Musings of a Traveler

The people of Ethiopia are charming.  My guide in Gondar told a joke that said God in creating man first overcooked his creation, creating the Black man, then took man out of the oven too soon, creating the white man, then, when he got it just right, was pleased with the brown man….and that was the Ethiopian.  He was better in the telling and used some Ethiopian terms, but you get the sense of humor.  I’ve yet to meet an Ethiopian who wasn’t friendly, charming and genuine.  They’re intensely proud of their culture, which they maintain, and of their history as an African nation which has always been independent, never a colony, despite the three of four years when Fascist Italy attempted to establish a colony like the other European powers in the late 30’s and early ‘40s of WWII. 

In Ethiopia I’ve visited, in as many days, four cities: Addis Ababa, Lalibela, Gondar, and Axum, in that order.  The last is the first capital of Ethiopia empires  dating to the time before Christ, when the Axum empire covered a major part of the Middle East.  Next, Gondar was the capital, complete with a castle complex called the Ethiopian Camelot.  Lalibela, was the next capital, and it’s still the main attraction for the churches carved out of stone.  Last is the current capital, and the least interesting of the cities, Addis Ababa.   

My visit could not have been more perfectly timed.  I arrived in Lalilela and Gondar just as the Ethiopians were celebrating epiphany, which is a major celebration across the country but particularly in these cities.  Though a Christian, I must confess I felt totally inadequate to explaining all that went into the moment.  But, as it was explained to me, only Christians are baptized, and, since epiphany is when John (the Baptist) baptized Christ, it distinguishes Christians from Moslems and the other folks who populate the country.  All my plane flights were packed with visitors, and it was difficult finding rooms.  I talked with or detected individuals or groups from Japan, Spain, Germany, Luxemburg, Italy, Switzerland, Russia, America, Canada, the Netherlands, Belgium, and some unidentified Eastern European countries.  The celebration in Lalibela was imminent when I arrived, and, since I had no room yet, my guide and I embarked on a tour of the three complexes of churches carved out of stone in an order that allowed me to stop for lunch before returning in time to see the beginning of the procession from perfect advantage points.  We worked our way around and through the three merging processions of Ethiopian Orthodox priests decked out in magnificent robes with hordes of followers.  I didn’t have my walking shoes on and felt my age as the guides literally guided me and my feet over, around and through various steps, rocks and paths.  Throngs of people converged into one stream of humanity that proceeded to a spot where some would stay all night and participate in a “baptism” for health (my language—I’ve forgotten the precise explanation).  Along the way were spontaneous chanting and dancing as people of all ages and both men and women enacted traditional dances and singing.  We tourists mingled with the crowd, but it was not a celebration for us, just a genuine tradition and expression of faith.  Plus a lot of fun as school was cancelled and people celebrated the beginning of three-day event.  The churches themselves are a site to behold, much bigger than I had expected.  My interest stems from many years ago when a friend, Virginia Jones, and I used to frequent Ethiopian gatherings or programs on St. Claire Ave. in Cleveland where a doctor and his Ethiopian wife hosted interested folks and later opened the Empress Taytu Restaurant.  When I reached Gondar, again I arrived as the second day of the festival was continuing, and my guide again introduced me to the celebration.  Most fascinating here was the gigantic “swimming pool” where largely younger people were jumping into the pool and splashing holy water back to bystanders, who literally thronged every inch of the compound.  I joined this mass of Ethiopians and an assortment of visiting foreigners.  And I asked for a splash myself.  Figured it might not hurt given my age.  We continued on with the procession for an hour or two before my guide and I stopped for refreshments.  I doubt I’ll every think of epiphany the same again. 

Some miscellaneous observations:

Several gift shops and other enterprises are named Obama in honor of the president.  And he seems universally admired in Ethiopia.  I was queried about his future, and I said he suffered from a poor economy.  The one guide was most articulate about where the blame belongs and he was, in my opinion, factual and correct.  Later, in a textile exhibit I saw a dress design that was labeled the “Obama.”  I suspect one was presented to the first lady, who would look good in the dress given her height. 

In Gondar, the complex of Castles is indeed worth visiting, and the city is bustling with construction and activity.  I saw the University of Gondar, with a 100-year-old medical school, and I tasted my first local wine and beer.  Both were quite passable.  When I was asked for whether I wanted a small or large “glass” of local wine, I said large and ended up with the entire bottle.  Life is good.   

Axum exceeded my minimal expectations.  I did visit the former palace of the Queen of Sheba, who fathered a child with King Solomon (reread the Bible), the son (Menalik, I believe) who is the founder of the Ethiopian “dynasty” that follows.  Archeologists and historians will quibble but it’s a good story in any case.  The site is 3,000 years old so not a lot remains, and other sites stretching from that era to the 16^th century provide evidence of the stream of influence emanating from this area.  I was surprised to see camels along with donkeys as beasts of burden, competing to small three-wheel carts to provide local transportation.   Across the road from the palace is a set of stones marking graves of what would be Jews in the millennium before Christ was born.  My guide ways that Joseph and Mary spent a number of days in the territory now called Ethiopia, and Christianity came to the country almost by accident when a Christian “sailer” who survived a shipwreck ended up here and converted the King.  Such is history. 

I began and will end this trip in Addis Ababa.  There, I visited the National Museum and the ex-palace of H. Selassie, where his bedroom and bathroom survive despite the military’s wish to destroy everything when Menguistu (sp?) began what turned into a civil war and a period when Cuba and the Soviet Union were Ethiopia’s best friends.  Today this is the site of the university.  I visited the “Red Scare Martyrs” museum, where I learned I was quite ignorant of what transpired, including a widespread system of killing fields.  Some estimate a million people were killed before he was thrown out.  My guide says that Menguistu went to the U.S. for military training and asked for CIA help in over throwing the quite backward monarchy but Jimmy Carter said the country had no U.S. strategic interest, so he turned to the KGB instead.  As a “pagan,” the ideology also fit in, and what happened, happened.    

My intention was to post photos and few words but my plans for uploading from the camera haven't worked out yet so that may have to wait until I find the right computer or do a photo script at the end.

Ramblings of an Academic

While my “assignment” was rather open-ended, I did have three areas I was thinking about, technology use, urban communication, and nonverbal.  

I’ve traveled a bit, and I usually find my bearings when I locate the city center.  In Latin America, it’s the Plaza de Armas.  And Europe has its city squares where folks congregate.  Add to that Times Square in NYC and even Public Square in Cleveland, and I can find my way around.  I’ve not found that in Addis Ababa or the other towns and cities, perhaps because they’re all built over, on top of and around hills.  That doesn’t mean there aren’t a lot of “third places,” and the streets in general seem to fill the role.  

All of my guides and drivers have used cell phones, which are a must for their business.  I asked my morning guide in Gondar and he said everybody had one but they weren’t used frivolously.  I didn’t see anyone playing games or checking emails or the web, which was common at the Istanbul and Cleveland airports enroute.  While there are small Internet stalls, etc. it doesn’t seem to be ubiquitous, perhaps because I’ve been in a couple fairly remote cities, Lalibela and Gondar, where I’ve also seen a couple horse/mule drawn “carriages.”  I’ve not been staying the international hotel chains, but wi-fi access is limited at best.  My hotel in Gondar (population 400,000 more or less) was an exception.  My driver enroute to the airport in Gondar texted a message in Ethiopian—looked pretty cool to me to see the characters on a Droid message.  

Nonverbals, as usual, are fun to watch, and I always look out for media.  In Lalibela I saw more hand-holding and touching within sex than I’ve seen since earlier days in the Philippines.  It’s rural and more traditional, and the influence from “abroad” (consumer culture) seems less pervasive.  The movie house in Addis Ababa was pretty run down and didn’t seem very popular.  The bar/restaurant at my Addis hotel had either BBC or Al-jazerra(sp?) on, while the TV in the Gondar hotel was limited to Ethiopian TV most of the time (talking government heads or traditional Ethiopian music “videos”).  When I’ve seen TV in hotel lobbies, soccer dominates the screen.  In the Istanbul Airport, a “newspaper reception” area had 25 newspapers in Turkish.  Amazing.  I saw a couple papers in Addis, and I glanced at the “government paper,” the Herald, published by the Ethiopian Press Institute/Agency.  It read much like some of the material that passed as “development journalism” in the Philippines years ago, though it was also critical at times of lagging or questionable development programs, most of them economic.   Throughout the Epiphany celebrations, I saw virtually no one preoccupied with cell phones as I often see in the U.S.