ETHIOPIA 2009 - BLOG ENTRIES NOV. 15 - DEC. 7, 2009

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15 November 2009
Arrived to Addis Ababa late last night and spent a beautiful day here. I had a massage, took a lot of pictures of mostly broken mannequins, had a car cruise around the city, a drink in one of the most luxurious hotels and a great French/Belgian dinner. So I guess I had a very good first day here!

16 November 2009
My first impressions of Addis Ababa: It is a big and not too beautiful town that does not unveil its charms immediately. There are more Volkswagen beetles here than I have seen in a long, long time. And else of course the gap between rich and poor is enormous although not as bad as I experienced it in India. People say that the Merkato is the biggest market in all of Africa. If you only search long enough I am sure you can literally really find everything there. The most bizarre sight I found was an area devoted to the production and sales of coffins. You can get anything there from the cheapest, carelessly assembled coffin made from raw wood, over carefully crafted and painted ones up to the upmarket coffin with cloth coating on the outside and a comfortable foam coating on the inside. What stroke me was that in another area I had seen matrasses in various shapes and forms. Not a single one of them was white: they all came covered in breathtakingly ugly patterned cloth. The same cloth or at least similar patterns were also used for coating coffins. There may be advantages in chosing similar patterns for both, who knows. In one corner children’s coffins were for sale. Those were rather on the simple and bare wood side but painted in bright pink. And they could be esily stampled by the dozen.

17 November 2009
I estimate having seen about 80% of all mannequins in Addis Ababa during the last three days. It is a paradise for Broken Muses! What was especially nice were mannequins wearing glasses and all sorts of fractures. I think I experienced sort of a muse trance on those days, recognizing only very little apart from the mannequins. I have been to the Addis Ababa Museum though. There was a room ‘first in Ethiopia’ showing the then king driving the first car and operating the first telephone. Apart from that I had some interesting discussions with my driver/Sherpa, for instance whether or why it makes sense to switch on the lights when driving downhill in neck breaking speed over a sand road. Or why it could be worthwhile asking the way after having gotten totally lost. Earlier on and just before the first real turn and maneuver, we had figured out that he has never driven an automatic car. After I had violently removed his left leg from the break, things went generally a lot smoother.

18 November 2009
Went to some excavations from prehistoric times in the south of Addis Ababa. Splendid and nicely presented!

20 November 2009
Lake Tana hosts over 20 cloisters on its many islands. We reached some of them by boat today and this was really and experience. They are peaceful and quiet. On some of these islands only priests and monks live. On others there are also small villages. The lake itself has the colour of the river in my hometown during my childhood; a light brown that looks sort of dangerous. The cloisters were all similar. Their shape was the traditional Ethiopian round hut with a straw roof. The sanctum sanctorum inside is square shaped and only accessible for priests and monks. On the walls of the sanctum sanctorum that you surround walking inside the round shape of the cloister building there are naďve paintings of diverse bible stories from the new and old testament. Much beloved are Saint George killing the dragon, the martyrs, the circumstances of all Apostle’s death, all stages of Mary’s life as well as the angels Michael, Gabriel and Raphael. What was particularly fascinating were the little museum that hosted old Gondar, Axum and Lalibela crosses as well as old bibles dating back to as early as the 9th century (!).

21 November 2009
In the early days they used to say ‚Mens sana in corpore sano’. Nowadays that reads ‘When your body heats, your mind chills.’ Having read that on a billboard the other day I had a relaxing morning in beautiful spa of the Kuriftu Lake Tana Hotel in Bahir Dar. Actually this splendid hotel and especially its interior design reminded me very much of the Flintstones. From Bahir Dar we drove about an hour to the Blue Nile Waterfalls which are nice but as always I am more thrilled by artefacts than by nature. Anyway it was very well worth the visit. From there it took quite some hours to get to Gondar, home of the emperors of Ethiopia’s early days. The landscape was as stunning as on the way from Addis to Bahir Dar and interestingly often reminds me of Austria and the Alps. I really have to redefine my picture of Africa.

22 November 2009
Gonder is a treasure and a real discovery! Gonder had its golden times as capital of Ethiopia and seat of the empire in the 17th century. Palaces and ruins of palaces are a sign that show the wealth and power still today. Emperor Fasilidas even built a huge swimming pool, about 30 by 70 meters big, with a castle in the middle. It must have been truly splendid at its time. Even today they fill the pool up once a year during the most important festival in January and have children bathe in it. UNESCO has declared the palaces world heritage and they had all reason to do so. The dynasty is said to go back to the mighty queen of Sheba who reigned Arabia and most of eastern Africa at her time. It is also said that back home in Europe people just laughed about stories of an independent and sophisticated empire in Africa when early European visitors told about Gonder in the 17th and 18th century. They simply could not believe that this was even possible. Since the empire went down, most of the palaces have suffered and some of them are only ruins. The interior decoration and treasures were all taken out of the country and most of it is probably in different British museums.

What is very bizarre in the city itself are the Pepsi cola sponsorship activities. Most interestingly Pepsi even sponsors police control points at intersections. Those little huts are not only branded but also have man-sized Pepsi cola bottles on their roofs.

23 November 2009
Maybe I have been assigned my own personal rain cloud after having spent more than six years in Belgium. Anyway it is quite interesting to notice that already in Bahir Dar it was slightly raining and people said this is by no means normal for this time of the year. In Gondar there were showers, too and here now in Debark it is really pouring with rain. Debark is 1800 meters above sea level and it is not only wet but also very cool. In the mountains today it was still sunny but also very cool but sort of expected given the altitude of up to 4600 meters. Those mountains are spectacular. At times they reminded me of the Andes in Argentina, at times of the Alps but then again they are different. There are trees and other very lush plants up until over 3000 meters, cows, horses, sheep and baboons live there and today we even saw buzzards and lammergeyers.

24 November 2009
The street from Gondar to Debark was the first really bad dirt road and the way to Axum was even worse. It’s a drive from one bump to the next and through nothing but dust. When we finally arrived to Axum I was covered with a red layer of dust. There is financial support from the world bank for paving these roads. The project has been won by a Chinese company and has already been started. Chinese lorries, road rollers and excavators are visible all over the place. Ethiopia as such seems to be largely in Chinese hands anyways. Most recently paved streets have been built by Chinese companies and all masts of the one mobile network are brand new and Chinese. In the cities you see Chinese companies digging the roads to lay new fixed telecommunications cables. Chinese sneakers and clothes flood the weekly markets. Most workers are locals but all the foremen are Chinese.

What strikes me particularly when driving through the villages is the sheer multitude of tabletop soccer games. Judging from their design, those tables must be about 25 years old. I assume they have been imported at the time in bulk and distributed to most villages. Almost every bigger village and any city has about one, two or three of these tabletop soccer games and most of them just stand next to the main road. They are either surrounded by 10-12 children or 2-4 teenagers. In the first case the game is rather static; there are too many players around the table and thus there is not too much movement amongst the little soccer players on the table. In the latter case two of the 3-4 teenagers play the game with high concentration; the others seem to be there for moral support only.

25 November 2009
Axum used to be the capital of a huge kingdom and is still perceived as the holiest city in Ethiopia. Today it is actually a small town and also when visiting most of the sights one is done with that in pretty much half a day. People believe that the Queen of Sheba has lived in Axum. The most impressive site are the obelisks or stelae. They are simply wonderful. After having been in Italy more than 70 years, the second tallest obelisk (about 27 meters high) has been returned to Axum in 2005. The tallest one (over 33 meters high and also carved out of one single piece of granite) is believed to having collapsed already during its erecting. It lies scattered into five pieces on the obelisk field but still is beautiful. I liked that one most, maybe just because it is so broken. All the obelisks are about 1700 years old and were used to mark tombs. Some of these tombs have been excavated and can be visited. Another remarkable sight is a church where allegedly the ark of the covenant is kept and guarded by a monk. This monk is the only one who is allowed to see it and hands over this duty to his successor on his dead bed. Sometimes it is shown during religious festivals but covered up so they say. Nobody, not even the monk who is guarding it may open it.
As in many places, chats on the road here tend to start with the phrase ‘Where are you from?’. After having disclosed that I come from Austria, the answer I got today was quite stunning: ‘All right, I also come from the US!’ In general I decided not to protest anymore if somebody takes me for an Australian. What was slightly embarrassing the other day was when a waiter then introduced me to an Australian band with the words ‘meet your countrymen’. The Australians gave me a certain look when they found out that actually it was Austria...

26 November 2009
I see vasts amounts of haytsacks here in Ethiopia. Many of them walk on either two or four legs. When carried by people this is done by men using the inevitable stick they carry around. Haystacks on four legs are carried by donkeys, horses or camels. The interesting thing is that in all cases the haystack as such is about the equal in size. The only difference is the speed in which it is carried. Especially donkeys love resting at the middle of the street. Live in general happens on the streets. Most people lack a natural shortening reaction when a car is approaching them. I was told that the haircut of many boys in the countryside reflect upon that. Those boys are bald apart from two ringlets on their forehead. Although it is believed that nothing will happen to them these locks are there for security reasons. Should the kid’s guardian angel urgently need to act, he has to grab the boy somewhere and drag him off the street. Therefore those two ringlets come in handy.
What I was told, too is that instead of being celebrated yearly, birthdays are only celebrated shortly after a baby is born. A special bread is beaked for the occasion and the tradition is to break this crispy bread on the baby’s back. If is breaks and the baby does not scream, people believe that this will be a strong girl or boy. If the baby is crying, relatives pity the parents and wish them well with their weak child.

27 November 2009
When driving through the marvellous landscape it is striking how many unmanned offertory boxes there are even in the most deserted places. No church, no chapel, no priest but a tinny offertory box.
Juding upon various recommendations of locals, driving to Lalibela should have taken us between 6 hours and two days. What was more worrying was how they looked at the four by four car. In disbeliev they mumbled: You want to drive to Lalibela with THAT car? How many spare tyres do you have? Just ONE? And you dare to go like that? In fact it was long drive but then again the road was not that bad.
In Lalibela the traditional round hut is quite a special; it has two floors. There is a very nice new hotel (Tukul Village) that rents out either ground floor or upper floor of such a hut, combining traditional architecture with modern comfort.

28 November 2009
Lalibela is THE highlight of a trip to northern Ethiopia! Its 900 year old monolithic rock hewn churches are breathtaking. There are eleven of those churches in two groups and one is standing freely apart. UNESCO has insisted on ‘preserving’ the churches from further damage (water, erosion???) by putting up equally breathtakingly ugly scaffolding and modern roofs on top of most churches. From an aesthetic point of view one can only wonder why it was necessary to do it that way. ‘Preserving’ the churches resulted in a large crack in one of them as some heavy machinery was parked on top of the church in order to install the roof...
Well, anyway one has to try hard and blind that out when looking at these masterpieces of human architecture. All of the eleven churches are still in use and different in style and decoration. King Lalibela wanted to build a second Jerusalem and had 40.000 people working on these churches for about 33 years. Most of them are connected through a subterranean network of corridors. Those corridors are not lit and it is said that this was done on purpose so that people could experience how hell could look like. For me the most beautiful church is the free standing church Bet Giyorgis. When walking towards it, the first thing visible is its cross-shaped roof. Later on one descends to the entrance and can visit it inside.

29 November 2009
Due to unforeseen circumstances we stayed overnight in a real budget hotel in Dessie. The travel guide book would probably not even rate that hotel in its category ‘shoestringing’. Well, anyway, it was quite funny. I tried to convince the staff to give me a towel. After we discussed what ‘shower’ and ‘dry’ could possibly mean I really made them laugh when performing a pantomime of showering and drying myself with a non-existing towel. Anyway that was not necessary as there were a) no towels and b) no water at all. It was definitely an experience at Euro 2,- to put it that way.
Driving from Dessie to Addis took about 10 hours although the distance is a mere 400 kilometres. I tried to find rational explanations for what I saw but my only conclusion is that road works here are illogically planned and executed. The pattern is as follows: A stretch of about 500-1000 metres of relatively good if not excellent road is demolished and replaced by gravel or a dirt side road. The next stretch of about 500-1000 meters is left as it was before but gets worse and worse due to trucks that are heavily loaded with gravel. So one is forced to drive from pothole over bumps into the next pothole on a formerly good road, led sideways to a gravel stretch or a side road, back up on the asphalt stretch, down again and so on and so on. Instead of finishing one stretch and then going to the next, there are literally hundreds of these construction sites and of course works cannot be carried out at all places at the same time. What is also quite remarkable are big square shaped holes (about 10 cm deep) that are cut into good asphalt. Mainly that is done just behind crests or curves, naturally without any warning signs. Even a four by four car doesn’t pardon driving into a sudden hole easily. As if that wasn’t enough, various animal herds (lambs, goats, cattle, camels) tend to walk or rest on the streets and suicidal people seem to have declared it a national sport to run across the street only when a car is approaching. As soon as darkness falls groups of three tend to sit down on (!) the road for an evening chat. One can imagine more comfortable places. As the streets are not lit, driving past such groups makes your heart stop for a moment. The nastiest hurdles to driving safely are football sized stones on the street. As far as I can tell there are three reasons for those stones: One is that as soon as a car or truck breaks down, stones are arranged around it to block up the road for a while. While the vehicle might be removed after a while, the stones remain. Another reason is stones that have been thrown at animal herds in order to make them cross the street. And the third and probably most accurate reason for the majority of stones is bored children that place them there.

30 November 2009
I did not want to disappoint any shoe shine boy any more and so I took the car and went downtown in embarrassingly dirty shoes. Guess what, no shoe shine boy around. Not a single one, as if they were on strike or all had a day off. So I went back again still in dirty shoes. On the positive side I found a bunch of nicely broken muses.
Traditional Ethiopian restaurants often have hay on the floor and a corner where they prepare the coffee in the traditional coffee ceremony. In that corner there are also quite some animals, mostly rabbits and chickens. Mobile food it you will. What is logical but still slightly unsettling is that the amount of those animals decreases proportionally to the amount of food served to neighbouring tables.

1 December 2009
Ethiopia follows the Julian calendar and advertises with 13 months of sunshine. Given that it was slightly raining during the last two days and else rather cloudy and July and August is the yearly rainy season I dare to doubt that promise.
I admit that flying to Ethiopia’s second biggest city Dire Dawa was much easier than driving again for 550 kilometres each way. On the other hand one also misses something when taking a plane, probably it is the feeling of travelling as such.

2 December 2009
From Dire Dawa it is about a one hour drive to Harar. After Mekka, Medina and Jerusalem, Harar is seen as the fourth most important Muslim city. Harar has a very intact city center that reminded me very much of cities I have seen in Yemen four years ago. Its 89 mosques are often tiny and hidden in people’s houses. Water is scare and water supply remains one of the most pressing issues in the region.

3 December 2009
About a 1.5 hours drive outside of Dire Dawa 7000 year old cave paintings have been found a few years ago. At first they seem to be quite disappointing given the long way and the bad roads leading there. One saw two or three rather faded images. But the longer you looked, the more you saw. There were hundreds of paintings, faded but still visible.
Dire Dawa on itself is quite a big city but only about 100 years old. Originally the Addis Ababa – Djibouti railroad should have connected Djibouti’s port with Harar and Addis. As the project developed, connecting Harar seemed to difficult and costly as the train would have needed to go through a very mountainous area and so the decision was taken to have a stop in what then was a small town; Dire Dawa. For me the most interesting site in the city was the train station with its many broken and discarded railway carriages and locomotives. A paradise for pictures of the neglected and the broken!

4 December 2009
Last day in Addis and so much was still to do. For instance last pictures needed to be taken, films needed to be brought to development and shopping (for the famous Ethiopian coffee) to be done. Exactly when I started to believe that I cannot do all what I had planned in my last day anymore and felt slightly stressed I saw a guy in a t-shirt that read: Too blessed to be stressed.

5 December 2009
I'm back in Brussels with a severe cold. Who said that you could get a cold in Africa in the first place? Isn't it supposed to be hot there all the time?
What I will definitely miss is a word that I really learned to like there: Ischi. It is often used and sounds mostly like a sigh. Ischi can mean many things. Sometimes it simply means yes or ok, then also: I understand, I agree, I see, let's see, I will do what I can, you may think I will do what I can but I actually won’t, no, not quite, well, maybe. A very powerful word!

6 December 2009
Thinking about Ethiopia: I have so many impressions, memories and so many images. I liked a conversation around my question of the whereabouts of the city center. I simply wanted a direction or say pointing somewhere would have been fine as well. Instead I was confronted with the honest question - that was not in the least cynical - 'What does city mean?' A good question I thought. I said well, in a city you have houses, streets, shops. When he heard shops he beamed and said, aha, yes, shops and pointed me into the good direction.

7 December 2009
Real life has me back I fear. I saw my name printed as Ms. Brendel today. Well, what more can I say?
Maybe something slightly ironic: I carry home kilos of Ethiopian coffee, of those at least three different sorts of coffee for my parents. And what have they done in the meantime while I was away? They have changed their coffee machine for a Nespresso one that operates with coffee capsules…

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