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.

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. 

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.)