Ba-a-a-ad little lamb

[backdated, Feb 6th]

So I wrote about the long, ropy sheep-tails of the Sudan, and would
happily have written more had I been able to justify it to myself.
(And this coming from someone who stops not at telling long-winded
stories about rascally chickens.)
Allow me to report with enthusiasm that the sheep of Ethiopia, while
completely differently tailed, are no less endearing. Instead of the
long fluffy ropes, Ethiopian sheep have huge, foot-wide shovel-shaped
tails, the tip of which is tucked up to form a strange sort of
backwards curlicue. The best part? When the sheep run, the
spade-tails flip-flop from side to side like ticking off seconds on a
fast clock.

I don't know why I love these valid, silly animals, but I do, and
Ethiopian sheep with their floppy fat tails rank especially high.
Since my arrival two weeks ago, I have sought out opportunities to
tentatively pat one of these fluffy creatures in passing, but no such
luck until one afternoon a few days ago, when (under perhaps unusual
circumstances) I got to pat and even hold a particularly unclever
lamb.

We were having a lunch break in Woldia on our way to Mekele, waiting
for transport at an outdoor café. I was (as usual) entranced by the
meandering town sheep, and took advantage of the wait to pat a sleepy
lamb curled up in the shade of the nearest pickup truck. The lads
nearby, presumably the owners, seemed to find my fondness hilarious,
but otherwise were not terribly involved with whatever the animal did.

Which was memorably demonstrated about half an hour later… the driver
of the truck had finished his lunch and was getting back into the cab;
the lamb, meanwhile, had been ambling about but chose that particular
moment to settle itself back in the shade next to the wheel of the
truck. I was watching in growing alarm from my seat a few meters
away, when the idiot thing actually snuggled its neck and head right
up behind the front left tire – just as the driver clambered in, shut
the door, and started his engine.

I have rarely abandoned a chair so fast in my life.
I dashed over to the animal as the driver put the idling truck into
gear, yelling "STOP!!", and tugged on the animal's body. My actions
had no effect on either the distracted, backwards-looking driver or
the sluggish lamb, who just re-settled itself for what it didn't seem
to realize might be a more permanent nap.
The motor already started and in gear, the driver eased off the break
and the tire began to press backwards into the lamb's neck. In
terrified desperation I began to smack the vehicle with my hand, still
yelling, while with my other hand I reached behind the lamb's neck to
pull it free from the tire.
By the grace of the powers that be, the driver heard my thumping on
his car, or perhaps he saw signs of alarm from the other people about
who heard or saw the spectacle I was making. He abruptly stopped his
truck, as I bodily hauled the animal out from under it.

Crisis over, the intense rush of relief I felt was quickly followed
with one of embarrassment. If people hadn't been staring at me
before, they certainly were now... The amazed driver leaned over his
wheel to see the faranji girl who had made such a fuss. The lamb's
neglectful owners were openly gawking at me, and as they slouched over
(a bit SHEEPISHLY, I thought) I turned the lamb over to them with the
awkward consciousness of having self-righteously usurped another's
responsibility.
Though admittedly a little embarassed, I managed to console myself with the
reflection that: Hey, I finally got to pat a sheep!!

Complaints from Jordan

little did he know of my own posting powers in the face of blogger failure..

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Jordan M. Davis
Date: Feb 23, 2009 11:49 PM
Subject: Stupid blogger

Stupid blogger wouldn't let me post my comment to your story today. Oh
well. Here it is, enjoy.

You know Jana, no matter how dire my situation here seems you always
bring a smile to my face with your simple joys (this time in the form
of a toilet seat aka. a throne in the garden of eden). I hope that
while you are living the "high life" you will not forget to celebrate
your birthday. Please don't be lame like me. I wish you well in your
journeys and I have gotten more people to follow your blog here at
Rice. Thanks for your constant musings distracting me from the never
ending flood of work, tests, projects, and life. I wish you safety and
adventure in the form of (cute) doggies that lead you places.

itsumo,
Jordan

"I have no magic power; I make personality my Magic Power. "
-The Samurai Code

Living the High Life..??

For reasons I cannot begin to fathom, since arriving in Ethiopia David (generally the hotel-choosing half of our partnership) has abruptly transferred us from lokanda scum-life to Living the High Life.

At first it made sense; we had that memorably long haul crossing the border from Gedaref through Metema and Shihedi all the way to Gondor (never to be forgotten..) So when we finally made it there, it was sort of nice to spend a couple days on relatively clean sheets. We upped the ante a bit, took a break, relaxed. A couple days satiated my luxury quotient - I was actually having a bit of trouble sleeping in such nice beds - and then I was more than ready to return to moth-eaten shabbiness in the next city, Bahr Dar.

I was to be sorely disappointed. Our hotel there was even nicer than the one in Gonder, practically a resort. I have a sneaking suspicion that the sheets were freshly washed. I felt like royalty visiting my satellite palace.

It was here that we both saw our first toilet seat in weeks, the discovery of which was naturally cause for much jubilation. We took turns sitting on it for unnecessarily long periods of time, me before we'd even paid for the room. (I cleverly snatched it while David was handling the bill.) I was forced to relinquish it upon his return, however, at which point he firmly installed himself in the bathroom. Behind the closed door soon came a long, deep sigh of contentment and the glorious declaration I will hereafter always associate with toilet seats: "I'M LIKE A KING ON MY THRONE!!"

While perhaps my audience wouldn't agree with my defining a hotel as the High Life just because it has a toilet seat (a valid definition in the third world, trust me), not even the most well-pampered Westerner could have failed to be impressed by the beautiful and vibrantly blooming flowers in and around the entire compoound. It was amazing; to David's parents, I think you really would have loved it. I felt like I was staying in the Garden of Eden.

This analogy should render it obvious, therefore, why I was fully expecting to be kicked out of paradise and plopped back into cockroach comfort in our next city, Lalibela. I intimated as much to David, anyway, whom I fully trusted to deliver to my expectations (and beyond).

I was to be sorely disappointed. Yet again. If possible, our rooms in Lalibela were EVEN NICER than the ones in Bahir Dar. I hardly got a wink of sleep!

Even now, I'm writing this from the CARPETED floor of yet another unacceptably nice hotel in Mekele. Granted, the carpet is thin, stained, and, my rear tells me, a pitiful attempt at padding very hard concrete, but still. Carpet!! To break another record, this room sports not one but TWO electrical outlets, both of which seem to be functional and which, furthermore, can actually hold the weight of a plug so you dont have to stand there and hold it to charge your camera. (Or jerry-rig it using hairclips and rubber bands, as I did all the way through the Sudan. Fairly cleverly, too, I thought. David occasionally agreed.) None of this ingenuity is called for here in Mekele, however; you just take the prongy bits and plug 'em in and poof! your battery is being charged. It's like magic.

So, you see my pitiful case. I haven't seen a cockroach, mouse turds, or the tell-tale bloody sheet stains of a bed-bug infestation in so long, I almost forget what they look like. As I've explicitly informed David, I'm feeling betrayed. All his promises of soiled, sagging bedding, all my dreams of rusty, barely latching metal doors cut into four cement walls that could only be said to resemble a hotel room with a good deal of imagination, all for naught. We're living the high life!!

Blog for the Dogs

[Backdated: February 1st]

So, I've been having a bit of a harder time making friendly headway with some of the population, and I'd be lying if I said I don't think of the Sudan at least once a day... but I gotta admit. Ethiopia wins major points for its attitude towards dogs, which seems to be considerably friendlier than that of the North and Eastern Sudan.

Religion does apparently make the difference; in this comparison I'm stacking the most historically Christian part of Ethiopia against the traditionally Muslim part of the Sudan. David has explained to me how, while the cat is respected in Islam, the dog is considered to be sort of a dirty animal. (Which I admit provides by itself a pretty strong case against my conversion, were I so tempted.)
Therefore I wasn't surprised to find that the dogs in the Sudan tended to belong to more ferile, sometimes pack-like groups, roaming the streets by night to mate, fight, and scavenge. They coexist with humans in the same way that pigeons do: there's sort of an accidental flow of resources from humans, but mostly the animals interact with each other more than with us.
Considering that I wasn't in much of a position to change anything, I thank the powers that be- Muslim or otherwise- that I never came across a dog in bad shape (which is more than I can say for Taipei). I'm grimly aware that they must exist, but they were not part of my Sudanese experience.

In Ethiopia, however, dogs seem to have reclaimed their role of family pet somewhat. Almost all the dogs here seem to be associated with a person or house, and we've even seen plump puppies tussling about in messy front yards. Interestingly, Ethiopian canines quite often have that characteristic tail-curled trot of bred dogs, though I can't believe that there's any sort of AKC organization of dog-breeding or showing here. (Ethiopia wins points on that, too.)

Of course not even the cutest, high-stepping pup here can hold a candle to my own airhead Charlie (pictured at left), who likely has no idea where I am right now but who will, faithfully, keep my side of the bed warm until I get home.

Gimme-Gimme-Gimme

[backdated: Jan 28th]
This post is a hard one for me to write, particularly since I know how it will portray my character to those I love most, and even to people whom I've never met. However, to write it any differently or less honestly, or not to write it at all, would compromise my authorial integrity, and that is a value I hold dear.

So.. if 'Personal values of mine' was going to be a list, integrity would be pretty high up, but I don't think it would beat compassion out of the top spot. Compassion in others will always win my esteem, and I hope to never grow so cynical (through much-enjoyed re-readings of Catch-22) that I am incapable of compassion.
Respect, however, is a close second to compassion, both self-respect and respect for others, and this is where I have run into trouble in Ethiopia. For me every interpersonal interaction should be characterized by respect - usually in the form of politeness, but not always. In Texan culture we show respect through great friendliness; in Japan I learned to be respectful with specific and stylized manners. Here in Ethiopia, I'm not well-informed about the unique national customs of respect, but I arrived ready to combine politeness with friendliness and the universal catalyst, a big smile.

This attitude (like a few others I've had) was unfortunately a bit naive.

In the 70s and 80s, there was a great deal of attention on Ethiopia's severe problems of poverty and famine, leading to an international surge of aid organizations in the country - which are, it seems, mostly still active. While I have always honored such work as an incredible manifestation of compassion, since arriving in a historically aid-recipient country I have become painfully aware of the ugly underside of this charity - and painfully familiar with the term, "culture of dependency".
It would be unfair to say that Ethiopia has completely acquired a culture of dependency, but that thinking has certainly left its mark, especially with regard to the national attitude towards non-Africans. To be blunt, I have run up against the equation: foreigner = handout.

I might be opening myself here up to charges of racism - but how about the inherent racism in such an equation? A bizarre sort of racism, true, but there nonetheless- that a certain shade of skin incidates 'mondo' (David's word) money, and that any Ethiopian who asks deserves to have their share of it.

It's true I grew up with far more than some of the children who have come running from blocks away at the sight of my skin. And it does bother my conscience not to give them anything. But honestly, I hardly have a chance to reflect on my white guilt because fending off the demands - yes, demands - for money from healthy children who only a moment before were happily playing soccer occupies all of my attention. You don't get a general impresion of desperation, as I would have imagined from the old television ads, but one of entitlement. "You are a walking sack of money, so gimme some."
It's not just money - anything we have is fair game. Carrying a few bananas for our breakfast, David was accosted by a boy who stuck out his hand and declared, "Gimme a banana!" (The former ESL teacher in me was thrilled at such lovely use of the article.) But as his repeated requests had no effect on the beggar-immune David, the boy became quite angry, shocked at our defiance. Couldn't we see that what we had was his for the needing?

I admit I did feel guilty not to give him one; in the U.S., I never give money to people who ask for it, but I give food. And since I never go far without a snack, and sometimes people really are hungry, it's usually a successful interaction. So why did I deny this Ethiopian [read: poor, unfortunate] child?

First off, he wasn't desperate, or homeless: he came running out of a shop upon seeing us, and chased us down the street demanding anything giveable he could see. And frankly, I refuse flat-out to accept that just being Ethiopian makes you needy and automatically in need of charity from strangers. If that's not racism, what is??

Moreover, I know from other experiences that if we had had something else, he would have demanded that instead; in other words, I doubt it was hunger that made him think of the banana. I once had a sweet little girl tell me to give her the shirt I was wearing. (It was the only one I had on, and we were outside of a church, so that didn't get far.) And the pens.. oh, merde, the pens. At some point in the recent past, some foreigner (or perhaps a group working in tandem) came to Ethiopia armed with a metric ton of pens, apparently with the express purpose of distributing them at random among the under-10 population. And every foreigner since then has paid the price. At every turn, David and I are accosted by screaming children who stick out their hands and pull on our clothes, yelling, "PEN! PEN! GIMME PEN!"

While such mobbing is usually (but not always) limited to children, the mindset that prompts it is unfortunately shared by a noticable percentage of the adult population. Hotels, stores, and even museums have prices several times higher for foreigners than for Ethiopians. Arranging transport involves battling the assumption that we are going to cheerfully pay six or seven different parties for the various tasks of getting a seat, keeping a seat, sitting in the seat, having our bags put on top, having our bags tied properly so they don't fall off, and then having our bags taken down again when it's time to inexplicably change buses before departure. (It should go without saying, we are quite cheerfully prepared to pay various parties for several of those privileges, but they do take it a bit far. And the key thing is, none of the locals seem to pay more than once.) Even if we casually ask directions from a 'friendly stranger' on the street, we risk getting charged 'guide fees' for it. On my first afternoon in Ethiopia, I was talking to David in my hotel room when a woman took it upon herself to come right on in and turn on the light.. and then demanded to be paid for it.

What hurts the most is that I've looked for signs that Ethiopians do this to each other as well - hey, perhaps it's just a national custom to tip everyone for everything - but really, they don't. It's the arrival of a foreigner on the scene that turns every frolicking child into a starving beggar in need of pens, every adult into a would-be guide, every establishment into a high-priced affair. I exaggerate. But really, if I thought Japan was bad for making you feel like an outsider, I had another thing coming.

Our apprehension about all this has naturally modified our behavior towards strangers. This once caused an embarassing situation in Lalibela, when a man got up to show us something. David and I both leapt to stop him- "No please don't trouble yourself! We can find it! It's fine!"- at which point he castigated us that we should graciously accept his hospitality, he was helping us, he wasn't going to try to get money from us. I was immediately embarassed (though I couldn't help thinking it funny how he knew exactly what we were afraid of), but shameless David clapped him warmly on the back and laughed, "Well, then you're certainly a bit different from most of your countrymen!"
I couldn't help being a bit secretly pleased at his frankness.

The ironic thing is that Ethiopia is the one nation in Africa that has never been colonized (unless you count Italy's brief and unsuccessful jaunt), and the Ethiopians are the first to say it. Good for them! Ethiopia's got an awesome history, and you have to respect how it's lasted more or less as a healthy, stable unit for thousands of years. But when I'm crowded by people who have come out of the woodwork to beg from me, as a foreigner distributing my munificence, I think horrible thoughts to myself.. For a country that's always proudly enjoyed its independence, you don't really act it..

That same day in Lalibela, there was a bonfire outside our hotel for St. George's Day. Not much of a night person, David declined attending; I too was exhausted, but was equally reluctant to pass up any opportunity for international socializing, especially in a country where I'd been having so little of it. Going down to the fire, I was told to sit at a table full of women. I cheerfully introduced myself and asked their names, only to commence a charade in which the women took turns inventing apparently quite witty monikers in Amharic that set off the rest of the group in hysterics. Having given my own real name, I felt a little embarassed but plunged forth anyway, repeating the false names back at them (amid more laughter) and trying to remember each one. I have learned some Amharic, but after a few minutes, conversation flagged a bit. Mostly they asked whether I already had a 'guide' for the next day (I did). Then they wanted to know who. I was vague. That was it. For some reason, I felt quite awkward and shy. I admit I ended up only waiting out the minimum polite amount of time before I could go to bed.
On the stairs back up to the room, I bumped into one of the women; I was amazed to find that her disdainful manner had turned quite friendly, and then the next minute she was writing her number down so I could call her to meet up the next day. I soon figured out why; she performed the 'coffee ceremony' that Lonely Planet cites as part of the 'siren scam' (invite foreigner over, do coffee ceremony or some other 'cultural activity', charge exorbitant amounts of money at end, etc), and wanted me to come over. Well, mystery of manner-change explained, I suppose, but it didn't exactly make me feel warm and fuzzy climbing back up to bed. I am useful insofar as I am a wallet.

The whole experience came dangerously close to confirming this horrible suspicion I've been fighting, that interacting positively with Ethiopians as a white person is continget upon a flow of money or goods from me to them.. and even then respect has not been won.

It is unfair of me to write off all Ethiopians on a paltry few weeks' tourist experience, however, and I refuse to do it, or to give up on creating positive relationships. So, I have developed perhaps unusual ways of circumventing the impression my skin gives. Most often, I sing. When children run up to me screaming "Money!" or "Pen!" and stick their hands out, I begin to sing to them. We may not have a language in common, and I refuse to perpetuate the fantasy that foreigners are walking ATMs, but it is perhaps a way to share something. Admittedly, I risk looking a little like Maria Von Trapp, walking down the street singing to an entourage of smiling children. However, it's worth it for this former elementary teacher to be able to actually smile at kids, and have them smile back, and then wave goodbye after five minutes' pleasant walk together and walk away happy.

The Tale of the Sneaky Chicken

I am, as a "blogger" (stupid term), unfortunately prone to rambling on about microscopic quotidian incidents that have little to do with anything, in lieu of actually delivering some sort of useful or relevant description of meaningful experiences and impressions.
I have repeatedly tried to stifle this impulse for this particular blog- mostly out of respect for those of David's acquaintance who are likely less interested in my own eccentricities than they are in the trip generally, or any of the number of adventures that he involves us in.
However, I beg you occasionally to allow me to indulge myself- as I would like to do now- to tell: the Tale of the Sneaky Chicken.

SHIHEDI, ETHIOPIA: David and I were walking down the only dirt road in this tiny village near the Sudanese border. As there as nothing else to do in the town and nowhere in particular we had to be, we were occupying the afternoon chiefly by rambling back and forth on The Town Dirt Road, collecting in our wake assorted bunches of children screaming "you! you! you!", and exerting a maximum effort not to be charged for the privilege by a variety of creative and budding scam artists.

David stopped at one point to more fully devote his attention to this last task. Uninterested in being helpful, I instead started watching a chicken standing next to one of the vegetable stalls set up along the Town Dirt Road. The stand, a crude platform set up about 8" off the ground, played host to potatoes, some leafy green things, and a lovely selection of red tomatoes.
As I gazed aimlessly at this chicken, I began to notice that its behavior was at least a little unusual. Namely, it was positively skulking about the roadside - not clucking, not pecking, not strutting as chickens do - but apparently doing its level best (which was not very good) to be sly.

I am not sure whether you have ever seen a chicken trying to look sly. I never had. Allow me to assure you that it is a wholly ludicrious and hilarious sight.

As I watched this chicken, sneaking back and forth next to the edge of the of the stall, it suddenly made its move - and boldly hopped right up onto the platform. My mouth fell open. Quick as a wink, the chicken leaned down to the nearest tomato and snatched the whole fruit right up in its beak. The thing was easily twice the size of its head. Then, booty in beak, it scooted its way back off the platform, dropped it on the ground, and tucked in.

My face must have been the portrait of astonishment. I had just witnessed, from beginning through to conclusion, a successful Sneaky Chicken raid.

Looking up, I realized I had my own audience. Men, women, and children loitering about the curb were watching me watch the chicken with unconcealed delight. I pointed at the chicken, still in shock: Do you realize you have just been robbed?? by a CHICKEN?? The crowd just nodded and laughed. Any concern over the purloined fruit was wholly forgotten in light of the splendid entertainment afforded by my foreign amazement.
And while everyone's attention was so excellently diverted, the Sneaky Chicken made a clean getaway.

The "Real" First Impression

So I mentioned something about Ethiopia not deserving the introductory post it would have gotten had I simply described my first impressions.. suffice it to say that the aforementioned bumpy dirt road therating its way through mountains, while potentially picturesque, does not provide the most pleasant way to travel.

We knew our trek from Gedaref, Sudan through to Gonder, Ethiopia was going to be tough. We had limited information about the transport available, and even Lonely Planet only marked the road after the border crossing with a pale dotted line. Our border crossing was slow but uneventful, marked chiefly by the dusty asphalt road petering out into a rutted gravelly dirt tracks. Not the easiest to travel along, but as a dedicated adherent to the "You Pack It, You Carry It" school of thought I sure wasn't going to let it fall to anyone else's responsibility. Certainly not any of the throngs of men and children clustering around me, trying to take it away in a bid to get some money out of me as well. They were to be disappointed.

After 20 minutes of dusty dragging, we located a rat-trap bus that would have put any junkyard resident to shame, perched rather than parked on the edge of the road at a 35-degree angle. After fighting with various parties over our baggage, we hurled it and ourselves onto the tilta-bus, David getting doused in gasoline in the process. Hot, dusty, and flammable, we then spent the next 50 minutes in exceptionally close quarters, straining to keep everything squished and upright in our two small seats. We were charged for three. I ended up sitting sideways in the aisle, my back against David's side and my legs stuffed against the next seat to prevent him toppling into the aisle from the combined weight of our baggage. (Friends of his may hazard what guesses they like as to how many newly-bought books we had with us as well.. but it must be said that he carried them all himself without ever once needing help.)

It was a sincere joy once the bus finally got going, as it meant we were mostly upright; after another sharing my smushed aisle-roost with three other women, however, I gave up and stood. It was wonderful to stand. There was just enough floorspace for two feet, and I could grab the cieling to keep myself from jolting around painfully, as was David's seat-bound, luggage-locked lot. Even better, the top of the bus possessed the occasional whiff of fresh air, otherwise absent in the sweltering, rank, dusty, airless and gasoline-doused interior. There were grimy windows, but for reasons that remain unclear to me they were kept tightly shut.

After a few hours we were blissfully unloaded in a village called Shihedi, where we discovered we would be marooned until at least the following day. David sought any information at all about buses going to Gonder, while I guarded the luggage and fought with the local boys who tried to take it away from me. One of them apparently decided to declare himself my protector, launching himself quite without my support at the most aggressive of my harassers; the fistfight that ensued involved an unfortunate number of people and an alarming amount of violence. My protector was defeated, both in size and numbers, but came limping back to my side to declare something along the lines of how he had fought them off. (Needless to say, not speaking Amharic, my conversational abilities were thus far limited to "NO!!") The would-be knight then asked for payment for his services. However, I felt that starting a violent fight that very nearly physically involved my person- even if it was on my behalf- was not something I was willing to pay for, and I told him so. We were exploring this difference of opinion when David returned - a more welcome sight could not be imagined - to announce that the only transport would leave the next day.
I opined that I was not above hitching. Frankly, I would have joyously boarded Jack the Ripper's carriage had he materialized. But Jack the Ripper and all other vehiculed characters let me down; unless you count Daewoo construction trucks, Shihedi was shy of transport at all. (And the Daewoo trucks were going the wrong way.. we asked.)

So the next morning at 4 a.m., we relived the ringamarole of the day before with a few exciting variables. Squeezing ourselves into seats, getting charged to put up our baggage, waiting half an hour, driving around the block, losing our driver, waiting, getting moved into a different bus, getting charged (again) for our baggage, the squeeze, the wait, the block, the lost driver. At six we finally left for Gonder in seats that almost fit our two butts, on a bus full of swirling hot dust, on a road that was a road only in the sense that it was the accepted route to get to Gonder. It was through those grimy, shut windows that I saw the aforementioned stunning mesas and spectacular valleys, and through my battered rear and queasy stomach that I registered the bumpy, winding path through the mountains. And for those who know me, this wasn't just classic Jana-car-sickness - the kid behind me vomited at regular intervals all over the floor. Hearing that unmistakeable sound, I was incredulous- I had been reassuring my own stomach with the faith that the driver would surely stop for vomit- and so stupidly lifted myself up and twisted myself around to peer down at the hunched youth. Below his head I could see the thick, fluidic mass rolling around on the floor with each bump, and him every moment adding to it.
Needless to say, my skirt, my things, and my legs spent the rest of the ride squinched up against the seat in front of me.

A day and a lifetime later, we unloaded finally in Gonder. Pushed to the end of my tether by having repeatedly had to fight for our bags and pay various parties for the privilege, I shocked the Ethiopians out of their skins by climbing up onto the top of the bus to retrieve our bags myself. Perhaps shamed by a girl (!) doing effortlessly what they were demanding hundreds of Birr for, there were no more scam attempts. We had paid our way, we hefted our bags, and walked into beautiful, historical, fresh-smelling Gonder. Gonder of tasty Ethiopian restaurants and Gonder of old medieval castles. Gonder of soft beds to finally rest in. And I understood, truly: You gotta go through hell to get to heaven.

But you can see why I posted as I did.. Of my first day in Ethiopia, the overriding memory is, unfortunately, of vomit.

Into a new land..

[backdated, January 24, 2009]
And so we crossed the south-eastern Sudanese border into a new land..

Ethiopia deserves for my first post about it not to be about my first impressions. And to be fair, the Sudan is a tough act to follow.

To introduce it properly, I must acknowledge what was perhaps ignorance on my part in expressing my absolute astonishment at this country's breathtaking, jaw-dropping scenic beauty. While I have not yet travelled far outside the Northern highlands, I am already amazed at the landscapes any painter would fall in love with. Winding, bumpy roads threading their way along mesa-style cliffs; wide, shallow Lake Tana blanketed with early morning mist; rolling expanses of pasture dotted with sheep and green-robed herding children. And this is at the end of the dry season !
I've always hated the word 'hut' as carrying so much of a certain type of connotation, but it probably represents exactly the word that would pop into your mind upon seeing the round, thatched-roof dwellings that are clustered around every village and tucked along cliff precipices. Ever one for precision in diction, I will not reject an apt word, but 'hut' still indicates to me a crudeness that is anything but applicable to these sturdy, complex, labor-intensive buildings.

The scenery is all the more impressive for its equally astonishing absence of litter. While trash is not wholly absent from the landscape, streets do not double as a public dump, and intercity highways are not demarkated chiefly by their twin borders of debris. I have even been able to locate trash-cans after a minimum of searching. Honestly, after al-Sudan, it's astoundingly clean. David and I have discovered the subtle treachery of clean streets, however: while in the Sudan we had to watch where we put each foot to avoid something rotting (or worse), here the clean streets have lulled us into the dangerous habit of walking normally. And with disastrous results: both of us have tripped several times on low curbs or uneven pavement, simply because we weren't looking down at the ground.

Coupled with the perpetually photo-worthy scenery (I'm a clicking wonder now that it's legal) is a spectacular panoply of endemic wildlife. Ethiopians are quick to tell you that their twice-Texas-size country boasts some eight hundred different species of birds, several dozen of which are to be found nowhere else in the world. One of the strangest of these I've already seen several times - a small black trilling thing with a fully foot-long flowing white tail that undulates in the most unusual way when it takes flight. We've also had a monkey drop in (somewhat literally) on our breakfast, though my Western background prevented me from recognizing it as anything other than an unusually large, strangely acrobatic cat (and my, what a long tail!).. until it was actually sitting right in front of me (and behind David). Upon successful (if delayed) species identification, I felt not excitement but a vague alarm and the need to immediately inform David. I can't explain it, it just seemed like a bit of a hazard to calmly eat one's omelette with a monkey in such proximity, particularly without one's knowledge. Only later did it occur to me to take a picture, but of course by then it was scampering off. (But at least I warned David.)

Ethiopia cannot, however, compete with the visual rainbow afforded by the various security forces present in even the smallest towns in the Sudan. While I noted uniforms in the carying hues of steel blue, white, khaki, grey, green camo, brown camo, khaki camo(didn't know that one existed), blue camo (in the desert?? really??), black, and the dreaded plainclothes, I've yet to see anything in Ethiopia more than plain old blue, white, and one boring shade of camo (brown). True, Ethiopia more than makes up the color vibrancy with its flowers, which are blooming everywhere, and which I hardly ever saw in a month in the Sudan - I think I might have forgotten that flowers exist, sort of like I forgot that rain exists.

For all their loveliness and photographicableness, however, flowers don't provide quite the same sort of fun potential as we've seen with Sudanese security forces... so yes. Am still missing the Sudan!

Al-Sudan

[original date: January 22, 2009]

Today is my last day in the Sudan. And despite my excitement to cross the border into Ethiopia tomorrow morning, I cannot hide that I am sincerely sad to leave this dusty, carefree, generous country that has shown me such an amazing welcome for the past few weeks. It is not a welcome I will soon forget.

Knowing my memory, though, I'd like to leave a fresh record of my impressions of this country while I'm still in it. I can't vouch for their implicit accuracy, other than that they accurately represent my experience while here. So take them with a pinch of salt.. or perhaps a pinch of sugar's more accurate.

The Scenery: A Dusty Faded Glory
Throughout much of the Sudan I have gotten an impression of past prosperity. The buildings look old and somewhat neglected, though many show signs of having once been somewhat luxurious. Everything is dusty, which I suppose is natural in a country situated at the end of the Saharan winds. The roads are paved, if a bit unevenly, in the largest cities and between them, but otherwise streets of packed dirt are rather common and a mouthful of dust with each passing car is a more common experience of pedestrianhood than I'd like.
Omar al-Bashir's face is everywhere in Khartoum, and is even quite common in city centers throughout the north and east. All the intellectuals who we've spoken to have referred to him quite frankly and without fear as a dictator, though, so I suppose the repression isn't complete (though it must be admitted that not all of our former interviewees are currently at liberty).
The landscape outside cities, not surprisingly, is mostly very flat (and sandy), populated by camels in the north and herds of goats, sheep, and occasionally cows in the east. The sheep - are you sitting for this? - have LONG, ROPY, FLUFFY, FLOPPY TAILS that remind me of a doggie-tail. They reach almost to the ground and caused me huge amounts of excitement that David struggled to understand when I first saw them. The sheep flip them around too, like horse tails, only they're not hair at all but fleshy, quite fluffy furry things well over 30 inches long. INSANE.
I've seen grass a few places, generally in small plots within more luxurious (usually governmental) complexes; each time I've gotten quite excited. It's no longer so strange to me to just see empty earth in places where there's no established human presence - or trash. Trash is everywhere. No, really. Everywhere. In the streets, in the buildings, in the hallways, in the desert stuck to bushes, in the hotel rooms. I long for a trash can. Don't ask me if I've littered here. Just don't. I cannot yet face the truth on that.

The Food: Tasty, Hearty Monotony
I have eaten very well here, but I'd be lying if I claimed not to be a bit excited about the prospect of a new country and new culinary options. The same staples of the Sudanese diet have largely comprised my own diet for the past few weeks:
* fuul, a dish of beans and spices, sometimes with a bit of meat included, eaten with a sort of bland but thick white bread bun instead of with silverware
* shwarma meat, deliciously spiced, but with little variety, always served in that same thick white bread bun
* falafel balls, also delicious, also universal no matter where you go, also served in aforementioned heavy white bread on any street corner in even the smallest city
* hard-boiled eggs, served alongside the falafel on streets
* the sweets: delicious, flaky pastry absolutely drenched in honey and further sweetened with unique, sometimes nutty flavors. Basbusa, kokha, baklawa (baklava), all delectable, all delightful, all worth a trip to the dentist
* peanuts, which we've snacked on repeatedly, and which I discovered (to my stomach's chagrin) CAN actually go bad. Don't eat black peanuts.
So the summarized statement - very tasty, a bit heavy, and kind of .. always the same... is unfortunately pretty true. UNTIL you come to the tea.
The tea is too amazing for words.
Tea is a huge part of Sudanese culture, and women set themselves up on every corner and along every street, on little stools with rickety tables crammed with glass jars full of various different herbs they mix in with their tea. There's always a jar for sugar, too. Almost all the tea drinks are very, very sweet. Every woman's tea is a little different, and seems to be a matter of personal pride. For one sudanese pound (about fifty cents), or even less sometimes, you can go up to one of these ladies and order any kind of tea - mint tea with na'an, karkade tea with cranberry-like flavor, black tea with milk - and she'll prepare it piping hot for you right there on the spot. She's got a little charcoal fire going next to her with brass kettles simmering on it, and a bucket of soapy water for washing glasses in between customers. After she makes it, you can hunker down on one of the little stools she might have littered about her - of course anyone else already sitting with their own cup of tea will always insist you take their chair, at the very least - and use your fingertips to hold the very rim of the piping-hot glass to sip your tea. Which is always delicious, and (amazingly) always a little bit different. Needless to say, this tea culture has been one of my very favorite culinary experiences in the Sudan.
Tastiest thing eaten: a close call, but my sweet tooth prevails. The pastry.
Worst thing ingested: At each interview, we were invariably presented with hot tea. On one unfortunate afternoon, however, I was obliged to drink the greater part of the worst cup of instant coffee I have ever tasted or smelled in my life. Burnt, heavily sweetened, and reeking in flavor of strong, black pepper. PEPPER!! Why??

The Music: Beautiful and Touching
One of my best ideas yet was to hassle the students we met at Khartoum's Al-Nilein University for music recommendations, and to then follow those up. The CD I bought off the street for SDD4 (about $1.80) of Nadeer Khder is one of my favorites, and one of the few possessions I have with me that I really hope make it home.

The People: Effortless Dignity
The people here are by far Sudan's most wonderful resource. They're warm, generous, curious, friendly, funny, casual, hospitable, and overwhelmingly kind. People treat us to tea all the time. Strangers insist on sharing their fuul and bread with us. Everyone always asks where we're from, and no one seems to think less of us for being from a country whose government has hardly seen eye to eye with their own in recent past. Most of all, however, I must emphasize the inherent, unforced, natural dignity of the Sudanese people. They are fundamentally dignified.

There's an image that comes to mind when I think of the Sudanese.. it's an image of a personality I've seen in every city or town here, no matter how small. This personality is a man, middle-aged to older, dressed in the typical long white robe with the typical dusty bits at the bottom hem, striding very slowly with long steps around the trash-spotted streets with his arms folded behind his back and a bit of a paunch thrust out in front of him like a proud statement of self-worth. He is casually proud in manner, but warm, generous, and inquisitive when you speak to him. This man always carries with him a weighty sort of solemn dignity that I always think of now when I think of these wonderful people.

Sudanese coinage: Tattered but colorful
Sudanese money is minted in a series of vibrantly colored bills, in denominations of 1 pound (chartreuse), 2 (pale blue), 5 (red), 10 (peach and white), and 20 (red and purple), supplemented by three coins: a 50-piastre piece (golden rim with silver interior), a 20-piastre (the opposite), and a 10 (plain silver). The relatively modest value of the paper money, however, means that circulation of anything other than the "nuss-guinnea" (50-piastre) piece is uncommon, and indeed the coin-lover in me had to wait pretty patiently before I managed to get all three. I've never seen any coin lower than 10p, nor any bill higher than 20 pounds, though they may indeed exist.
I have had to conclude that either the minting authority of the Sudan has unusually low circulation standards, or the general population, an unusually low respect for the care of their own bills. It is extremely common, especially with the low 1-pound bills, to receive fraying, grimy currency severely ripped in one or more places; thankfully I've never had a problem when (somewhat guiltily) offering these bills to merchants. On at least one occasion a vendor busted out a roll of tape to literally piece together some small change for me, and on occasions where change cannot be made several enterprising taxidrivers have attempted to simply rip our larger bills in half - thus acquiring (presumably) exactly half their value.
Needless to say, we both put our feet down on that.

New Words Learned: some Arabic: greetings, basic questions, responses, my numbers 1-100. A pretty poor showing, I admit.
Telling phrases: If God wills it (Insha'allah), WHATEVER God wills (mash'allah), Everything's great! (Koolshi tamam), paradise (my name!)
It should go without saying I have had to learn the word for 'hiccup' (sha'kri).

Classic Quote: Booking ourselves into Wad Medani's Hotel Doha, we were repeatedly told to wait just a few minutes [more] for someone to come to bring us our room key.
After waiting half an hour, and receiving renewed assurances that someone would come "in thirty minutes", David wryly asked, "Is that a promise?"
The hotel manager's quick reply was classic: "In the Sudan, there are no promises."

New Hygienic Lows: As the Sudan represents my first real experience with the third world, there has understandably been a consistently plunging progress of my own admittedly lax standards of personal hygiene. Memorable slashings perhaps include: a much higher tolerance of dirt on my body, caked on my feet, and under my fingernails; a willingness to sleep on soiled bedding (previously absent from my character); a newfound, almost joyous appreciation for squat toilets, which I actually prefer now as the toilet requiring the least intimate interaction on my part.

Bizarre (and potentially unhealthy) Habits Acquired: To while away the hours on long-distance bus-rides (reading leads to vomit, and even I have to wake up from naps some time), I have begun to perform math calculations in my head. A crippling lifelong dependency on pen and paper to do any decent math at all means that even a minute's worth of long division can entertain me for the ten minutes it takes me to puzzle out the solution without mixing up any decimals. Consequently, I have calculated that, including end-dates, this trip comprises exactly 233 days, or 33.285714 (repeating from the tenth's place) weeks. I also discovered that January 20th represented the 25th day of this trip, at which sunset 10.729% lay behind us, and 89.281% of adventure was yet to come. (I couldn't be assed to work out the ten-thousanth's place.) Somebody get a calculator and check me. God, I'm a loser.

Worst experience in the Sudan: The mob moment comes to mind, or the Great Bug-Bivy Bedbug Bedevilment of Port Sudan in which I sustained no less than 141 itchy red lumps in a single night... but really, I've got to go with the black peanuts, or my five days of sick sick sickness

Best Experience in the Sudan: the competition for this prize is considerably stiffer, and the Sudanis themselves are to blame. My enriching and satisfying experiences interacting with them on issues both small and significant rival the number of different delicious teas I've tasted.

One experience does stand out a bit, however: in Gedaref we happened upon a rickshaw driver who was studying English, and who was more than enthusiastic to talk to us for practice. We ended up spending the afternoon together as Ahmed took us out to a lake from his childhood, and in strolling about its borders it came out that this very bright young man was a university graduate whose political differences with General B's National Congress Party (NCP) had made it all but impossible for him to find a proper job. Thus, the rickshaw. Upon my inquiring further, he revealed that he was alone in his views even among his family, who seemed to side with pragmatism over the luxury of political skepticism. I was touched by his quiet courage, and even more by his warm-hearted eagerness to treat us to his generosity.

It happened that Gedaref became our last stop in the Sudan before crossing the Ethiopian border, so we arranged to see Ahmed again as we passed back through. I cannot think of a better way to bring our Sudanese sojourn to a close than that final evening, spent sharing conversation and culture over honeyed sweets (that we had to fight to pay for) with an open-minded and intellectually curious Sudani. We left him with warm handshakes and photographs, and I hope he has a chance at a better life someday very, very soon. Like all Sudanis, and all people, he deserves better than dictatorship.

I will miss you, al-Sudan.

The Sudanese Security Forces.. at their finest

[real date: January 21, 2009]

Though our time in the Sudan is drawing to a close, it is perhaps fitting to tell one last adventure before we head to Ethiopia.. not to return (sniff).
This particular adventure involved an encounter with the police, and constitutes my most extensive experience with the security forces of another country. (Though that record may not hold up for long here.)

It started with the travel permits. David has often quipped, very aptly, that here in the Sudan we have "The best visas money can buy!" .. that is, the most expensive. What with the visas themselves, the registrations, various permissions and other fees, we have probably donated about USD$1,100 to the government of Sudan just for the privilege of getting in the door. (And no, that doesn't include taking any pictures - too much of a skinflint to purchase the scam-esque
'Photographer's Permit', I have chosen simply to snap my shots as surreptitiously as possible.)
Part of that sum went to finagling city-specific 'Travel Permits' to allow us to get out from the capital. In each city or town, we've had to produce these papers alongside our visas, with their explicit endorsement of our legality in the area, and register ourselves - me usually just as "Jana" or under David's name because the harassed police officers lose heart when they see my surname. [Side note added later: There would be no record whatsoever of Jana Marie Hutchinson ever exiting the Sudan for this same reason.]

In only one city did we have problems: one plainclothes officer in Sennar, after struggling to find a hole in our documentation, finally hit upon the one town that was just outside the border of our included provinces, Kosti. We had planned to make a day-trip there from Sennar, but the officer
explicitly forbade it.
After he left, David and I discussed the possibilities. We both really wanted to see Kosti, and if we hired a taxi to take us there and back we might easily slip under the radar of the next town, whose security forces might not be so finicky, and we could get away with not registering as we wouldn't stay the night. Ultimately we abandoned this idea for its costliness (resisting a pun for "Kosti" here), and glad we were that we did: not an hour after we left our hotel to innocently walk about Sennar's market, we realized that we were being tailed. Subtlety was unfortunately beyond the grasp of the local kid obviously assigned to spy on us, and as the (three) of us meandered together through the town we couldn't help being a bit pleased with ourselves for having decided to keep it legal.

Ironically, for all our legality, we were to spend the next night in a police compound anyway.
Making our way to the tiny town of Dinder the next morning, we immediately became the most exciting thing to be seen in weeks- and the best entertainment to be had in at least as long- for the good but bored men of Dinder's provincial security headquarters. Registering upon arrival, we received only dumbfounded stares in reply to our inquiries after a hotel. There was no hotel. There was no hostel. There was no guesthouse. There was, in fact, no tourism at all, and running shy of ideas about what to do with us, the kind officers decided to put us up themselves (free of charge) in their own headquarters.

For the rest of that day, spent in an elaborate but fruitless quest for a bank, moneychanger, or other person able to offer forex services, we enjoyed a full escort of several delighted members of Sudan's finest. Though the grimy, tired faces of David and myself that day may have betrayed fatigue and frustration with our vain attempts to do, really, ANYTHING in tiny Dinder OR its vicinity, the officers were positively radiant with the responsibility of guarding us. Don't let the stern, official-looking expressions they both immediately adopted for the sake of my forbidden (but joyously-welcomed) photo-taking fool you: they were thrilled to be along for the ride. And what a ride it was..

Day over, settling into our quarters at Dinder's police compound, I reflected on the somewhat satisfying symmetrical irony of it all. We may have narrowly escaped official arrestation that morning.. but we didn't get out of spending the night under governmental guard. Mash'allah..