetic virtues. Everything is ambling and genial: the clouds, the cows, the old men in green plaid. Even the occasional ‘money’ boy is amiable and shy and unconvincing. There are no crowds to navigate, though a fair share of dust. I find a broad lane that doubles as a gully during the occasional rains, and I aim for the next lazy curve in the road, there beyond the cows hanging their heads, where the shrubs and palms overcome the view of where we’re going.
Friday, March 23, 2007
Travelogue 178 – March 23
The Kite Guy
The spring mini-rains have set in. The timing is almost disastrous. The kite guy has arrived. I’m watching the skies anxiously. Mornings are bright and cheerful, but clouds move in quickly, crowding the heights all day, and getting darker as the afternoon advances, letting loose by 5:00 or so. If kite day follows this pattern, we’ll be okay, getting the kids out in late morning.
The kite guy comes from Minneapolis. He’s friend of a friend, and we met at a party once upon a time. The kite guy has been around the world; he’s worked in Peru and Rome. He’s been in Ethiopia before. He’s made some money in the last year that he wanted to spend in a fun way. He founded a charity that brings good cheer and healing to kids who have gotten a rough deal in life – whether from disease, poverty, or loss of parents. He brings them kites. He’s working on a plan whereby local families earn a little by manufacturing kites for his project. On this trip, the kite guy has been through Kenya, Malawi, and Tanzania. Next, he goes to Chad.
Fortune brings us a kite day hot and breezy. The clouds are big and friendly. Rather than muddy clothes, I get sunburn instead. We pile the kids into four mini-vans, and we dash off down the hill toward Jan Meda, a series of wide open fields. This may be the kids’ favorite part of day, laughing at each other out their mini-van windows as the drivers weave in and out of traffic, and among each other’s vehicles, to every adult’s distress and the children’s glee.
The kite guy pulls out the big ones first, and every time a big set of wings lifts off, the children scream and run behind. One of the large kites has the kids’ colors all over it, pictures of hands and cats and vegetables that they drew the day before, all amid balloon letters that spell ‘Tsegereda Memorial School’.
Some of the teenage boys loitering in the fields join in the act, and, all in all, they act the gentlemen, helping the children along, holding kites while the kids get a head of steam. When the little ones get a crack at child-sized kites, the boys entertain themselves with the big ones.
The kids line up patiently for their chance at the little kites. The kite guy is donating one for each child. They are tiny square kites with a long spool of string. Though they’re watching with great fascination, each child has to be briefed again by teachers. That briefing runs like this: ‘Run!’ Some stare back. Some turn and take a step or two and turn around, dragging the kite. Eventually, they get it and take off as fast as they can, charging ahead across the grass without looking back. ‘Look up!’ I cry futilely. They don’t. But they’re grinning anyway as they run back. Success!
I’m sure you want the rat update. It’s a mixed report. Jackie has failed as a rat-hound. The two animals have reached some kind of detente. She gets a quiet night indoors, and the rat roams free, as long as it doesn’t disturb her sleep. We resort to Plan C or D: poison. Sad to have to turn to violence, though vengeance feels good. Bakalech leaves enough poison among some bits of bread to take out a village, and in the morning, the entire feast is gone. We hold our breath and there is indeed a hiatus of a few days from rat turds and holes in my socks. But if one has died, another one found the trail indoors. The next step might have to be a kitten.
Everyone has been sick this week: Laura, Linda, and even my favorite waitress, Tigist. Tigist is my favorite because of her professional attitude ... and her gorgeous smile. She’s had a cold and a bad stomach. I tell her to drink tea. No, stomach problems, she says in rat-a-tat Amharic. Tigist has great faith in my genius. She speaks not a word of English. And every day, she asks if I’ve learned Amharic. No matter what I answer, she launches into long streams of pleasantries. I nod and enjoy her sweet smile. I suggest lemon. No, bad stomach. How about ginger? No, bad stomach. Doctor? No, Jesus. Jesus and bad stomach must logically relate, though I don’t know which came first. Her solution, I see later, is a glass of holy water mixed with dirt from a church floor. Cheers, Tigist.
The Kite Guy
The spring mini-rains have set in. The timing is almost disastrous. The kite guy has arrived. I’m watching the skies anxiously. Mornings are bright and cheerful, but clouds move in quickly, crowding the heights all day, and getting darker as the afternoon advances, letting loose by 5:00 or so. If kite day follows this pattern, we’ll be okay, getting the kids out in late morning.
The kite guy comes from Minneapolis. He’s friend of a friend, and we met at a party once upon a time. The kite guy has been around the world; he’s worked in Peru and Rome. He’s been in Ethiopia before. He’s made some money in the last year that he wanted to spend in a fun way. He founded a charity that brings good cheer and healing to kids who have gotten a rough deal in life – whether from disease, poverty, or loss of parents. He brings them kites. He’s working on a plan whereby local families earn a little by manufacturing kites for his project. On this trip, the kite guy has been through Kenya, Malawi, and Tanzania. Next, he goes to Chad.
Fortune brings us a kite day hot and breezy. The clouds are big and friendly. Rather than muddy clothes, I get sunburn instead. We pile the kids into four mini-vans, and we dash off down the hill toward Jan Meda, a series of wide open fields. This may be the kids’ favorite part of day, laughing at each other out their mini-van windows as the drivers weave in and out of traffic, and among each other’s vehicles, to every adult’s distress and the children’s glee.
The kite guy pulls out the big ones first, and every time a big set of wings lifts off, the children scream and run behind. One of the large kites has the kids’ colors all over it, pictures of hands and cats and vegetables that they drew the day before, all amid balloon letters that spell ‘Tsegereda Memorial School’.
Some of the teenage boys loitering in the fields join in the act, and, all in all, they act the gentlemen, helping the children along, holding kites while the kids get a head of steam. When the little ones get a crack at child-sized kites, the boys entertain themselves with the big ones.
The kids line up patiently for their chance at the little kites. The kite guy is donating one for each child. They are tiny square kites with a long spool of string. Though they’re watching with great fascination, each child has to be briefed again by teachers. That briefing runs like this: ‘Run!’ Some stare back. Some turn and take a step or two and turn around, dragging the kite. Eventually, they get it and take off as fast as they can, charging ahead across the grass without looking back. ‘Look up!’ I cry futilely. They don’t. But they’re grinning anyway as they run back. Success!
I’m sure you want the rat update. It’s a mixed report. Jackie has failed as a rat-hound. The two animals have reached some kind of detente. She gets a quiet night indoors, and the rat roams free, as long as it doesn’t disturb her sleep. We resort to Plan C or D: poison. Sad to have to turn to violence, though vengeance feels good. Bakalech leaves enough poison among some bits of bread to take out a village, and in the morning, the entire feast is gone. We hold our breath and there is indeed a hiatus of a few days from rat turds and holes in my socks. But if one has died, another one found the trail indoors. The next step might have to be a kitten.
Everyone has been sick this week: Laura, Linda, and even my favorite waitress, Tigist. Tigist is my favorite because of her professional attitude ... and her gorgeous smile. She’s had a cold and a bad stomach. I tell her to drink tea. No, stomach problems, she says in rat-a-tat Amharic. Tigist has great faith in my genius. She speaks not a word of English. And every day, she asks if I’ve learned Amharic. No matter what I answer, she launches into long streams of pleasantries. I nod and enjoy her sweet smile. I suggest lemon. No, bad stomach. How about ginger? No, bad stomach. Doctor? No, Jesus. Jesus and bad stomach must logically relate, though I don’t know which came first. Her solution, I see later, is a glass of holy water mixed with dirt from a church floor. Cheers, Tigist.
Thursday, March 15, 2007
Travelogue 177 – March 15
Beware
It’s the Ides of March and there’s nothing much to beware, except maybe sunburn. Jackie trots after the ball at half-speed at midday, her head hanging and tongue lolling. Bakalech drags her feet as she slouches across the bright courtyard.
Sophie called yesterday from Awasa, and I had no answer to “What’s new?” I tried to think of something for today’s call. All I could come up with was, “Did you hear about the rat chewing on my head?” She enjoyed that story, as all my Ethiopes have. There’s something of the sadist in many Ethiopes. Is it something about a culture shaped by suffering?
It’s a true story, too! I awoke one night last week with the sensation of someone munching on the hair on the back of my head. A little bed-time nibbling I’m not opposed to, depending on the bed-mate – though hair seemed an odd choice. But memory eventually dawns: I have no bed-mate, and I’ve played fortunate host to aggressive rodents lately. I turn over and, sure enough, there she goes, in an unconcerned waddle across the floor. She’s a big one, with a long tail.
Watching her go, I almost feel regret and pity. The poor thing wants a little company, or maybe she needs some protein. She has to fill her belly, like any creature. But I do change rooms then and there. God knows what she would have fed on if I had been turned the other way.
The next night, Jackie gets indoor sleeping privileges. And the little mutt performs well, standing guard while also keeping quiet enough for sleeping humans. I’m pleasantly surprised. Perhaps she knew that Plan B was a cat. To save her place in the food chain, she must be versatile. This morning I observed her cleaning herself like a cat, licking a paw to wash her face.
Okay, so there are man-eating rodents to beware this Ides, and sunburn. And I might mention that crafty old devil, Death, who seems craftier in his work here than he is back home. Or maybe it’s more blunt.
Graham calls this morning. He has to postpone the parenting workshop scheduled for Friday, the infamous parenting workshop that’s been rushing forward like the next Ice Age since its conception last fall. It seems there’s been a death in the family of his assistant. It’s a case of fine one day, dead the next, which seems very common in Ethiopia. They were driving somewhere. Said relative entered the car under his own power and exited in the arms of his family. “He was about thirty!” Graham exclaimed.
I asked if there were a cause of death, knowing full well the likely answer. None. “You know how it is,” Graham says, “trying to get details out of these people.” I do, though, to either of us, cause of death would hardly be a minor detail. “Wasn’t your friend in the car with him? How did he die?” I ask. Again, no details. He’s dead.
Coincidentally, another one of my Shiro Meda parents died yesterday. Cause? Unknown. He’s dead. I’ve only worked with sixty children at that school! How many parents or guardians would you imagine, in three years, could keel over? It’s mind-boggling. In Abraham’s family, it’s been mother, then father, then grandmother. He’s with an aunt now. Now it’s little Yabsira’s father. Cause unknown.
It makes you think about the Western idea of death. Graham says, “People don’t just die!” Well, until recently, they did do just that. Now, in the West, it doesn’t simply happen; it always has a Reason. We may not be able to stop it, but every darkness has its label, and every rat its hole.
I can report that Death, that bitter old angel, hasn’t had his wretched way with everyone in Ethiopia. There’s one crusty old survivor he’s still chasing: Saba’s grandfather. We’ll be shaking hands with this Methuselah next month when we travel north into Tigray, into the homeland of Saba’s family. Upon every report, this gentleman increases in longevity. The first word a few years ago was that he was just over a hundred years-old. But this morning, Saba insisted he was 125! I tried to reason with her. How can Melesech, who’s only a few years older than I, have a father who is 125? Saba’s retort: Melesech’s eldest sister is in her 80s! Well, what can I say? I can’t wait to (gently) slap this old soldier’s back. “Say, how have you kept the rats away?”
Beware
It’s the Ides of March and there’s nothing much to beware, except maybe sunburn. Jackie trots after the ball at half-speed at midday, her head hanging and tongue lolling. Bakalech drags her feet as she slouches across the bright courtyard.
Sophie called yesterday from Awasa, and I had no answer to “What’s new?” I tried to think of something for today’s call. All I could come up with was, “Did you hear about the rat chewing on my head?” She enjoyed that story, as all my Ethiopes have. There’s something of the sadist in many Ethiopes. Is it something about a culture shaped by suffering?
It’s a true story, too! I awoke one night last week with the sensation of someone munching on the hair on the back of my head. A little bed-time nibbling I’m not opposed to, depending on the bed-mate – though hair seemed an odd choice. But memory eventually dawns: I have no bed-mate, and I’ve played fortunate host to aggressive rodents lately. I turn over and, sure enough, there she goes, in an unconcerned waddle across the floor. She’s a big one, with a long tail.
Watching her go, I almost feel regret and pity. The poor thing wants a little company, or maybe she needs some protein. She has to fill her belly, like any creature. But I do change rooms then and there. God knows what she would have fed on if I had been turned the other way.
The next night, Jackie gets indoor sleeping privileges. And the little mutt performs well, standing guard while also keeping quiet enough for sleeping humans. I’m pleasantly surprised. Perhaps she knew that Plan B was a cat. To save her place in the food chain, she must be versatile. This morning I observed her cleaning herself like a cat, licking a paw to wash her face.
Okay, so there are man-eating rodents to beware this Ides, and sunburn. And I might mention that crafty old devil, Death, who seems craftier in his work here than he is back home. Or maybe it’s more blunt.
Graham calls this morning. He has to postpone the parenting workshop scheduled for Friday, the infamous parenting workshop that’s been rushing forward like the next Ice Age since its conception last fall. It seems there’s been a death in the family of his assistant. It’s a case of fine one day, dead the next, which seems very common in Ethiopia. They were driving somewhere. Said relative entered the car under his own power and exited in the arms of his family. “He was about thirty!” Graham exclaimed.
I asked if there were a cause of death, knowing full well the likely answer. None. “You know how it is,” Graham says, “trying to get details out of these people.” I do, though, to either of us, cause of death would hardly be a minor detail. “Wasn’t your friend in the car with him? How did he die?” I ask. Again, no details. He’s dead.
Coincidentally, another one of my Shiro Meda parents died yesterday. Cause? Unknown. He’s dead. I’ve only worked with sixty children at that school! How many parents or guardians would you imagine, in three years, could keel over? It’s mind-boggling. In Abraham’s family, it’s been mother, then father, then grandmother. He’s with an aunt now. Now it’s little Yabsira’s father. Cause unknown.
It makes you think about the Western idea of death. Graham says, “People don’t just die!” Well, until recently, they did do just that. Now, in the West, it doesn’t simply happen; it always has a Reason. We may not be able to stop it, but every darkness has its label, and every rat its hole.
I can report that Death, that bitter old angel, hasn’t had his wretched way with everyone in Ethiopia. There’s one crusty old survivor he’s still chasing: Saba’s grandfather. We’ll be shaking hands with this Methuselah next month when we travel north into Tigray, into the homeland of Saba’s family. Upon every report, this gentleman increases in longevity. The first word a few years ago was that he was just over a hundred years-old. But this morning, Saba insisted he was 125! I tried to reason with her. How can Melesech, who’s only a few years older than I, have a father who is 125? Saba’s retort: Melesech’s eldest sister is in her 80s! Well, what can I say? I can’t wait to (gently) slap this old soldier’s back. “Say, how have you kept the rats away?”
Thursday, March 08, 2007
Travelogue 176 – March 8
You Go
It’s another in an amazing string of brilliant cloudless days. The morning ritual has returned to its old, peaceful custom. I never tire of the same breakfast, and Bakalech never tires of the same jokes: no dinner today; she’ll give my food to Jackie; she’ll take Jackie home one day. But there’s a surprise for her today, the enormous rat that found its demise on my dining room floor, finally taken by the trap. The poor thing is growing stiff in the trash out back. I didn’t have the stomach to extract the thing from the trap, so Bakalech has to buy me a new trap. She laughs a long time over that one, but I notice she doesn’t volunteer to do the job herself.
As I leave for the day, as I click the gate shut behind me, a man passes muttering to himself as though chanting. His shirt is unbuttoned to his belly. His eyes are concentrated on the road ahead. The sandals on his crusty feet slap noisily. It sounds like he’s saying, “You go. You go. You go. You go.”
I stop in Piassa to see the boys. They sit in a long line roadside, where the taxis stop. My dembenya, or regular guy, is busy, so I sit in his neighbor’s chair. He starts in on my shoes while the dembenya complains. When Laura and I come around, there’s always an uproar. The boys fight for our business. There’s the trouble-maker, a charming guy with a big mouth, bossy and sarcastic. There are the two little brothers whom Laura favors. My dembenya is one of the quiet ones. Everyone gets into the vaudeville of this moment, including the tea lady who serves out of thermoses, and the newspaper guys. Everyone is a comedian.
Today there’s a tiny, barefoot old woman with a face marked by a million lines. She’s so busy trading remarks with the boys that she neglects to beg. One of the guys directs her toward me, and when she sees me she breaks into such a smile, like she’s being introduced to her child’s best friend. She could be reaching out to pinch my cheek, but there are coins in her palm. I can’t resist – though usually I’m a difficult mark – and I hand her fifty centime. She hangs around with a dazed smile, and the boys tease her. I’m guessing it’s all good-natured, though she’s provoked into a quick battery of blows on the back of my shoeshine boy. They all laugh. Another boy shouts something provocative so that she’ll chase him in circles. A minute later, she’s beaming again.
In Piassa, I go in for the daily internet lottery: will it work? How slow is it? A-OK. Pete has emailed with an impatient reminder about information I’ve forgotten to send. Later in the day, he calls.
“Graham is no Peter,” I’m reminded of John’s famous quote, famous among the latest ephemeral expat community I have gathered – so fragile a community it’s already dispersed – who have decided that Graham and Peter represent the opposite poles of British manhood.
John has left with his wife Tayat for England. They’ll be back by summer, unless, as John muttered to me apprehensively, Tayat should discover while they’re in England that they have a bun in the oven. Then all bets are off. John wants to stay in Ethiopia. They’ve been married for over a year now. I was witness in their wedding back in the fall of ’05, some time after the street demonstrations. It may be time for babies.
Laura and I have been made very familiar with their chances of conception. They relish their sex life and don’t hesitate to share. Neither Laura nor I encourage these confidences, but they flow without check, and to our chagrin, often come illustrated. Tayat pulls out the digital camera which doubles as a video recorder.. I can report to you, dear reader, that John is a rare specimen of manhood at 78. He has the physique of a man of ... 50? I don’t know, but apparently it functions as it should, except when he drinks too much.
This we toast at their going-away party. Which ritual Tayat watches with a grimace of disgust. But John’s alcohol levels matter little at the moment because it’s Orthodox Lent, which is a manic fifty-five days in length, and which enumerates sex as one of those temptations that thou shalt avoid. This the couple has informed us, as well. So John and I raise our glasses and wink, and down goes the spirit of male joy and impotence, glug-glug, past my yellowing middle-aged teeth and past his white false ones, on to work its magic. Cheers!
You Go
It’s another in an amazing string of brilliant cloudless days. The morning ritual has returned to its old, peaceful custom. I never tire of the same breakfast, and Bakalech never tires of the same jokes: no dinner today; she’ll give my food to Jackie; she’ll take Jackie home one day. But there’s a surprise for her today, the enormous rat that found its demise on my dining room floor, finally taken by the trap. The poor thing is growing stiff in the trash out back. I didn’t have the stomach to extract the thing from the trap, so Bakalech has to buy me a new trap. She laughs a long time over that one, but I notice she doesn’t volunteer to do the job herself.
As I leave for the day, as I click the gate shut behind me, a man passes muttering to himself as though chanting. His shirt is unbuttoned to his belly. His eyes are concentrated on the road ahead. The sandals on his crusty feet slap noisily. It sounds like he’s saying, “You go. You go. You go. You go.”
I stop in Piassa to see the boys. They sit in a long line roadside, where the taxis stop. My dembenya, or regular guy, is busy, so I sit in his neighbor’s chair. He starts in on my shoes while the dembenya complains. When Laura and I come around, there’s always an uproar. The boys fight for our business. There’s the trouble-maker, a charming guy with a big mouth, bossy and sarcastic. There are the two little brothers whom Laura favors. My dembenya is one of the quiet ones. Everyone gets into the vaudeville of this moment, including the tea lady who serves out of thermoses, and the newspaper guys. Everyone is a comedian.
Today there’s a tiny, barefoot old woman with a face marked by a million lines. She’s so busy trading remarks with the boys that she neglects to beg. One of the guys directs her toward me, and when she sees me she breaks into such a smile, like she’s being introduced to her child’s best friend. She could be reaching out to pinch my cheek, but there are coins in her palm. I can’t resist – though usually I’m a difficult mark – and I hand her fifty centime. She hangs around with a dazed smile, and the boys tease her. I’m guessing it’s all good-natured, though she’s provoked into a quick battery of blows on the back of my shoeshine boy. They all laugh. Another boy shouts something provocative so that she’ll chase him in circles. A minute later, she’s beaming again.
In Piassa, I go in for the daily internet lottery: will it work? How slow is it? A-OK. Pete has emailed with an impatient reminder about information I’ve forgotten to send. Later in the day, he calls.
“Graham is no Peter,” I’m reminded of John’s famous quote, famous among the latest ephemeral expat community I have gathered – so fragile a community it’s already dispersed – who have decided that Graham and Peter represent the opposite poles of British manhood.
John has left with his wife Tayat for England. They’ll be back by summer, unless, as John muttered to me apprehensively, Tayat should discover while they’re in England that they have a bun in the oven. Then all bets are off. John wants to stay in Ethiopia. They’ve been married for over a year now. I was witness in their wedding back in the fall of ’05, some time after the street demonstrations. It may be time for babies.
Laura and I have been made very familiar with their chances of conception. They relish their sex life and don’t hesitate to share. Neither Laura nor I encourage these confidences, but they flow without check, and to our chagrin, often come illustrated. Tayat pulls out the digital camera which doubles as a video recorder.. I can report to you, dear reader, that John is a rare specimen of manhood at 78. He has the physique of a man of ... 50? I don’t know, but apparently it functions as it should, except when he drinks too much.
This we toast at their going-away party. Which ritual Tayat watches with a grimace of disgust. But John’s alcohol levels matter little at the moment because it’s Orthodox Lent, which is a manic fifty-five days in length, and which enumerates sex as one of those temptations that thou shalt avoid. This the couple has informed us, as well. So John and I raise our glasses and wink, and down goes the spirit of male joy and impotence, glug-glug, past my yellowing middle-aged teeth and past his white false ones, on to work its magic. Cheers!
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Travelogue 175 – February 28
Much Ado About Moving
What can I say? As I sit to write, what emanates from the speakers but “Hotel California”? There’s never a day here without some surreal touch. The glass of the window radiates with African sunshine. Outside are the squalid streets and the mountains above, laid with eucalyptus shag, scorched with brilliant midday light. But I’m testing myself to see if i remember the guitar solo at the end. An American never leaves home.
Yesterday was also a scorcher. I sat outside, partaking of breezes and pollution, and watching those same furry mountains rub themselves against a scanty line of white clouds. Sebla joins me and introduces herself. Everyone knows Sebla, but I’d never known her name. She is here every day, just like I am. But her daddy owns the cafe. In fact, her daddy owns the whole building.
There’s a story to that. The building previously occupying this site was the Tigray Hotel. People still call this structure the Tigray Hotel, though the real thing was bombed four years ago. Forty people died. It’s politics; why else are bombs set off? See if you can follow: there’s an Oromo separatist movement that is fond of bombs. The current Ethiopian government is dominated by Tigrenya people, led by Mr. Meles, who, in his day, returned many souls to their Maker in the name of Tigrenya independence. The Tigray Hotel was, oddly enough, a hang-out for many Tigrenya people. Ergo, what better spot for incendiary devices and murder to advance the cause of Oromo pride? More terrorist logic bred in caves, ingested with the native soil that peppers their raw, native meat.
The property is bought by Sebla’s daddy, who is blessedly neither – he is Guragay. He builds the current bit of pink modernity amid the iron-roofed, colonial-era brothels and bars: four floors and basement, middle floors commercial rentals, top and bottom family businesses – cafe above and night club below. All is well. Sebla, fresh out of business school gets to manage the whole show.
Sebla is cute. She’s pretty in an elaborate, manicured way. The eyebrows are plucked and sketched back in. The nails are immaculate and feature tiny flower designs. Her clothing says upscale, way beyond the needs of this neighborhood.
So, pretty Ethiopian woman approaches. I know what is expected: money, America; America, money. I’m lucky to get away for only the cost for her tea. But Sebla has money and she has work. I’m intrigued.
She smiles. She’s nervous. There’s the usual small talk about Ethiopia: why I’m here, how long, what I think of it. And by the way, where are you from? “I’m going to America,” she tells me. Okay, one hurdle cleared. She already has a visa. The other shoe drops: “How do I stay? Do you know? Do you have any ideas?” No, I sure don’t. “Why do you want to stay in America when you’ve got work and family and plenty of money here?”
“Oh, I just want the choice. Get my green card, and then I can come and go. ... So, what do you think? Marry somebody?” She smirks to hide her hunger.
My neighbor Bogale tells me that out of twenty-two childhood friends, there are four or five left in Ethiopia. The rest are in America or Europe. He shrugs. Bogale is a philosopher. “My family teach me, look first, find out who I am. Why go?” Life is simple. First family, then friends, then other humans, and then? Then what? Money? Very firmly, he says. “Love is not money.” He repeats it with a stern look, “Love is not money.”
Bogale doesn’t believe in a anything that divides people. I’m impressed with him. Even religion is suspect. “I know what I know,” he says. “Everything else, zimbolo.” It doesn’t matter.
With feeling, he says that it hurts him that his friends go abroad and they fade away. Communication drops off. He says you can even tell who is getting ready to go. “They come out of their gate, they don’t show you their face.” They don’t say hello on the street. They’re gone.
So who’s the success, Sebla or Bogale? And who’s the more human? Cheap moral, I know. Check in on the story after a year: watch for Sebla on the streets of Georgetown. And look in on us here. I’ll be admiring Bogale’s martial arts books under the same old sun.
Much Ado About Moving
What can I say? As I sit to write, what emanates from the speakers but “Hotel California”? There’s never a day here without some surreal touch. The glass of the window radiates with African sunshine. Outside are the squalid streets and the mountains above, laid with eucalyptus shag, scorched with brilliant midday light. But I’m testing myself to see if i remember the guitar solo at the end. An American never leaves home.
Yesterday was also a scorcher. I sat outside, partaking of breezes and pollution, and watching those same furry mountains rub themselves against a scanty line of white clouds. Sebla joins me and introduces herself. Everyone knows Sebla, but I’d never known her name. She is here every day, just like I am. But her daddy owns the cafe. In fact, her daddy owns the whole building.
There’s a story to that. The building previously occupying this site was the Tigray Hotel. People still call this structure the Tigray Hotel, though the real thing was bombed four years ago. Forty people died. It’s politics; why else are bombs set off? See if you can follow: there’s an Oromo separatist movement that is fond of bombs. The current Ethiopian government is dominated by Tigrenya people, led by Mr. Meles, who, in his day, returned many souls to their Maker in the name of Tigrenya independence. The Tigray Hotel was, oddly enough, a hang-out for many Tigrenya people. Ergo, what better spot for incendiary devices and murder to advance the cause of Oromo pride? More terrorist logic bred in caves, ingested with the native soil that peppers their raw, native meat.
The property is bought by Sebla’s daddy, who is blessedly neither – he is Guragay. He builds the current bit of pink modernity amid the iron-roofed, colonial-era brothels and bars: four floors and basement, middle floors commercial rentals, top and bottom family businesses – cafe above and night club below. All is well. Sebla, fresh out of business school gets to manage the whole show.
Sebla is cute. She’s pretty in an elaborate, manicured way. The eyebrows are plucked and sketched back in. The nails are immaculate and feature tiny flower designs. Her clothing says upscale, way beyond the needs of this neighborhood.
So, pretty Ethiopian woman approaches. I know what is expected: money, America; America, money. I’m lucky to get away for only the cost for her tea. But Sebla has money and she has work. I’m intrigued.
She smiles. She’s nervous. There’s the usual small talk about Ethiopia: why I’m here, how long, what I think of it. And by the way, where are you from? “I’m going to America,” she tells me. Okay, one hurdle cleared. She already has a visa. The other shoe drops: “How do I stay? Do you know? Do you have any ideas?” No, I sure don’t. “Why do you want to stay in America when you’ve got work and family and plenty of money here?”
“Oh, I just want the choice. Get my green card, and then I can come and go. ... So, what do you think? Marry somebody?” She smirks to hide her hunger.
My neighbor Bogale tells me that out of twenty-two childhood friends, there are four or five left in Ethiopia. The rest are in America or Europe. He shrugs. Bogale is a philosopher. “My family teach me, look first, find out who I am. Why go?” Life is simple. First family, then friends, then other humans, and then? Then what? Money? Very firmly, he says. “Love is not money.” He repeats it with a stern look, “Love is not money.”
Bogale doesn’t believe in a anything that divides people. I’m impressed with him. Even religion is suspect. “I know what I know,” he says. “Everything else, zimbolo.” It doesn’t matter.
With feeling, he says that it hurts him that his friends go abroad and they fade away. Communication drops off. He says you can even tell who is getting ready to go. “They come out of their gate, they don’t show you their face.” They don’t say hello on the street. They’re gone.
So who’s the success, Sebla or Bogale? And who’s the more human? Cheap moral, I know. Check in on the story after a year: watch for Sebla on the streets of Georgetown. And look in on us here. I’ll be admiring Bogale’s martial arts books under the same old sun.
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Travelogue 174 – February 21
Portraits
I have an ally in the neighborhood named Bogale. I’m not unique in that; he is everyone’s friend. He comes to my rescue when Bakalech is sick and she refuses to run in my phone bill payment, – it’s the simple things that reduce expats to functional infancy – giving us his true-blue, gap-toothed smile: “No problem.”
Bogale lives next door in his family’s house, where he rents rooms out. He’s a young man with some talent and ideas, a guileless face. He studies wood-working. He likes martial arts. I’ve had to promise him some training time this summer when I start running again. His English is better than that of most Ethiopes.
He’s not so ambitious that he doesn’t have time for standing outside his gate and chatting with passers-by, and not so complacent that he won’t pitch in with neighborhood work. He spends a weekend sweeping the length of our dirt road. He watches neighbors’ houses while they’re away. He lends a hand painting. He helps me on move-in day. None of these seems motivated by hopes of reward, which is pleasant, unusual.
My other neighbors have been behaving, conscientiously piecing together a silence of sorts, an Ethio version of silence, an Ethio-Pente-with-young-kids version: a confined ruckus and roar. They try, and I appreciate that. Still they have their prayer sessions three times a week, wailing sessions called prayer.
I find the Pentecostal concept confusing. The Spirit took possession of the Apostles and they spoke in tongues – once, as far as I recall. It came as a surprise and then they went out to conquer the world. Fast forward to this bunch, who get the Spirit right on schedule, three times a week, and their tongues sound exactly the same every time. They part with civil good-nights and promises to be back on Tuesday. Am I missing something? It reminds me of history’s zealots, determined to suffer more than Jesus, by a magnitude of hundreds if they could.
I’m having some trouble with one new neighbor, the mouse who has borrowed in under the wooden wardrobe in my bedroom. I wake up, and he’s chewed holes in another one of my dwindling garments. Will Jackie accept a cat? I’ve tried a mousetrap. The delicate little creature just eats the food without triggering the trap. Check the sores on my fingers to see how sensitively I’ve tried to set the mechanism.
Here’s me at the school in Shiro Meda: founder in his dotage – a nuisance, but what can you do? I arrive and I take a deep breath. I swear the air in that little playground is different. It’s like springtime. I trade greetings with Tsehay, Mintawab, and Fellaku, the non-teaching staff, and then I rush back to the classrooms.
Wogayehu is with the first-graders now. Wogayehu is determined, dedicated, and talented, slight in body but big in voice She has this challenge ahead of her now: to lead the children through a year’s curriculum in the next semester. Still, she makes way for me, indulgently, when I enter the class. The students are all smiles. Me, I’m still so delighted to have them back that I’ll stand and admire them for long minutes, until some protest that I’m standing in front of the blackboard: “Move, Mister Dana!” I’m so charmed that I don’t move at all.
I wander around the class, patting heads and looking over shoulders. It’s a tight fit because Wogayehu has insisted we move her class into my old bedroom. I wouldn’t have believed they would fit, but she made it work. It works better than the bigger space in the back. I ask the kids to recite English for me. I unroll the map of Africa that Laura brought for them, and I challenge them to find Ethiopia. I wade through the waving arms and pointing fingers. It’s Ermias who gets it. “Addis Ababa,” he adds, showing off, pressing his finger deeply into his continent.
Wogayehu has her limits. I’ve got to go. I stop in on the KG class and get everyone giggling. The new KG teacher, Haregwa, endures the interruption gracefully. I’m outside, a hard day’s work at the school done, looking up at the sky, feeling a bit lost.
Stephanie has been to the school a few times now. She participates in the Friday art projects. Stephanie is an artist. She’s from Michigan. That sort of distinction goes over Graham’s head. It’s enough that she’s from America – the first and perhaps most devastating fact in a deteriorating relationship. Being from America is like a secular original sin, one that I seem to have recovered from because I have submitted and enjoyed his wit. Stephanie didn’t. She came to Ethiopia to volunteer for his program, which is how she eventually arrived in our classrooms. But the two just never hit it off.
Stephanie is a striking woman, tall and blonde and graceful. Her smile is beautiful. We stay late at the Tsion several nights, after Laura has retired, drinking beer and talking about art. She seems impressed that I know a few big names. We’ve been to some of the same galleries in Europe. She tells me how Rembrandt’s eyes changed after his wife died. “Look at the eyes.” She’s a believer.
Stephanie is planning a project for next week combining music and art. We’ll be testing that old superstition about Mozart and kids and higher mind function. She plans to auction the art that comes out of her experiment as a fundraiser for the school: the Classics in Crayon. Let me know if you’d like to bid.
Another visitor and another. I think Tsegereda will appear in the guidebooks soon. Next month we’ll be receiving a visitor from the US. Enough said, or shall I report that he’s from Minnesota? The mission of Patrick’s non-profit is to spread the gospel of kites around Africa. He and his entourage will visit four or five countries, reeling out the string and running into the wind. Tsegereda School is on the itinerary, but I may be out of town, scouting future school sites and being a tourist up north in Tigray.
And shall I report about Dai, our new Japanese friend? I’ve seen him in the cafe at intervals all winter. He sits absorbed in his notebook for half a day, the picture of a new Japan: tall and strong, scruffy hair confined in a hip-hop ski cap, Allman Brothers tie-dye T-shirt, curled wooden spike in his ear, sheep’s horn on a string around his neck, totemic tattoo on his biceps of an Alaskan eagle. He has motorcycled across much of Africa in previous years, and he’s settled on Ethiopia as a place worthy of more time and further photographic treatment. He has a website, which I’m happy to pass along to the curious. Let me know. And pass word along about the hottest new tourist attraction in Africa: a little kindergarten in the hills above Addis Ababa ....
Portraits
I have an ally in the neighborhood named Bogale. I’m not unique in that; he is everyone’s friend. He comes to my rescue when Bakalech is sick and she refuses to run in my phone bill payment, – it’s the simple things that reduce expats to functional infancy – giving us his true-blue, gap-toothed smile: “No problem.”
Bogale lives next door in his family’s house, where he rents rooms out. He’s a young man with some talent and ideas, a guileless face. He studies wood-working. He likes martial arts. I’ve had to promise him some training time this summer when I start running again. His English is better than that of most Ethiopes.
He’s not so ambitious that he doesn’t have time for standing outside his gate and chatting with passers-by, and not so complacent that he won’t pitch in with neighborhood work. He spends a weekend sweeping the length of our dirt road. He watches neighbors’ houses while they’re away. He lends a hand painting. He helps me on move-in day. None of these seems motivated by hopes of reward, which is pleasant, unusual.
My other neighbors have been behaving, conscientiously piecing together a silence of sorts, an Ethio version of silence, an Ethio-Pente-with-young-kids version: a confined ruckus and roar. They try, and I appreciate that. Still they have their prayer sessions three times a week, wailing sessions called prayer.
I find the Pentecostal concept confusing. The Spirit took possession of the Apostles and they spoke in tongues – once, as far as I recall. It came as a surprise and then they went out to conquer the world. Fast forward to this bunch, who get the Spirit right on schedule, three times a week, and their tongues sound exactly the same every time. They part with civil good-nights and promises to be back on Tuesday. Am I missing something? It reminds me of history’s zealots, determined to suffer more than Jesus, by a magnitude of hundreds if they could.
I’m having some trouble with one new neighbor, the mouse who has borrowed in under the wooden wardrobe in my bedroom. I wake up, and he’s chewed holes in another one of my dwindling garments. Will Jackie accept a cat? I’ve tried a mousetrap. The delicate little creature just eats the food without triggering the trap. Check the sores on my fingers to see how sensitively I’ve tried to set the mechanism.
Here’s me at the school in Shiro Meda: founder in his dotage – a nuisance, but what can you do? I arrive and I take a deep breath. I swear the air in that little playground is different. It’s like springtime. I trade greetings with Tsehay, Mintawab, and Fellaku, the non-teaching staff, and then I rush back to the classrooms.
Wogayehu is with the first-graders now. Wogayehu is determined, dedicated, and talented, slight in body but big in voice She has this challenge ahead of her now: to lead the children through a year’s curriculum in the next semester. Still, she makes way for me, indulgently, when I enter the class. The students are all smiles. Me, I’m still so delighted to have them back that I’ll stand and admire them for long minutes, until some protest that I’m standing in front of the blackboard: “Move, Mister Dana!” I’m so charmed that I don’t move at all.
I wander around the class, patting heads and looking over shoulders. It’s a tight fit because Wogayehu has insisted we move her class into my old bedroom. I wouldn’t have believed they would fit, but she made it work. It works better than the bigger space in the back. I ask the kids to recite English for me. I unroll the map of Africa that Laura brought for them, and I challenge them to find Ethiopia. I wade through the waving arms and pointing fingers. It’s Ermias who gets it. “Addis Ababa,” he adds, showing off, pressing his finger deeply into his continent.
Wogayehu has her limits. I’ve got to go. I stop in on the KG class and get everyone giggling. The new KG teacher, Haregwa, endures the interruption gracefully. I’m outside, a hard day’s work at the school done, looking up at the sky, feeling a bit lost.
Stephanie has been to the school a few times now. She participates in the Friday art projects. Stephanie is an artist. She’s from Michigan. That sort of distinction goes over Graham’s head. It’s enough that she’s from America – the first and perhaps most devastating fact in a deteriorating relationship. Being from America is like a secular original sin, one that I seem to have recovered from because I have submitted and enjoyed his wit. Stephanie didn’t. She came to Ethiopia to volunteer for his program, which is how she eventually arrived in our classrooms. But the two just never hit it off.
Stephanie is a striking woman, tall and blonde and graceful. Her smile is beautiful. We stay late at the Tsion several nights, after Laura has retired, drinking beer and talking about art. She seems impressed that I know a few big names. We’ve been to some of the same galleries in Europe. She tells me how Rembrandt’s eyes changed after his wife died. “Look at the eyes.” She’s a believer.
Stephanie is planning a project for next week combining music and art. We’ll be testing that old superstition about Mozart and kids and higher mind function. She plans to auction the art that comes out of her experiment as a fundraiser for the school: the Classics in Crayon. Let me know if you’d like to bid.
Another visitor and another. I think Tsegereda will appear in the guidebooks soon. Next month we’ll be receiving a visitor from the US. Enough said, or shall I report that he’s from Minnesota? The mission of Patrick’s non-profit is to spread the gospel of kites around Africa. He and his entourage will visit four or five countries, reeling out the string and running into the wind. Tsegereda School is on the itinerary, but I may be out of town, scouting future school sites and being a tourist up north in Tigray.
And shall I report about Dai, our new Japanese friend? I’ve seen him in the cafe at intervals all winter. He sits absorbed in his notebook for half a day, the picture of a new Japan: tall and strong, scruffy hair confined in a hip-hop ski cap, Allman Brothers tie-dye T-shirt, curled wooden spike in his ear, sheep’s horn on a string around his neck, totemic tattoo on his biceps of an Alaskan eagle. He has motorcycled across much of Africa in previous years, and he’s settled on Ethiopia as a place worthy of more time and further photographic treatment. He has a website, which I’m happy to pass along to the curious. Let me know. And pass word along about the hottest new tourist attraction in Africa: a little kindergarten in the hills above Addis Ababa ....
Saturday, February 17, 2007
Travelogue 173 – February 17
The Mountain
It’s an odd-looking mountain, kind of a trapezoid with steep sides. t stands alone. It’s dark green with a forest of firs, something of old Ethiopia, I would think: old growth that hasn’t been supplanted by eucalyptus. That might have happened because, as you would expect with such an odd mountain, it has become a holy place. There’s a church halfway up and another on top. Monks and nuns are common sights on the roads.
This is Menagesha, a spot easily missed on the western highway out of Addis, about forty minutes by bus. Call for a stop once you hit the first town after passing a huge complex of Dutch greenhouses. You’ll have spotted the odd mountain almost as soon as you left the capital city.
How do I know about Menagesha? It was a favorite get-away of Francois’. He learned about it from his friend Adonijah, the black Rastafarian from Louisiana, who has been in Ethiopia for about eight years on a tourist visa that expired seven years ago. He moved to Menagesha last year. But when Saba asked locals about him, we discovered that he had decamped some time ago. It occurs to me that Francois may have told me already that he moved south to be with one of his wives. Rastafarian men have rigorous sexual duties.
Try to get an earlier start than we did. It’s one of those places easy to get to and not so easy to leave. Even at 2:30, when we’re back in town, we have to settle for an Addis city bus. It isn’t too bad. It takes a different route back, more rural and more scenic. You pass a nice little lake that I didn’t know existed, watering hole for a few handsome flocks of herons. Scenic as it is, though, the road rattles the brain until it aches. And that’s before you enter the interminable northern suburbs of the capital, sun and crowds robbing you of oxygen.
Once you’re in Menagesha, stroll the main drag until you find the entrance to the road to the mountain, which is designated by an arch topped by a cross. You’re immediately in the farmers’ town, a few parallel dirt roads saving it a place on the map. Beyond, our road meanders past small farms, where locals are cultivating potatoes and spinach and false banana trees. They shout helloes. When I say small farms, I mean small, like a hundred yards from the road to the brown grasses of the untamed.
School children in red ask for pens or money. Otherwise, you’ll find yourself alone with the impressive scenery: the small, lush farms and their huts, and past them, the long, yellow fields and valleys. One flat-topped acacia stands solitary, as though its field were a Japanese garden.
The mountain is calling me. I leave Saba and Laura, who don’t hear the call and would rather walk slowly. Our time is limited, so I stride ahead. It’s not the smartest plan. I should have relaxed with them in the churchyard instead. No, I pass the pretty church, circular and colorful according to tradition, and the shady field of graves behind it, on to the steep slopes made dim by thick forests. Saba said I would see monkeys, but I don’t. I think I hear them, but it’s the trees, clacking against each other in the breezes, groaning as they bend, screeching as they rub against each other. The road up is grueling, and the trees are too dense to allow much of a view. At the top is another church or monastery, still as a ruin. I sit a while on pine needles. I could be lost in the Sierra Nevadas.
By the time I’m back to the first church, where Laura and Saba are sitting peacefully under a tree, greeting church visitors, my legs are shaking . My knees are aching. Happily, Saba has packed a lunch. It’s bad manners to eat outdoors, but we can’t be stopped by convention now.
At the bottom of the first slope, we’re lucky to encounter a gari dropping children at their house. We crowd in. It’s a ride to make one question, trembling knees and all, wouldn’t it have been better to walk? Laura and scream alternately. Her shouts are fear; mine are pain. I’m at the end of the bench, one buttock on the wooden plank and one buttock on the iron rail twisted into a sort of rail. The rocks in this road are like the stars in the sky, infinite and varied, random and mysterious, turning an impersonal and vaguely malevolent eye on the affairs of man.
We arrive, sore and grateful, at the dusty highway, where we take our place among the crowd at the bus shelter, standing in the sun, crouching in any shade. There are no schedules. Just wait, contemplate the odd mountain.
The Mountain
It’s an odd-looking mountain, kind of a trapezoid with steep sides. t stands alone. It’s dark green with a forest of firs, something of old Ethiopia, I would think: old growth that hasn’t been supplanted by eucalyptus. That might have happened because, as you would expect with such an odd mountain, it has become a holy place. There’s a church halfway up and another on top. Monks and nuns are common sights on the roads.
This is Menagesha, a spot easily missed on the western highway out of Addis, about forty minutes by bus. Call for a stop once you hit the first town after passing a huge complex of Dutch greenhouses. You’ll have spotted the odd mountain almost as soon as you left the capital city.
How do I know about Menagesha? It was a favorite get-away of Francois’. He learned about it from his friend Adonijah, the black Rastafarian from Louisiana, who has been in Ethiopia for about eight years on a tourist visa that expired seven years ago. He moved to Menagesha last year. But when Saba asked locals about him, we discovered that he had decamped some time ago. It occurs to me that Francois may have told me already that he moved south to be with one of his wives. Rastafarian men have rigorous sexual duties.
Try to get an earlier start than we did. It’s one of those places easy to get to and not so easy to leave. Even at 2:30, when we’re back in town, we have to settle for an Addis city bus. It isn’t too bad. It takes a different route back, more rural and more scenic. You pass a nice little lake that I didn’t know existed, watering hole for a few handsome flocks of herons. Scenic as it is, though, the road rattles the brain until it aches. And that’s before you enter the interminable northern suburbs of the capital, sun and crowds robbing you of oxygen.
Once you’re in Menagesha, stroll the main drag until you find the entrance to the road to the mountain, which is designated by an arch topped by a cross. You’re immediately in the farmers’ town, a few parallel dirt roads saving it a place on the map. Beyond, our road meanders past small farms, where locals are cultivating potatoes and spinach and false banana trees. They shout helloes. When I say small farms, I mean small, like a hundred yards from the road to the brown grasses of the untamed.
School children in red ask for pens or money. Otherwise, you’ll find yourself alone with the impressive scenery: the small, lush farms and their huts, and past them, the long, yellow fields and valleys. One flat-topped acacia stands solitary, as though its field were a Japanese garden.
The mountain is calling me. I leave Saba and Laura, who don’t hear the call and would rather walk slowly. Our time is limited, so I stride ahead. It’s not the smartest plan. I should have relaxed with them in the churchyard instead. No, I pass the pretty church, circular and colorful according to tradition, and the shady field of graves behind it, on to the steep slopes made dim by thick forests. Saba said I would see monkeys, but I don’t. I think I hear them, but it’s the trees, clacking against each other in the breezes, groaning as they bend, screeching as they rub against each other. The road up is grueling, and the trees are too dense to allow much of a view. At the top is another church or monastery, still as a ruin. I sit a while on pine needles. I could be lost in the Sierra Nevadas.
By the time I’m back to the first church, where Laura and Saba are sitting peacefully under a tree, greeting church visitors, my legs are shaking . My knees are aching. Happily, Saba has packed a lunch. It’s bad manners to eat outdoors, but we can’t be stopped by convention now.
At the bottom of the first slope, we’re lucky to encounter a gari dropping children at their house. We crowd in. It’s a ride to make one question, trembling knees and all, wouldn’t it have been better to walk? Laura and scream alternately. Her shouts are fear; mine are pain. I’m at the end of the bench, one buttock on the wooden plank and one buttock on the iron rail twisted into a sort of rail. The rocks in this road are like the stars in the sky, infinite and varied, random and mysterious, turning an impersonal and vaguely malevolent eye on the affairs of man.
We arrive, sore and grateful, at the dusty highway, where we take our place among the crowd at the bus shelter, standing in the sun, crouching in any shade. There are no schedules. Just wait, contemplate the odd mountain.
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Travelogue 172 – February 13
Two Episodes
that illustrate life in Addis. The first features myself and Pete, who is Tesfa Lord in London. He happens to be in Ethiopia on other business. Some time after I left Europe last summer, he scored a job with another NGO working in Ethiopia, a real NGO, one with money and history. He’s director of the office in London, and now he gets his first introduction to programs here.
He’s been here almost three weeks and every time he gets a chance, he sneaks away from the day job to join us, look in on the school or hang out. Our routine on these occasions is quickly resolved: coffee and beer, in that order.
There’s coffee at the regular Piassa cafe with the view over the city, accompanied by long and leisurely and circular discussions of strategy for Tesfa. About the time we have once again acheived universal education across Africa, or we have forgotten what we were talking about, we head out into the sunshine in order to catch a taxi north. Pete and I will stop at my place to sit in the sun and throw the ball for Jackie. In spirited moments, we go in for soccer. Jackie shows some talent, stopping or shuffling the ball with her front paw.
Evenings are reserved for beers at the Tsion Hotel, the city’s last major patio on the road north, a few blocks from Laura’s house. The outdoor tables are crowded and unfit for conversation, condemned with Ethio-pop, but inside is a cosy room of dark faux wood and quiet. The bartender is friendly. He knows what we will drink. The waiters are prepared for Laura’s guilty order of spaghetti and meat sauce.
It’s a nice refuge, but not a failsafe one. One night a very drunk man strikes up a loud, one-way conversation with us. He’s an Ethio expat come home. For thirty years he lived abroad, in Russia, Paris, London, Washington. He’s come home to care of his 91 year-old father, one of three surviving generals of the imperial army, lucky to have escaped the fate of most of his colleagues, a bullet. The son teaches at Addis Ababa University now, making 2500 birr a month to his great distress. But his 78 ‘children’ (students) love him. He insists on that. Moral of the story, (with an emphatic slur): you think it’s hard being faranj, but it’s ten times harder coming back.
But I digress. Or rather, I haven’t begun. Episode #1: Pete and I are due at the Tsion in an hour. It’s a lovely afternoon. We decide to walk, and since we have time, we will take a diversion off the main road.
It doesn’t take more than fifty paces down a side road made of large stones, (roads popularly known as CARE roads because they are the handiwork of an NGO by that name,) before you’re out of big-city Addis. We come to one of those stinky, trash-laden gullies called rivers. On the left side of the road the river is bound by a steep slope occupied by what looks like a community garden. It’s very neat. Pete is intrigued, so we divert again, up a small dirt path.
A pair of boys joins us. My reflex is to tell them we have no money. But they want to tell us about the gardens. Family plots, we pick up: an NGO. The story is fleshed out when we come upon some adults who work for the NGO.
After a quarter mile or so, the slope broadens and the gardens spread above us. We see a group gathered around a mechanical water pump that operates like a stepper. Most of the group is boys delighting in the top. Two men are supervising: founders of the local NGO. The family plots are tended by AIDS victims. The project looks well-organized: clear plot boundaries, irrigation, delicate plants in bags. The men become very earnest when they learn Pete runs a British NGO. I drift away when I see the look in their eyes. I’ve seen it before, and it usually means long lectures that brook no interruption or humor.
One boy has an attractive amulet that looks like a small gear set with fake diamonds. When I remark upon it, he offers it. I always forget about this tic of Ethiopian hospitality. He’s insistent, but I’m more so. As a group, the boys and I make it up the slope, climbing like goats single-file. We come across a toothless old woman carrying two 20-liter jugs of water from the pump up to containers that release into irrigation channels. I take one jug, though she protests, and stagger ahead. This woman has muscle. One of the other boys takes the other, two-handed.
On top of the hill, local teens hassle our boys. Participating in the program identifies them as sons of HIV families. Pete and I move on, and the boys don’t abandon us. They want to show us a church up another obscure road. We each have our group of chatterers, holding our hands and testing their English. We must know about the neighborhood. They must hear how we love Ethiopia. They must know what we think of Henry and Rooney and other soccer stars. We must see their collections of stamp-sized and wadded pictures of favorite players.
There is indeed a church at the top, but our gaze is drawn instead to the city below and the wooded mountains above. The views never stop on this side of town. We continue up, along the bed of an asphalt road in the works, amid the peace of the trees and the comments of older women who pass on their way to church. The boys just giggle and look back at them.
I’ve only had space for one episode. And what’s so emblematic about it, after all? The urban garden project that, in its order and innovation, has to be NGO work? The earnest Ethio-NGO dudes, who struggle to impress and fish for support at the same time? The stoic strength of the crone? The innocence of the boys, and the beauty of their city village? I don’t know. The chemistry of it all together, maybe, an admixture of simple and horrible, and the relentless intertwining stream of it. Anyway, Episode #2 another time...
Two Episodes
that illustrate life in Addis. The first features myself and Pete, who is Tesfa Lord in London. He happens to be in Ethiopia on other business. Some time after I left Europe last summer, he scored a job with another NGO working in Ethiopia, a real NGO, one with money and history. He’s director of the office in London, and now he gets his first introduction to programs here.
He’s been here almost three weeks and every time he gets a chance, he sneaks away from the day job to join us, look in on the school or hang out. Our routine on these occasions is quickly resolved: coffee and beer, in that order.
There’s coffee at the regular Piassa cafe with the view over the city, accompanied by long and leisurely and circular discussions of strategy for Tesfa. About the time we have once again acheived universal education across Africa, or we have forgotten what we were talking about, we head out into the sunshine in order to catch a taxi north. Pete and I will stop at my place to sit in the sun and throw the ball for Jackie. In spirited moments, we go in for soccer. Jackie shows some talent, stopping or shuffling the ball with her front paw.
Evenings are reserved for beers at the Tsion Hotel, the city’s last major patio on the road north, a few blocks from Laura’s house. The outdoor tables are crowded and unfit for conversation, condemned with Ethio-pop, but inside is a cosy room of dark faux wood and quiet. The bartender is friendly. He knows what we will drink. The waiters are prepared for Laura’s guilty order of spaghetti and meat sauce.
It’s a nice refuge, but not a failsafe one. One night a very drunk man strikes up a loud, one-way conversation with us. He’s an Ethio expat come home. For thirty years he lived abroad, in Russia, Paris, London, Washington. He’s come home to care of his 91 year-old father, one of three surviving generals of the imperial army, lucky to have escaped the fate of most of his colleagues, a bullet. The son teaches at Addis Ababa University now, making 2500 birr a month to his great distress. But his 78 ‘children’ (students) love him. He insists on that. Moral of the story, (with an emphatic slur): you think it’s hard being faranj, but it’s ten times harder coming back.
But I digress. Or rather, I haven’t begun. Episode #1: Pete and I are due at the Tsion in an hour. It’s a lovely afternoon. We decide to walk, and since we have time, we will take a diversion off the main road.
It doesn’t take more than fifty paces down a side road made of large stones, (roads popularly known as CARE roads because they are the handiwork of an NGO by that name,) before you’re out of big-city Addis. We come to one of those stinky, trash-laden gullies called rivers. On the left side of the road the river is bound by a steep slope occupied by what looks like a community garden. It’s very neat. Pete is intrigued, so we divert again, up a small dirt path.
A pair of boys joins us. My reflex is to tell them we have no money. But they want to tell us about the gardens. Family plots, we pick up: an NGO. The story is fleshed out when we come upon some adults who work for the NGO.
After a quarter mile or so, the slope broadens and the gardens spread above us. We see a group gathered around a mechanical water pump that operates like a stepper. Most of the group is boys delighting in the top. Two men are supervising: founders of the local NGO. The family plots are tended by AIDS victims. The project looks well-organized: clear plot boundaries, irrigation, delicate plants in bags. The men become very earnest when they learn Pete runs a British NGO. I drift away when I see the look in their eyes. I’ve seen it before, and it usually means long lectures that brook no interruption or humor.
One boy has an attractive amulet that looks like a small gear set with fake diamonds. When I remark upon it, he offers it. I always forget about this tic of Ethiopian hospitality. He’s insistent, but I’m more so. As a group, the boys and I make it up the slope, climbing like goats single-file. We come across a toothless old woman carrying two 20-liter jugs of water from the pump up to containers that release into irrigation channels. I take one jug, though she protests, and stagger ahead. This woman has muscle. One of the other boys takes the other, two-handed.
On top of the hill, local teens hassle our boys. Participating in the program identifies them as sons of HIV families. Pete and I move on, and the boys don’t abandon us. They want to show us a church up another obscure road. We each have our group of chatterers, holding our hands and testing their English. We must know about the neighborhood. They must hear how we love Ethiopia. They must know what we think of Henry and Rooney and other soccer stars. We must see their collections of stamp-sized and wadded pictures of favorite players.
There is indeed a church at the top, but our gaze is drawn instead to the city below and the wooded mountains above. The views never stop on this side of town. We continue up, along the bed of an asphalt road in the works, amid the peace of the trees and the comments of older women who pass on their way to church. The boys just giggle and look back at them.
I’ve only had space for one episode. And what’s so emblematic about it, after all? The urban garden project that, in its order and innovation, has to be NGO work? The earnest Ethio-NGO dudes, who struggle to impress and fish for support at the same time? The stoic strength of the crone? The innocence of the boys, and the beauty of their city village? I don’t know. The chemistry of it all together, maybe, an admixture of simple and horrible, and the relentless intertwining stream of it. Anyway, Episode #2 another time...
Friday, February 02, 2007
Travelogue 171 – February 2
Shirishir
It’s time we check in on Mojo. The mega-school in small town Ethiopia has been operational for three months. How’s it doing?
We don’t tell them we’re coming: best if we catch them on an average day. Though it’s not entirely average. We’ve been beseiged by the first of the miniature rainy seasons. It has rained all night, and the first morning’s light is dim. I want to cancel, but Laura and Saba are sure it will be fine. They’re right.
Report on Mojo: transport is fine. We catch a minibus, and the ride is smooth. Day dawns with increasing light and strength. The clouds are giving way.
Report on Mojo: the cafe where we traditionally have brunch has gone downhill. The patio is surrounded by mud and trash and ragged dogs that linger and hang their heads. The cafe doesn’t offer anything to eat but raw meat. We take tea.
Report on Mojo: the garis are efficient as ever, if difficult to climb into. The horse-drawn carts have become emblematic of Mojo in our imaginations, though garis can be found in all Ethiopian towns. We could walk to the school, but why, when we can bounce along in these elegantly awkward little conveyances, waving at local kids and collecting spots of mud on our clothes?
Report on Mojo: we arrive and it’s still early in the school day. Our principal is in her office. She looks at me with her customary perplexity, not the most hospitable soul. Why didn’t we call? She insists that we can’t understand her challenges with these small town children. She complains that she is pregnant again and can’t continue her coursework in Nazarit. Whatever her character flaws, though, she administers a strong school. Everything is running like clockwork.
In the first classroom, the biggest, the children are learning English. The teacher is a young man who is determined that our visit won’t disrupt his lesson. The children are naming letters and matching them on the board. Nothing is conducted in less than a jarring shout. Later, in the yard, the kids will sing the alphabet song for us.
In the second, the smallest classroom, they are working on math. They are becoming acquainted with 22 and 23, reciting again in earth-shaking chorus.
The third room is dedicated to the Oromo language. We’re learning body parts. Master linguist I may be, but these 5 and 6 year-olds have hand and stomach and nose down pat and I’ve already forgotten.
We stay through break-time while our little students patiently line up for turns on the merry-go-round and the swing. Pair by pair, they abandon those toys for the more amusing white-skinned ones, living dolls with cameras and funny words and cat’s eyes. We each have a circle of kids around us. ‘My name is Birtukan.’ ‘My name is Abeba.’
We take Laura back to Debre Zeit for some sight-seeing. We check into the Bishoftu Hotel, our favorite from last year, where the bar overlooks the crater-lake from the lip of its sheer-sided bowl, overlooks the placid green water and the occasional shadow flights of pelicans and pigeons. The same Russians with big bellies sit on deck chairs outside their rooms, except at dawn when they’re ordering scrambled eggs in the restaurant. The same slow waiters shout as they sweep up the courtyard after ten o’clock closing time in the bar. The same ancient taps release their trickle of water after four full turns of the faucet.
Our party splits up. Saba shows Laura the town. They go to Lake Hora and stroll along the shore in the park, bird-watching and teen-watching. An entire secondary school class is communing with nature, complaining about the very site they frequent with friends in their free time.
I set out on a hike along the path I tried last year, determined to go farther this time. This is the road that follows the curve of the lake, passing big houses and shacks and the stark bones of new hotels rising above the cliffs. On the far side, the road turns away from the lake on a tangent that climbs beside the large, barren hill opposite our hotel. The town peters out; the dirt road turns into a vague path beside a gully.
Keep climbing. Resist the temptation to take the right-hand path into some shade. Your path will pass left between small, brown hills and you’ll descend into a wide valley. It is summer gold and traversed by several meager shepherd’s paths. There’s one homestead with a pack of boys playing soccer in the yard. They’ll invite you to play, invite you to pay for a new ball. Keep going, and you’ll find yourself alone between brilliant blue sky and golden grasses, with only the occasional set of shepherd boys who shout and wave from a distance.
I realize at once that for six months I’ve only been alone inside the walls of my house. Take a walk in Addis and you’re anything but alone. Lots of sense impressions, but peace and solitude are the last.
Before reaching the valley, I have excited the usual rants and stares and whistles and laughter. Last year I bristled at the attention, retorted and scowled. This year I only notice it in retrospect, in contrast to the profound silence in the valley. I walk on in wonder, feeling liberated, intoxicated by the combination of sun and silence.
I decide to climb the mountain across the valley. And this I do, up the steep incline, among the eucalyptus that hides me from eyes below – another blessed degree of privacy. I can’t stop, though finally I’m dizzy with heat and exertion. There’s no shade on the last slope, but I just about run up it in exhilaration. At the top is a single, stunted fir that lends enough shade for sitting.
I take off my shoes and stretch my feet toward the steep decline on the other side that tumbles into Shangri La itself, a narrow vale of yellow fields and a cluster of round thatched roofs. Several neighbors are talking across a boundary between fields. I can just about hear their words, though they are little more than pebbles to my sight.
Beyond them is a larger and greener mount, the site of another meteor impact by the looks of it. The nearest side is hollow and offers a rock face that my inexpert eye would call a fun climb – unusual in this area of mellow, grassy grades. It appears there’s another impressive crater beside the mountain, to the left. And all is quiet as a breeze.
Down one adjacent shoulder of the peak is a herd of cattle grazing. I spotted them as I climbed, a few movie-set silhouettes against the sky. No one is tending them. That’s all the company I have, except for the occasional gliding kite, and they’re wonderfully uninterested in the faranj. I love them for that.
Shirishir
It’s time we check in on Mojo. The mega-school in small town Ethiopia has been operational for three months. How’s it doing?
We don’t tell them we’re coming: best if we catch them on an average day. Though it’s not entirely average. We’ve been beseiged by the first of the miniature rainy seasons. It has rained all night, and the first morning’s light is dim. I want to cancel, but Laura and Saba are sure it will be fine. They’re right.
Report on Mojo: transport is fine. We catch a minibus, and the ride is smooth. Day dawns with increasing light and strength. The clouds are giving way.
Report on Mojo: the cafe where we traditionally have brunch has gone downhill. The patio is surrounded by mud and trash and ragged dogs that linger and hang their heads. The cafe doesn’t offer anything to eat but raw meat. We take tea.
Report on Mojo: the garis are efficient as ever, if difficult to climb into. The horse-drawn carts have become emblematic of Mojo in our imaginations, though garis can be found in all Ethiopian towns. We could walk to the school, but why, when we can bounce along in these elegantly awkward little conveyances, waving at local kids and collecting spots of mud on our clothes?
Report on Mojo: we arrive and it’s still early in the school day. Our principal is in her office. She looks at me with her customary perplexity, not the most hospitable soul. Why didn’t we call? She insists that we can’t understand her challenges with these small town children. She complains that she is pregnant again and can’t continue her coursework in Nazarit. Whatever her character flaws, though, she administers a strong school. Everything is running like clockwork.
In the first classroom, the biggest, the children are learning English. The teacher is a young man who is determined that our visit won’t disrupt his lesson. The children are naming letters and matching them on the board. Nothing is conducted in less than a jarring shout. Later, in the yard, the kids will sing the alphabet song for us.
In the second, the smallest classroom, they are working on math. They are becoming acquainted with 22 and 23, reciting again in earth-shaking chorus.
The third room is dedicated to the Oromo language. We’re learning body parts. Master linguist I may be, but these 5 and 6 year-olds have hand and stomach and nose down pat and I’ve already forgotten.
We stay through break-time while our little students patiently line up for turns on the merry-go-round and the swing. Pair by pair, they abandon those toys for the more amusing white-skinned ones, living dolls with cameras and funny words and cat’s eyes. We each have a circle of kids around us. ‘My name is Birtukan.’ ‘My name is Abeba.’
We take Laura back to Debre Zeit for some sight-seeing. We check into the Bishoftu Hotel, our favorite from last year, where the bar overlooks the crater-lake from the lip of its sheer-sided bowl, overlooks the placid green water and the occasional shadow flights of pelicans and pigeons. The same Russians with big bellies sit on deck chairs outside their rooms, except at dawn when they’re ordering scrambled eggs in the restaurant. The same slow waiters shout as they sweep up the courtyard after ten o’clock closing time in the bar. The same ancient taps release their trickle of water after four full turns of the faucet.
Our party splits up. Saba shows Laura the town. They go to Lake Hora and stroll along the shore in the park, bird-watching and teen-watching. An entire secondary school class is communing with nature, complaining about the very site they frequent with friends in their free time.
I set out on a hike along the path I tried last year, determined to go farther this time. This is the road that follows the curve of the lake, passing big houses and shacks and the stark bones of new hotels rising above the cliffs. On the far side, the road turns away from the lake on a tangent that climbs beside the large, barren hill opposite our hotel. The town peters out; the dirt road turns into a vague path beside a gully.
Keep climbing. Resist the temptation to take the right-hand path into some shade. Your path will pass left between small, brown hills and you’ll descend into a wide valley. It is summer gold and traversed by several meager shepherd’s paths. There’s one homestead with a pack of boys playing soccer in the yard. They’ll invite you to play, invite you to pay for a new ball. Keep going, and you’ll find yourself alone between brilliant blue sky and golden grasses, with only the occasional set of shepherd boys who shout and wave from a distance.
I realize at once that for six months I’ve only been alone inside the walls of my house. Take a walk in Addis and you’re anything but alone. Lots of sense impressions, but peace and solitude are the last.
Before reaching the valley, I have excited the usual rants and stares and whistles and laughter. Last year I bristled at the attention, retorted and scowled. This year I only notice it in retrospect, in contrast to the profound silence in the valley. I walk on in wonder, feeling liberated, intoxicated by the combination of sun and silence.
I decide to climb the mountain across the valley. And this I do, up the steep incline, among the eucalyptus that hides me from eyes below – another blessed degree of privacy. I can’t stop, though finally I’m dizzy with heat and exertion. There’s no shade on the last slope, but I just about run up it in exhilaration. At the top is a single, stunted fir that lends enough shade for sitting.
I take off my shoes and stretch my feet toward the steep decline on the other side that tumbles into Shangri La itself, a narrow vale of yellow fields and a cluster of round thatched roofs. Several neighbors are talking across a boundary between fields. I can just about hear their words, though they are little more than pebbles to my sight.
Beyond them is a larger and greener mount, the site of another meteor impact by the looks of it. The nearest side is hollow and offers a rock face that my inexpert eye would call a fun climb – unusual in this area of mellow, grassy grades. It appears there’s another impressive crater beside the mountain, to the left. And all is quiet as a breeze.
Down one adjacent shoulder of the peak is a herd of cattle grazing. I spotted them as I climbed, a few movie-set silhouettes against the sky. No one is tending them. That’s all the company I have, except for the occasional gliding kite, and they’re wonderfully uninterested in the faranj. I love them for that.
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Travelogue 170 – January 25
Artists in Paradise
I dreamed that I settled in a small town in Wisconsin. Sounds like a nightmare, but actually it was a nice dream. I woke up sad, already missing my white clapboard house. I remember that the flowers in the road meridians were healthy and pretty. Everything was clean and ordered and quiet. Things worked. Nearby was a large park with grassy paths and a river. Nobody stared.
Wake up and I’m back in Ethiopia. That old dog is moaning in the neighbor’s yard. He’s been taken in but seems no happier. The lights still don’t work; neither does the water. Last night we had a tremendous storm. Within minutes of the first downpour, the lights went. I ate dinner by candlelight. I watched Jackie cower inside her little house. I listened to the pounding against the iron roof. I watched the waters overflow their drainage channels and gather dangerously at the bottom of my front porch.
My back is still out of whack this morning. I leaned for two and a half hours against the cold concrete wall at Laura’s place the other night, laptop in my lap, watching a VCD we rented: Scorsese’s ‘The Departed’. It’s fun to see all the somebodies together on the screen, but I’m left afterward with a familiar question: what is the joy for American artists in annihilating their characters? Fiat homo, and bam-splat – no matter how tenderly drawn the portait. It feels like self-loathing, the artist’s and the culture’s. I imagine that Ethiopes must just shake their heads and say, ‘Strange place.”
I’m in hiding at Laura’s. My house has been swallowed whole by the Pente neighbors’ party. It’s a celebration of the daughter’s wedding, an event that aspires to epic status. It’s been in the air for six weeks. I thought it was done and past. Laura and I were invited to dinner, and I assumed it was just a family meal and a chance to get acquainted. But on the dreaded day, the neighbors are raising a tent in the street over banks of benches. The pavilion includes my entire wall and gate. The sound system is set against my wall. The wedding has arisen again. I have to stay away.
I survey my courtyard and its layer of silt from the storm. The ghost-dog moans. Confetti piles against my gate. I’m still in Ethiopia. It’s got to be a good day.
And it is. We all gather at the school. Graham and Helen are there to lead their weekly art activity. Graham, the charismatic Brit, pumps up the kids. ‘It’s just art! Don’t worry about meaning,’ shouts this graduate of Goldsmiths. Helen, the laconic art student, does the work, side by side with my staff. It’s collage today: shapes and flowers and lots of glue.
Adam is there, Argentinian-French film translator, screenwriter, and PhD student following in the ambitious footsteps of the poet Rimbaud. He has spent a few months in Harar and Djibouti. He heads back to Paris Sunday.
Laura is there. She’s the real professional in the room and a real joy. I haven’t seen the crowd she couldn’t charm and delight, particularly of children. After the semester break next week, she’ll be tutoring the older kids in English language. They are very lucky. She’s a natural teacher and loves nothing better than teaching, nor anyone more than students.
So the children are having fun, with no less than nine adults fussing over them and marvelling over their work. God knows what they think about the exercise itself, but their smiles are radiant.
Adam and I have coffee. He sets me straight on a number of biographical points about France’s great boy-poet. He’s classified as one of the ‘doomed poets’. Adam clucks his tongue. ‘I don’t think so.’ Was he stuck in Africa by ruthless circumstance? Why? Was there a single other instance of Rimbaud doing other than exactly what he willed? Were his notoriously whining letters home a ruse to distract colonial spies and administrators from his business ventures? What was behind his famous silence as an adult – or inside it? What sort of silences or songs did he discover in the wastes of the Horn of Africa? People who knew him said he wrote constantly.
Well, answers will have to await Adam’s thesis and screenplay and film. (Enter boy-genius, desert love scene, bam-splat. Didn’t DiCapprio already portray Rimbaud?)
Artists in Paradise
I dreamed that I settled in a small town in Wisconsin. Sounds like a nightmare, but actually it was a nice dream. I woke up sad, already missing my white clapboard house. I remember that the flowers in the road meridians were healthy and pretty. Everything was clean and ordered and quiet. Things worked. Nearby was a large park with grassy paths and a river. Nobody stared.
Wake up and I’m back in Ethiopia. That old dog is moaning in the neighbor’s yard. He’s been taken in but seems no happier. The lights still don’t work; neither does the water. Last night we had a tremendous storm. Within minutes of the first downpour, the lights went. I ate dinner by candlelight. I watched Jackie cower inside her little house. I listened to the pounding against the iron roof. I watched the waters overflow their drainage channels and gather dangerously at the bottom of my front porch.
My back is still out of whack this morning. I leaned for two and a half hours against the cold concrete wall at Laura’s place the other night, laptop in my lap, watching a VCD we rented: Scorsese’s ‘The Departed’. It’s fun to see all the somebodies together on the screen, but I’m left afterward with a familiar question: what is the joy for American artists in annihilating their characters? Fiat homo, and bam-splat – no matter how tenderly drawn the portait. It feels like self-loathing, the artist’s and the culture’s. I imagine that Ethiopes must just shake their heads and say, ‘Strange place.”
I’m in hiding at Laura’s. My house has been swallowed whole by the Pente neighbors’ party. It’s a celebration of the daughter’s wedding, an event that aspires to epic status. It’s been in the air for six weeks. I thought it was done and past. Laura and I were invited to dinner, and I assumed it was just a family meal and a chance to get acquainted. But on the dreaded day, the neighbors are raising a tent in the street over banks of benches. The pavilion includes my entire wall and gate. The sound system is set against my wall. The wedding has arisen again. I have to stay away.
I survey my courtyard and its layer of silt from the storm. The ghost-dog moans. Confetti piles against my gate. I’m still in Ethiopia. It’s got to be a good day.
And it is. We all gather at the school. Graham and Helen are there to lead their weekly art activity. Graham, the charismatic Brit, pumps up the kids. ‘It’s just art! Don’t worry about meaning,’ shouts this graduate of Goldsmiths. Helen, the laconic art student, does the work, side by side with my staff. It’s collage today: shapes and flowers and lots of glue.
Adam is there, Argentinian-French film translator, screenwriter, and PhD student following in the ambitious footsteps of the poet Rimbaud. He has spent a few months in Harar and Djibouti. He heads back to Paris Sunday.
Laura is there. She’s the real professional in the room and a real joy. I haven’t seen the crowd she couldn’t charm and delight, particularly of children. After the semester break next week, she’ll be tutoring the older kids in English language. They are very lucky. She’s a natural teacher and loves nothing better than teaching, nor anyone more than students.
So the children are having fun, with no less than nine adults fussing over them and marvelling over their work. God knows what they think about the exercise itself, but their smiles are radiant.
Adam and I have coffee. He sets me straight on a number of biographical points about France’s great boy-poet. He’s classified as one of the ‘doomed poets’. Adam clucks his tongue. ‘I don’t think so.’ Was he stuck in Africa by ruthless circumstance? Why? Was there a single other instance of Rimbaud doing other than exactly what he willed? Were his notoriously whining letters home a ruse to distract colonial spies and administrators from his business ventures? What was behind his famous silence as an adult – or inside it? What sort of silences or songs did he discover in the wastes of the Horn of Africa? People who knew him said he wrote constantly.
Well, answers will have to await Adam’s thesis and screenplay and film. (Enter boy-genius, desert love scene, bam-splat. Didn’t DiCapprio already portray Rimbaud?)
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Travelogue 169 – January 16
Unwelcome Guests
It’s dawn. There’s a ghost in my courtyard. It groans in a sickly way, long groans punctuated by a shrill yap. It’s dark and shadowy, and it lopes in a curiously languid manner, head held low. Jackie in her little dog house stares at it the way I do, with mystified and wary interest. I have to go out and do something about it. I pick up a stick on the way. When I approach, it collapses, as though into ash, rolling onto its back.
When the owners of the house moved to America, they apparently turned their old dog out to wander the streets among the many strays. Of course, the strays are much better equipped to survive than this lame, old beast. He submits to his fate, allowing me to guide him out by his crackling ancient collar. I check to see how he got in. Sad to have to shore up walls against bereaved and starving pets. Above, the sky is striking, a crystalline blue-violet holding a brilliant crescent moon.
This visitor has awakened my legitimate guest, I’m sure. And the real visitor needs her sleep, having traveled from America only a few days ago. She’s been busy since then, getting the tour, looking for a house of her own. She’s held up remarkably well, and yet I know how this place can wear you down.
Tonight will be Laura’s first night at her new house. We found her a place up the hill from mine, at the northern edge of town. Beyond her house, there are only hills. The building itself is wonderfully 70s LA, tile and Flintstones rock in the façade. The backdrop is Hollywood Hills. She’s downstairs in a very nice and clean and concrete-cool apartment.
She’s a hundred yards from the Tsion Hotel, landmark on this side of town. Saba and I join her there in the evening to celebrate with fries and beer. There’s a patio in back, green and pleasant. It pulses with the ever-present and unvarying set of Ethio-pop hits. There’s an ebullient group in the corner, dancing, clapping, and swiveling with video cameras. Saba informs us that it’s a wedding, and one of the guests of honor is a well-known pop singer and film director. The camera flashes mount in intensity.
It’s been a rough week. Projects and their attendant details are multiplying almost daily, with a kind of insistence very like the camera flashes. 2007 has announced itself as a year to be busy. God knows what will come of it. In the sponge-like blue-sky fog of Ethiopia, it’s hard to predict results. The waves generated by effort seem to die almost immediately.
We get onto politics somehow. It’s a tired topic: how dark a shadow Bush throws over all the world. Does it need saying in 2007? I’d rather check out of this one, but I find myself in the unusual position of translator – only possible because Saba has cultivated an effective patois of baby-talk that I can follow.
Saba is on a roll. ‘Bush is bad.’ Soldiers are dying. He’s sending more. These discussions make my eyes burn. ‘Yes, you’re right,’ is all I can say. ‘Why are they there? They should leave.’ I don’t know. I don’t know.
Most of Bush’s first term I spent in great rages. Now I feel like I’ve been through the classic stages of grief and dying. There’s little in the world of humanity that doesn’t inspire a greater part weariness than hope or outrage.
Saba starts up about journalists, journalists who were killed. I’m struggling to keep up with her excited words. She has pulled out her fancy little mobile that can play video, and suddenly I realize I’m watching a beheading.
Let me tell you about it. A man is on his knees. Behind him stands another man with a large knife. The executioner shoves his prey to the ground and straddles him. Little time is wasted as he pulls back the head by the hair and begins sawing. There is a great spray of blood and the head swings with the motion of the knife in an unnatural way. The head is quickly free and the executioner holds it high, stepping away in brash triumph. The video cuts out. One second of a severed head: it is an utterly unique and strange and terrible object. So elementary an act, but so unlike life and living, so unlike any human movement, even in the weirdest dance or circus. It’s something like the first time you hear a familiar musical instrument played backward.
I’m deaf to the conversation now. The bottom to my weary day dissolves from under me. The moment is wrong is so many ways. The way I can’t tear my eyes away. The ecstasy in the violence on the part of the ‘man of God’. The fact that Saba would have this video on her phone.
The floor to the day dissolves, and I know the blackness of this well. I’m helpless. I flash back to the police reports about the disposition of Leeza’s body in her overturned car. Terrible winds howl in this well, trapped by the shape of evil.
I recall a relative’s words of consolation, his dry and smug tone: ‘it’s one more sacrifice to the power structure,’ or some such Berkeley fortune-cookie pap. Yes, yes. And yet, and even so, even you, the ciphers of the world, the bland and the ignorant, ever-ready with the most rank of pre-digested rage, even the paragons of everything fleeting and empty have hearts that beat. If I puncture one, the world wails for it – or some world close to ours, anyway. Best to still your noise and listen.
This stuff is familiar. I wrestle the pain back into a corner for later, for nighttime, the time for ghosts. I’ll have to give in some time. The world has its way with us, and the most fun for absolute power is in caprice and injustice. This is the God behind the dance of the executioner.
Unwelcome Guests
It’s dawn. There’s a ghost in my courtyard. It groans in a sickly way, long groans punctuated by a shrill yap. It’s dark and shadowy, and it lopes in a curiously languid manner, head held low. Jackie in her little dog house stares at it the way I do, with mystified and wary interest. I have to go out and do something about it. I pick up a stick on the way. When I approach, it collapses, as though into ash, rolling onto its back.
When the owners of the house moved to America, they apparently turned their old dog out to wander the streets among the many strays. Of course, the strays are much better equipped to survive than this lame, old beast. He submits to his fate, allowing me to guide him out by his crackling ancient collar. I check to see how he got in. Sad to have to shore up walls against bereaved and starving pets. Above, the sky is striking, a crystalline blue-violet holding a brilliant crescent moon.
This visitor has awakened my legitimate guest, I’m sure. And the real visitor needs her sleep, having traveled from America only a few days ago. She’s been busy since then, getting the tour, looking for a house of her own. She’s held up remarkably well, and yet I know how this place can wear you down.
Tonight will be Laura’s first night at her new house. We found her a place up the hill from mine, at the northern edge of town. Beyond her house, there are only hills. The building itself is wonderfully 70s LA, tile and Flintstones rock in the façade. The backdrop is Hollywood Hills. She’s downstairs in a very nice and clean and concrete-cool apartment.
She’s a hundred yards from the Tsion Hotel, landmark on this side of town. Saba and I join her there in the evening to celebrate with fries and beer. There’s a patio in back, green and pleasant. It pulses with the ever-present and unvarying set of Ethio-pop hits. There’s an ebullient group in the corner, dancing, clapping, and swiveling with video cameras. Saba informs us that it’s a wedding, and one of the guests of honor is a well-known pop singer and film director. The camera flashes mount in intensity.
It’s been a rough week. Projects and their attendant details are multiplying almost daily, with a kind of insistence very like the camera flashes. 2007 has announced itself as a year to be busy. God knows what will come of it. In the sponge-like blue-sky fog of Ethiopia, it’s hard to predict results. The waves generated by effort seem to die almost immediately.
We get onto politics somehow. It’s a tired topic: how dark a shadow Bush throws over all the world. Does it need saying in 2007? I’d rather check out of this one, but I find myself in the unusual position of translator – only possible because Saba has cultivated an effective patois of baby-talk that I can follow.
Saba is on a roll. ‘Bush is bad.’ Soldiers are dying. He’s sending more. These discussions make my eyes burn. ‘Yes, you’re right,’ is all I can say. ‘Why are they there? They should leave.’ I don’t know. I don’t know.
Most of Bush’s first term I spent in great rages. Now I feel like I’ve been through the classic stages of grief and dying. There’s little in the world of humanity that doesn’t inspire a greater part weariness than hope or outrage.
Saba starts up about journalists, journalists who were killed. I’m struggling to keep up with her excited words. She has pulled out her fancy little mobile that can play video, and suddenly I realize I’m watching a beheading.
Let me tell you about it. A man is on his knees. Behind him stands another man with a large knife. The executioner shoves his prey to the ground and straddles him. Little time is wasted as he pulls back the head by the hair and begins sawing. There is a great spray of blood and the head swings with the motion of the knife in an unnatural way. The head is quickly free and the executioner holds it high, stepping away in brash triumph. The video cuts out. One second of a severed head: it is an utterly unique and strange and terrible object. So elementary an act, but so unlike life and living, so unlike any human movement, even in the weirdest dance or circus. It’s something like the first time you hear a familiar musical instrument played backward.
I’m deaf to the conversation now. The bottom to my weary day dissolves from under me. The moment is wrong is so many ways. The way I can’t tear my eyes away. The ecstasy in the violence on the part of the ‘man of God’. The fact that Saba would have this video on her phone.
The floor to the day dissolves, and I know the blackness of this well. I’m helpless. I flash back to the police reports about the disposition of Leeza’s body in her overturned car. Terrible winds howl in this well, trapped by the shape of evil.
I recall a relative’s words of consolation, his dry and smug tone: ‘it’s one more sacrifice to the power structure,’ or some such Berkeley fortune-cookie pap. Yes, yes. And yet, and even so, even you, the ciphers of the world, the bland and the ignorant, ever-ready with the most rank of pre-digested rage, even the paragons of everything fleeting and empty have hearts that beat. If I puncture one, the world wails for it – or some world close to ours, anyway. Best to still your noise and listen.
This stuff is familiar. I wrestle the pain back into a corner for later, for nighttime, the time for ghosts. I’ll have to give in some time. The world has its way with us, and the most fun for absolute power is in caprice and injustice. This is the God behind the dance of the executioner.
Sunday, January 07, 2007
Travelogue 168 – January 7
Crazy Christmas
‘Inquan adarasachu’ – so you made it. It’s Ethiopian Christmas. On Friday, we have our school party. The kids are delighted. We have a full house: sixty children around the tables in the courtyard, most of them dressed in adorable miniature versions of the traditional garb. We have all the first-graders and kindergarteners together.
They’ve sung carols. They’ve lit their candles. Now comes the part where they stare. We’ve brought in Santa. Last year, it was Francois, calling out ‘Merry Christmas’ in his heavy accent from behind a heavy mat of cotton. This year, it’s Lydia, blonde and Irish and female. She does nothing to disguise her female voice or brogue. But Saba has come up with a ghastly plastic Santa mask, which we augment with Francois’ old cotton. We’ve neglected to pad her belly. The cotton is long and insecurely fastened. The mask is hot and Lydia can’t see well. Our Santa stumbles uncertainly and holds her beard when she bends to shake children’s hands, making her seem vaguely like an old Chinese man. The overall effect is utterly perplexing to the kids and intensely comic to the adults. Yohannes arrives late, and can’t help staring in distress at this strange figure.
A few minutes after Santa staggers out the gate, Lydia arrives and the kids jump all over her. She comes once a week to do art with them. After which, it’s time for dancing. The music is turned up and everyone starts in. Probably because government television broadcasts ethnic dance nearly twenty-four hours a day, everyone is an aficionado. These five and six year-olds know all the moves. The adult Ethiopes laugh. For us faranjis, it’s a nearly toxic dose of cuteness. It makes my holiday.
I’m lucky to have made it at all. The day before, there’s an attempt on my life. Unsuccessful as far as I can tell, but I’m flattered someone would think me worthy of assassination. Okay, so it’s someone with an addled mind, but still ….
It probably goes without saying that Addis Ababa has an impressive stock and variety of crazy people walking the streets. (Does it go without saying?) I cringe when I see one, though I usually like crazy people, just because I’m such a natural target.
I’m in Piassa. A friend of Saba’s calls me over. I cross the street, and I’m talking to him. He has a brother in Minnesota, who is now visiting in Ethiopia. Suddenly, I receive a tremendous shove in the back, and I’m flung into traffic. Okay, so the oncoming car is twenty yards off and creeping along, as they always do along that street. I look back. It’s a crazy woman, a regular in the neighborhood, muttering something about Americans. Next, I find myself ducking from several well-aimed and sizeable stones.
The most disturbing thing about this episode is my own reaction. I’m actually more interested in the conversation. This guy’s brother owns a restaurant in Minneapolis, and I’m eager to find out which one. I wave off the crazy and pursue the topic at hand. The guy’s face is a mask of concern, and he can’t concentrate on the subject. He tries to steer me away. By-standers are gesturing for me to go, and finally I give up in frustration. What has happened to my sense of what’s normal?
Saba, of course, thinks it’s funny. She says she’s had to dodge a few missiles herself. Charming is a society that accepts its crazies so graciously. And yet, there’s the issue of perspective. If I come down with a sniffle, Saba wrings her hands and pushes a visit to the doctor. But the crazy who would like to see us under the wheels of a car is local color.
Anyway, it’s Christmas. If I didn’t know, my neighbors would be sure to alert me. The Pentes are quiet. Traditional holidays are no occasions for excess. It’s the neighbors on the other side of me that start up. They have sessions of drumming and hymns in their courtyard. By and large, I don’t mind. I kind of like it. It’s more comforting than exorcisms behind my salon walls.
That’s no hyperbole. A few weeks ago, I was aural witness to the driving out of demons. The neighbor, head witch doctor, admitted as much to me the next day when I protested. Okay, no more banishing demons, he concedes with great disappointment. We’ll have to handle it in church.
I don’t think the freed demons found my place very attractive, unless I’m missing something. Maybe we’re just very compatible. I know a few women who would say that possession would be an improvement in my character. In any case, I’m pretty sure the demons would be better company than their persecutors next door. Less frightening, surely.
Crazy Christmas
‘Inquan adarasachu’ – so you made it. It’s Ethiopian Christmas. On Friday, we have our school party. The kids are delighted. We have a full house: sixty children around the tables in the courtyard, most of them dressed in adorable miniature versions of the traditional garb. We have all the first-graders and kindergarteners together.
They’ve sung carols. They’ve lit their candles. Now comes the part where they stare. We’ve brought in Santa. Last year, it was Francois, calling out ‘Merry Christmas’ in his heavy accent from behind a heavy mat of cotton. This year, it’s Lydia, blonde and Irish and female. She does nothing to disguise her female voice or brogue. But Saba has come up with a ghastly plastic Santa mask, which we augment with Francois’ old cotton. We’ve neglected to pad her belly. The cotton is long and insecurely fastened. The mask is hot and Lydia can’t see well. Our Santa stumbles uncertainly and holds her beard when she bends to shake children’s hands, making her seem vaguely like an old Chinese man. The overall effect is utterly perplexing to the kids and intensely comic to the adults. Yohannes arrives late, and can’t help staring in distress at this strange figure.
A few minutes after Santa staggers out the gate, Lydia arrives and the kids jump all over her. She comes once a week to do art with them. After which, it’s time for dancing. The music is turned up and everyone starts in. Probably because government television broadcasts ethnic dance nearly twenty-four hours a day, everyone is an aficionado. These five and six year-olds know all the moves. The adult Ethiopes laugh. For us faranjis, it’s a nearly toxic dose of cuteness. It makes my holiday.
I’m lucky to have made it at all. The day before, there’s an attempt on my life. Unsuccessful as far as I can tell, but I’m flattered someone would think me worthy of assassination. Okay, so it’s someone with an addled mind, but still ….
It probably goes without saying that Addis Ababa has an impressive stock and variety of crazy people walking the streets. (Does it go without saying?) I cringe when I see one, though I usually like crazy people, just because I’m such a natural target.
I’m in Piassa. A friend of Saba’s calls me over. I cross the street, and I’m talking to him. He has a brother in Minnesota, who is now visiting in Ethiopia. Suddenly, I receive a tremendous shove in the back, and I’m flung into traffic. Okay, so the oncoming car is twenty yards off and creeping along, as they always do along that street. I look back. It’s a crazy woman, a regular in the neighborhood, muttering something about Americans. Next, I find myself ducking from several well-aimed and sizeable stones.
The most disturbing thing about this episode is my own reaction. I’m actually more interested in the conversation. This guy’s brother owns a restaurant in Minneapolis, and I’m eager to find out which one. I wave off the crazy and pursue the topic at hand. The guy’s face is a mask of concern, and he can’t concentrate on the subject. He tries to steer me away. By-standers are gesturing for me to go, and finally I give up in frustration. What has happened to my sense of what’s normal?
Saba, of course, thinks it’s funny. She says she’s had to dodge a few missiles herself. Charming is a society that accepts its crazies so graciously. And yet, there’s the issue of perspective. If I come down with a sniffle, Saba wrings her hands and pushes a visit to the doctor. But the crazy who would like to see us under the wheels of a car is local color.
Anyway, it’s Christmas. If I didn’t know, my neighbors would be sure to alert me. The Pentes are quiet. Traditional holidays are no occasions for excess. It’s the neighbors on the other side of me that start up. They have sessions of drumming and hymns in their courtyard. By and large, I don’t mind. I kind of like it. It’s more comforting than exorcisms behind my salon walls.
That’s no hyperbole. A few weeks ago, I was aural witness to the driving out of demons. The neighbor, head witch doctor, admitted as much to me the next day when I protested. Okay, no more banishing demons, he concedes with great disappointment. We’ll have to handle it in church.
I don’t think the freed demons found my place very attractive, unless I’m missing something. Maybe we’re just very compatible. I know a few women who would say that possession would be an improvement in my character. In any case, I’m pretty sure the demons would be better company than their persecutors next door. Less frightening, surely.
Saturday, December 30, 2006
Travelogue 167 – December 30
Sacrifice
Today is a Muslim holiday. I’m reminded immediately, as I try to make my way to Bole in the morning. The roads are clogged with veiled women and men in white, walking home from the stadium, where they gather together by the thousands on important holidays.
It’s Eid al Adha, or Arafa, when Muslims celebrate the day Abraham brought his son to the mountain for sacrifice. But in the Muslim version, it’s Ishmael, not Isaac, who was offered up to the irascible Middle Eastern god. Apparently, a fair amount of effort has been dedicated to proving the Koran right and the Bible mistaken on this point. Count the days, count the years, I’ve been told, and you’ll find Ishmael was the right age for the story, while Isaac was still a babe. I don’t know; I haven’t tried.
I make it to my appointment in Bole, but only because I had set out early in hopes of coffee beforehand. Instead, I languish in the sun-side window seat of a taxi minibus while hundreds of the devout stream by. At least there’s a pleasant variety of costume. The traditional costume of the Orthodox has become ‘hager libs’, or the picture of traditional Ethiopia. Muslim costume is more international, with touches of north African, Somali, Arabian, Palestinian influence.
The appointment is a waste of time, as most are here that have any pretense of business. I’ve been trying to reach out in past weeks, see what kind of partnerships I can forge. I prefer working with others. But invariably this kind of exploratory meeting decays into purple tales of woe, abuse, and crimes suffered by my interlocutor. I try to commiserate, and I bear suspicious gazes until the meeting ends, at which time I’m encouraged to call back with more ideas. Somehow, I don’t have the heart to.
I had high hopes for this meeting because it was a faranj, a Brit who has been fairly successful here. But it isn’t long before the tales of woe appear, like bubbles of air that cannot be repressed.
It’s all a bit Gothic for my taste. I can’t take it seriously. I laugh when I should shake my head. I shake my head when I should affirm, “Yes, you’re absolutely right.” I leave without a deal, and thankful. The business climate is permanently set at ‘hot-house’ and I don’t think I’ll get too far. These delicate creatures will devour me, given the chance. When the bones are picked clean, the melancholic bards will weave their story.
I arrive at Eman’s family’s just as a sheep is being slaughtered. One man holds the still-kicking legs. One saws through its neck with a long knife. It’s chance that my shoes aren’t splattered with blood. I look at the pool of blood. It’s a brighter color than seems right. The sheep’s head lolls to one side. Its hind legs still twitch.
There are guests inside, a couple from Yemen. Rukeia was once married to a Yemeni. She struck up a conversation with this couple today and found out they had nowhere to go for the holiday. They were in town for business, and – pay attention; unpredictable plot twist here – they were cheated out of a quarter million by their Ethiopian business associates.
They seem serene enough now, despite their travails. He’s smoking, gulping down tea, and chewing ch’at, reminding me of the bright-eyed Kuwaitis and their demanding daily regimen of stimulants. The couple speaks only Arabic, so Ali fills the conversational space with one of his disquisitions, telling me how the Yemeni and Ethiopies are historically related and were once both classified as ‘Habash’. This appetite for ch’at is one of those last palpable threads of brotherhood. The Yemeni nods, and with a feral spark in his eye – an eye and a face distinctly Arab, and bearing no resemblance to the gentler contours and coloring of Ethiopian physiognomy, -- he offers me a stalk of ch’at. I’m advised to reply with a sincere ‘shukran’. I do. I tell him I want to see Sana’a. He invites me with a wide, tobacco-stained grin.
As it happens, they – and who the they are is a sensitive question – have executed Saddam today, on the morning of a major Muslim holy day. Al-Jazeera will not let it go. For hours, they broadcast the same video loop of Saddam’s history, with many a noble shot of him among his people, and endless rapid-fire commentary in Arabic. Occasionally there’s a new clip of bootleg-style video slipped in, video from the execution itself: the old man led toward the gallows, fierce glint in his eye. Finally, there’s a brief shot, like footage from the moon landing, of the body in its bag, head revealed, and its red neck.
My hosts and companions are by turns outraged and heart-broken. The cycling video strikes the intended emotional notes every time. Eman’s mother wants me to know that this is Bush’s doing. Ali explains how this is a message to all Muslims. “Yes, yes. Tsk, tsk,”: what do I say? It’s hard for me to work up much sympathy for Saddam or to become truly alarmed about a world-wide conspiracy against Islam, but I was never a fan of this war, of Bush, or of the death penalty, anyway, so a part of me is with them. The other part squirms with familiar discomfort on account of patriae. But I’m safe. I’m an honorary Muslim when I visit this house.
Oddly enough, later the same day, this is what happens to me. I’m on the way to class in Mercato. A woman in a black hijab gets on the taxi and sits next to me. She tries a few words in Arabic with me. When I’m not too responsive, she asks me, “Arabic or English?” Despite my answer, she talks to me in Amharic. She tells me I look like I could be Saudi. Something around the eyes. I’m speechless. Saudi? As soon as I can, I check a mirror. Ishmael, is that you? Have you survived your trip to the mountain?
Sacrifice
Today is a Muslim holiday. I’m reminded immediately, as I try to make my way to Bole in the morning. The roads are clogged with veiled women and men in white, walking home from the stadium, where they gather together by the thousands on important holidays.
It’s Eid al Adha, or Arafa, when Muslims celebrate the day Abraham brought his son to the mountain for sacrifice. But in the Muslim version, it’s Ishmael, not Isaac, who was offered up to the irascible Middle Eastern god. Apparently, a fair amount of effort has been dedicated to proving the Koran right and the Bible mistaken on this point. Count the days, count the years, I’ve been told, and you’ll find Ishmael was the right age for the story, while Isaac was still a babe. I don’t know; I haven’t tried.
I make it to my appointment in Bole, but only because I had set out early in hopes of coffee beforehand. Instead, I languish in the sun-side window seat of a taxi minibus while hundreds of the devout stream by. At least there’s a pleasant variety of costume. The traditional costume of the Orthodox has become ‘hager libs’, or the picture of traditional Ethiopia. Muslim costume is more international, with touches of north African, Somali, Arabian, Palestinian influence.
The appointment is a waste of time, as most are here that have any pretense of business. I’ve been trying to reach out in past weeks, see what kind of partnerships I can forge. I prefer working with others. But invariably this kind of exploratory meeting decays into purple tales of woe, abuse, and crimes suffered by my interlocutor. I try to commiserate, and I bear suspicious gazes until the meeting ends, at which time I’m encouraged to call back with more ideas. Somehow, I don’t have the heart to.
I had high hopes for this meeting because it was a faranj, a Brit who has been fairly successful here. But it isn’t long before the tales of woe appear, like bubbles of air that cannot be repressed.
It’s all a bit Gothic for my taste. I can’t take it seriously. I laugh when I should shake my head. I shake my head when I should affirm, “Yes, you’re absolutely right.” I leave without a deal, and thankful. The business climate is permanently set at ‘hot-house’ and I don’t think I’ll get too far. These delicate creatures will devour me, given the chance. When the bones are picked clean, the melancholic bards will weave their story.
I arrive at Eman’s family’s just as a sheep is being slaughtered. One man holds the still-kicking legs. One saws through its neck with a long knife. It’s chance that my shoes aren’t splattered with blood. I look at the pool of blood. It’s a brighter color than seems right. The sheep’s head lolls to one side. Its hind legs still twitch.
There are guests inside, a couple from Yemen. Rukeia was once married to a Yemeni. She struck up a conversation with this couple today and found out they had nowhere to go for the holiday. They were in town for business, and – pay attention; unpredictable plot twist here – they were cheated out of a quarter million by their Ethiopian business associates.
They seem serene enough now, despite their travails. He’s smoking, gulping down tea, and chewing ch’at, reminding me of the bright-eyed Kuwaitis and their demanding daily regimen of stimulants. The couple speaks only Arabic, so Ali fills the conversational space with one of his disquisitions, telling me how the Yemeni and Ethiopies are historically related and were once both classified as ‘Habash’. This appetite for ch’at is one of those last palpable threads of brotherhood. The Yemeni nods, and with a feral spark in his eye – an eye and a face distinctly Arab, and bearing no resemblance to the gentler contours and coloring of Ethiopian physiognomy, -- he offers me a stalk of ch’at. I’m advised to reply with a sincere ‘shukran’. I do. I tell him I want to see Sana’a. He invites me with a wide, tobacco-stained grin.
As it happens, they – and who the they are is a sensitive question – have executed Saddam today, on the morning of a major Muslim holy day. Al-Jazeera will not let it go. For hours, they broadcast the same video loop of Saddam’s history, with many a noble shot of him among his people, and endless rapid-fire commentary in Arabic. Occasionally there’s a new clip of bootleg-style video slipped in, video from the execution itself: the old man led toward the gallows, fierce glint in his eye. Finally, there’s a brief shot, like footage from the moon landing, of the body in its bag, head revealed, and its red neck.
My hosts and companions are by turns outraged and heart-broken. The cycling video strikes the intended emotional notes every time. Eman’s mother wants me to know that this is Bush’s doing. Ali explains how this is a message to all Muslims. “Yes, yes. Tsk, tsk,”: what do I say? It’s hard for me to work up much sympathy for Saddam or to become truly alarmed about a world-wide conspiracy against Islam, but I was never a fan of this war, of Bush, or of the death penalty, anyway, so a part of me is with them. The other part squirms with familiar discomfort on account of patriae. But I’m safe. I’m an honorary Muslim when I visit this house.
Oddly enough, later the same day, this is what happens to me. I’m on the way to class in Mercato. A woman in a black hijab gets on the taxi and sits next to me. She tries a few words in Arabic with me. When I’m not too responsive, she asks me, “Arabic or English?” Despite my answer, she talks to me in Amharic. She tells me I look like I could be Saudi. Something around the eyes. I’m speechless. Saudi? As soon as I can, I check a mirror. Ishmael, is that you? Have you survived your trip to the mountain?
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Travelogue 166 – December 20
Mercato
Hey everybody, I got my green card! I’m legal! Time for a party. I’ve got the house for it now. We’ll eat lots of injera and sauce, drink local beer out of the bottle, and dance the skista. With enough beers down, we might invite the next door Pentes over for some blessed moaning and Twister. God will smile on us.
But I’ve got other plans tonight. I’m off to Mercato for the evening. I’ve opened a little class for English language, the launch of a business empire to boggle the minds of generations to come. Much like Alexander’s empire, mine issues from humble beginnings. Mercato is my Macedonia, an unforgiving land of hardy folk.
Notorious among Addis Ababans, notable as Addis’ s preeminent tourist attraction, Mercato has largely escaped my own worthy notice for almost three years. That’s because there really isn’t reason to go but to shop. Now, you can study English – at Jarvis Language, the only language center in the district. Please stop by. If you’re spending time on this blog, chances are your language skills aren’t too sophisticated. We can help.
It’ll be fun. But be prepared. There’s nowhere like Mercato. Maybe we can say it’s Ethiopia to a highly distilled degree. If you think Arat Kilo is crowded, prepare. If you think Piassa is noisy, prepare. If you think Meganagna is dirty and chaotic – and I’ve heard all your complaints about Addis urban life – prepare yourself.
First, on the taxi, secure everything. Where’s your wallet? Where’s your phone. Button and zip all pockets and bags and keep a hand on anything loose. Ready? Disembark!
(Note: I had an interesting criminal encounter last week. I was walking with Graham in the Ambassador neighborhood. A couple tall teens seem to be roughhousing. As we pass, they jostle into us. One grabs me around the knees, seemingly in a playful way. The other starts frisking. All I do is put a hand on my wallet, just as the boy’s fingers find it. As suddenly as they came, they roll away, running across the busy street. So easily foiled, so quickly passed, Graham has barely broken stride.)
Disembark! It’s best if you’ve ridden in on the most packed taxi possible so when you do disembark, you roll like a commando into the crowds. It’s also best if you have a ten year-old boy near to the surface of your psyche, or at least can easily summon up the Mission Impossible theme (and who can’t?) Be in a hurry, even if you’re not.
It’s a lot more fun than Times Square or the Fourth of July, weaving among bustling crowds on narrow streets, among crowds who have shed their customary courtesies. Okay, now add taxis and trucks that sway beneath massive loads, usually with a man or two perched precariously atop. Add dollies, donkeys, and men bent forward under bags packed with twice a man’s mass. None of these creatures looks where they’re going. Add frequent clusters of yelling men unloading trucks, paying no mind to pedestrians. Add clouds of dust and oppressive sun. O’Hare with a twenty-minute connection? Please.
If you have no mission, let alone an impossible one, you might find Mercato boring. Lots of merchants’ stalls, but mostly household goods: bland clothes, shoes, kitchen items, luggage, and the ubiquitous foam mattresses – and not much variety from stall to stall.
My advice in those circumstances: take a few hours, choose some item at random, and enjoy one of my favorite pastimes in this part of the world, bargaining. Nothing here matches my fond memories of Istanbul in this respect – the luxury and timelessness of the ritual. But there’s still the magic of ready service and easy smiles amid the chaos. Still the gentle and human art of negotiation – the careless offer, the laugh and cocky dismissal. Your counter, a tsk-tsk and some fabricated flaws, the better deals down the street, the I-know-better cock of the head. Your last price, his scoff, the reluctant exit. Mercato merchants are the best, friendly but hard-bitten.
Afterward, come down to Jarvis Language at about sunset and watch the day’s last frenzy. We’re on the third floor and there’s no wall or railing on our balcony. Stand at the edge and watch the whole mad drama, block upon block of it to where it fades into Piassa. You can see much of the city from here, looking east, all the way to the hills. But you’ll always be drawn back to observing the clamor below. There’s something endlessly fascinating about it.
Mercato
Hey everybody, I got my green card! I’m legal! Time for a party. I’ve got the house for it now. We’ll eat lots of injera and sauce, drink local beer out of the bottle, and dance the skista. With enough beers down, we might invite the next door Pentes over for some blessed moaning and Twister. God will smile on us.
But I’ve got other plans tonight. I’m off to Mercato for the evening. I’ve opened a little class for English language, the launch of a business empire to boggle the minds of generations to come. Much like Alexander’s empire, mine issues from humble beginnings. Mercato is my Macedonia, an unforgiving land of hardy folk.
Notorious among Addis Ababans, notable as Addis’ s preeminent tourist attraction, Mercato has largely escaped my own worthy notice for almost three years. That’s because there really isn’t reason to go but to shop. Now, you can study English – at Jarvis Language, the only language center in the district. Please stop by. If you’re spending time on this blog, chances are your language skills aren’t too sophisticated. We can help.
It’ll be fun. But be prepared. There’s nowhere like Mercato. Maybe we can say it’s Ethiopia to a highly distilled degree. If you think Arat Kilo is crowded, prepare. If you think Piassa is noisy, prepare. If you think Meganagna is dirty and chaotic – and I’ve heard all your complaints about Addis urban life – prepare yourself.
First, on the taxi, secure everything. Where’s your wallet? Where’s your phone. Button and zip all pockets and bags and keep a hand on anything loose. Ready? Disembark!
(Note: I had an interesting criminal encounter last week. I was walking with Graham in the Ambassador neighborhood. A couple tall teens seem to be roughhousing. As we pass, they jostle into us. One grabs me around the knees, seemingly in a playful way. The other starts frisking. All I do is put a hand on my wallet, just as the boy’s fingers find it. As suddenly as they came, they roll away, running across the busy street. So easily foiled, so quickly passed, Graham has barely broken stride.)
Disembark! It’s best if you’ve ridden in on the most packed taxi possible so when you do disembark, you roll like a commando into the crowds. It’s also best if you have a ten year-old boy near to the surface of your psyche, or at least can easily summon up the Mission Impossible theme (and who can’t?) Be in a hurry, even if you’re not.
It’s a lot more fun than Times Square or the Fourth of July, weaving among bustling crowds on narrow streets, among crowds who have shed their customary courtesies. Okay, now add taxis and trucks that sway beneath massive loads, usually with a man or two perched precariously atop. Add dollies, donkeys, and men bent forward under bags packed with twice a man’s mass. None of these creatures looks where they’re going. Add frequent clusters of yelling men unloading trucks, paying no mind to pedestrians. Add clouds of dust and oppressive sun. O’Hare with a twenty-minute connection? Please.
If you have no mission, let alone an impossible one, you might find Mercato boring. Lots of merchants’ stalls, but mostly household goods: bland clothes, shoes, kitchen items, luggage, and the ubiquitous foam mattresses – and not much variety from stall to stall.
My advice in those circumstances: take a few hours, choose some item at random, and enjoy one of my favorite pastimes in this part of the world, bargaining. Nothing here matches my fond memories of Istanbul in this respect – the luxury and timelessness of the ritual. But there’s still the magic of ready service and easy smiles amid the chaos. Still the gentle and human art of negotiation – the careless offer, the laugh and cocky dismissal. Your counter, a tsk-tsk and some fabricated flaws, the better deals down the street, the I-know-better cock of the head. Your last price, his scoff, the reluctant exit. Mercato merchants are the best, friendly but hard-bitten.
Afterward, come down to Jarvis Language at about sunset and watch the day’s last frenzy. We’re on the third floor and there’s no wall or railing on our balcony. Stand at the edge and watch the whole mad drama, block upon block of it to where it fades into Piassa. You can see much of the city from here, looking east, all the way to the hills. But you’ll always be drawn back to observing the clamor below. There’s something endlessly fascinating about it.
Friday, December 15, 2006
Travelogue 165 – December 15
The Gibi
I’ve got a new house. Still northside. I’m in a neighborhood called ‘Addisu Gebiya’, which means something like the New Market. Still up against the mountains, but a little more city than Shiro Meda. It’s just off the main road north out of town.
To an untrained eye, things may not appear so different, except that my new neighborhood isn’t so pretty. The mountains and the trees don’t rise so scenically around us. Things are flatter. I’m closer to transport. There are more houses with walls and gates. When I go to a shop or café, fewer people are startled or delighted by the sight of faranj. That I like. As near anonymity as I can get in Addis Ababa.
Ride in the taxi up from Piassa. Quickly you pass the Italian Cultural Center and the Samen Hotel. The latter lends its name to the district between Piassa and mine. So further on you’ll pass the Semen Chapel – which might only be an unfortunate transliteration. Hard to say: the hardcore Protestants are making a fierce play for this country. Listen to their services, as anyone within blocks is obliged to do, and one might wonder what all the moaning is about.
I have some ‘Pentes’, as they are called, next door at my new place. We share a wall. They get to chanting and moaning sometimes. I toss in a Hallefuckinglujah, just because I hate to be left out of anything involving God and moaning. I think it makes them happy because there’s a pause afterward.
Continue up the long, slow grade. You’ll pass the Guinean embassy. The road jogs to the left, and when you see the ‘Full Dose’ bar, you’ll call out ‘waraj alla’, signaling your stop. I’m a block away. You can take the busy road, alive with markets and butchers and traffic. Or you can take the quiet one with bridge over a stream loaded with trash and excrement. I prefer the latter route.
The prime asset of my little house is the gibi, the quiet, clean square of concrete behind high walls, bright with sunshine, where I sit and read or throw the ball for Jackie. She’s more interested in the abundant cats that patrol the local walls and roofs. Even more abundant are the doves and crows and falcon-like kites that trade perches and glide overhead and whistle and croak and coo.
Two sides of the gibi are walls. Along the third side are the old-style kitchen and two small rooms commonly called servants’ quarters. On the fourth side is the house proper, relatively small, though my Abasha friends are impressed. Saba finds me a magisterial dining room set for the salon, or the Pente room. Bakalech enjoys serving me there. She’s disappointed when I prefer to eat my meal on a stool in the sun.
Every move has its mishaps, every house its foibles. But my charming new manor presents more than the usual. My first night, there’s no electricity. The next two days, there’s no water. For the odd day that I have running water, I have a little water-heater for the shower – a big step up in the world. But the experience is marred by the acrid smoke from behind the electrical plug panel. Something about that makes me uneasy. Then there are the two doors into the house that both jam and never open without a struggle. One dark night, I almost break a knuckle pushing the back door open, and I bleed all over the hall. ‘Hallefuckinglujah,’ I shout, and I sense sympathy in the rustling behind the Pente wall. God loves me. Why else would I suffer? I think I’m getting the hang of religious logic. I’ll just have to pray over the bloody wound, anyway, since there’s no water.
But the stars are shining in the gibi.
The Gibi
I’ve got a new house. Still northside. I’m in a neighborhood called ‘Addisu Gebiya’, which means something like the New Market. Still up against the mountains, but a little more city than Shiro Meda. It’s just off the main road north out of town.
To an untrained eye, things may not appear so different, except that my new neighborhood isn’t so pretty. The mountains and the trees don’t rise so scenically around us. Things are flatter. I’m closer to transport. There are more houses with walls and gates. When I go to a shop or café, fewer people are startled or delighted by the sight of faranj. That I like. As near anonymity as I can get in Addis Ababa.
Ride in the taxi up from Piassa. Quickly you pass the Italian Cultural Center and the Samen Hotel. The latter lends its name to the district between Piassa and mine. So further on you’ll pass the Semen Chapel – which might only be an unfortunate transliteration. Hard to say: the hardcore Protestants are making a fierce play for this country. Listen to their services, as anyone within blocks is obliged to do, and one might wonder what all the moaning is about.
I have some ‘Pentes’, as they are called, next door at my new place. We share a wall. They get to chanting and moaning sometimes. I toss in a Hallefuckinglujah, just because I hate to be left out of anything involving God and moaning. I think it makes them happy because there’s a pause afterward.
Continue up the long, slow grade. You’ll pass the Guinean embassy. The road jogs to the left, and when you see the ‘Full Dose’ bar, you’ll call out ‘waraj alla’, signaling your stop. I’m a block away. You can take the busy road, alive with markets and butchers and traffic. Or you can take the quiet one with bridge over a stream loaded with trash and excrement. I prefer the latter route.
The prime asset of my little house is the gibi, the quiet, clean square of concrete behind high walls, bright with sunshine, where I sit and read or throw the ball for Jackie. She’s more interested in the abundant cats that patrol the local walls and roofs. Even more abundant are the doves and crows and falcon-like kites that trade perches and glide overhead and whistle and croak and coo.
Two sides of the gibi are walls. Along the third side are the old-style kitchen and two small rooms commonly called servants’ quarters. On the fourth side is the house proper, relatively small, though my Abasha friends are impressed. Saba finds me a magisterial dining room set for the salon, or the Pente room. Bakalech enjoys serving me there. She’s disappointed when I prefer to eat my meal on a stool in the sun.
Every move has its mishaps, every house its foibles. But my charming new manor presents more than the usual. My first night, there’s no electricity. The next two days, there’s no water. For the odd day that I have running water, I have a little water-heater for the shower – a big step up in the world. But the experience is marred by the acrid smoke from behind the electrical plug panel. Something about that makes me uneasy. Then there are the two doors into the house that both jam and never open without a struggle. One dark night, I almost break a knuckle pushing the back door open, and I bleed all over the hall. ‘Hallefuckinglujah,’ I shout, and I sense sympathy in the rustling behind the Pente wall. God loves me. Why else would I suffer? I think I’m getting the hang of religious logic. I’ll just have to pray over the bloody wound, anyway, since there’s no water.
But the stars are shining in the gibi.
Friday, December 01, 2006
Travelogue 164 – December 1
Like New
I run out of fuel midday. I’m on my way back to the computer after a break, a working break – pan and paper and coffee. I can’t do it. I veer from my path, turning into the Hotel Taitu – founded a hundred years ago by the Empress Taitu herself. Through the lobby I go -- it murmurs with CNN – and out the back door onto the small, terraced patio with the long view. I spend a very long time sipping tea. I refuse to think about a thing. Thought is like a strong, nurturing sun, and underneath it, weed-like details and problems are flourishing. I can’t tend to them anymore.
The sky is an ideal mixture of blue and white. When the heat is too much, a cloud comes to cool you off. The eye and the imagination are drawn out past the city by the hills. You’re in Africa. You’re nowhere. A breeze transports you to Rome.
The several other faranjis on the patio are solidly in Africa. An elderly British lady reads a guide book. When a young Korean comes to sit with her, she recounts a visit to a medieval church, a retelling complete with her opinions about religion. “Nevertheless, I found it quite intriguing,” is the summary for a fortunate Ethiopia. A Midwestern redhead arrives to announce that the bus is ready. The windows are clean. A tall, muscular man in his fifties, with the standard Celtic chain tattooed around one bicep, emerges from his room, bent forward, hawkish face intense. Africa is in his sights.
I have to get back to work. The day doesn’t get any better. That night, I’m escaping to another hotel, this time to the Samen Hotel north of Piassa, on the road that eventually surmounts the mountains and winds off toward Bahir Dar. On the top floor is a nice, quiet bar. Out the big windows, there’s no sky; there’s Addis Ababa in lights, stretching one way through Mercato to blackness, another way south, through Piassa and Bole to a further, softer blackness.
Teddy has gone missing for nearly two weeks. I asked Saba to check up on him. Teddy is one of our new kids at Tsegereda. He’s an unremarkable boy – quiet, chubby, not dazzlingly cute like some of them are. Most days he comes in a square and heavy little plaid suit coat that you know his mother or grandmother is very proud of.
I’m supposed to meet Graham here, but he’s late. In this way, he has adapted well to Ethiopia. He’ll arrive in a flurry of smiles, apologies, and patter about his day in his beautiful London accent. He’ll charm the waitress and any other lady within a reasonable radius. And I’ll enjoy it. But I’m grateful he’s late tonight. I need this time with darkness. One nice thing about this bar is the rare opportunity it provides for seating away from the ubiquitous TV sets. They flicker and buzz in three corners of the bar – CNN, ETV, football – far enough for a relative silence.
I sit by the window, in the dimmest light, at a high table with stools. I can watch the quiet entrances and exits at the elevator. Couples, men in suits and women in tight pink pants. Two well-fed men. The one in a suit has a face like a shark. He leads his friend in a prayer before they taste their soft drinks. He watches his friend pray. His eyes are dark and unforgiving.
Teddy has been to the hospital, Saba finds out. They discover that Teddy has HIV. That’s all I know so far. Saba told me an hour ago.
That’s how pain is, always a surprise. You know it’s coming: you go for a long and hilly run; you work with children at risk. When the pain arrives, it’s new.
Like New
I run out of fuel midday. I’m on my way back to the computer after a break, a working break – pan and paper and coffee. I can’t do it. I veer from my path, turning into the Hotel Taitu – founded a hundred years ago by the Empress Taitu herself. Through the lobby I go -- it murmurs with CNN – and out the back door onto the small, terraced patio with the long view. I spend a very long time sipping tea. I refuse to think about a thing. Thought is like a strong, nurturing sun, and underneath it, weed-like details and problems are flourishing. I can’t tend to them anymore.
The sky is an ideal mixture of blue and white. When the heat is too much, a cloud comes to cool you off. The eye and the imagination are drawn out past the city by the hills. You’re in Africa. You’re nowhere. A breeze transports you to Rome.
The several other faranjis on the patio are solidly in Africa. An elderly British lady reads a guide book. When a young Korean comes to sit with her, she recounts a visit to a medieval church, a retelling complete with her opinions about religion. “Nevertheless, I found it quite intriguing,” is the summary for a fortunate Ethiopia. A Midwestern redhead arrives to announce that the bus is ready. The windows are clean. A tall, muscular man in his fifties, with the standard Celtic chain tattooed around one bicep, emerges from his room, bent forward, hawkish face intense. Africa is in his sights.
I have to get back to work. The day doesn’t get any better. That night, I’m escaping to another hotel, this time to the Samen Hotel north of Piassa, on the road that eventually surmounts the mountains and winds off toward Bahir Dar. On the top floor is a nice, quiet bar. Out the big windows, there’s no sky; there’s Addis Ababa in lights, stretching one way through Mercato to blackness, another way south, through Piassa and Bole to a further, softer blackness.
Teddy has gone missing for nearly two weeks. I asked Saba to check up on him. Teddy is one of our new kids at Tsegereda. He’s an unremarkable boy – quiet, chubby, not dazzlingly cute like some of them are. Most days he comes in a square and heavy little plaid suit coat that you know his mother or grandmother is very proud of.
I’m supposed to meet Graham here, but he’s late. In this way, he has adapted well to Ethiopia. He’ll arrive in a flurry of smiles, apologies, and patter about his day in his beautiful London accent. He’ll charm the waitress and any other lady within a reasonable radius. And I’ll enjoy it. But I’m grateful he’s late tonight. I need this time with darkness. One nice thing about this bar is the rare opportunity it provides for seating away from the ubiquitous TV sets. They flicker and buzz in three corners of the bar – CNN, ETV, football – far enough for a relative silence.
I sit by the window, in the dimmest light, at a high table with stools. I can watch the quiet entrances and exits at the elevator. Couples, men in suits and women in tight pink pants. Two well-fed men. The one in a suit has a face like a shark. He leads his friend in a prayer before they taste their soft drinks. He watches his friend pray. His eyes are dark and unforgiving.
Teddy has been to the hospital, Saba finds out. They discover that Teddy has HIV. That’s all I know so far. Saba told me an hour ago.
That’s how pain is, always a surprise. You know it’s coming: you go for a long and hilly run; you work with children at risk. When the pain arrives, it’s new.
Sunday, November 26, 2006
Travelogue 163 – November 26
O Hard-Hearted Africa
“It’s hot,” I think, and the thought disperses into the gold and red fog whence it emerged. Only one other thought is possible, and that’s not really a thought. If it had words, they would be, “This hurts.”
Maybe that’s what I like about running. The low-level agony obliterates any coherent thought. Not that my thought process is ever very coherent, but it’s busy. There’s a lot of it. These days, business has me in a perpetual state of planning. What a relief once a day when my only duty is to register pain
Today is the Great Ethiopian Run, Africa’s largest road run, a 10K through the city, and the focus of two months’ training. Unfortunately, as I quickly realize, my training was a little misguided. I train before dawn, when it’s chilly and there’s no sun beating down on my tender white skin. And, aside from the occasional corps of Christ’s zombies, I have the streets to myself before sunrise. Today, I am flotsam on a river of green shirts that stretches beyond the horizon forward and back, some 25,000 of them, the media says. The pre-dawn zombies don’t jockey for position like the green-shirts do. The green-shirts are absolutely African alinear, multiplied into infinite agitation. They meander left and right, gather into groups, stop suddenly, spurt ahead just to become distracted and stall. Street children decide to join in, darting this way and that. And when the crowd gets tight, the elbows come out.
It’s hot. The sun blazes on my back and neck as we labor up the first long hill. Everyone still has a lot of energy – energy to zigzag, shout, and laugh … and chant. A series of chants start up and gather strength. They take on a call-and-response format. This continues for miles. I don’t know where they get the breath. ‘Leba!’ they chant: ‘Thief!’ They’re referring to our beloved prime minister, specifically to his miraculous win in last year’s elections. There are other slogans, calling for the release of political prisoners, etc. I’m working hard, so about halfway through the course, my companions on the road quiet down. It falls to the slower crowd to pelt the Ministry of Justice, which is nearer the finish line, with stones and trash.
I’m accustomed to standing out in Ethiopia, but there are times when you really don’t want to – like when your body hurts and you’re sweating extravagantly and you’re huffing like a train; like when you think you’re running a race but you unexpectedly find yourself the foreigner inside a crowd of political demonstrators. People line the roads. ‘Faranj!’ they yell and laugh. ‘Not too many celebs run marathons,’ I muse, another fleeting thought in red letters. It’s just not a moment you want to smile and wave to the crowd. But them when is?
I’ve made myself even more conspicuous in the choice of the team’s T-shirts: bright yellow with our name front and back. It was fun entering the mass of thousands, all of them in the event’s green T-shirt that was handed out at registration, all of the team in yellow. But we were dispersed quickly once the running began.
In the last kilometer, the green river still stretches ahead, all the way to the finish. I’ve been passing hundreds all along the way, and yet there’s no sign of progress. I gain on an obese woman who hasn’t broken a sweat. I wonder if there is a contingent of (shall we say) late entries. I hobble toward the end. Looking around, I realize the race organizers have arranged for one more final confirmation of futility: there’s no clock. No one wears numbers or chips, so we arrive at the finish like so much new sand on the shore, uncounted and unrecorded, … though we do get a nice little medallion to hang around our necks.
The team gathers again in front of Estiphanos church to pose for more photos and to bake on the asphalt while we wait for stragglers. Yohannes is exceedingly proud to have beaten me. He trained for one day while I boasted for two months about my morning runs. In every photo, he’s very particular about lining us up in order of our finish. As I invited two elite runners onto our team, I’m a humble team fourth. And not even the excuse for fresh pain to console me.
O Hard-Hearted Africa
“It’s hot,” I think, and the thought disperses into the gold and red fog whence it emerged. Only one other thought is possible, and that’s not really a thought. If it had words, they would be, “This hurts.”
Maybe that’s what I like about running. The low-level agony obliterates any coherent thought. Not that my thought process is ever very coherent, but it’s busy. There’s a lot of it. These days, business has me in a perpetual state of planning. What a relief once a day when my only duty is to register pain
Today is the Great Ethiopian Run, Africa’s largest road run, a 10K through the city, and the focus of two months’ training. Unfortunately, as I quickly realize, my training was a little misguided. I train before dawn, when it’s chilly and there’s no sun beating down on my tender white skin. And, aside from the occasional corps of Christ’s zombies, I have the streets to myself before sunrise. Today, I am flotsam on a river of green shirts that stretches beyond the horizon forward and back, some 25,000 of them, the media says. The pre-dawn zombies don’t jockey for position like the green-shirts do. The green-shirts are absolutely African alinear, multiplied into infinite agitation. They meander left and right, gather into groups, stop suddenly, spurt ahead just to become distracted and stall. Street children decide to join in, darting this way and that. And when the crowd gets tight, the elbows come out.
It’s hot. The sun blazes on my back and neck as we labor up the first long hill. Everyone still has a lot of energy – energy to zigzag, shout, and laugh … and chant. A series of chants start up and gather strength. They take on a call-and-response format. This continues for miles. I don’t know where they get the breath. ‘Leba!’ they chant: ‘Thief!’ They’re referring to our beloved prime minister, specifically to his miraculous win in last year’s elections. There are other slogans, calling for the release of political prisoners, etc. I’m working hard, so about halfway through the course, my companions on the road quiet down. It falls to the slower crowd to pelt the Ministry of Justice, which is nearer the finish line, with stones and trash.
I’m accustomed to standing out in Ethiopia, but there are times when you really don’t want to – like when your body hurts and you’re sweating extravagantly and you’re huffing like a train; like when you think you’re running a race but you unexpectedly find yourself the foreigner inside a crowd of political demonstrators. People line the roads. ‘Faranj!’ they yell and laugh. ‘Not too many celebs run marathons,’ I muse, another fleeting thought in red letters. It’s just not a moment you want to smile and wave to the crowd. But them when is?
I’ve made myself even more conspicuous in the choice of the team’s T-shirts: bright yellow with our name front and back. It was fun entering the mass of thousands, all of them in the event’s green T-shirt that was handed out at registration, all of the team in yellow. But we were dispersed quickly once the running began.
In the last kilometer, the green river still stretches ahead, all the way to the finish. I’ve been passing hundreds all along the way, and yet there’s no sign of progress. I gain on an obese woman who hasn’t broken a sweat. I wonder if there is a contingent of (shall we say) late entries. I hobble toward the end. Looking around, I realize the race organizers have arranged for one more final confirmation of futility: there’s no clock. No one wears numbers or chips, so we arrive at the finish like so much new sand on the shore, uncounted and unrecorded, … though we do get a nice little medallion to hang around our necks.
The team gathers again in front of Estiphanos church to pose for more photos and to bake on the asphalt while we wait for stragglers. Yohannes is exceedingly proud to have beaten me. He trained for one day while I boasted for two months about my morning runs. In every photo, he’s very particular about lining us up in order of our finish. As I invited two elite runners onto our team, I’m a humble team fourth. And not even the excuse for fresh pain to console me.
Saturday, November 18, 2006
Travelogue 162 – November 15
The Voices
She does look like a boy. Like a ten year-old boy, her hair cropped short, her features blunt and square. She enters late and sits at the back, and I wonder what the boy is doing in this class of adolescent girls.
She has tried to turn her looks to her advantage. She joined a boys’ group once, a program for homeless boys, but she was discovered and raped. While the authorities investigated the incident, she was the one lodged in jail.
She’s shy and sweet when she talks to us after class. She seems to urgently want this minute or two with us. She smiles and she is tentative as she tells us that she is trying to believe in God. But she’s sure she’s going to die soon. Voices tell her so. They like to visit her at night.
There are about twenty-five girls in the room. Some look like young women, some like pre-teen girls. They’re all living on the street, and they all have been or are sex workers. They participate in this day program in the crazy Mercato district of Addis Ababa in hopes that they will be accepted into the longer-term live-in program and have a chance to go to school.
My first impression: they are just like my girls back home. I’m referring to the teenage ‘welfare moms’ that I taught in Minneapolis. They grin the same way; they move the same way; they’re sassy the same way. A few extroverts gather around me right away, and they shriek with laughter when they hear my Amharic. They’re delighted. They cant on and on about it, yelling at Graham in Amharic, ‘He speaks Amharic! Why don’t you?’
Graham smiles back blandly, the blank, uncertain look we all get when faced with a flood of foreign words. He’s only been here a week or two, and it’s only the second time in Ethiopia. The language and the volume combine with the jet lag to stump him, but only for a moment. This is his class, and this is what he does. He has led these workshops in Africa and India. His philosophy, to find those most in need and try to teach them hope, self-awareness, and some new survival skills through the arts of self-expression. In his former life, he was a photographer and painter.
The girls are teenagers. If you forget, they’ll remind you. They can’t sit still. They fill the opening discussion time with complaints: can we do something else today? Why do we stay so long? We’re hungry. When Graham wants us to stand together and hold hands, they giggle.
But, also like teenagers, when it comes to work – today it’s drawing – they let go and become absorbed in it. Graham has them completing personal ‘mandalas’ – as he insists on calling them, – which means ordering the things of their lives according to their importance in concentric circles, arranged around their own faces in the center. Common items of great import are shoes, clothes, mom, and brothers. Common items to be despised: drugs and police. You would never guess how isolated these girls really are, estranged from family and old friends, all human contact the fleeting sort of the streets. It’s this isolation and vulnerability that draws Graham to this population.
Lydia is Irish. Her accent is wonderful. Her temperament is even and unflappable. It’s not these things that the girls see, though. It’s the skin so white it’s pink. It’s the blonde hair and green eyes. She peacefully prepares the paper with blank ‘mandalas’, and Alem, a girl as black as Lydia is white, stares. Her eyes are red. They don’t waver. There’s no discernible emotion in them. She just watches.
We observe another fidgeting and giggling silence at the end of class. This time, we have two elected leaders of the class to bring them around. When we break, there are smiles and shouts, and the girls move brightly back and forth between the courtyard and the class, their movement something between a defiant strut and a carefree skip.
Hannah sits by herself with a shy girls’ diverted gaze. She squirms in her chair like a child. The voices will continue to come. Their pronouncements will be dire. We know there’s nothing we can do. Graham muses at the door about help, intervention, drugs, counseling. We fall silent. It’s time to go.
The Voices
She does look like a boy. Like a ten year-old boy, her hair cropped short, her features blunt and square. She enters late and sits at the back, and I wonder what the boy is doing in this class of adolescent girls.
She has tried to turn her looks to her advantage. She joined a boys’ group once, a program for homeless boys, but she was discovered and raped. While the authorities investigated the incident, she was the one lodged in jail.
She’s shy and sweet when she talks to us after class. She seems to urgently want this minute or two with us. She smiles and she is tentative as she tells us that she is trying to believe in God. But she’s sure she’s going to die soon. Voices tell her so. They like to visit her at night.
There are about twenty-five girls in the room. Some look like young women, some like pre-teen girls. They’re all living on the street, and they all have been or are sex workers. They participate in this day program in the crazy Mercato district of Addis Ababa in hopes that they will be accepted into the longer-term live-in program and have a chance to go to school.
My first impression: they are just like my girls back home. I’m referring to the teenage ‘welfare moms’ that I taught in Minneapolis. They grin the same way; they move the same way; they’re sassy the same way. A few extroverts gather around me right away, and they shriek with laughter when they hear my Amharic. They’re delighted. They cant on and on about it, yelling at Graham in Amharic, ‘He speaks Amharic! Why don’t you?’
Graham smiles back blandly, the blank, uncertain look we all get when faced with a flood of foreign words. He’s only been here a week or two, and it’s only the second time in Ethiopia. The language and the volume combine with the jet lag to stump him, but only for a moment. This is his class, and this is what he does. He has led these workshops in Africa and India. His philosophy, to find those most in need and try to teach them hope, self-awareness, and some new survival skills through the arts of self-expression. In his former life, he was a photographer and painter.
The girls are teenagers. If you forget, they’ll remind you. They can’t sit still. They fill the opening discussion time with complaints: can we do something else today? Why do we stay so long? We’re hungry. When Graham wants us to stand together and hold hands, they giggle.
But, also like teenagers, when it comes to work – today it’s drawing – they let go and become absorbed in it. Graham has them completing personal ‘mandalas’ – as he insists on calling them, – which means ordering the things of their lives according to their importance in concentric circles, arranged around their own faces in the center. Common items of great import are shoes, clothes, mom, and brothers. Common items to be despised: drugs and police. You would never guess how isolated these girls really are, estranged from family and old friends, all human contact the fleeting sort of the streets. It’s this isolation and vulnerability that draws Graham to this population.
Lydia is Irish. Her accent is wonderful. Her temperament is even and unflappable. It’s not these things that the girls see, though. It’s the skin so white it’s pink. It’s the blonde hair and green eyes. She peacefully prepares the paper with blank ‘mandalas’, and Alem, a girl as black as Lydia is white, stares. Her eyes are red. They don’t waver. There’s no discernible emotion in them. She just watches.
We observe another fidgeting and giggling silence at the end of class. This time, we have two elected leaders of the class to bring them around. When we break, there are smiles and shouts, and the girls move brightly back and forth between the courtyard and the class, their movement something between a defiant strut and a carefree skip.
Hannah sits by herself with a shy girls’ diverted gaze. She squirms in her chair like a child. The voices will continue to come. Their pronouncements will be dire. We know there’s nothing we can do. Graham muses at the door about help, intervention, drugs, counseling. We fall silent. It’s time to go.
Sunday, November 05, 2006
Travelogue 161 – November 5
Screen Life
Bezawit is one of the new children. I mean new among the new: she started later than her classmates, who comprise the entering class of four and five year-olds at the Shiro Meda school. A few disappeared; a few others were too young. Bezawit is one of the replacements.
Is that why she keeps to herself? I don’t think so. Pudgy little Meheret started even later, but I remember her pushing her way into the playground games immediately. You hear her voice above all others when the class sings. Bezawit still prefers to sit on the schoolroom’s front step and brood. Her face is perfectly proportioned, strikingly adult and earnest. Her eyes are intense. She doesn’t smile for me when I try to cheer her up.
I think about the kids a lot these days. Everything I see during the day makes me wonder about their lives ahead of them. I watch young adults and their funny ways – no funnier than ours, in essence – and I wonder.
I’ve seen a couple Ethiopian movies lately. Last night’s offered no subtitles in English, so I got to practice my Amharic. That’s a flattering notion: I don’t have enough Amharic to practice. Fortunately, language wasn’t much of a barrier to understanding the film – or perhaps language wouldn’t have clarified the odd lacunae in plot.
Amharic film – if I may generalize from my vast experience – seems to carry forward a tradition of story-telling from the very lively local theater. Themes are social and very moralistic; plot development is melodramatic. The acting is often very nice, while everything else is sloppy to a greater or lesser degree. In time this may be looked upon as the time of cinema’s great flowering in Ethiopia. I’ve noticed a real shift in several years. Now it’s hard to find a Western film for a weekend evening. Amharic titles are proliferating faster than the few venues can handle.
The title last night was ‘Zema Hiwot’, ‘Song of Life’. She’s a rich and famous pop singer with a secret dark past that catches up with her in the end – I won’t give it away. She’s a wide-eyed innocent surrounded by conniving show business types. She suffers a creative block and realizes she needs to help AIDS children. Etc. The director seems more concerned about daring camera angles than patching up the rough fabric of his plot.
There are some nice shots of Addis Ababa. There’s nothing like putting a frame around the familiar to make it romantic. One nice consequence of my wanderlust has been living in a number of cities that double as frequent film-sets. My favorite experience of that sort was sitting in a theater in New York City watching a Woody Allen movie, only to see that very theater interior featured in the film.
This theater interior is about as romantic as a high school auditorium. This is the Cinema Empire (pronounced ‘Impeer’) in Piassa. Everything is square. The room is a big, plain cube. The screen is square, and looks as though it would snap up with a yank. The chairs are square and hard. There is a balcony, where most of the crowd congregates. I want to be close to the screen so I can read the video prompts – “Pause”, “Play”. I buy a Mirinda for Saba from the old man strolling around, clinking bottles for advertisement. It’s as sickly orange and sickly sweet as movie pop should be. It reminds me of Turkey, where Fanta is as ubiquitous as Ataturk.
And there’s Addis on the screen. It doesn’t look half bad up there, bloated and stretched and pixilated, but still Addis among its dusty green hills. It doesn’t look half bad in real time, either, as we exit the theater. It’s Saturday night; the streets are crowded. Mayhem and peace and laughter mingle and jostle among us. Languorous couples squeeze by. Old drunks lurch forward in hopes of change. Children appear at your elbows with chewing gum and tissues. If you stop, they gather and fight. But they can be fun to chat with, observant , witty, and savvy.
This is ‘Doro Manikeh’, a section of Piassa known to be rough. The name translates roughly into ‘Chicken with its Throat Cut.’
The chicken is still jumping. I can be forgiven for some delusional romance, I think, on a Saturday night, for projecting the scenic upon the sordid. Can’t I? Isn’t this London or New York before they matured as movie sets – raucous and ill-mannered, rough-hewn and functional, crammed with people whose fun is simple and immediate?
Everything is a museum piece in this night light and noise. Shop after shop, improvised from canvas and sheets of iron, stacked with rows of shoes and with piles of the most disparate household articles. The Madonna and child asleep in the middle of the jammed sidewalk, wrapped in frayed white cotton. Such a sweet face the baby has, and so surrendered to its sleep. You keep walking because you have to, and the motion and the madness make the tranquil faces striking. The sight doesn’t fade like it might with staring.
The question come sup in conversation with a Brit newly arrived in Ethiopia, ‘How does one create hope for them’ – these children, these casualties, these shoe-shiners, these gum-brokers and baby prostitutes and tiny denizens of the street? And the enduring non-answer is, ‘How does one protect it inside oneself?’
The museum is stories in repose. They don’t need to be told; we know them. We go on.
Screen Life
Bezawit is one of the new children. I mean new among the new: she started later than her classmates, who comprise the entering class of four and five year-olds at the Shiro Meda school. A few disappeared; a few others were too young. Bezawit is one of the replacements.
Is that why she keeps to herself? I don’t think so. Pudgy little Meheret started even later, but I remember her pushing her way into the playground games immediately. You hear her voice above all others when the class sings. Bezawit still prefers to sit on the schoolroom’s front step and brood. Her face is perfectly proportioned, strikingly adult and earnest. Her eyes are intense. She doesn’t smile for me when I try to cheer her up.
I think about the kids a lot these days. Everything I see during the day makes me wonder about their lives ahead of them. I watch young adults and their funny ways – no funnier than ours, in essence – and I wonder.
I’ve seen a couple Ethiopian movies lately. Last night’s offered no subtitles in English, so I got to practice my Amharic. That’s a flattering notion: I don’t have enough Amharic to practice. Fortunately, language wasn’t much of a barrier to understanding the film – or perhaps language wouldn’t have clarified the odd lacunae in plot.
Amharic film – if I may generalize from my vast experience – seems to carry forward a tradition of story-telling from the very lively local theater. Themes are social and very moralistic; plot development is melodramatic. The acting is often very nice, while everything else is sloppy to a greater or lesser degree. In time this may be looked upon as the time of cinema’s great flowering in Ethiopia. I’ve noticed a real shift in several years. Now it’s hard to find a Western film for a weekend evening. Amharic titles are proliferating faster than the few venues can handle.
The title last night was ‘Zema Hiwot’, ‘Song of Life’. She’s a rich and famous pop singer with a secret dark past that catches up with her in the end – I won’t give it away. She’s a wide-eyed innocent surrounded by conniving show business types. She suffers a creative block and realizes she needs to help AIDS children. Etc. The director seems more concerned about daring camera angles than patching up the rough fabric of his plot.
There are some nice shots of Addis Ababa. There’s nothing like putting a frame around the familiar to make it romantic. One nice consequence of my wanderlust has been living in a number of cities that double as frequent film-sets. My favorite experience of that sort was sitting in a theater in New York City watching a Woody Allen movie, only to see that very theater interior featured in the film.
This theater interior is about as romantic as a high school auditorium. This is the Cinema Empire (pronounced ‘Impeer’) in Piassa. Everything is square. The room is a big, plain cube. The screen is square, and looks as though it would snap up with a yank. The chairs are square and hard. There is a balcony, where most of the crowd congregates. I want to be close to the screen so I can read the video prompts – “Pause”, “Play”. I buy a Mirinda for Saba from the old man strolling around, clinking bottles for advertisement. It’s as sickly orange and sickly sweet as movie pop should be. It reminds me of Turkey, where Fanta is as ubiquitous as Ataturk.
And there’s Addis on the screen. It doesn’t look half bad up there, bloated and stretched and pixilated, but still Addis among its dusty green hills. It doesn’t look half bad in real time, either, as we exit the theater. It’s Saturday night; the streets are crowded. Mayhem and peace and laughter mingle and jostle among us. Languorous couples squeeze by. Old drunks lurch forward in hopes of change. Children appear at your elbows with chewing gum and tissues. If you stop, they gather and fight. But they can be fun to chat with, observant , witty, and savvy.
This is ‘Doro Manikeh’, a section of Piassa known to be rough. The name translates roughly into ‘Chicken with its Throat Cut.’
The chicken is still jumping. I can be forgiven for some delusional romance, I think, on a Saturday night, for projecting the scenic upon the sordid. Can’t I? Isn’t this London or New York before they matured as movie sets – raucous and ill-mannered, rough-hewn and functional, crammed with people whose fun is simple and immediate?
Everything is a museum piece in this night light and noise. Shop after shop, improvised from canvas and sheets of iron, stacked with rows of shoes and with piles of the most disparate household articles. The Madonna and child asleep in the middle of the jammed sidewalk, wrapped in frayed white cotton. Such a sweet face the baby has, and so surrendered to its sleep. You keep walking because you have to, and the motion and the madness make the tranquil faces striking. The sight doesn’t fade like it might with staring.
The question come sup in conversation with a Brit newly arrived in Ethiopia, ‘How does one create hope for them’ – these children, these casualties, these shoe-shiners, these gum-brokers and baby prostitutes and tiny denizens of the street? And the enduring non-answer is, ‘How does one protect it inside oneself?’
The museum is stories in repose. They don’t need to be told; we know them. We go on.
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