One place or another ?

Everywhere I look around in Cairo I see Mexico, there are so many striking similarities it is a little unnerving. The people look almost identical, the same olive to dark skin tone, short and squat, many well on their way to obesity.Lots of boys are in their muscle tops, and the girls seem to be having a competition to see who can get away with the tightest pants almost revelling in the muffin tops they have going.
Like Mexico almost all of the food is fried, and really a falafel is a rolled up taco. And naturally every meal has to be washed down with a soft drink to make sure that Type 2 diabetes really gets going !!! They even cook their meat the same way here - the large, round and shallow frying tops with an indentation in the middle to make sure no fat is lost - meat and fat bubbling away.

The skyline of down town Cairo, actually all of Cairo, is filled with a forest of bland concrete towers, and it looks like nothing has been built or maintained since 1968, despite the historic age of the city - everything is made of cement. (Except of course in the new, ritzy neighbourhoods where they use glass) From ground level you can see determine the age of the buildings, despite the thick covering of black soot, by how much the cement has crumbled.

Like Mexico, the city is over run by chaotic traffic, and it appears at first glance there are no road rules at all - other than the pedestrian as the smallest object must give way to everything, but somehow the traffic manages to sort itself out. The age of most cars and the thermal inversion means that everything, including your feet, ends up being covered in black soot and the air is filled with smog 24 hours a day - it makes for impressive sunsets but terrible respiratory health.

Both societies have the veneer of being deeply religious - churches and mosques everywhere, but people are more than willing to break all the rules, (have a mistress or two, have a few beers at a bar, run a drug cartel, pinch foreign women on the bum, blow up infidels) and still go to the church or mosque once a week in a public show of faith.
Both also have a certain affection for the kitsch, fluorescent colours, 1960's style polyester suits, moustaches, way to much make up, shiny black SUVs in urban areas - the list goes on and on

Signs of Egypt

Egyptians love writing signs in English, from street names to restaurants to driving directions, everything gets a go in English, sometimes with very entertaining results.
Can't really argue with The Safety First !!

President Cool

Can you get any cooler than this ?
President Mubarak, some very big shades, and some building or other with its pet in the background.
Perhaps when he retires he could start up a Presidential Makeover show.

Alexandria photo highlights

I arrived back in Africa from Yemen in Alexandria, an incredibly historic city, perched on the edge of Africa in a beautiful setting looking out over the Mediterranean. A couple of years ago they rebuilt the famous library - which once held a copy of all books known to be in print. Now the building is more impressive than the collection !!!

Welcome to Egypt

After a five hour wait in the rather otherworldly airport in United Arab Emirate of Sharjah, I finally got on the plane bound for Alexandria in Egypt. The three hour flight was relatively uneventful, which in this region basically means no bombs went off, but the excitement started before we touched terra firma.
As we descended in to Alexandria, the "Fasten Seatbelts" light having been switched on ten minutes earlier, the plane did a few tight circles around the city and out over the Mediterranean sea, and about halfway through the second loop, almost close enough to the ground to reach out the window and touch the tops of the trees one passenger decided that he need to go to the toilet, so he stood up and started walking down the aisle. He almost made it to the toilet before the hostesses, who were strapped in to their seats noticed that he was wandering about and immediately started yelling at him, in person and over the loud hailer, to immediately return to his seat - you didn't have to speak Arabic to understand what they were saying.
Not long after we touched down, and about five seconds after we rolling on the plane's wheels rather then flying, still moving at quite a speed, three or four passengers stood up and started getting their luggage out of the overhead lockers, as if we were sitting still on the tarmac waiting to taxi on to the runway for take-off, when in fact we were hurtling along at high speed straining to slow down in time to not run off the end of the runway. The hostess again yelled them down, and eventually after a bit of back and forth everyone sat down. However this champing at the bit to get the jump over everyone else and be the first off the plane, caused a repeat of these events twice more before we actually came to a stop - by which time the hostess had pretty much given up their efforts, people were wandering about and even the Egyptian guy sitting next to me was shaking his head in dismay at the rather risky behaviour of our fellow passengers.
The complete stupidity of standing up on a fast moving plane was only underscored by the events that followed next - not only did all of the passengers have to wait for the transfer buses to fill up before anybody made it any where near the terminal, once inside it took at least an hour to make it through immigration. The arrivals hall was a linoleum floored, fluorescent lit room not much bigger than a class room, into which three aeroplanes worth of people crammed into, in what suspiciously looked like queues but functioned more like an NGO donating food to the starving operation. Whilst the majority of people accepted their status as equals and waited in lines, quite a number of people simply wandered past the queues along the side, thinking no doubt they were more important than anyone else, and then tried to insinuate their way in front by either catching the eye of some one they knew amongst the myriad of uniformed people who had something to do with immigration, surreptitiously drifting in to the front of the queue, or simply waving their passport around and asserting their importance. As I watched people for twenty minutes or show I saw the complete lack of any sense of order in the waiting, people would wander out of the queue, end up in arguments when they tried to sneak in closer to the front, be sent in to exile at the side for a while then rejoin at the back of the line. Despite the raised voices, lack of clean air, the early hours and lack of sleep, everyone seemed to be in relatively polite and good humoured. I got the feeling that this sort of queuing, chaos and inefficiency was common rather than exceptional.
Meanwhile the three narrow wooden booths which actually housed the immigration officials were completely surrounded in what can only be described as a shamozel. For some reason the process required that you hand your passport to the guy through the front window, then walk past the booth and wait around until your name was called out whereupon you fought through the waiting throng, collected your passport, had it checked by the guard on the door, and then got to collect your luggage. All this occurred in a classroom sized room, now filled with cigarette smoke and most men had lit up a fag and felt free to blow smoke in anyone's face.
I had managed to avoid the queue because as I walked in the door I was accosted by the waiting health officials who asked me whether I had any flu like symptoms, then took down my name and hotel details just in case. I had then waited for the Bank de Eigypt counter to open to purchase my visa for twenty minutes or so, but to no avail. I then had to push my way through the queue, just to get around the back of immigration officials, surrender my passport to the door man, walk across the luggage hall to the bank/exchange counter on the other side, purchase my visa sticker (which uniquely in my experience they let me stick in to my passport myself) return through the door, collecting my passport on the way, push my way through the throng to the back to start waiting again.
Somehow I managed to finally make it to the front of queue before everybody made it through, although there was probably only a quarter of the people left from the peak surge. Reassuringly I noticed that there were still quite a few people from my flight waiting. When I made it to the window the guy behind me actually waved me ahead of him, and I handed over my passport without a hassle and went to wait with the others.
And as a reminder that even waiting in a stuffy queue for an hour and a half at 2.30 in the morning can have a happy ending, I had the pleasure of meeting, Michele, a great Italian bloke who was at the beginning of his adventure, riding his bicycle across the middle east. Misery certainly does breed company, and the arrivals hall was a great introduction to the pleasures of Egypt.

Flight with a view

When you wander about in Africa people are always surprised that I take
the bus rather than simply jumping in an aeroplane and jetting from one
place to the next. Usually I explain my avoidance of flights by saying
that I came to see different things and from the height of an aeroplane
everything looks the same. Today I was proved wrong.
Flying over the middle of the Arabian peninsula - from Sanaa in Yemen to
Sharjar in the UAE in the middle of the day gave me spectacular views of
the Empty Quarter, the huge sandy desert in the middle of the Arabian
Peninsula. (Think Lawrence of Arabia, in the scene where they set out
for Aqaba)
The view out the tiny window gave a great perspective of the emptiness
stretching in every direction as far as the eye could see. Line after
line of golden sand, stretching to the horizon in all directions,
curving this way and that, but aligned in neat rows. It was almost
impossible to draw the eye away, as they instinctively followed the
lines this way and that, perhaps looking for an escape from the
nothingness. Nothing interrupted this beautiful natural sculpture, no
blemishes of vegetation or water, and no visible human impact.
As we rose higher the air was filled with sand whipped up by the
sculpting winds, the air turned yellow, and the desert disappeared like
a mirage.

Shibam Kids

In a small town called Shibam, not far out of Sanaa, I was adopted by some local kids who decided that I needed a guide to walk up the hill to see the nearby caves. After some jockeying between the kids my two guides ended up being a brother and sister, Abdul-Wahab and Rhemay, both under 10. We wandered up the hill and checked out a few of the caves, took a few of the obligatory photos, then sat around and had a chat. Abdul had recently met some tourists, and so he was curious about life outside of Yemen - or more accurately outside his village.
He asked me if it was true that in my country a man could live with any woman. I didn't quite catch the meaning, but he explained that he had met some Korean tourists and that there was a man and a woman who weren't married but had told him they lived together. He was shocked by the idea - and this from a twelve year old. He also asked me why I didn't have any children, at 32 I was already old !!! I asked Rhemay what class she was in at school and she told me that she was in grade four and when she grew up she wanted to be a doctor or an engineer. Her brother testified that Rhemay was the smartest in her class, and beamed with pride.
There seemed to me to be a gap between the expectations or dreams of this little girl, and the repressive nature of life as a women in Yemen - the requirement that you always remain completely covered in public, that you never speak to a male you aren't related to, that you marry early and that your main job is to make children and home. I am sure that the dreams of achieving are often trampled by the strictures of the patriarchy.
When we arrived back at their modest house their was no way they would let us go without first serving us tea and cakes, then juice and fruit, and then insisting that we stay for lunch. Despite how strange they might think I am, hospitality always comes first.

Faces of Yemen

Left: These kids, like almost everyone in Yemen asked me to take their photo, and then tried to tidy themselves up for the photo










Left: Mix of traditional (see the knife on the belt) and trackies
Right: When I grow up I want to be an engineer or a doctor

Two ways to hell

You can't really avoid religion in Yemen, there are mosques everywhere, almost all women wear the full burkha and hijab - leaving only their eyes visible, and when everyone disappears to pray - kids look at me and ask why I am not joining them. And whilst everyone takes it all very seriously, I find it a little hard to resist - two items for your entertainment:

The nearest mosque to my hotel blares out the usual call to prayer five times a day - starting at 4.30am. Those ... ignoramuses whinge that it wakes them in the morning and why can't they keep their prayers private, meanwhile the Loiterer sleeps through the early calls, struggles to make them out over the general din on the streets, and relishes the diminished crowds meaning less waiting time at restaurants and shops. However every time I hear the call from my hotel I can't stop laughing as the iman's voice is breaking, he sounds like a teenager with all the hormones firing. The pitch waivers up and down without rhyme or reason, any note he tries to hold starts with some base in it and usually trails off in a high pitched squeal - and all of it amplified by dodgy amps and tinny speakers. At first I thought he was just having a bad day, but it has been going on all week, fives times a day. I wonder what Allah thinks as She hears her name exalted by a pimply teenager.

The second is this mosque that is just outside old Sanaa. The photo doesn't show too well but yes it is baby pink and white - possibly the world's first (and only) gay friendly mosque.

Power up

Okay so now everyone in Africa has mobile phones but unfortunately universal supply of electricity is still a pipe (or should that be cable) dream.

So what do enterprising shop owners do - offer to charge peoples' phones. And if you are going to do one, why not do 15. One can just imagine Prince Phillip walking past commenting on the "darky wiring job" or Poppa Smurf having a heart attack at the risk this poses to world peace.

This photo comes from a small town on the Uganda Rwanda border.

Internet filter ?

Sitting in an internet cafe in Yemen, waiting for a page to load, I take a peek at the computer next to me, and the young guy is watching rocket launchers going off, someone throwing grenades, and some dodgy looking training exercises involving various types of weaponry and men in beards. All appear to be quality fundamentalist productions, bad light, shaky camera work and some guy wailing in the background.

I am both alert and alarmed.

Arab street kids

Sitting outside eating dinner in the street in a little back alley on the edge of old Sanaa town, I was reminded clearly that I had slipped from Africa in to Arabia by the street kids. Arabic street kids have a certain look, they are more jaded than other street kids, they look older, more like little people than kids. They have the suit coats and the mannerisms of adults, and seem to carry themselves that way as well. The way they are treated by adults is a little different to, in Africa adults would shoo away kids, but here they get whacked with the broom, back handers to the head, and have their hijabs pulled whilst getting a boot up the arse.

Naturally being the little man that her slight older an about half an inch slightly taller brother stands up and starts swinging haymakers at the six foot hero who is pulling his sister's hair. Eventually the hero realises how pathetic he looks and backs away to the shop and the kids scamper off to no doubt do battle again.

Sanaa - now you see, and you don't (May 6, 2009)

Sanaa, the capital of Yemen is marked by two things, one by it conspicuousness and the other by the exact opposite.

Sanaa claims to be the oldest continuously lived in city in the world (from around 600BC) but a few other cities in the Middle East make similar claims. What sets it apart though is that the down town area is contains almost exclusively Yemeni skyscrapers - built from traditional materials - mud, wood and straw - some of them stand 11 stories high and over 400 years old. There are so many that UNESCO declared the whole city a World Heritage Site. The architecture is unique and very impressive - tall, narrow buildings with mud brown walls and large decorative white plaster windows. The roads are very narrow which keeps traffic to a minimum, but doesn't stop drivers from driving like they are participating in a rally competition. The alleyways meander around the buildings, most ground floors are windowless, traditionally being the place where animals were kept at night, or shop fronts grouped together in areas depending on what they are selling but always with goods overflowing on to the street.

What you don't see in Sanaa, and for that matter, Yemen altogether, is women. There are a few here and there, but I went two weeks in Yemen without seeing a woman's face, which doesn't sound that strange, but imagine not seeing half the faces of people walking around you for a while - bizarre. Every woman I saw was completely covered in the big, black bag and with a veil as well - showing the eyes when they were feeling provocative, but often with another piece of material covering the eyes. Even women who work in the fields are completely covered, with only their eyes showing. I never saw a man and a woman touching, not even holding hands the whole time I was there.
Interestingly everyone in Yemen has satellite TV and they have access to programs from across the Arab speaking world - including from Egypt, where a majority of women don't even wear a veil, and from Lebanon - where woman weir the veil, but as a cloth to cover their entire bodies. But in the flesh, most men won't even see their wives face until they are married. A couple of young local guys I met explained to me that their parents were pressuring them to get married, and the process is as follows - mother and sisters find what they think is a suitable candidate, arrangements made to go to home of girl with mother,sister and father, in the presence of her father, and ask her questions - she is likely to remain veiled. Man then gets to say yes or no, enlightened men will inquire whether the woman agree to the marriage - most don't ask. Wedding date is arranged, and man has to get the dowry together - wedding is held early in the morning, and then all the men go to one tent to celebrate and all the women go to another. When I suggested it was a little sad that people didn't get to celebrate together, my new friends were perplexed - but why ? they asked. In a day and age when people have access to almost everything on the internet - access to the net is cheap and fast in Yemen, one gets the feeling that there must be a huge mass of very frustrated - both sexually and politically, young men and women, but I saw no sign of it. In fact there is the opposite - people are curious and surprised by the ways of others - a 12 year old boy I met asked if it was true that any man and women could go together in my country because he met a Korean couple who weren't married but lived together, so he presumed anyone could go with anyone else. Hard to tell what is more strange, what goes on in Yemen, or when the Yemenis think goes on elsewhere.

Africa is just not dangerous enough - off to Yemen

After eight months in Africa, no wars, no civilian unrest (well a little in Kenya), no rebellions (maybe close in Eritrea) and no diseases, (and one incredibly frustrating, expensive and ultimately failed attempt to get a visa) I am leaving Africa for some where with more action - Yemen. Have a look at this list of recent excitement in Yemen (that I poached off the internet):

• On 15 March 2009 a group of South Korean nationals were attacked whilst visiting a popular tourist site in Shibam, Hadramaut Governorate. Four South Koreans are known to have died with reports of the death of at least one other, whose nationality is unclear at this time. At least four others were injured.

• On 17 September 2008, at least 17 people were killed in an attack on the US Embassy in Sana'a, including six terrorists.
  

• On 30 April 2008, there was a mortar attack against the Italian Embassy in Sana'a.

• On 10 April 2008 an improvised explosive device exploded at an oil company headquarters in Sana'a, and a second device was disarmed.

• On 6 April 2008 there was a mortar attack against a residential compound in Sana'a.
• On 18 March 2008 there was a grenade attack against the US Embassy in Sana'a.
• On 18 January 2008, two Belgian and two Yemeni nationals were shot dead, with four other Belgians seriously injured, in an incident in the Governorate of Hadramaut.
• On 9 July 2007, an explosive device was found in Aden but was not detonated.
• On 2 July 2007, eight Spanish and two Yemeni nationals were killed,and a number of others injured, in a suicide bomb attack in Ma’rib,100 km east of Sana'a.
• The latest incident happened on 18 January 2009 where a German national and his two Yemeni colleagues were kidnapped in Shabwa Governorate. The hostages were released unharmed. On 2 January 2009 three South African nationals, including two children, were kidnapped on the Aden/Abyan road in the south of Yemen. They were released unharmed. On 14 December 2008 three German nationals were kidnapped in Bait Bous, on the outskirts of Sana'a. The hostages were also released unharmed. At the end of September 2008 a family of five Americans were kidnapped in the Governorate of Dhamar. Earlier that month, two Colombian oil engineers were kidnapped in the Governorate of Shabwa.All hostages were released unharmed. You should be aware that the long-standing policy of the British Government is not to make substantive concessions to hostage takers. The British Government considers that paying ransoms and releasing prisoners increases the risk of further hostage taking.

Breaking all the rules - inadvertently

In my brief time in Eritrea it seems I have inadvertently managed to set a record in the number of rules I have broken in a short space of time. All of the following are in some way prohibited by the mass of laws, rules and regulations which seems to ensnare most people in Eritrea which ever way they turn -

1. I crossed the border in to Eritrea from Sudan, supposedly the border is closed but there were plenty of locals passing through.
2. I was allowed in to Eritrea despite having a Ethiopian visa and entry and exit stamps in my passport. (The two countries were at war for thirty years, and then some more)
   
3. I never received a currency declaration form through which the government attempts to strictly regulate the exchange of foreign currency to its fixed rate of exchange.
4. I stayed the night in the border town of Tesseney, where foreigners are supposedly not allowed to go and are never given travel permits
5. I travelled in Eritrea without a travel permit - I made it from Tesseney to Barentu (another town that is out of bounds for foreigners) before the military police realised I didn't have a permit and took me off the bus. I was then escorted in to town to the Security Police and issued a piece of paper which authorised my travel to Asmara.

Massawa is sleeping

I finally had enough of waiting in Asmara and decided to head down to the coast at Massawa.

On the bus on the way down we stop halfway and some Cubanas join us on the bus - standing for the second half of the journey. I overhear them speaking in Spanish and so I start up a conversation. They are here for their compulsory service - you have to go and work overseas before you can practice as a doctor in Cuba. They are not the thinnest woman in the world and are suffering from the heat, one of them says to me "I leave in September and I will be happy if I never think of Africa again". (I suddenly think of a global pecking order - Cuba is poor but Eritrea is even lower on the list) Somehow despite their measly salaries and the complete lack of food they have somehow managed to maintain their voluptuous figures which fill out the tight trackies and jeans they have on in true Latina style.

I arrive in the mainland part of Massawa and then take a mini-van across the causeways, past the tank monument, to Massawa proper. It is hard to believe that during the 1930's the Italians turned the port in to the busiest in East Africa, building on a rich and mixed architectural heritage from the various peoples who have lived and traded here, including Egyptian, Turkish, Arabs and Portuguese. Sadly during Eritrea's fight for independence the Ethiopians bombed Massawa to bits (as revenge for the rebels seizing control of the town from the Ethiopians) and this is what you see today. Many buildings lie in ruins - huge holes in their roofs, bulging walls sometimes more horizontal then vertical and piles of concrete rubble strewn all about. During the short period of peace after independence some big shiny hotels were built on the shore but they are now all closed as the restarting of hostilities has almost killed all tourism in Eritrea.

I wandered about in the ruins and managed to find a hotel that had a room - the building was a huge three storey 1930's construction, which at its peak must have had thirty or forty rooms - it now had three. All the rest were boarded up, the roof have caved in across a couple, a stairway had fallen down, and everything is covered in a think layer of dust. The owner has managed to salvage a few rooms with the creative use of plywood, but even these are barely habitable. The other three hotels I have seen are all exactly the same, once grand but now falling down, a few others are completely closed.

I finally manage to get in the water and go for a swim. The water is incredibly refreshing, as it washes away the sweat that 40 degree plus temperatures have generated. There is no beach, and their is no one swimming. The water is clear but stays shallow for as far as I can swim out. It starts to get late and the hills in the background start glowing a soft red, hence the Red Sea.

On my way back from the swim I am walking along the street and a car slows and the window slowly slides down and I fill a rush of cold, air-conditioned air.
The driver asks me if I want a ride and I explain I am just walking around. He is surprised that I am a tourist in Eritrea, and clearly wants to talk. I tell him,
"It is very quiet here, Massawa is sleeping"
"It is because of the war", he replies
"The war is finished", I say
"No, no. War with fighting is good, it finishes. War with words is bad, it never finishes", he corrects me.
I ask him where can I find something to eat and he tells me where the best (only ?) fish in town is served before biding me farewell and driving off.

When I return to my hotel I find that it is full with guests, about 10 or 15 high school students from Dekemhare have showed up for the long weekend. They are finishing school in the next week and preparing themselves for what most call hell by drinking as much as they can over the weekend. All students who want to study after high school in Eritrea are sent away to a huge camp in the desert where they all live together for a year being brainwashed. It is hot, conditions are harsh and by all reports it is very hellish. Those who don't want to or can't study are sent to an even worse place for their education. The look in the eyes of these young people, a mixture of fear, dread, frustration and dire need to squeeze some small enjoyment out of life was very disturbing. They stay up all night drinking, listening to loud music and dancing - I can't begrudge their last chance at a little enjoyment. They are still going at six am when I get up to go for a swim. Again, I swim alone.

I spend two more days in Massawa and don't see another tourist. A few other students are in town but for a long weekend it is very very quiet. I wonder what it is like during the week. My dream of taking a boat across to Yemen is completely dashed, I can't imagine the last time a boat sailed out of this harbour.

I head back to the mainland to the bus station which is easy to find because next to it sits a huge Andronov cargo plane. I imagine that the Ethiopians left town so quickly that they didn't have a chance to get this behemoth off the ground. It has been turned it to a restaurant, but in a country with very little food there was no sign of even a menu let alone a meal. I get on the bus to leave Massawa feeling like I am leaving the twilight zone.

Sudan - first impressions

In the first six hours in Sudan I have already had four or five experiences which have already started defining the place for me

Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop

Sudan seems to have a schizophrenic attitude to tourists. In some Sudanese embassies it is almost impossible to get a visa, whereas in Addis Abbaba, once I had coughed up the US$100, I had mine the next day. Then when you enter the country you are subjected to varying degrees of interrogation at a collection of different inspection posts - immigration, customs, police, security police and some guy in an office who really insisted I sign a piece of paper the contents of which I had no idea. However I am an old hand at border crossings, so despite the hot sun bearing down like it wanted to tear holes through me, and the hot wind that sucked the moisture from me whilst filling the air with a sandy mist, I summoned all the patience I had left and slowly trudged from one place to the next. After receiving the appropriate permission to travel, which required me to donate another photo of myself to the Sudanese government, the minibus filled up, drove around town a couple of times, visited immigration and customs with a passenger list and then the security police again (they did a final bag search) , we motored off out of town.
About two minutes down the road, at the end of town was the first checkpoint - customs and immigration and security police all had a look inside, and requested my papers. I then had to get out, get my bag down from the roof and watch them go through it again - it wasn't just me they were doing this for all the passengers. I watched the guy who pulled up next to us in a ute, be approached by four different sets of officials in four different coloured uniforms.


We then drove another one minute and stopped at the army checkpoint - three small thatched huts, a concrete building in the middle, a radio antenna, and five or six very bored looking soldiers languorously draped over anything they could find in the shade. Behind the buildings was a four wheel drive ute with a machine gun mounted on the back. (Yep, just like you see on the news about Darfur !!)

After we passed through this checkpoint we drove another fifteen minutes before we reached the next one - out comes the passport, the same questions, the rudimentary look through what everyone's luggage and then we are on our way - until the next checkpoint. After another two or three of these stops couldn't help but think about how this is the African special - that is the idea that if enough people do a job enough times in a half arsed way eventually the combined efforts will lead to .... umm, well will lead to something. Perhaps it is law enforcement by tedium - eventually you give up and stop travelling.

Despite the extreme heat, even when I open the window when we are moving at a good speed the air being blown in is hotter than inside the van, I manage to fall asleep. I am woken by stopping at another checkpoint, and I wonder how many I have missed - the van driver now has my passport in a vain attempt to speed the process along. However this time I have to answer the where are you going ? questions myself, and then get to watch as the luggage all gets checked again. Three hundred metres down the road we get stopped again, and everyone's papers are checked.

This went on for the four hours it took to cover the one hundred and fifty kilometres or so - the road was in great condition, the driver drove like a madman and pushed the van to what felt like 150 km/h but it still took over four hours - looking at the map made me worry that I may never make it the other side of Sudan, I don't have that many years to live.

Can I help you ?

The bus from the border drives through a maze of back streets, then comes on to a main street and drops me at what looks like a market. I am flying blind, two hours in a new country, melting from the wilting dry heat, as I don't have a map, any idea of a place to stay or where I can catch a bus to head north to Eritrea, and I understand about three words of Arabic. An older guy, dressed in a white jalabaa - the long sleeved, cover all night gown that is so favoured by Muslims with a jauntily arranged white turban covering his head, standing in front of a shop behind the make shift bus stop, notices my look of complete dismay as I stand there watching the bus drive off without much idea of what I am going to do next. He calls out "Where are you going ?" and I am so surprised by his English I wander over to him. I explain I want to find a place to stay, and we end up having a conversation about how his cousin lives in Sydney.
As darkness begins to settle, and the wind whips up the sand and dust to make a technicolour sunset which obscures the otherwise very plane town, my new friend tells me to
"Take this taxi, pay 40 cents and I will tell him where to drop you." He asks me if I want a hotel or a lokanda (big dormitories for local men, where 15 or 20 beds are spread out in an open area, costing less than a dollar for the night) I choose the cheaper option, at which point others from the crowd that has now formed advise me that I want hotel. (It always strikes me how I must be seen by locals - I was out drinking late last night, I haven't had a shower in a few days, most of my clothes appear to be allergic to soap, I haven't shaved for a month, my hair does really look like rats' tails, and I arrive in some broken arse town in the middle of nowhere in a crappy old minibus, and locals still think I want to stay at the Sheraton.) A discussion ensues as I try to make it clear what I want, and when the taxi finally fills, the old man approaches me as we are about to take off and says, " We Sudanese, our problem is we talk too much"

Where are all the women ?

As I wander around town at twilight, I ask myself where have all the women gone - there are none in the shops, restaurants and out door spaces like Ethiopia. Every once in a while I see a few here and there, and all of those are covered up, dressed completely in black with only their eyes showing. I notice the change immediately as the country seems so much more dour, as though the life and colour has been stripped out of the place.

I keep wandering and everyone is surprised, and happy to see a stranger, calling out hello, and when I stop to speak to people I am inundated with invitations - invited to have tea, then invited to have juice, then dinner, and then invited to have a juice. And of course as I am a guest, I am not allowed to pay for anything - even though some of the people earn less than a couple of dollars a day, they insist, and go on insisting when I try to argue, that they must pay.

I can almost feel the moths starting to breed in my wallet

Don't mention the war

Having dinner outside at a table, and joined by two or three younger guys, all trying to speak to me in varying levels of English. As my plate was still hall full and I was completely full, I turned their invitation to join them around, so they poured what was left of mine in to the communal plate and we ate out of that. Joined by another guy who asked e to speak in English as he wanted to listen. He told me he wanted to leave Sudan because there was no future. When we had finished the guy who had arrived last walked away and then came back and said, Come with me, my friend here wants to talk to you, so we walked inside the restaurant and sat down. The first thing they said to me was, "you know the ICC ?" I thought I was going to be on tricky grounds, so I played dumb, "Ah no, umm, yes, umm"
"We like Ocampo, we think he is right"
Suddenly I felt the mood changing, and they were off
"There is no democracy in Sudan. The President is a criminal, we like O'Campo (the Chief Prosecutor at the ICC) The government in Sudan is not a good government, it keeps the people down. They are criminals, and we want to change them but we can't"
"But you can talk about it, like this" I asked, surprised that they were letting rip in public
"Yes, because everybody in Sudan agrees. Nobody likes him - it is just that people are afraid, and we don't know what to do to change. What should we do to change ?" I was asked earnestly
"Well, I just arrived and..." I stumbled
"Before you came to Sudan you have an idea of what the place is like, what do you think of Sudan ?"
"Well I only arrived today from Ethiopia, I have only been in the country for five hours , and all I saw was police stop, police stop, police stop, police stop" I answered
"Yes, for us it is the same. When we move around in our country we are treated like foreigners, the government tries to stop us from moving around. I tell you in Sudan there are only two classes, the rich and the poor. I want to leave Sudan because there is no future here, people are very poor and nothing will change. How can I leave Sudan ? Can you help me go to Australia?"
After all this I was a little flummoxed - particularly as the night before an Ethiopian had told me that I couldn't talk politics there, and I had only been in Sudan a matter of hours. Before I could answer, the guys thanked me and told me they were leaving. They then paid for my meal on the way out.
After thinking about it for a while, and pondering in particular how indicative of general public opinion they were, I started to think that often we in the West fret about imposing our rights on others, whereas the truth probably is that the people at the bottom of the pile want as much of that imposed as they can get. All that navel gazing and po-mo relativism worry can be thrown out the window, countries should be able to impose moral standards upon governments, and perhaps more importantly, should be able to enforce those standards - particularly when they are grossly violated.
I confess that think Al Bashir is a thug, and that whilst the ICC procedures may do very little to reign him in, they do serve as a good precedent. Now I am also starting to think that maybe the procedures are also supported by the majority of Sudanese, which can only be a good thing - for us and for them. Hopefully we can live up to the trust they place in us.

Last bus trip in Ethiopia

If you are looking for the most genuine Ethiopian experience then you need do no more than get on a bus. I have written previously about the joys of catching a bus in Ethiopia, but the fun really begins once you finally head off. This took longer than usual when I took my last bus ride from Gonder to the border with Sudan, as two large cages of chickens had to be loaded on to the roof of the bus and the rickety cages made this a full hour task, and it looked like it was going to take even longer when one of the porters tried to put the 10ft long cage on his back then climb up the ladder at the back of the bus - for a brief moment it looked like
Finally we hit the road, and it didn't take long before the most important item in the bus was put in to use - the vomit bag. Every Ethiopian bus, probably by law, carries a plastic bag of plastic bags, usually stored near the back door. When the roads get windy the bags get handed out to everyone, but in our case we were on some of the straightest roads in Ethiopia, which means the bus boy has to dash to the back of the bus grab a bag and get it to the ailing passenger before the vomit hits the floor. What the straight roads don't mean though is a vomit free trip, that is something that just doesn't happen. Despite trying hard not to look a few times I couldn't but peep as passenger gave a bag their best, tied it up at the top and threw it out the window (or on to the floor if they were feeling a little lazy) - the suspended solids in a pale yellow liquid glittering in the sun still makes me feel a little queasy. The preponderance of vomit may have a lot to do with the fact that there are about eighty people (two rows of three and two) crammed in to an ordinary bus AND no matter how hot or stuffy it becomes, all of the windows will be closed. Ethiopians believe that air coming in a window brings illness, so if you ever dare to open a window they give you the evil eye, tell you to close the window or come over and do it themselves.
Now, after about an hour on the pass roughly half of the eighty people had vomited, and roughly seventy five percent of these people had used a plastic bag. Meanwhile a good percentage of the passengers are also having a hack or a gob now and then straight on to the floor, which is where anything that anyone no longer wants - i.e. - all of the rubbish ends up. Adding to all of this is the dust that the bus kicks up as it motors along as none of the roads are paved. The piece de resistance of this concoction is the rancid smell that emanates from the women who lather on sheep and goat fat to keep their hair looking shiny.
So as we descended out of the hills in to the heat of the desert plains, and the sun began to cook the bus, the pungent mix human sweat, vomit, rancid animal fat mixing with clouds of dust in the seemingly ever diminishing small space of a bus with no fresh air at all, made me feel quite happy that I was finally leaving Ethiopia and its smelly, get up at 4.30am to catch 'em buses - but there was one small last piece of theatre to go.

As we had driven through the mountains every time we stopped the owner of the chickens would check that his charges were doing all right. As we hit the planes that marked the beginning of the border with Sudan the bus kicked up a few notches with hysterical results. We were careering along on a dusty road when suddenly three or four chickens were spotted out of the back windows of the bus falling from the roof, bouncing off the side of the bus and disappearing in to the cloud of dust that was following us. Eventually after plenty of shouting from all the passengers the driver realised what had happened and slammed on the brakes. When we stopped about half the passengers got out - half of those started chasing the chickens and the other half coached the first half - first on the best method of rounding up the chooks in 40 degree heat in the scrub, and then secondly on how to put the chooks back in the cages and then fix the cages. It kept me in stitches for half an hour, as I enjoyed the relief of breathing some fresh air for a change.
The last hour and a half of the journey was punctuated by two more of these stops, once when a couple of birds escaped and were running around on the roof, and twice more when some felt off the back of the bus. The last time the driver had had enough and didn't even bother stopping - so by now there are probably a whole packs of chickens running around crossing the Ethiopia-Sudan border without the appropriate passports.

Food, glorious food

Somehow I managed to stumble in to Ethiopia during Coptic Lent, during which almost the entire country fasts - abstaining from eating meat for forty days, turning the country in to a vegetarian paradise. I spent the six weeks I was there living off beyenit - fasting food, and was so impressed I even took a photo !!!

The main part of the Ethiopian diet, njera, a huge pancake made from tef, a grain a bit like wheat that only grows at altitude in Ethiopia and Eritrea. The standard (and almost exclusive dish in most places) involves njera as the plate and then a selection of varying goodies - ranging from your bog standard shiro (the paste in the middle made from spiced, lentil flour) , to spicy eggplant, fancy beetroot and a few more lentil dishes.

An unwanted Australian - beyherzaff - the tree from over the sea

Sometimes when you look out over the hills of Ethiopia, and the rest of Africa south of there, you could easily make the mistake of thinking you were in Australia - the hills are covered in that very recognisable green leaves, yellow flowers and white trunks of the eucalyptus tree.

In Ethiopia they are called beyherzaff - bey meaning sea and herzaff meaning branch or tree, and when I tell many locals where I am from they immediately tell me how King Menelik, the first king of united Ethiopia (and the grandfather of the divine Emperor Haile Selassie). Like in most East and Southern African countries they were brought to Africa from Australia at the turn of the century (in the other countries by the new colonists), to replace the rapidly deforested hills. In the perfect conditions of Africa, plenty of sun, water and good soil the eucalyptus grow like wildfire, to mangle a few metaphors. In the absence of any small marsupials to pick on the saplings, the trees grow straight and tall, rushing towards the sky at break neck speed. Since their introduction they have self seeded to cover large swathes of land, crowding out any indigenous trees that have been left, and often because of the more recent high levels of deforestation, they are the only trees that can be seen in many areas.
You would think that any tree is a good tree, but the eucalyptus is not native so it creates problems in its alien environment, deep roots steal the water from other trees and cause the water table to rise. Native animals and birds haven't adapted to use the eucalyptus, so like native trees they are pushed elsewhere by the unwanted Australian interloper.

In some areas, especially in Rwanda, people have wised up, and are now clearing the eucalyptus for firewood and replacing them with native species, but in most areas the antipodean import continues to spread its reach. Maybe they could send a few back to Australia.

Loiterer on a mission

Finally there is a purpose to the loitering - hmm perhaps that may be an oxymoron. Anyway, on a bus ride from Mekele to go to Debre Damo I met Teklab, an Eritrean refugee living in Ethiopia. (For those who don't know Eritrea fought a 3o year war of independence with Ethiopia that ended in 1991, and then they fought another war in 1997) Eritrea is afraid of another war and requires all its male citizens from 18 to 45 to do full time permanent military service, and requires a permit for its citizens to leave the country. Nonetheless, each month about 1000 refugees slip across the border to Ethiopia and 2500 go to Sudan.

Teklab left five years ago, and he is a lucky one, he has a residency permit to live and work in Ethiopia, most refugees end up in camps, where they are not allowed to work, and must remain in the camps, sometimes they are allowed out for a week at a time. When I met up with Teklab him in Shire where he lives, the mere mention of his sister and mother who still live in Eritrea almost killed the conversation - Teklab suddenly became very quiet and I could almost see in his eyes memories of better days flashing past. (Teklab can't return to Eritrea meaning he hasn't seen his sister or his mother since he left, it is not possible to call between the two countries because the lines have been cut, and emails are censored) Teklab became animated again when he got on to talking about freedom, the word Eritreans give for the end of the war and independence. He said "When freedom came in 1991" as if it had simply knocked on the door and had been allowed in, rather than a thirty year war in which Eritrea had no international allies. However for five or six years life was good, travel between the two countries was open to all families were reunited, and their was a post conflict economic boom in Eritrea - its economy grew faster than any other country in Africa. It seemed that the tough sacrifices the Struggle were over, and people in both countries looked forwarded to an even more promising future. Tragically it only lasted six years, before the two leaders launched another war between the two countries, ostensibly about control of some busted arse border town, but more about egos - egos which cost around 70,000 to 100,000 lives, and ruined the economies and lives of millions in both countries.

I met a few other unluckier refugees on a local bus. They had managed to get a two week pass out and had been to Addis, but they were now on their way back to the camp - a five hour bus ride, and then a ten kilometre walk. There is no real chance of escape as anybody travelling in Ethiopia, particularly around the border areas, has their papers checked so often that any refugee on the run would soon be caught. They told me about how Canada had declined to let them migrate so they were now going to try for Australia. They had been in the camp for five years, and spent most of their time doing nothing - they are not allowed to work, including even farming the land inside the camp, or study - people live off handouts from the UNHCR and aid agencies, so they have no income, and very little to do. I later rode on a bus through another camp, about a thousand or so ramshackle huts, distributed across a denuded hillside - black burnt soil and not a tree in sight. As in most places in Ethiopia, everything was covered in a thick layer of dust thrown up by passing cars, and whilst there was no fence, it looked worse than a prison.

Teklab convinced me to visit Eritrea, first by telling me the border was open, and secondly and more importantly by giving me a job - to carry a letter and photo across the border like an illicit postman.

Noise,blackouts and some castles in Africa

It is not that often that you find yourself in the middle of a blackout hoping that it continues but in Ethiopia things a a little unusual that way. For some reason hotels are normally always situated above, behind or in the worst cases, inside bars/restaurant/nightclubs. The action will usually start around nine in the evening, which means when you arrive at the hotel before that time you have no idea how busy, and loud, it will get.
The music is cranked up, and failing that, English football, or just any sound at all, and this is Africa, so when any music is played on electronic equipment the volume must be turned up to eleven, so that almost everything is distorted beyond comprehension. There are many good things about Ethiopia, and I know the culture police may try to arrest me for saying this, but Ethiopian music is terrible, there appears to be no actual instruments - just badly synthesised approximations thereof, and most of the lyrics are screeched rather than sung. There also seems to be a limited range of choice, so that the same songs will be played five or six times each night. The racket makes conversation in the bar pointless and sleep nigh on impossible, even with ear plugs firmly fastened. So I hear you say, find a hotel that isn't a bar, well that doesn't work either, because inevitably somewhere within hearing range there will be a bar playing music at full volume. Contributing to this is also the way that Ethiopians tend to speak at the top of their voice, whatever the subject, location or time of day. As all buildings are made from cement and then lathered with tiles the booming voices echo throughout the building, so even when the music stops at 3am, there are still plenty of noises keeping you awake.
The one thing that offsets all of this is the tendency for the power to go out in most cities. In some places it is regular, from around 11 in the morning to 8 or 9 in the evening, in other places it is random, everything shuts off and there will be no power for a couple of hours. Travelling around to different cities it was difficult to say with any certainty when the power would go off or come on as locals tended to treat the question with disdain. So when the power went out or was out around bedtime, I found myself secretly hoping that it would stay that way until the morning time. No power meant no music which usually meant no customers, which meant no noise. Unfortunately a couple of times power returned at around 11 or midnight, the music would be cranked up, whether or not there were any customers, and I would go back to counting sheep in Amharic.


Oh yeah, there is also some old castle from the 14th and 15th century in Gonder too.

Arguing with God

Many Africans ask me why I visiting their country, or why I am travelling and the best answer I have is how I felt yesterday as I set out on a twenty two kilometre walk through some incredibly beautiful countryside to the monastery of Debre Damo. After coming down the wondrous engineering feat that is the road from Mekele to Axum, where the road serpentines down the hill, almost on top of itself and looking down I could see five or six passes of the road below me. We finally reached the bottom of the plateau after a nerve racking hour of descent, and then a couple of kilometres along I was dropped off at the turn off to the monastery - a small dirt road. To the horizon there were peaks everywhere, with a few ridge lines joining some peaks here and there. The sun was beating down, but with the breeze on my face my muscles started twinging and I was ready to go - ready to escape all the hassle that comes along with being stationery and embracing the freedom and the joy of movement.The walk proved to be as rewarding as I imagined. After a couple of kilometres on the track a few locals suggested I join them on a short cut, so we clambered up and over a hill, whereupon they left me to head out to the fields and pointed me in the direction I was to go. I dropped back down the side of the hill towards the river, spotting the road continuing on the top of the ridge line a couple of hundred metres up the side of the hill I had just come down. I reached the river bed, covered in rocks and about 150 metres across, but the water was not much more than a trickle a couple of metres wide. As I hopped across the rocks I met a few nuns who greeted me and pointed to the towering mountain in front of me and chuckled to themselves. Following their pointing figures I saw the monolith I was to climb rearing up in front of me, a circular hill that straight up for a couple of hundred of metres topped by a vertical rock face of at least a hundred metres, a natural fortress. I followed the river bank for a while and then followed the track as it headed up the hill. It was hard going with rocks strewn across the steep path and the mid day sun seemed to take particular pleasure scorching anything that was foolish enough to be out of the shade, leaving me covered in a damp layer of sweat. As I was going up I passed a number of locals coming down, all older men, dressed in their white robes. They all greeted me with a smile on their face and pointed up towards the monastery.
After about an hour of heavy going, I made it to the foot of the sheer rock face, and then skirted around the bottom looking for the only way up. After walking what seemed halfway around the cliff I stumbled across the way up and stood transfixed as I watched forty to fifty men, some who would have been well in to their sixties and seventies making their way down the fifty metre sheer cliff. Some of the men flew down, using only the thin rope made from goat skins, they did any modern day abseiler proud, leaning back so their body was perpendicular with the cliff and walking and leaping backwards down to the bottom. A few of the less game ones tied themselves in to a harness (made of course from goatskin) and using the rope they were lowered down more slowly.

After having seen the physical state of many of these men as they waited at the bottom I gave up any idea I had of wussing out and ambled over to where the ropes came down. Looking up I noticed that behind the small gate through which you entered there stood a gatekeeper dressed in his fancy robes. A kid on the ground befriended me, he told me to take my bag off, and to do the climb in bare feet. He then mentioned that it would cost me 100 Ethiopian Birr to get in and another 40 to be pulled up. (140 EB = $ 14) Now that doesn't sound like much money, except my daily budget for the six weeks spent in Ethiopia was $10, and the average Ethiopian earns about 500 Birr a month – yes per month. So 140 was quite a large sum. I checked my pockets to find that I had about 90Birr on me – I had been told it would cost me 50 to get in. I explained to the kid on the ground that was all I had, and he had a conversation with the gatekeeper, who then suddenly spouted some broken English - “Must pay 100, if not go away”. So I went and sat with the guys who had come down and ate my lunch whilst weighing up what I would do. Surely, I thought to myself if I impress upon him this is all the money I have he will let me in, it is a monastery after all.
So I return to the bottom of the ropes. Immediately he yells out,
“Give me 100 Birr.”
I explain that I only have 87 Birr
“Go away, you must pay”
At this point, probably due to the combination of having woken at 5am that morning, having spent 4 hours on a hot bus with Ethiopians refusing to open any windows whilst engaging in synchronised vomiting, then having walked around 11 kilometres and the rather irritating practice of Ethiopian Orthodox churches charging every time you even want to go near them, I confess to flying off the handle. I looked at the robed gatekeeper, and it made me wonder whether this was what it was like when we arrive at the pearly gates.
“Are you a church or a back ?” I yelled at him, but received no reply.
“What will you do if when you get to heaven it is like this – if you don't have enough money they won't let you in ? “
“No, give me 100” was his only reply, before he slipped behind the wall so I couldn't see him.
“Are you afraid ? Why are you hiding ?” I yelled up at the heavens, wondering whether even St Peter would be this tough.
“No”
I stood there and glared at him as sternly as possible but I think the distance and the superior position which he was in severely undermined the effectiveness of my stare. Eventually I walked away, sat down and had a twenty minute discussion with myself about whether I should give in and whether I really wanted to see the monastery anyway. Finally I decided that after all the effort to get there it would be a waste not to invest the extra dollar – I hunted around in my bag and found some extra money, I put everything I needed in my pockets, took off my shoes and headed over to the ropes. I decided that if sixty year olds could do it, so could I – and to save the extra four dollars I started climbing up the cliff without a harness. About 10 metres in the gatekeeper noticed and called out
“Give me 100 Birr”
Rather peeved by this point I found a resting place on the wall, and yelled back at him “I will give you your money, but how can I, there is no one here. Do you have any angels to send down to collect it ?”
After he appeared to recognise the practicality of the situation he stopped yelling and I got back to climbing. About halfway up my forearms were pounding, my hands were covered in sweat and my fingers were stuck in a grip refusing to straighten. I couldn't stop my hands from shaking. I kept going until I was about three quarters of the way up, but things were only getting worse. My hands were now shaking almost uncontrollably, my fingers and forearms were too tired to get a good grip on the rope, and I made the almost fatal mistake of looking down. I started thinking to myself, hmm you have put yourself at the risk of falling to a near certain death in order to save four bucks – nice work.
At this point the gatekeeper sensing perhaps that he could get the better of me started yelling at me to stop, and that he would get the harness. This was enough to give me the impetus to pull myself together, look up, ignore the soft voice in the back of my head telling me I couldn't do it, ignore the pain in my pain in my arms, and heave myself up the last part to the gate, and then scramble through to safety. And when I took my first step through the gate what was I greeted with – the gatekeeper demanding his 100Birr !!!
The place was in fact most impressive, like a little island oasis it was covered in green grass, with cows and goats wandering around. There were quite a number of houses, some very deep dams hewn out of the rock, and a couple of churches – one in the impressive monkey head style – made from a combination of stone and wood in alternating layers, with the stumps of the wooden beams sticking out like monkey heads. I wandered around for a while, admiring the incredible views, looking north I could see over the border in to Eritrea. I could see how this was the perfect place to hold out against the invading Arabs as they swept across Ethiopia from the coastal plains, through the mountains and towards the southern cities – destroying all of the churches and monasteries on the way. Debre Damo was one of the few to hold out until the invaders were repelled.

I managed to wander in to the main church just as the chanting was drawing to a close, and the five or six priests wandered out of the secret part of the church and then did four or five laps of the church before heading back in to the part hidden by the curtain. I headed back towards the gate and the gatekeeper kept badgering me to give him more money – first for the climb up, then for having a camera, then for going down, and then in the end just for being.Unable to resist, I went and collected a few rocks and came back and made out to be paying him in rocks. Fortunately the way down was a lot easier than the way up, and I managed to make it without stopping.

Where are the starving babies ?

So I am naive as the next person, riding on a bus through the middle of Ethiopia I find myself asking, where are the starving babies ?
The images that I associate most with Ethiopia are those from the famine in the 1980's, starving babies, with bloated stomachs, large bald heads covered in flies, large, blank eyes filled with the look of complete surrender to the inevitability of death staring at the camera, sitting under the burning sun, in the middle of the desert.

I look out the window and I see sheer mountain peaks, thin rocky ridge lines, steep flanks covered in ploughed terraces divided by stone walls, goats, cows and sheep grazing on the green grass and trees everywhere. I am yet to see any starving babies, instead I have been enjoying the tasty fare that traditional Ethiopian food has to offer, including plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables and my new staple - coffee.

I look around the bus trying to validate my preconceptions, I like to think of myself as relatively well informed - after all I did read an article in Kenya that the UN agency the WFP (World Food Program) said that nine million people were at risk of starving this year in Ethiopia, and I see Save the Children signs everywhere. Instead people are busy sending messages on their mobile phones, chewing chat, roasted barley and sugar cane - no starving babies here either.

The gap between the portrayal of Africa, and the reality of Africa seems to grow wider and wider the more time I spend here. The rare times that Africa makes it to the news are usually stories about natural disasters, famines or violence, and whether they occurred twenty years ago or yesterday, the sheer weight of the sum of negativity means the overall impression that we carry around with us is one of hopelessness and suffering. Even when these ideas run in to the wall of reality, I keep looking to try and prove the errant preconceptions I have. Perhaps confronting these myths also means confronting all of the other erroneous news that feeds the warped ideas of reality that we construct in our heads, and try to impose on the often resolutely stubborn reality. We know so little about the world despite being so interconnected and hearing and reading about it every day.

Can I have finally stumbled on a justification for wandering about the planet ?

Nonetheless, I will keep my eye out for some starving babies (Got to get my hug count up)

Good question

On the way back from seeing the carved churches of Lalibela, I arrived
in Woldyia, a junction town which failed in it's sole purpose -
providing transport to get out of it. After a strange scene in which I
had a stand up argument with the six fingered bus boy (it was an extra
little pinky, tacked on the end of the hand, with nail and all. Once I
noticed it, it was almost impossible to stop my eyes from drifting down
to look at in brief, firvative glances, before quickly shifting my gaze
out of a mix of good manners and a sense of repulsion) about having to
pay for him to put my bag in the luggage compartment at the back. In the
end I wrenched the tool key from his hand, after threatening to take the
phone from his ear, opened the boot, got my bag and walked away. I kept
walking out of town, to some very surprised looks by locals. I stood by
the road for a while and very few cars past, but after twenty minutes or
so a ute stopped, and despite going only fifty kilometres, I through my
bag in the back and jumped in.

I was sharing the car with three other guys, two middle aged and one in
his late teens. Most people in Ethiopia can speak a fair amount of
English but they are usually too shy to try. As we drove along the
driver made some jokes in English about how the other two were
graduates, yet he was the only one willing to give talking in English a
shot. After about twenty minutes we reached a small town, stopped at a
bar, and the driver and one of the passengers got out. The other
passenger then started to ask me a few questions about where I was from,
where I had been in Ethiopia (the stone churches in Lalibela) and where
I was going in Ethiopia (the monasteries in Tigray). Inevitably we ended
up with the usual, what is your religion ? question.

"I have no religion" I told him, "I don't believe in God". He thought
about that for a while and then shot this curly one at me,
"You don't believe in Jesus and you don't have a church, so why do you
come to visit churches in Ethiopia ?"

I was floored by that one and have been trying to think of a good
comeback ever since.

The work of angels ?

The monolithic churches of Lalibela have to be seen to be believed. They are hidden away in the central mountains of Ethiopia, and reputed to have been built, or more accurately carved, in the 12th and 13th centuries by King Lalibela after his return from exile in Jerusalem. The churches were created as a refuge, and a site of pilgrimage - instead of risking the life threatening journey across the Muslim lands on the way to Jerusalem, Ethiopian Christians could instead travel to the new Jerusalem. The backdrop, of an endless series of steep valleys, thin ridge lines and mesas that stretch along the horizon in all directions is almost impressive as the churches. The churches themselves are carved in to the rock - that is, the workers started with a flat stretch of rock and carved down 10 to 15 metres in to it, eking out a large hole in the ground with churches that are carved - rather than built - from the same rock, in the middle of the hole.


As our guide led us around the churches he explained that they were built supposedly in the space of 23 years, following the plans that were divinely revealed to King Lalibela, in a dream in which the designs were shown to him. They were all started and finished at the same time, and in order to complete the work so quickly at night angels would appear and work until morning when the mere mortals returned to work.

The angel story, told in all earnest by the guide, was what got my incredulity meter going - but I must admit it had been emitting some weird noises ever since I arrived in Ethiopia. The foundation of Ethiopia is based on the Queen of Sheba story. Supposedly Queen Sheba (allegedly an Ethiopian, but the Yemenis claim her as well) headed off to Jerusalem, and had a little dalliance with King Solomon to whom she bore a child. Her entourage then headed back to Ethiopia after nicking the Ark of the Covenant (what Moses got when God gave him the Ten Commandments on Mt Sinai and what Indiana Jones found somewhere in the desert near the Pyramids) The original ark is apparently in Axum in the north of Ethiopia, and is the Ethiopian Coptic Churches most holy site. However put your cameras away because it is hidden away and nobody is allowed to see it - apparently you will instantly turn to flames if you do. All churches in Ethiopia have a copy of the covenant, but again they are behind curtains and nobody is allowed to see it. As an English guy I met asked, is there a factory where these replicas are produced, and how can you produce a replica if you can't see the original.

So there is the work of angels, the Ark of the Covenant, and each of the thirteen churches in Lalibela also has its own cross, found in the waters surrounding each church and supposedly made from perfect gold -whatever that is. (Curiously one of them was stolen by a local and sold to a Belgian collector back in the '80s, clearly the divine cross doesn't cause blindness)

Needless to say, as with most religious beliefs, not much really stands up to close scrutiny - if the churches are the work of angels surely they would be perfect, so why the cracks and collapsed buildings - requiring some rather dodgy Italian concreting in the 1930's to hold them up, why do the divinely created crosses show flaws and some rust. I guess this helps explain the rather prodigious use of curtains. And the curtains were the start of the problem.

Being in a group of rather sceptical Westerners only encouraged further scepticism, and it appeared that the guide was growing tired under our barrage of questions. It all came to a head in a rather bizarre conversation with the guardian priest at one of the churches. To a rather innocuous question as to the practicalities of some supposed miracle the priest admonished us for inquiring too far, stating that it was not right to know all of the mysteries, and that even seeking to know was blasphemous and a lack of respect. Suddenly it all felt a little like the Wizard of Oz, all smoke, mirrors and curtains, mysteries and magic spell - but no questions allowed. Yet you just know that at some point somebody will come along and tug at the curtain to reveal the real truth. Rather than a deep, meaningful or spiritual experience, it feels more like a game of hide and seek, explaining the miraculous using God or angels as a kind of patch when things get a little tricky.

In the end all the dodgy stories, curtains, and don't look heres kind of ruined the experience, it was hard not to look at the incredible buildings without thinking about ridiculous stories of angels and crosses appearing from the deep.