On Uganda

So I have been tasked to write about Uganda, using my perspective as a non-Ugandan who until recently, two years past, resided in Uganda as well as the fact that I studied and worked in the East African nation. This is the fourth draft that I am penning and I hope I do not get to trash it at the end.

Why is it hard for me to write about Uganda? Well, for a start, I could fill entire volumes with experiences that range from the very unusual to the exceedingly mundane, experiences that meant a lot to me but will probably bore the reader into a coma. So cutting down is the word here, and like anyone on a diet will tell you, it’s HELL. Second, I would hate to turn into a sycophantic, over-excited travel brochure seller putting together a kumbaya-style Uganda/topia or even worse, minting cash from the very real misery of some of Uganda’s downtrodden. A just middle is what I hope to achieve. 

Bear in mind that this is one person’s limited perspective and one that is Kampala centric for the most part, at the end of the day i can only talk about what I know best. If you have been to Uganda, you will recognize and perhaps disagree with some of the facts and if you have not visited, this will hopefully make you want to go.

I have chosen, as a start, ten things to do while in Uganda, in no particular order. So I would recommend:

White water rafting

On the Nile. Let me say that again, the NILE! Everyone has to. It can be done within a day and I personally guarantee a thrill of epic proportions. I have done it three times and I cannot get over it still. It takes a day and it’s close to Kampala itself. The scenery is beautiful, the rafting outfits are professional and you get to see your toughest friends shriek for Mum to come and get them. Did I mention there is cold complementary beer in the bus that drives you back? That won me over.

Visiting a national park

How predictable! But yes, you are in Uganda so you might as well. You are spoilt for choice here as the country is peppered with parks and reserves that are as good as any that Tanzania and Kenya, the more famous neighbours have on offer. And they have glaciers too.

Party in Kampala

Where do I start? On offer you will have options including little unpretentious little friendly dives, huge bars that pack thousands, Über-posh lounges where everyone is terribly nice and loaded as well as clubs by the dozen. But why party in Kampala? Because Kampalans have successfully made it into an art form. When they say, let’s party, they mean business; no dead-fish allowed, better-drink-a-redbull-before-during-and-after business. And they are respectful too, and friendly. The musical selection is varied allowing for transitions between local music, the latest Beyonce song and Coldplay to happen within an hour. I am yet to meet a person who did not enjoy the party scene in Kampala, but that’s probably because they were at home sleeping.

Oh and dress up, these people take fashion seriously.

Go off the beaten path

Get out of town and away from the tourist traps. If you can go and stay with people, explore small towns and villages or just relax at a friend’s place in the suburbs, do it. Crash a party or two, Ugandans don’t mind, just bring a drink. You will find it very rewarding and you stand a chance of learning something that no tourist hotel will tell you. Go to Owino market and buy some second hand jeans, visit Makerere University or go to Mabira forest for a picnic (with sandwiches from Quality hill delicatessen.:-)

Eat Nsenene and ribs

The food is amazing. Kampala, especially, is a cosmopolitan city and you will find all manner of restaurants there and very good ones at that. But you must try Nsenene, the surprisingly nice tasting fried grasshoppers, that still have accusing eyes ogling you as you eat them. You must have a Rolex (rolled eggs), fast-food the Ugandan way consisting of a chapatti topped with an omelette and anything you fancy, from salad to minced meat, then rolled into a wrap.  You have to have matoke( mashed green bananas), with beans and rice and most of all you must go to a pork joint. The pork joint is a Ugandan institution, with a proud history of making the world a better place, one platter of ribs at a time, every day from five pm. They are packed, efficient little places that will serve pork meat done beautifully. You will literally pig-out.

Get on a BodaBoda

Avoid the traffic, jump on a motorbike taxi and get to anywhere you want. I once saw a very smart lady in a power suit step out of her parked Mercedes-Benz,  flag down a passing boda-boda and sit on it side-saddle a la Queen Elizabeth II,  all prim and proper and oh so very Kampalan.

Am I easily impressed or is that seriously cool?

Experience Entebbe

Get out of town for the weekend and go to the gentler, fairer, cleaner, greener sister city to Kampala. Forty kilometers away, the beaches are packed on the weekend, with shows often being staged. You must call into the botanical gardens, a massive place that combines jungle and manicured lawns where you are guaranteed to see more birds and monkeys than you will see people. True story!

Listen to the music

Ugandan people hail from different tribes and regions and cultures with very old and established musical traditions. A true kaleidoscope of influences and rythms that will not leave you disappointed. Go to Ndere center for the Sunday show, a true crash course in Ugandan traditional music, attend Jam session for a touch of Reggae at the Alliance Francaise of Kampala and download Mwooyo Kirya’s music for a taste of contemporary soul.

Plug into Kampala

There are discussion groups on the internet, run and attended by well-informed, learned, feisty people young and old alike. The pulse of the country can be felt through those groups, with politics, social issues, religion and the like are dissected, debated, fought over and agreed upon. There are poetry reading sessions, charity runs, goat races and more. The art scene is vibrant and diverse with internationally recognized personalities and all manner of upcoming artists…. If you are looking for an airbender, you will probably find one in Kampala.

Get involved with a community group (for real.)

Share something. If you have sometime in Uganda, get involved with a project, learn a skill or teach one or both.  Ugandans are fiercely proud people who react in two general ways to “charity”. The first way is by taking offence and being too polite to say anything. The second is by taking you for a ride; milking every single cent you are so willing to toss away and then some more. The Jesus-saviour complex is an easy trap to fall into and many have. If however you are humble enough to deal with people on an equal footing, giving as much as you are willing to receive, you’ll be part of a family, part of a concerted effort to move forward, in a way that no Aid Money can do.

 The truth, however, is that during your stay, Uganda can and will occasionally drive you to unparalleled depths of despair. Corruption is rampant, politicians fit for hanging, obscure beliefs and practices seem to get in the way of progress, intolerance is tolerated and there is the wounded past (Thanks Amin and Kony). Poverty is no myth, social inequalities shocking and SO MUCH REMAINS TO BE DONE. That said, you only need watch the news to realise that the DR Congo next door REALLY knows what corruption is about, that politics in Russia and America and South Africa (anywhere in the World really) are nothing but a dirty, cold and repugnant affair and then I sigh with relief when I remember that Pastor Terry Jones is not Ugandan (Praise the Lord!).

Looking back at my seven years, living, studying and working in Uganda, I realise this. Uganda is not perfect, never has been and probably never will be. That is not the point.  As my French teacher, Madame Christine, used to drum into us “La perfection n’est pas de ce monde”-Perfection is unearthly. If anything.

Uganda has issues, just like everybody else. And the redeeming feature in all this is, the Ugandan people. Survivors-extraordinaire, who somehow make it happen, come what may. A people who are hardworking, entrepreneurial and optimistic and proud and fun. A people who know that they have to keep trying again and again and again, until it works. Uganda is one of those places in the World where you open your eyes and realise today is better than yesterday and probably worse than tomorrow. It’s a place you can believe in. 

And that’s why I love Uganda. And I hope you do too.

Hawassa Hyenas

Think of low hills running as far as the eye can see, covered with cropped grass the color of a lion's coat. The hills are doted with the occasional naked acacia tree . I am bound for Hawassa, three hundred kilometers  from Addis. The colors are vivid, to the point of seeming photo-shopped to stand out in clear contrast with one another.

 The deep blue- black ribbon of the road, the grey dusty gravel on the roadside, the sun burnt hills, the hazy blue lakes that ambush you by appearing and disappearing out of view and the blinding almost-white sky. Or maybe I'm tired from the fact that I haven't slept in twenty-four hours and when I'm tired I go all lyrical and poetic.

For the first three hours of the trip, the bus had driven from the tight housing and eucalyptus groves of Addis, through parched wheat and teff fields, past small roadside markets, distant golden church domes  and small towns. I saw a huge ground Calao hornbill  hobbling with the uprightness and seriousness of a victorian gentleman.

, and what seemed to me (there was no herder in sight) to be a wild camel herd, about sixty of them, tall, graceful, sand colored magnificent animals with faces that look a bit stupid.

We plodded through the beautiful landscape , our progress interrupted only by the occasional cow herd, each cow and cow-herder dignified and utterly unfazed by our speed and hooting. There was a short stop, for a very welcome grilled tilapia, soggy chips and cold cokes.

 I dozed on and off, waking occasionally to look out the window, change tracks on my iPod and shift to a more comfortable position, something I had to do quite often as my seat was right behind the driver, with my legs on the heat-radiating, throbbing engine which was like sitting on a washing machine during its spin-dry cycle, facing a pre-heated oven with its door open.  I didn't know I had so much sweat in me.

About thirty miles from Hawassa is a fork in the road leading to Shashamane, a village built on a tract of land that the Negus famously gave to the people who believed he was the reincarnation of God on earth, the Rastafarians, so they could build their own little utopia. You know you are getting close to it because small shops with the signature Rasta colors of gold, red and green start popping up along the road and increase in number the closer you get to the junction leading there. Hawassa twenty minutes later surprised me by being a much larger city than I had expected.

The hotel was simply and surprisingly magnificent, with one of the most high-tech shower units I have ever seen. Suffice to say that I could have a rain shower while my feet were being massaged by bubbling water and my nether bits spray cleaned by multi directional jets of water. An experience that I am not exactly used to, as accomodation tends to be of the more modest variety.

I naturally pigged out on the food. Ethiopian food just does it for me, it is spicy, it is hot, it is sour, it is varied. And there is always enough of it. After work, the unavoidable place to go is the Hawassa lakeside park, large and gentle mounds that roll down to the lake, dotted with fever trees and carpeted with yellowing grass. There are cows grazing and chewing cud, whole bands of monkeys playing up and down the trees and the background noise of birds, ciccadas and the soft repetitive sound of the water lapping at the rocks. I drank many a St. Georges beer taking in the colours of the fading day, feeling at peace and awestruck as I always get when in the face of immensity. Lake Hawassa is a big lake( although one of the smallest in the rift), surrounded by hills that seem to encase it.

One of the waiters, came over and asked me if I had a ride. I said no, but the hotel being about a mile away, and the city looking safe I felt confident I could walk back. He said it was fine, so long as I knew that after dark hyenas come out looking for rubbish heaps and the occasional passed-out drunk.

My brain cross-referenced all the national geographic hyena related programs I have ever watched (strongest bite force etc), the Lion King(1 and 2) and I began to sweat. He completed his advice by saying that if you stand your ground and look intimidating they won't dare attack, at least in theory. By then, I was the dictionary definition of abject terror and  I knew that even a slow, blind hyena could have guessed as  much. So I hauled Arse as you would have it, screaming like a girl inside my head and doing the fastest power walk ever practiced in the Ethiopian highlands.

On the way back to Addis, I noticed bridges and gorges that I had missed the week before, signs with the names of towns of Nazareth, Debreizet, and the fact that the closer you got to the city the greener and lusher it got. I hung out over the weekend in three different places, the Sheraton in Addis, a monstrously sized Italian palace where there was an African American band performing, very posh people, expensive ladies-of-the-night and overpriced beer.

The next day I went with a friend to one of the most frequented clubs in Addis, a very dingy place called the Concorde, but I was in the mood for dingy and the ambiance was great save for the super-agressive prostitutes, the OBVIOUS pickpockets and the smell of humanity. The evening was ended at an upstairs bar that was mostly frequented by students and young professional, with plenty of reggae for music and uninterrupted dancing. I had a great time.

Generally, the Ethiopians I met are very polite people, exceedingly welcoming, mild-mannered ( except for this one hussy that dragged another by the hair when she called her BIG MAMA), with the sense and confidence that they are a great PEOPLE.

Amasegnallu for making me want to visit again.

Ancestral Plaster, Thrones and Mead

Ethiopia stuns me at every bend of the road, every vista, every occasion. I suppose a lot of my amazement with Ethiopia is due to my cluelessness about the country. While I have learnt quite a bit ever since my first visit, I am also aware of the depths of my ignorance. Aside from the very superficial and the very mythical, I knew nothing of the country.

The first visit to the country was short and busy, but still I managed to do what every self respecting tourist must do, by visiting Entoto Maryam (here), and then the next day after work, going to the national museum and having dinner in Yod Abyssinia

The national museum in Addis is a grand, greying old building that is home to artefacts from prehistoric times to modern day Ethiopia.

The most famous of  all those artefacts being Lucy, our 3.18 million years old ancestor, a female australopithecus afarensis, learn more about her here. In a room in what I remember being like a basement, in a glass coffin, laid against black cloth on a hard flat surface was our ancestor.

A range of emotions flooded over me; excitement (OMG, this is it, I am in the presence of history,...in the same room, staring at it in THE FACE!); Interior design rage (My Lord, the lighting is terrible, has the curator not read Snow White- you know, crystal coffin-a very well padded and comfortable looking casket that was, in a meadow, with the sunrays gently filtering through the leaves), Sadness( I mean this is our ancestor, and she is splayed with the indecency of human remains display that only museums know how to bring about) and a range of other mostly negative feelings. Sad really.

I made a silent prayer to her, to her and all the people who have trod the land before we did, to watch over me and those I love and to rest in peace. My Burundian catholic upbringing inferred (really just inferred) that pleas to departed ancestors were as potent as an Ave Maria, that there was no need to shed and discard our traditional spirituality, our link to what lies ahead, the comforting thought that we are beings made of the eternal stuff, that we will ALWAYS be here.

Watch over us Lucy.

And then, I read the plaque that said it was a plaster cast of the real thing. Crestfallen I was. I’m still cross. But I know she heard from wherever she is. Watch over us. Watch over us.

After that shattering disappointment, the visit continued through time, through the amazing journey that Ethiopia went through to become an empire. There is a room, an atrium really, with the crowns and robes and jewellery of the Negus, his family and his entourage. Even one of his thrones is there, a bulky wooden affair with a dusty red velvet cushion.

In his book the Emperor, Rysjard Kapucinski describes the life at court and in one particular instance the function of the pillow placer. The emperor being of a diminutive stature, the emperor’s feet would often not touch the ground when seated on a throne. The royal pillow placer’s job was to know which pillow, went with which pillow on what occasion. One mistake and the King of kings could be, at best in an uncomfortable position, at worst ridiculed. I cannot recommend that book enough,(link to a review here), an autopsy of regime collapse, autocracy, political science in a changing world. The room was sad and humbling, what with all the insignia of power and prestige, literally caged and contained, restricted and dead. The mighty have fallen and will still fall.

That evening, dinner was at Yod Abyssinia, a restaurant that has an Ethiopian food buffet (Injera complete with what seemed to me like twenty seven sauces). I think they still remember as the Burundian who ate until he couldn’t remember his name. Ethiopian food and restraint just don’t roll together. Not for me anyway and I know about twenty other people who can say the same. I pigged out with very nice St George’s beer with the food and a fragrant sweet mead that packed a punch, alcohol wise. I was surprised to find out that Burundi does a very similar drink, called "Akuki k'Abami", the drink of the Kings.  a drink as potent, with an uncanny ability to sneak the drunkedness into you before you know it ( ref; cousin Henry's engagement do..memorable).
Yod Abyssinia doubles as a show house complete with stage and performances from at least six different regions, all with the rytmic blend that Africa and arabia produced when they met.

I loved Ethiopia when I went to bed, pissed as an upright mattress and happy.

The french have a lovely expression to describe the state in which i woke up; "La tete dans le cul", to have one's head up one's own backside. That particular situation, we surely agree, is painful, very uncomfortable and it must blur all images and sounds while tasting and smelling very bad.

That day that shall be remembered as the one time that, I, a proud and outspoken coffee and chocolate hater, had two espressos that I downed like tequila shots, to clear the impenetrable fog of my hangover (I think coffee and chocolate taste and smell absolutely horrid, and makes you fat too..the chocolate that is. The work of lucifer).

It helped. Beans from the home of coffee were compressed into a bitter, powerful, minisized drink.

As much as I hate to admit but, it did help. And I've never looked back.

Chronicling the moment in Burundi

So my brother is an irritatingly exposed man, who speaks about the intricacies of Rundi culture as easily as discusses post modernist swedish furniture. A list of some of the things he has dabbled in and achieved competence(in no particular order), guitarist, human rights advocate (complete with run in battles and brawls), traditional drummer, antique restorer/dealer, journalist and more recently photographer.

While he has been good at all of them, he has excelled at photography. Bear with my skewed and probably incomplete picture(pun intended) as this is only the perspective of a sycophantic younger brother.

He has excelled because photography has become a natural extension of himself, as what he is, what he stands for and what he does. As far as I can remember, he has longed, managed to and found purpose in being at the center of changing times as an active agent. And the pictures he takes reflect what he believes in. That there is beauty out there, that our history and times need a more permanent anchoring in our memories so we may look back and reflect, and that Burundians are able to look at their present world in stark, sometimes accusatory black and white to form an idea of a future which is not written as per the custom, written for them. More importantly that someone needs to tell the story.

So there it is. 

Ugly and Pretty, Past and Present, Peaceful and Warring, Black and White, This is Burundi trapped in a lens by Teddy Robert Mazina. My brother.

Visit. And have an Opinion.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mdmexpo/

Holy Scents

I was surrounded by smells. The eucalyptus resin that permeated the whole area; the incense clouds that wafted every three minutes or so from the incense burners, engulfing me and blanking out the world around me for a few seconds; the smell of people with its warmer tones of sweat, garlic and spices and sandalwood (as I found out later is used in traditionnal cosmetics), the rich and strong smell of my freshly purchased small leather-backed Amharic bible and something that smelled like a rose in full bloom was being held under my nose.

I was in the church courtyard of the Entoto Maryam church on the Entoto hills (or mountains, the jury's still out) towering over Addis.

And it was during Lent, a time when the devout Christian orthodox fast, eat only special lent food (fast food ;-) ) and abstain from what they like most, but most of all they pray. They pray all over Ethiopia at churches like EntotoMariam for hours, reciting psalms, chanting in a way that made me aware of the power of faith, of ritual and of the institution. The Ethiopian orthodox take this way more seriously than any catholic I know. Special lent food all over restaurants, the nightlife all but dead and a church attendance that goes through the roof.

The crowd of many hundreds was dressed predominantly in white, with the women veiled in white shawls, a powerful sight in the intermittent incense fog that was kept coming and going. The crowd was facing into the church, following the cues that were issued from inside via large loudspeakers. The church is octagonal, standing on about ten steps up from the courtyard, with alcoves on its external walls that house huge elaborately adorned icons framed in glass, objects of the faithful devotions in the form of touch, kiss and the occasional spray of perfume-the rose smell from earlier on.

It would have been difficult, even for the hardened atheist, not to recognise that there was a power at work there. God was there. Now whether God brought those people there and inspired them or the power of their collective faith imagined, willed and CREATED God, to me is quite irrelevant. And to top it all, this is a faith that is meshed so intricately with the culture of the land that they are virtually indistinguishable from one another.

I felt an energy that was positive and kind and caring and ancient, something so potent and trustworthy as to promise to carry all the worries and all the hopes in the world and give back an answer sooner or later. I felt peace, harmony, compassion, strength and love. And looking down into the valley, towards the lights of Addis in the distance, with the crisp breeze in my face, I felt special, I felt blessed.

Entoto Maryam was commissioned by Empress Taytu Betul, Consort of Menelik the 2nd on a group of hills that were considered to be strategic. Addis grew around the court that subsequently settled in the area. First it was a private chapel next to one of the imperial residences, a nondescript museum building nearby(It was too late visit it). It is said that Selassie used to retreat there.

I could imagine him standing looking over his country and making decisions he knew History would either laud or decry. I have said before that I am fascinated by Haile Selassie, the man and the myth. And standing here looking down on Addis in the already cold evening breeze, I did not for one second envy the loneliness and worry that come with the job of emperor.

In the setting dark we drove back down to the city on what seemed to be the steepest, quasi vertical winding road I had ever seen. And whereas I had had visions of death (by-plunging-backwards-off-the-cliff-because-of failing-brakes-and-engine) on the way up, now I had the comfort of being able to see my demise when it came at me. On the way up, the small Lada taxi had revved and strained and clawed its way up the hill valiantly, with the driver totally unaffected, as he kept describing the sights of Addis. I was positively constipated by the time we were on top of the hill. Now, the drive back down, was giving me the very opposite effect. It had been a great day if only i could get back to the hotel and have a drink. Spirituality makes me thirsty. 

Kebabs on a bed of friendship

Travelling is like food in many ways. In my experience, both can be either improvised or carefully planned. They can be kept simple or extremely elaborate. Food, like travel, can leave you deeply satisfied or with the bitterest of after-tastes, swearing NEVER EVER to try that again owing. Food and travel, through the the multi-faceted experience they offer, have the magical ability to transport one through space and time, kicking imagination into overdrive and springing memories out of the dustier recesses of the mind. And when the whole experience is shared with someone, it is magnified, it's not food anymore, it's a meal; it's not a trip anymore, it's a voyage of discovery.

Some smells and tastes catapult me back into childhood whenever I encounter them, encasing me into a loving, safe homely cocoon. Succulent sweet fried plantain(Muzuzu, a cousin of mine can potentially inflict GBH over the smallest piece), Chicken Moambe stewed in palm fruit juice a la Congolaise, homemade mayonnaise with crispy frites, vanilla pudding, Dad’s succulent cotelettes de porc.....I could go on for hours.

It isn’t just the food it’s the experience of sharing the meal  I can still hear their kind admonishments whenever I made a mess -
Dad: “Non, mais...est ce que tu dois toujours manger comme un cochon?” which loosely translates as “Sharing a table with you is like watching a pig eat!”- or for non-observance of Mum’s rather strict table etiquette;
Mum: “Space for a cat between you and the back of the chair, sit up straight, no slouching, no elbows on the table and the metallic things either side of the plate are cutlery, not toys, not weapons, not useless decorations but CUTELRY And finish your food, tu as toujours les yeux plus gros que le ventre....do you know how many little kids are starving out there?”

My sister rather intelligently asked why we couldn’t take it to them. I remember my siblings’ sneaky attempts to get the last piece of plantain from one another’s plate.
Lazy sunday afternoon babercues, potlucks at uni, I remember the food because I remember the meal and the people.

My travel experiences are forever imprinted because I have had the blessing of sharing them with extremely interesting and kind individuals, and I say interesting and kind because I have come across individuals with the personality of a depressed amoeba and dangling icicles for a heart. Of the good ones, some I have known for years, others I met on the road and a good number have hosted me; opening the doors to their homes and making me part of their families, sharing their countries and cultures. Most of them, I will know for as long as we both live. The most amazing sights I have beheld carry heavier meaning because a travelling companion made an insightful- or phenomenally funny-remark that has cemented that moment into my head.

Which brings me to an amazing journey and the amazing people who I shared it with. In the winter of 2008, I was in Pakistan . Not bustling Karachi, not sleek Islamabad, but Peshawar, the capital of the North West Frontier Province, a mere ten kilometres from the Khyber Pass and Afghanistan. We are talking about a place that is competing with Mogadishu, some back alley in a drug-cartel-owned neighbourhood of Mexico and a small mosque in Sarah-Palin-vote-country, for the title of “Most dangerous place on Earth ever EVER EVER”. . Two friends of mine, Qash and Yaqub, took me around Peshawar, Islamabad and the Indus Valley in Pakistan. Qash is a big gangly guy who looks much younger than his twenty three years while Yaqub is a shorter sort with a thin wiry body and the face mischief would have if it had one.

My work allowed free afternoons every second day and I spent them walking with them in the old city, a network of narrow alleys where they pointed out medieval parapets, lattice work, ancient doors and other architectural features in the same tone as they would shrapnel scarred walls, signs of the all too frequent suicide bombings.

Peshawar is a beautiful city in a sense that there is a profusion of old and new. Shopping with them in ultra modern shopping malls with Calvin Klein and Louis Vuitton imitations was really cool. We took rides in the extremely garrishly addorned buses(entire volumes have been written about them), we took walks in the grounds of the University of Peshawar, a venerable instution that looks like an imperial palace complete with courtyards and towers.

They offered to go into the hills and shoot an RPG (Rocket Propelled Grenade-I’m sure you knew that) for about ten dollars and should I add five dollars, they’d throw in a goat to aim at. There is not a joke within a mile of this. I declined the offer and remembered not to comment on the poor goat( imagine it being led into a meadow, where it would proced to graze unsuspecting of its fate) I did not say anything because that would have just been GAY.

Pakistan, and the entire Indian sub-continent I was told, is crazy about food and I soon caught the bug. I pigged out continuously, never refusing a parcel I was offered and occasionally stealing it when it wasn’t offered. It was that good. Food is what naturally happens in Pakistan after a handshake. I visited their families, ate the best lamb kebabs in this solar system, big flat spicy patties of lamb mince that you have with Naan bread and an assortment of vegetables. I am drooling copiously on the keyboard as I write this.

Walking through the colourful markets with them was an enlightening experience as I managed to be pulled in the back of every second shop, to sit on a carpet with seven or so other bearded men( bearing an uncanny resemblance to the stereotypical Taliban) who would poor me tea , nudge me to drink it and have a few samosas with. It’s a sign of respect to the guest, owing to the sacred custom of hospitality and sanctuary. And I tell you I was a hit. At the end of one particularly full day at the market, my pee had the distinct and unmistakable whiff and tinge of Jasmine green tea.

Sadly for me, The North West frontier Province is one of the few places on earth where alcohol is expressly forbidden.

To acquire some legally, one must first register with the local authorities for a permit by providing proof that one is not a Muslim. The permit takes upwards of three months to get (“Shrill scream” to use another friend’s expression). They must have noticed the trembling of my lip and the tears welling in my eyes because they quickly told me that there were “ways” wink-wink. That same evening I was generously plied with smuggled vodka (that tasted like paint stripper but hey...who am I to refuse a gift) and cold, battered and bent Heineken cans that had been brought in on camel back from Russia. You just have to know people who know people.

Strongly regimented societies need outlets, valves to let the pressure out, and I was lucky to witness one such instance by going to a party. Think of an apartment at the top of a building in the business quarter of the city, packed to the brim with mostly young men and the odd group of shy-looking but extremely outspoken young women and a sprinkling of visiting arty types from Karachi and Islamabad. The discussion went from fashion to gossip (I knew no one concerned, but I tell you it was sizzling), to politics. The whole thing happened in a very relaxed way, with a respectful observance of etiquette between the men and the women, but I could see some romances blossoming on the couches(still a good metre distance between the two , bashful eyes, very awkward and really sweet- it was courtship the Romeo and Juliet way).The blaring music (from Britney Spears to Pakistan’s top ten of the week) and a sea of cheap booze moved things along and soon after I got there everyone was dancing. I almost envied them, this double life they lived, this juncture of world they lived in and their deep awareness of the moment. I remember at some point being in the middle of a circle of dancers throwing back my nth shot of liquid fire and thinking that I was partaking in a privileged, exclusive and rare experience, much like a once in three hundred years alignment of stars. Drinking in the moment, literally.

Three weeks into my visit, we went to the Indus Valley, at a spot where the Indus and the Kabul River meet into a gigantic Y shaped formation. It was in the full of winter so the water levels were low and we stood in this expanse of huge shiny pebbles, waves upon wave of smooth rocks in colours ranging from jet-black to a translucent white with all the hues and nuances in-between. We let our minds wander for a while taking it all in. I imagined how many people had sat here throughout the ages, in this legendary valley. And we talked about world perspectives, life expectations, country, family, and love.

The both of them were expecting their families to choose brides for them and they explained the rationale behind what is widely viewed in the west as backwards and devoid of love. First of all, their parents and their parents’ parents had had their marriages arranged and fared quite well in them, viewing the marriage less as a thing of love and more like a stable partnership whose primary aims were the prosperity of the family, the flourishing of good relationships between two clans as well as the upholding of millennia old traditions that make up their culture. They also believes tht love grows, it doesn’t just happen. An approach that carries more sense and sensibility than “the bachelorette”, what with its hire/fire, marriage for morons(albeit with perfect teeth and heaving bosom) . When they said marriage they meant “business” and if love happened in the mix they would be really happy.

We talked world and we talked country. They were enamoured with their torn land, in love with what it could be and they expressed their views on the fundamentalists- they were sad at the fact that most of them were born and bred in such poverty that undiscerning fundamentalism was the only thing that gave them purpose. They could understand that but all the same they spoke of them with palpable disgust, as the people who robbed them continuously of their lives, family members, their religion and their future.

We took a trip to Islamabad, a beautiful artificial city that is laid in an uncompromising grid of confusingly similar streets. It’s wooded and very cosmopolitan, a mere few hours from Peshawar, there were women with no veils on in the streets, fewer burqas and all manner of things western. After a mosey around the main sights, Feisal mosque (Incredible place), we went up the Margalla hills to a place called Daman-e-Koh, a popular-if not generic looking- picnic spot for the well heeled locals with an array of restaurants. The view was unbelievable, the city literally laid to your feet.

My experience of Pakistan will always be through the lens of the friends I made, a friendship that transcended a lot of race, religious and location obstacles. I’m still in touch with them and I still miss a land that is troubled, misunderstood and beautiful. From the organic chaos of Peshawar to glitzy-and somewhat clinical - Islamabad, I met the people whose voice I hear whispering “try a bit harder “whenever I have a guest. With them I learnt to appreciate the extent of the problems their country is facing and the courage it takes to live there and still believe tomorrow will be better.


Incidentally, two of the places I had meals in, The Marriot in Islamabad and the Pearl Oriental in Peshawar were the targets of terrorist attacks which claimed the lives of dozens of people.

The day before I left, Qash and Yakub came over and brought the last round of booze along with some gifts, one of them a huge cake made with dates and cinnamon. We spent two hours talking and eating and making plans about the time they would come and visit Africa. We parted tipsy- a tad bit teary too- but armed with the certitude that we shall meet again.

The next day at the airport, I was coldly informed at the PIA check-in(the things I wish them are in the BLEEP category) that I had excess luggage and had to lose some of the ballast. After a few moments of careful consideration I parted with about three kilos of books and –shriller scream- the date cake. It had to be done-although dates and cakes even when not together trigger a sweeping tide of guilt . I calm myself by chanting “it’s not the food, it’s the people that matter.”

To my two brothers from another mother, Qash and Yakub and to their beautiful country, Pakistan.

A calendar, my father, three uncles and my brother

On the first of March 1896, a historical battle took place in the North of Ethiopia, a locality known as Aduwa.

The battle pitted against one another the then kingdom of Italy; a late comer to the scramble for Africa, eager to make a name for itself in what was the game of the day, and the Ethiopian Empire, the oldest African Christian state entity and the seat of a dynasty that claimed descent from the love child of Solomon of Israel and Makeda, Queen of Sheba.

Picture this for a moment; in the last un-colonized African chunk of land, in an empire famed for its gold, silver and history, a barren flat land surrounded by jagged hills. Advancing in the valley , 18,000 Italians, arrogant and drunk on the belief that Africa is a place destined to be subjugated, seeing Ethiopia the missing piece to join the concert of colonizing, civilizing nations.
On the hills, an 80,000 strong force of Abyssinians, battalions commandeered by Emperor Menelik, Empress Taytu and the best commanders the nobility had to offer, fighting for their freedom, their survival and the continuity of life as they knew it. Although the Italians had the technological advantage, a combination of sketchy military intelligence, poor leadership and gross inequality between the forces sizes (the Ethiopians outnumbered the Italians 7 to one) led to a defeat so shameful, so scalding, forty years later, Musollini still tried to avenge it, a defeat that shaped the lens through which Ethiopia would be viewed by the rest of the world from that day on.

Ethiopia became a Reality. To Europe, Ethiopia became unattainable, mysterious, fierce and free, a respected, recognised entity, an empire of Africans in Africa, a place where a stand had been made against European colonisation. To Africa it became a shinning beacon, a reminder of what we had been at some point and what we must strive to become.

Ethiopia became a brand name for virginal, fierce, beautiful, HUMAN Africa, a special place.

Growing up, I built an image of Ethiopia in my mind, a collage obtained from three special places: a calendar, a conversation with my Dad and the lasting impressions three of my uncles and my brother have left on me.

When I was about eight years old, my mother, a travel agent then, brought home an Ethiopian Airlines calendar. Watercolour prints of scenes from rural Ethiopia picturing the inevitable goat-herder standing on one leg, the diaphanous veiled doe eyed Russian icon-like beauties of women, the aloof chiselled staggeringly handsome faces of their men, medieval Gondar, the architectural feat of Lalibella and the Gellada baboons, part-baboon, part-dogs-part-lion from the red Simien Mountains. I remember taking the calendar down and trying to reproduce these images of intense, impeccable beauty, I remember, as a boy, literally being transported into another world. I can remember, then, that I promised myself that I would visit Ethiopia "Quand je serais grand"-When I grow up.

At about the same time, “We are the world” was becoming the anthem it is today. The opening lines and the chorus are probably the first English words that I ever attempted to string together and understand. When I asked my father what “We are the world-Nous sommes le monde” meant (a very confusing literal translation), he patiently told me about the song’s meaning and purpose, about the Ethiopian famine and about solidarity as a responsibility, a debt of the haves towards the have-nots.

Famine-“Amapfa” in Kirundi, my mother tongue, can be translated loosely and litteraly as “the bringer of death”, and for people of my father’s generation it still represents a reality they faced as children when a bad-crop year, cattle disease, the colonial taxes or instability lead to shortages acute enough to see some days go past without food. “La disette”- lean times, a spectre he had known, still feared in a way so strong that it drove him every morning to work harder to build a world of plenty for us, his family. Dad's way of describing ugliness was " Asa n'urwamaze inka- The face of the cattle plague", so ingrained was the memory of hideous hunger and its effects in his psyche and the collective consciousness of his generation.
I understood Ethiopia that day, through my father’s almost contagious disgust and horror of famine, as a place of tragedy so intense the world had to mobilise to attempt and stop it. To stop that horrible thing that robs your body and your mind of all abilities, the slow death, hunger. I think I felt, empathised, for the tragedy of Ethiopia a long time before I had similar feelings for my own country.

A third strong influence of my mental construct of Ethiopia came from close in the family. Three of my uncles are Rastafarians and I suspect my brother to be a closet Rastafarian. I love them, I adore them, I worship their socks. My uncles G(who sports knee length dreadlocks), M and B, are respectively a writer, a journalist and a human rights activist/ political analyst. They are men of immense presence and calm, lean, noble who speak with kind, serious voices that can hardly be told apart on the phone. They have stratospheric IQs and matching inquisitiveness and openness to the world and knowledge. They also have a great reverence for the frail little man who once was the Emperor of Ethiopia.

My brother, the consummate Bohemian bourgeois is an aficionado of all things Reggae and Roots, the Rasta philosophy, the respect for life and the idealistic nature of Rastafarianism. They together represent an Africa I have come to love; educated, conscious of its roles and responsibilities, full of ideals and action. And they have a role model, one of many, one they recognise to have been full of flaws, but full of grace too. One whose idea of Africa was an orderly, united, powerful and respected continent. The Emperor Ras Tafari Makonnen Haile Selassie the 1st.

Their reverence rubbed onto me, an irrational respect and adulation for the last of the great kings.

These were the thoughts coursing through my mind as the Emirates flight made its final descent on Bole, Addis Ababba’s international airport over a patchwork of different hues of green, dark brown and hay, a land with every inch tilled and prepared. And right infront and below me lay a great city with a towering dark block of mountains at one end of it, Addis Ababba, the New Flower....(to be continued.)