Oh. My. Goodness.

Lalibela.  This is why I came to Ethiopia.  I have seen pictures of Lalibela but never quite believed what I saw.  The 11 rock-cut churches are carved out of living rock – carved straight down into the rock. The churches were the brainchild of King Lalibela (later they named the town after him) in the 12th century, and of course his workmen were using nothing but metal stone-cutting tools and a great deal of patience.

They are all unbelievable.  But the most amazing one is dedicated to St. Michael, it’s in Greek cruciform shapem and it’s 15 meters high (or low, since it’s cut into the rock). And they are all used at this time as living churches.  It also has a system to drain the water off the roof, and as a result is fairly pristine after all these centuries.

Why cut into the rock?  Well, it took away the problem of building materials.  And it helped to hide the churches from disbelievers, since you have to be up close to them to see them. Inside, they are lit by the windows and, today, electricity,  Originally, the worshipers would have used the same bees-wax candles that the ladies were carrying in the procession to St. Mary this morning.

I’ve been to Angkor Wat, to Macchu Picchu, to Vatican City, to Bagan.  This ranks up there as one of the world’s most sacred – and impossible to comprehend – places.

 

Move Over, Indiana Jones

We said goodbye to Gondar and caught an early flight to Aksum, in the north of Ethiopia.  We’re here to learn more about the Aksumite Empire, which flourished beginning at least in 400 BC and continuing for 1000 years.

The Queen of Sheba is associated with Aksum.  She has an entire backstory in Ethiopia, which involves traveling to Jerusalem to meet with King Soloman; he outwitted her and ended up sleeping with her, and the result of that union was Menelik I, who, interalia, carried the Ark of the Covenant from the Temple to Aksum.  Why? Because Jesus told him to.  Please understand, it’s not supposed to make sense.

Anyway, the Ark is still here, safely kept within a church complex.  No one is allowed inside the building that houses the Ark except for a single priest, chosen by God and the other priests for what is a lifelong duty.  There’s a second, 16th cent church that women are not allowed into.  No women, and the story goes that Haile Selassie’s wife was not amused, so she had him build a third church that is open to both sexes.  It’s pretty ugly, but it’s open.

But I digress. I was talking about the Ark of the Covenant.

I have always avoided tour guides who spend their time entertaining the tourists with fables.  If I wanted entertainment, I’d stay home and read a novel.  The thing of it is, Alex totally believes all this stuff.  He believes that the palace we visited today belonged to the Queen of Sheba.  He is absolutely convinced that the Ark Moses brought down from Mount Sinai is the one in the church.  And who am I to disagree iwth him?  So I am listening carefully – and then running his statements past the less fantastic ones in my guidebook.  Anyway, it’s all very entertaining.

Whether or not this is the realm of the Queen of Sheba – and later that medieval legend Prester John – what is clear is that the Aksumite Empire was a remarkable trading entrepot – trading with Egypt, Sudan, Greece, Arabia.  Iron, gold, silver, frankencense, slaves, wine and olive oil all passed through here.  The city included a vast array of dams, wells and reservoirs (I saw one day that is described as the Queen of Sheba’s bath.  Whatever.)

The stele were used as burial markers.  The tallest is 33 meters tall, and carefully  decorated.  There’s one the Italians stole in the ’30s, cut into thirds, reerected in Rome, and which only came back to Aksum a few years ago. Actually, only about 5% of Aksum has been excavated – money and interest are all it takes to start work on the remaining 95%.  Pretty amazing, all in all.

 

I met a holy man today.

I slept well last night.  Note to self:  Avoid that Ethiopian coffee! I woke refreshed and with new of the NH primary, and then we were on the road by 8:00 am.  “On the road” was a three-hour trip north to Gondar, the 16th-17th century capital of Ethiopia.  The road is pretty good — originally built by the Italians in the ’30s — Mussolini was nothing if not into infrastructure — and improved many times since.

This is cattle country and rice fields, a flat aluvial plain.  We stopped at a utopian village started by a man who believes in socialist principles of everyone giving according to their talents and taking according to their needs.  He also believes in woman’s equality with men.  More on that later.

We were shown around the village, which is home to 550 people, plus more who live according to the doctrine outside the community.  We were shown a home for “retired” people – aged people who can no longer help support themselves and who have no family members to care for them.  There were 12 rooms in the house; only 10 were occupied which means there were two available, which is better than the CCRC  (continuing care retirement community) in Connecticut where my aunt lives and which is making decisions based on space available, not the needs of my aunt.  But I digress.

The community also had quite a business going in a local seed akin to sunflower; the community makes and sells the oil on the open market.  We were welcomed by the leader and shown everything – except a church.  Turns out he believes that divinity is in the world and within us, and that we don’t need a special place for worship.  All very good, but I can’t imagine that his philosophy can be lasting without a locus.

THen it was on to Gondor.  Our first stop was the 16th-17th century castle complex.  The Portuguese were here – and Ethiopia traded with Europe and  also Timbuctoo in Mali.  So Ethiopia was very much part of the silk road.  The castles are crenelated fortressses – they look like medieval castles.  They are two and three stories tall and the complex – each king for 150 years or so built his own building – are together in what is now the center of town.

The Italians took over the complex, “modernized” some of it with concrete and steel that needs to be removed becuase it is tearing the buidlings apart.  Plus, during WWII the Brits bombed part of the complex to get at the Italians.  But all is peaceful now.

Then to another 16th century church, painted like yesterday’s.  Also like yesterday’s church, it was built at the top of a hill.  That’s typical of Ethiopian Orthodox, Alex says, for two reasons:  Security, plus to be closer to Heaven.  Both reasons make sense to me.  There’s a woman’s entrance and a man’s entrance and many of the paintings are of similar topics – Virgin Mary, St George, a ouple of Ethiopian saints.\

And our third stop was the ceremonial pool built 500 years ago to celebrate Timkat, or Epiphany.  Timkat is a big deal, and in most cities throughout Ethiopia it involves jumping in the river, just as Jesus was baptised at the Jordan.  But in Gondar, it all takes place in the most amazing ceremonial pool.

I could have used a dip, ceremonial or otherwise, but the pool is drained after Timkat and remains dry the rest of the year.

Bahir Dar, Ethiopia

I woke up extremely early to catch a  7:00 am flight to Bahir Dar, a city one hour (by turboprop) north of Addis.  One hour and another world! Gone are the cars, replaced by tuk-tuks and donkey-pulled carts.  Few schools for the children, and anyway, their parents rely on the boys to watch the herds and the girls to collect water.  And so it goes.

We drove about one hour along a dirt road, passing people and animals and scenes straight out of the 19th century.  Our destination was the first falls on the Blue Nile (it was the White Nile I saw up close and personal at Murchison), which was fun, but the people were frankly more interesting.  Along the way:  a tannery, where cow hides are turned into the raw material for drums and parchment; a place to grind corn, and lots and lots of sugar cane and corn and poverty.

Back to town for lunch, and then we set off for the jetty and a boat ride out on the lake that is the source of the Blue Nile.  We saw a mamma hippo and her cub or whatever baby hippos are called, lots of birds, aand an enterprising fisherman in his papyrus boat was feeding the pelicans for a tip and to great effect, but the real purpose of the trip was to reach a 16th century painted church.

It was spectacular! Frank and Dana and I had seen the painted churches in Romania several years ago, and this one is their close cousin.  The outer walls – just like every other building we have passed – is mud – and wattle and needs to be repaired every six months or so. A roof of bamboo protects the painting, which is done on cotton cloth and then applied to the mud walls.

I didn’t understnad all the iconography.  The Orthodox church’s Bible includes about 20 books missing from our own,  including a complicated back story for Mary.  Note to self:  Read the Book of Mary!. But I understood enough, and anyway, it’s easy to understand spectacular!

We returned to Bahir Dar,  found the hotel and I am looking forward to an early night.  Tomorrow, the adventure continues

Where Am I?

Last night we went to a restaurant with an Ethiopian  buffet, folkloric floorshow, and lots of muzungu. I’m glad we went, if only because I’d been struggling trying to understand what I was seeing, and between the dancing and the costumes and Alex’ explanations, I think I finally got it.  Let me put it this way:

If you had dropped me into Addis yesterday and asked me where I was, I would not have said sub-Saharan Africa.  The middle eastern influence – the Semitic influence – is clear in food and coffee and customs.  Plus the religion is so different – the Christianity isn’t something imported by the colonists, but rather, one of the oldest orthodox religions in the world.  Women in the church yesterday were all dressed in white – in fact, I haven’t seen any “African” dresses, no native costumes and no African fabrics in western styles.  Their head coverings are also remarkably different.  Even the way  people greet one another/shake hands is different from Uganda.

Alex says he can tell an Ethiopian by big eyes, aquiline nose, round chin.  So there are tribal differences as well, ones that I’m blind to, but that is to be expected.  Anyway, it’s all new and strange.

The All-African Union (or whatever it is) is still in town, so the airports are blocked off, meaning, our car let us off in the parking lot and we walked to the terminal.  No big deal; all I have is a carry-on and my backpack (I left two suitcases of gifts and donations in Uganda and am now traveling light for a change) and joined the confusion that takes the place of security.  And we are now waiting for our flight to Bahir Dar.  Ethiopian Airlines actually works, and it is faster and more convenient to fly than to drive.  A modern concept.

Meet Lucy, our common ancestor

Being a tourist sure is a lot easier than being a Rotarian! Alex, my guide for the week, didn’t pick me up until 10:00.  The traffic was fierce – apparently Addis Ababa is hosting the Pan African Union, or some such group, and both traffic and police are everywhere.  So we got out of the car (it was stuck in traffic) and took me under a bridge to a place where I had my first Ethiopian coffee.  Even the word “coffee,” he told me, is from an Ethiopian place name.  “Mocha” is from a Yemeni place name, right across the gulf.  To millions of coffee drinkers everywhere, know that it all started here.

Then we went to a store to get a sim card for my phone.  Interesting: I had to show my passport and have my photo taken to buy the darn thing; I’m not sure what the “issues” are.  And it didn’t work when put in my phone – needed Internet access to turn the thing on – so with fear becuase I now need to find a safe place for my “regular” sim card) we postponed the issue and moved along to sightseeing. Plot spoiler: When I returned to the hotel and to internet, I still couldn’t get the darn thing to work.  Sigh.

Off to the church of the Holy Trinity built by Haile Selassie, ad which serves as his tomb.  He was killed in a coup in 1974, in the power vacuum that followed the Communists took over, and it wasn’t until 1991 when Moscow had more important things on its collective mind that the Communists were evicted.  Lots of Lada cars – especially taxis – all date from the Communist period, apparently, but I haven’t seen much else to show for their time here.

By this time it was lunchtime,  and Alex took me to a local eatery where I was properly introduced to injera, the Ethiopian staple that serves as both bread and plate, and which wasn’t anywhere as bad as the guidebook had led me to believe.  Think a pizza-sized tortilla made from sourdough, and you about have it.

In the afternoon we went to two museums.  One is in the former palace of Haile Selassie, which he turned into a university when he built a bigger palace for himself, and includes lots of indigenous crafts, et cetera, as well as a few rooms dedicated to the emperor and god.  The other is the National Museum, where I met Lucy, our common ancestor.  She was shorter than I realized, but stands fully upright.  And she makes a mockery of racism and any other  scapegoating of the “other,” since she is the common ancestor of us all.

The day ended with a trip to the market and then back to the hotel.  But wait! The day isn’t over yet! We have  a cultural experience at a restaurant tonight.  More later.

The Technical School

When I first came to Uganda in 2014 it was just an idea.  When I returned in 2016 the walls were going up.  Today the technical school in Buikwe that was the brainstorm of Juliet and the project of the Kajjansi club is up and running and changing lives.

Juliet and I left the house at 7:00 and met the club members in a parking lot, where we all transferred to a bus (one of the club members runs a school) and headed off – about 25 of us — through the traffic toward Buikwe.  Our destination was a technical school that the Walter Foundation funded – and which other funders have joined in and helped to grow.

And grow is the active word.  Under a new principal, the school is growing, and more dormitory space,  equipment, everything is needed.  The good news:  The school is growing its own workforce to make things happen.  So the welding students have put together new beds; the construction students have built a new toilet block and so on.  Much needs to be done, but these are all good problems, because they are all problems of the need to expand.

There were many speeches.  Those of you who have visited projects in developing nations can imagine how many speeches there were.  And Peace, who is chairman of the board at the Center, was the MC.  When it was finally my turn to talk, I told the story of Otto Walter, demonstrated the toothbrushes, and then Peace asked the students, “How many of you have taken a picture of a muzungu?”  A few relucantly raised their hands.  “How many of you would like your picture with a muzungu?” They all smiled and raised their hands. So we captured every single student in photos that the CLub will send back to the school.  Pretty funny.

Lunch was created by the culinary students, who don’t yet have an indoor kitchen.  That is still to come.  The culinary students also cut the cake that we ceremoniously cut, and considering that they don’t have an oven, I’m not really sure how they did that.

Then it was time to get back on the bus, and return to the city. One more stop, to pick up the dress that Juliet had made for me overnight – I lost the  argument on who should pay for it – and the club had also given me a dress and Frank a shirt.  So we are well provided for.  And then home, dinner and I fell into bed!

Game Drive

 

I set my alarm for 5:00 am, and we were on the road – in the dark and the unseasonable rain – an hour later.  Paul is a good driver, and it’s a good thing.  We got to the entrance of the National Park just before 7:00; which is the time it opens, but this is Africa, and the officials actually showed up at 7:20.  It was another hour to the ferry, not that it mattered, becuase hte first ferry left at 9:00 am.  Actually, about 20 minutes after 9:00.

The ferry itself is about the most unseaworthy craft I have ever trusted my life to, and it was only later when I thought about the heavy current, crocs and hippos that I realized that the bridge currently under construction is probably a good thing – probably going to keep an accident from happening.  Although the bridge is also not very romantic.

At any rate, on the other side we met Lillian, our guide, and she led us on a wonderful game drive through the park and down to the place where the Nile meets Lake Albert.  Along the way we saw elephants, giraffes, lots of deer-like critters, wart hogs, and loads of birds.  She was quite informative, although I promptly forgot everything she said. And we had so much fun taht we ignored lunchhour, and didn’t get back to the ferry until time to queue for the river trip.  Lillian turned out to be our guide on the boat as well, which pleased me, becuase she was so good.

Up the river we chugged, about 17 kilometers, past crocs and hippos and all the game we had seen in the morning, plus plenty of bird life.  Then the falls, and a repeat performance coming back.  It was 5:00 by the time we returned; the next ferry was at 6:00; and it was getting late, but Paul insisted – and I’m so glad he did – that we take the side trip to see the top of the falls.  This turned out to be much more dramatic than the view from the base; I can now undertstnad how Murchison is designated the strongest waterfall int he world – strong determined at pounds per square inch as a wide body of water squeezes into a narrow gorge and then back again.  And you know this gorge  and this waterfall – it’s the one Bogart and Hepburn faced in African Queen.  Now you know.

 

When it Rains, it Pours

 

Juliet had offered to take me north to a chimpanzee biodiversity project she is involved with, and then on to Murchison Falls National Park, but as it happens, USAID scheduled this week to come to check out her NGO and affirm/or otherwise its viability for USAID funding.  So she is in the office.

Ever resourceful, she sent me off with a staffer, Monica, and a car and driver, Paul.  Everyone at the NGO is new to their job, and neither had been here before, so it’s been a little confused, but only in good, well meaning ways.

Paul expertly drove us out of the city – not easy with all the traffic – and then north, north, north across an agrarian landscape.  It was threatening to rain with occasional drizzle – and this is supposed to be the dry season, remember – and after lunch we reached our destination.  Robert was waiting for us at a crossroads; he jumped in the caar and took us to a small village and a smaller office.  There we learned about the NGO.  Turns out that a biodiversity project involving chimpanzees and humans is really a project to teach humans enough about chimp behavior that both  may benefit.

A sugar cane operation, the people, and the chimps all claim this territory.  Every time a hardwood or fruit tree is cut down, that’s less habitat for the chimps and increases the likelihood that they will forage in the farmers’ fields.  Everytime a human and a chimp share a water source is a chance that there will be an encounter fatal to both.  Meanwhile, about 50 of the 500 chimps left in the wild in Uganda are right here, with the forest disappearing around them.  Each family of 4 or 5 chimps needs about 4 or 5 acres of forest for their livelihood.  I tracked the gorillas in Bwindi National Park the first time I visited Uganda in 2014, so it’s clear that a positive approach can be taken, with tourism paying for conservation and supporting the local people as well.  But first the land claims have to be sorted out.

And a paved road established.

 

Then it was on to our hotel, which we reached just in time for the skies to open.  The Ugandan storks were not impressed.

 

Back to Africa

 

On Sunday morning the service at the Boothbay Harbor Congregational Church was all about hospitality.  I was reminded that I have been made to feel welcome wherever I have traveled in the developing world, and that I have been an honored houseguest in Muslim, Hindu and Catholic households around the world.

On Sunday afternoon I was on my way to Uganda.  Portland to Newark, Newark to Brussels, Brussels to a stopover in Kigali (Rwanda) and then on to Entebbe, where my African “sister” Juliet met me with two other Rotarians:  Peace and Felicia.  It was midnight – that’s what time aircraft from Europe arrive in Entebbe – but that didn’t keep them from insisting that I eat dinner and keeping up the conversation.

And it was a worknight!  Juliet has a busy week this week – USAID is here to evaluate the new NGO for which she is executive director – and yet she has a houseguest.  So she has made all sorts of arrangements for me that involve many other people, and no, I didn’t bring enough gifts.  Ah, well! I also have a brand-new camera that I am still learning how to use – broke all the rules on that one.

I didn’t see her this morning – she went off to work and I slept late.  Her teenage children are at home on school vacation so they laid out breakfast – lots of breakfast – just think of it as African food torture – and in a few hours Peace will come by to take me to for a school visit. More to come.

Wednesday morning.

Peace did come, around 3:00 pm, after more food torture and me enjoying the African sunshine.  He drove me to a grammer school that the Kajjansi Rotary Club more-or-less adopted some years ago; I first visited in in 2014 and again in 2016.  Everything has changed and grown, including the children! The most recent building is a dormitory for the teachers, and it already needs to be expanded.  Teachers are paid for by the government – there doesn’t seem to be much trouble iwth that – but unless they have a place to live they can spend their entire income on rent and commutation expenses.  So a place for them to live – particularly for unmarried women, who make up the backbone of primary school teachers – is really a necessity.

I had been given boxes and boxes of toothbrushes/toothpaste and floss, all more-or-less left over from BBH’s annual back-to-school “Set for Success” day.  I had filled a huge suitcase with same, and Juliet knew that I was bringing them.  The sets were hardly sustainable – there is no supply of toothpaste provided – so the sets were more a teaching device than anything else.

There were also very few students.  It’s the first week of school; that’s part of the reason, but I think Peace was surprised that there weren’t more children in evidence.  He later said that one of the problems the school has is not a strong principal.  We shall see.  Anyway, I demonstrated the toothbrush, toothpaste and floss – the latter was a real novelty – and if nothing else, I think a muzungu pretending to brush her teeth in public got their attention.  Later we  walked around the school and appreciated the growth over the past four years, took plenty of pictures, and  left the principal with a bag of toothbrushes to give to the other students as they show up/enroll.

Off to a golf club for a cup of tea – how I love African tea, which is really Indian tea and what our chai is akin to – and many jokes about how the Kajjansi club takes its guests to the Kajjansi line – the slum – but seldom to the nicer side of town! And then to the club president’s house for barbecue.

It turns out that the president is the wife of Charles, who was club president in 2013-14.  John Dennen had home stayed with them on that original trip, but I had never gotten past the driveway before.  The house is beautiful; the garden ditto and the view out over Lake Victoria is a million-dollar view. The club officers and directors had been invited to meet me – partially this is becuase I will miss the weekly fellowship Wednesday night – and to enjoy the evening and the barbecue, which consisted of chicken and goat, two kinds of starch (white potatoes, matoke/banana), several vegetables, tomatoes, avocado, and I lost track at some point.  I had brought along a handful of Rotary “peace” pins, and I gave them out to much acclaim and more photos – it’s entirely appropriate and very exciting, since the newest Rotary Peace Center is about to open here in Kampala at Makarere University.

A note on food.  I really, really enjoy barbecued goat.  It tastes like mutton, and is quite pleasant.  When I explain that it is culturally just plain not on the menu in the US, I always get vacant stares.  How can that be?  Why not?  And I can think of no reason why not.  It just isn’t.  Our loss.

After the meal, washed down (in my case) with more African tea, we went around the circle, with each Rotarian speaking in turn.  I was amazed and yes, a bit flabbergasted at the club members’ discussion of the technical school project at Buikwe.  That it was a game-changer, that it put the club on a whole new level; that sort of thing.  I had known that when  RI president Barry Rassin came to Uganda, the District had taken him to Buikwe.  But it hadn’t occurred to me that the celebrity would rub off on the club.  I should have been more aware. Also in their comments, several Rotarians (including Juliet) commented on the fact that we had trusted the club with a six-figure check without even, as Juliet said, knowing them for some time.  Finally it was my turn to speak.

And I said that yes, the Otto and Fran Walter Foundation had written the check, but it had been Juliet’s vision and the club’s hard work that had made the technical school a reality.  And I told the story of Otto Walter, and how he came to have a Foundation in his name.  And I said that I had been Juliet’s houseguest for only a week, but that’s all it took to know that I could trust her -and by extension the Rotary Club – absolutely with the funding, which is how it had all happened  And, of course, that I looked forward so much to seeing the technical school on Saturday with many of them.

At around 10:00 pm, someone remembered that it is a work night, and that I had to be up early in the morning, so goodbyes (until Saturday) were said and we were off to bed.  I briefly packed, and then fell into bed, and was awakened in the middle of the night by the wind, which changed and slammed all the doors shut in the house, and then the rain began.  And it really rained.

This is the middle of the dry season; a rain now is not only unexpected but can confuse the farming cycles.  Should farmers plant now?  Wait?  Will it rain later on as well?  You get the idea.  Confused farming cycles equal bad harvasts and that equals starvation – this is no game.  It’s clear that climate change is real, and having a real effect on peoples’ lives.

It’s also appropos because part of the conversation last night was about the weather – sounds like a boring conversation but far from it.  It is hard for Africans to get their head around the fact that when we wake up in North America, we don’t know based on the calendar whether or not it is going to rain.  How can we tell?  How do we know what to wear?  Isn’t it chaotic living without ongoing, intuitive knowledge of the weather?  I have explained in the past that they have wet and dry seasons, we have hot and cold, but I expect, especially in an agrarian economy,  our weather patterns can be unnerving.