Country

{March 18, 2011}

There was a quick stop at the Hilton to exchange USD to Birr and then on to “Addis Ababa Restaurant” to have lunch.  This was a very authentic experience with traditional Ethiopian fare, of which I’ve had plenty, to be honest.  We’ve started talking about food and favorite restaurants from back home. 

Leaving the city felt good.  The countryside reminded us of Texas.  There were slight rolling hills, some brush and trees, but still not the Sahara Desert sands nor the jungley-ness I had somehow imagined.  It was nice.  Pleasant.  Peaceful.  We were breathing fresh air and it felt good.  Unlike Texas, there were mountains in the background as well – very picturesque.  Maybe more like New Mexico going into Colorado.  I can’t decide.  We’d occasionally come across a small town, with stores and restaurants and people milling about…more shacks with tin roofs.  Then more country.  Lots of cows, donkeys, goats.  Then a factory, or two, including a Japanese owned Leather Factory.  Interesting.

Villages dotted the view, along with power lines.  Electricity is readily available, but not running water or most other modern conveniences.  Most people in Addis have cell phones and many have satellite dishes on top of their tin roofs.  Out here, thatched roof huts were side by side with “new” houses.  New houses are made with tin roofs and cow dung for floors and walls.  Yup.  That’s the new houses.  I asked Bizzy if the walls smelled and he said that they did, and that they like the smell and it dries really solid so it keeps out the wind and the rain.  We live in different worlds, lifetimes apart.  Wow.

The villages were much smaller than I had imagined.  They were clusters of 5 or so huts/shacks.  Some were larger.  You could see 20 of these clusters here and there and I was confused.  How could there be this many villages all so close together?   I found out that a village is more like a neighborhood, not a city or individual tribe unto itself like I had thought.  They don’t really have chiefs anymore, but are loosely connected to trade and help each other with a town leader and such.

A newly paved road has recently been finished from Addis going north all the way to Bahir Dar, about a 10 hour drive.  We took this gently winding road for about 2 hours to get to the Rift Valley, which reminded me of the Grand Canyon – it was spectacular.   At a particularly perfect scene at a curve in the road, we had the driver stop so Eric could take some footage.  Two young girls, about 6 and 3, ran out of the fields to our car, curious.  They looked like something out of the pages of National Geographic.  I handed them each 1 Birr (equals less than a quarter) out the window, then each a piece of candy.  They couldn’t believe it and showed each other like giddy school girls!  Behind them was their village of 2 or 3 huts.  A man with a straw hat was tilling the ground behind an ox with a yoke around its neck.  It was like an African version of “Little House on the Prairie.”

Bizzy was taking us to the village where he grew up.  It made me think of Biblical times the way people were dressed and how the houses were connected one right up to the next with muddy, sloping cobblestone streets in between.  The most famous monastery in the region is located there and was from the 16^th century.  The building itself is relatively new; the old ones kept getting burned down by the bad guys of the day, Eric can tell you all of their names.  It is the fasting season, “Fasika,” what we call Lent, leading up to Easter.  During this time, many Ethiopian Orthodox sojourners travel to monasteries for pilgrimages.  They eat only one meal a day, and spend their day praying, chanting, and reading their Bible.  We saw many such pilgrims camped out under tarps around the grounds of the church. 

The vast majority of the country is Eastern Orthodox; this is similar to Roman Catholicism.  Growing up the son of a monk and a nun (they converted after he was born), Bizzy was destined for priesthood.  But he got converted to Protestant Christianity at 16 when a visitor came and told him about Jesus and gave him a Bible.  He was immediately transformed and spent the next 2 years preaching to everyone in the village the good news that our salvation is a gift from God, not of works.  When they discovered what he was doing, they put him in prison for 3 days with no food or water.  He showed us the prison.  He sang and praised God the whole time.  Then they took him out and strapped him to the top of a van and drove him out of the city; they were afraid that if they let him inside the car, the car would become condemned, just as he was condemned.  He showed us where they dropped him off.  Up until this time he had never been outside of his village or the surrounding countryside.  He headed south and ended up in Addis Ababa.  He was 18.

Bizzy was the original tour guide at this monastery and when he left 12 years ago, it was turned it over to the monk whom we met.  He gave us a private tour around the monastery and adjacent museum.  Fascinating. 

Bizzy was really excited for us to see the monkeys.  As a boy, he and friends used the chase them through the trees.  We stopped several times when he spotted a group of them off the side of the road.  Disappointingly, these were the most “exotic” animals we saw during our entire trip.  We also went to the Portuguese Bridge, built by the Portuguese in the 16^th century.  Eric felt like the king of the road.

We saw the African sunset on our drive home and arrived back to the city at dark.  Other than our visits with Kate and what we investigated in Bahir Dar, this day was the highlight of our trip.