I have lately been finding the same thing that one of my fellow Africa-bloggers notices in her own writing (My posts are getting longer.. and darker), so to lighten up the intensity a bit before the bitter end here I'll put up some entirely frivolous thoughts that have been bouncing around in my head for a few months about some of the most interesting characters you will meet in Africa - the farm animals.
Meet, first, the Goat. This is an entirely frivolous animal that behaves in an exclusively frivolous way; the species has just managed to collect two wits to rub together between the lot of them, and rubbing those two wits together is about all they can handle. The goat typically spend most of its time eating absolutely anything in sight, trying to stand on two legs in order to get at more things to eat, or skittering around like a ninny after having its eating interrupted. Occasionally they will take a break from eating and skittering to emit high-pitched bleats, or to pursue some illicit behavior with the nearest munching goat or the opposite sex (or otherwise), before going back to eating, climbing and skittering.
Frivolity isn't really a sin in my book, and eating can only be a good thing, so I have a pretty good feeling about goats in general. It seems the rumors are true and intelligence really isn't conducive to happiness, for goats seem pretty thrilled with their lot in life - a never-ending meal with breaks for sex and self-expression.
The goat is, in this and several other ways, almost indistinguishable from my favorite of all farm animals, the Sheep. For me, the key distinctive feature between the two lies in attitude, for while goats skitter around acting like ecstatic idiots, sheep are much more chill. Yeah, they're into eating, but they're also heavily into just hangin' out. When you meet a sheep, it might be eating; it might also just be standing around, or lying down, or taking in the sun. Though goats and sheep are almost exactly the same in size, general shape, relationship to humans, bleating sound, and probable intelligence, to me sheep just seem so much cooler. (For those less attuned to animal 'tude, look for tail diversity - goats will always have a tufty, up-pointed tail-fluff, while sheep will probably have a floppy thing of variable length, width, size, and color.)
Either one of these animals, though, is infinitely happier than their larger farm counterpart: Meet the Donkey. One of the first ways in which you are likely to meet Mr. Donkey is by wildly swerving to miss him as he saunters in front of your car. The Ethiopians tell a story explaining this strange behavior; they say that a donkey, a goat, and a dog all boarded a bus. The donkey paid the full fare and with exact change, and as a result will unabashedly waltz right in front of any vehicle that comes his way because he knows he's already paid up. The goat, however, cheating little ninny that she is, scooted off the bus without paying, which is why she skitters away every time - runnin' from justice, you see. My favorite, though, is the dog - he paid, but then the driver screwed him out of his change, so now every time the dog sees that bus again he goes chasing after it wildly barking for all he's worth, ''GIMME MY CHANGE!!! GIMME MY CHANGE!!''
(Shortly after hearing this story for the first time, our bus was chased down by a wildly barking dog and since then I've never been able to think of anything but Gimme my change! whenever I encounter a car-chasing dog.)
The dog and goat theories match up pretty well, but I confess I'm not satisfied with the explanation for the donkey. Who walks in front of a bus just because they've paid for it? Are paying customers routinely the tragic victims of vehicular manslaughter? No, there's pretty much only one reason why anyone intentionally walks right in front of a speeding vehicle, and that leads me to my own theory about why donkeys aim for any vehicle in their proximity - they're all suicidal.
I didn't come up with this out of thin air. Just by looking at him, you quickly realize that the donkey is the saddest of all the animal friends you will meet in Africa, and not just because of A. A. Milne's representation either. After seven months here I have seen a lot of silly animals doing a lot of silly things, but I have never seen a donkey smile. They seem to take pleasure neither from eating nor from resting in the shade, and I have certainly never seen any goat- or sheep-like frolicking. I have seen donkeys staring despondently at the ground; I have seen donkeys plodding along with a disheartened, kill-me-now air; I have seen donkeys hurrying with grim determination for the empty road in front of the nearest speeding bus. Donkeys, it is plain to see, are the most miserable of all of Africa's creatures.
The cruel irony of this, of course, is that in a land of goat, lamb, and beef-eating carnivores, the donkey is actually the *only* farm animal that can count on living a long life and seeing old age. And so they plod on, head down, aimless and dejected, knowing that their only ticket out of years of drudgery is that speeding minibus headed their way.
But don't worry... before anyone accuses me of getting plenty dark in a deliberately frivolous blog-post, I'll happily affirm that despite donkeys' best efforts, the cars always miss. And every time, the failed donkey gazes balefully after, lost in our dust, sighing and likely thinking in an Eeyore-ish voice: ''Lost another one.. next time.''
Showing posts with label Ethiopia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ethiopia. Show all posts
Monday, July 27
Wednesday, July 22
African One-Liners
Since I'm stuck recuperating in Conakry with the kind of internet connection that comes once in a lifetime in Africa, seems like as good a time as any to dump a collection of quotes that, over the past few months, have made me laugh.. or tilt my head and think: "?"
David, in Arusha, Tanzania, on finding a guide: "If we stand around and look white, sooner or later we'll find someone."
"Now we're full." -- the herder of a 14-passenger bus in Rwanda, on boarding his 26th passenger. (Several of us immediately protested amid general laughter that we could surely fit at least two more...)
Butros Butros Ghali, on being asked to distinguish between the Arabic bukra, insha'allah and the Spanish mañana: "The Arabic 'bukra' has none of 'mañana's sense of urgency."
David to me, haughtily, after I made a snarky remark about how unexpectedly luxurious our Congolese hotel room was: "Unlike you, I don't need to be in a nest of cockroaches to get a good night's sleep."
Debating whether or not Libya was a swell country, in response to my comment on the governmental status the (pro-Libya) Nigerien dude responded: "Well, yeah.. but who gives a fuck about democracy??"
On the mass of hair that came away from my head when I took out my braids from Zanzibar - "Man, you could stuff a pillow with that." And pressed as to the color of that still attached to my scalp: "Uh... if I had to say, I would probably say... indeterminate."
"Hey, it takes a lot of willpower to go through a can of tuna!" --David, defensively, to my stare of disgust as he tuna-stank up our squalid hotel room in Kenya.
Anna and Matt, two friendly Peace Corpsers, on the obstacles to tourism in coastal Benin and Togo: "The tourists come out here in the morning with their towels and there are like six to eight people shitting on the beach."
"And this is for.. grabbing and strangling something, I guess." --David, in all seriousness, describing an item at the label-less National Museum of Ethiopia.
(This one I can't claim to have seen myself, but it's good enough to merit repeating) On a billboard in Nigeria: Do you suffer from virginal drip?
From me to David, on a random street in Masindi, Uganda after leaping out of the way of yet another honking taxi: "You know, I'm getting kind of sick of people threatening me with vehicular homicide as a means of getting my attention."
An idealistic museum docent in Benin, showing a morality statue of a woman naked to the waist, explained to the assembled Beninese (and me) how female nudity to the waist is 'okay' in African culture. One of his countrywomen heartily disagreed, and a spot of bickering ensued. The man was persistent, but the woman soon won it beyond all claim with: "Now just what do you think would happen to me if I wandered around the street naked to the waist??"
On the crowds of people swarming around our huge bus and waving their arms madly as we attempted a cramped 3-pt-turn in congested Nairobi: "Gee, everyone here's a budding traffic director."
"Hm.. One minute." -- David's estimate for how roughly how long it would take to break down the rickety plywood-and-rusted-bolt combination ambitiously calling itself my hotel door.
(15 minutes - time spent relocating all furniture in my room to directly in front of said door.)
And finally, one more to make his parents proud: David, discussing my student health plan in the EG airport, in response to my apprehension about the insurance supplier: "Man, I would take Satan himself if he was offered to me at a 75% discount!"
(Which, with insurance companies, is more or less the same thing.)
David, in Arusha, Tanzania, on finding a guide: "If we stand around and look white, sooner or later we'll find someone."
"Now we're full." -- the herder of a 14-passenger bus in Rwanda, on boarding his 26th passenger. (Several of us immediately protested amid general laughter that we could surely fit at least two more...)
Butros Butros Ghali, on being asked to distinguish between the Arabic bukra, insha'allah and the Spanish mañana: "The Arabic 'bukra' has none of 'mañana's sense of urgency."
David to me, haughtily, after I made a snarky remark about how unexpectedly luxurious our Congolese hotel room was: "Unlike you, I don't need to be in a nest of cockroaches to get a good night's sleep."
Debating whether or not Libya was a swell country, in response to my comment on the governmental status the (pro-Libya) Nigerien dude responded: "Well, yeah.. but who gives a fuck about democracy??"
On the mass of hair that came away from my head when I took out my braids from Zanzibar - "Man, you could stuff a pillow with that." And pressed as to the color of that still attached to my scalp: "Uh... if I had to say, I would probably say... indeterminate."
"Hey, it takes a lot of willpower to go through a can of tuna!" --David, defensively, to my stare of disgust as he tuna-stank up our squalid hotel room in Kenya.
Anna and Matt, two friendly Peace Corpsers, on the obstacles to tourism in coastal Benin and Togo: "The tourists come out here in the morning with their towels and there are like six to eight people shitting on the beach."
"And this is for.. grabbing and strangling something, I guess." --David, in all seriousness, describing an item at the label-less National Museum of Ethiopia.
(This one I can't claim to have seen myself, but it's good enough to merit repeating) On a billboard in Nigeria: Do you suffer from virginal drip?
From me to David, on a random street in Masindi, Uganda after leaping out of the way of yet another honking taxi: "You know, I'm getting kind of sick of people threatening me with vehicular homicide as a means of getting my attention."
An idealistic museum docent in Benin, showing a morality statue of a woman naked to the waist, explained to the assembled Beninese (and me) how female nudity to the waist is 'okay' in African culture. One of his countrywomen heartily disagreed, and a spot of bickering ensued. The man was persistent, but the woman soon won it beyond all claim with: "Now just what do you think would happen to me if I wandered around the street naked to the waist??"
On the crowds of people swarming around our huge bus and waving their arms madly as we attempted a cramped 3-pt-turn in congested Nairobi: "Gee, everyone here's a budding traffic director."
"Hm.. One minute." -- David's estimate for how roughly how long it would take to break down the rickety plywood-and-rusted-bolt combination ambitiously calling itself my hotel door.
(15 minutes - time spent relocating all furniture in my room to directly in front of said door.)
And finally, one more to make his parents proud: David, discussing my student health plan in the EG airport, in response to my apprehension about the insurance supplier: "Man, I would take Satan himself if he was offered to me at a 75% discount!"
(Which, with insurance companies, is more or less the same thing.)
Thursday, July 9
Meet the Scammers
If scamming is indeed an art (which I would argue it truly is) and the masters of its trade thus artists, then Africans may hold their heads high as possessing as much ingenuity, creativity, charm, and persistence as the best that America has to offer. (And that's a high standard.)
There is the friendly self-appointed Guide, who follows you to wherever you're headed, maintaining an amiable banter until the destination and leave-taking, at which point you are informed that you were actually led there by his guiding services and kindly pay the proper fee for his time and effort. (And no, not an accidentally gendered word choice.)
There is the Yes! Taxi, in which arrival at the agreed destination is considerably complicated by the driver only pretending to know the way. Subsequent loss of gas and time while wandering aimlessly around a city must naturally be reimbursed by you, the passenger (just punishment for your foolishness in believing the driver when he said, "Yes! I know it! Get in!").
There is the Baggage Scam, most infuriating of all scams to David, produced by the shock of a passenger arriving at a long-distance bus station with - are you sitting down for this? - luggage. While no one else is paying for the ten chickens, bale of yams, children, or possibly goats that they are transporting, the two white people who just showed up with a suitcase apiece are sure to be hit with high fees for their passengerish extravagance.
And let us of course not forget the trusty Bait'n'Switch, when the original offer assumes new and exciting forms with astronomical proportions after services have been rendered - due of course to a misunderstanding on our part, or unforeseeable problems that were unforeseeably created by the party to be paid.
***ALLOW ME TO QUICKLY INTERJECT that by no means are all, or even most, Africans enterprising scam-artists. I would not even call it an appreciable minority. But if only one out of fifty people in your average African street are unscrupulous (a figure severely below that which you might estimate in any country), another honorable two hope to make legitimate clients out of tourists, and a final two are curious/bold/bored enough to come chat for kicks, then roughly one in five people approaching us of their own volition has a great NGO you've never heard of, and we will get the artificial impression that 20% of Africans are pseudo-criminals every time. In poor countries frequented by foolish and apparently high-rolling UN types and tourists, expect the above estimate to rocket skyward. It's simply an unfortunate fact of travel that we probably meet and talk to 2% of the inhabitants of a place we visit, and 90% of its scam-artists. (The other 10% were probably on the toilet at the time - they cursed their ill-luck later.) We're just too good, and sometimes too rare, for idle criminals to pass up.
So, we have (or more honestly, David has) developed a few tricks to protect ourselves from Les Trompeurs, while hopefully not shutting out opportunities for those casual exchanges with locals that make being in Africa so sincerely pleasant. We never reveal our hotel to strangers; we wait out followers or confuse them by diverging paths; we establish clear prices beforehand so no one gets peeved later. Of course we still get caught occasionally. Sometimes we can talk our way out of it, and sometimes we can't. But by and large we deflect the vast majority of flack that flies our way, sometimes in astonishing swarms, with a system of our own that can honestly only be called a scam itself... Please, meet the scammers.
The first part of it was formulated in Yaounde, Cameroon, in response to our difficulty getting rooms with two beds. Church missions had such rooms for low prices, but refused to hostel them to unmarried pairs; while they weren't about to demand a marriage license, it was an uncomfortable falsehood we were both unwilling to play, and failed anyway to explain why in the world we would insist on two separate beds.
David deserves all credit for the stroke of brilliance that has made hotelling a thousand times easier since - "What if you're my niece?" We worked out the details. He's my mom's younger brother, thus the surname difference, and no need to mention my older sisters who would seriously call into question my mom's age or his (almost 15 years apart). Finally, a simple explanation for why we travel together, inoffensive to this most religious of continents, and readily believed by everyone from hoteliers to market sellers to commanders of the rebel forces in northern Cote d'Ivoire. Even better, it has the added advantage of actually fitting our relationship rather well - David is definitely the senior partner on our team and deals with the everyday finances, and our rapport is one of obvious high familiarity and friendliness - yet lacking the romantic element that would normally be present in a co-ed pair on vacation.
Such has been the success of this 'scam' that we've expanded it from its original hotel-room dimensions to the marketplace and motorpark, enabling David to help me lower prices by 'refusing' to pay for a niece's frivolous excesses. I can show my willingness to buy to keep a negotiation going, normally risky because it screams Charge me ANYTHING!, yet with Uncle David, I also demonstrate a financially restricting force more tangible and immediate to the seller's eye than a vague, incomprehensible reluctance to pay ten times an item's value. For his prices, David plays the act of an interested but wafflingly indecisive customer, wholly dependent on the hip opinion of his highly skeptical niece. It's a fabulous scam, and I only wish we had thought of it earlier.
(Pardon the second interjection, but I would like to pre-empt any criticism that the above behavior is unfair to local business, that my post-colonial duty as a white tourist in Africa is to distribute as much money as possible among the locals. I suspect that such behavior is hardly likely to engender mutual respect and genuine cultural exchange, and doesn't provide a fair or sustainable source of aid anyway. Besides, may I assure the audience that Africans are *just* as intelligent as anyone else and generally more canny than most cultures I've met, and no seller is going to part with something at a price not worth their while. They don't want handouts, they want business - and hopefully a lively haggle.)
Part Two of our scam, formulated exclusively for francophone countries, is even better. The inspiration for this dates back to purchasing our Dem Rep of Congo visas at their consulate in Kigoma, Tanzania. I was interpreter, but once visas were obtained I skedaddled gleefully to the sunshine outside, stamped passport in hand, leaving David to shake hands goodbye with an official keen to extract a bribe. "Ah, j'ai beaucoup travaillé pour faire ces visas..." I heard him falter behind me to a blankly smiling David, who quickly exclaimed a heavily accented "Merrcee! Mercee!" over the diplomat's delicate attempts to suggest that we could peut-être offer something de petit for his travail exceptionel. His travail exceptionel (which, considering the current demand for DRC tourist visas, it probably was) would unhappily for him be recompensed only by the visa fees and his salary, for without an interpreter present, he had no access to the party identified as Mr. Pocketbook. Though we hadn't planned it that way (or foreseen the bribe attempt), it was the perfect devise for sidestepping a scam. "Merrcee!" David cried with naively broad grins as he waved goodbye, confiding later that he had indeed understood. (But why give that away?)
In francophone West Africa, we've combined David-the-French-buffoon with Uncle-David to produce the ideal situation - one in which we understand that which goes on around us and communicate what we need to, while conveniently 'not' understanding scam attempts. At many Côte d'Ivoirian motorparks/military barriers/random spots by the roadside where we stopped to play what I came to call Musical Vans, random herders or pseudo-soldiers would occasionally demand immediate payment of extra 'fees'. In the face of their fierce demands, the interpreter inexplicably sat silent as a stone, chatty just a moment earlier but apparently moneyless, while Mr. Pocketbook fumbled back a classic je-ne-parler-francais-pas that would make any good Français cringe. A few frustrated scammers were ultimately driven to screaming "Give money! Money!" at David in English in an attempt to break through our joint incompetence, but that was decidedly less eloquent, persusasive, and crowd-convincing than whatever they had to say in French, and soon after they generally gave up.
It's a rollicking good scam.
Yet we're still only amateurs among the best that NGO- and tourist-experienced West Africa has to offer, and trying to foresee the traps that will materialize out of thin air with snaky ropes already around our ankles occupies a considerable amount of my time in motorparks, that most fertile of scam-havens. Herder fees, union fees, baggage scams, van-switches, false destinations - it's definitely enough to keep you busy (and also probably entertained).
"They're gonna try to scam us," I complained out loud of the sketchy herders in a recent motorpark, plotting out some possible escape route. "Oh well," David shrugged, unconcerned: "If they scam us, we'll scam them right back."
There is the friendly self-appointed Guide, who follows you to wherever you're headed, maintaining an amiable banter until the destination and leave-taking, at which point you are informed that you were actually led there by his guiding services and kindly pay the proper fee for his time and effort. (And no, not an accidentally gendered word choice.)
There is the Yes! Taxi, in which arrival at the agreed destination is considerably complicated by the driver only pretending to know the way. Subsequent loss of gas and time while wandering aimlessly around a city must naturally be reimbursed by you, the passenger (just punishment for your foolishness in believing the driver when he said, "Yes! I know it! Get in!").
There is the Baggage Scam, most infuriating of all scams to David, produced by the shock of a passenger arriving at a long-distance bus station with - are you sitting down for this? - luggage. While no one else is paying for the ten chickens, bale of yams, children, or possibly goats that they are transporting, the two white people who just showed up with a suitcase apiece are sure to be hit with high fees for their passengerish extravagance.
And let us of course not forget the trusty Bait'n'Switch, when the original offer assumes new and exciting forms with astronomical proportions after services have been rendered - due of course to a misunderstanding on our part, or unforeseeable problems that were unforeseeably created by the party to be paid.
***ALLOW ME TO QUICKLY INTERJECT that by no means are all, or even most, Africans enterprising scam-artists. I would not even call it an appreciable minority. But if only one out of fifty people in your average African street are unscrupulous (a figure severely below that which you might estimate in any country), another honorable two hope to make legitimate clients out of tourists, and a final two are curious/bold/bored enough to come chat for kicks, then roughly one in five people approaching us of their own volition has a great NGO you've never heard of, and we will get the artificial impression that 20% of Africans are pseudo-criminals every time. In poor countries frequented by foolish and apparently high-rolling UN types and tourists, expect the above estimate to rocket skyward. It's simply an unfortunate fact of travel that we probably meet and talk to 2% of the inhabitants of a place we visit, and 90% of its scam-artists. (The other 10% were probably on the toilet at the time - they cursed their ill-luck later.) We're just too good, and sometimes too rare, for idle criminals to pass up.
So, we have (or more honestly, David has) developed a few tricks to protect ourselves from Les Trompeurs, while hopefully not shutting out opportunities for those casual exchanges with locals that make being in Africa so sincerely pleasant. We never reveal our hotel to strangers; we wait out followers or confuse them by diverging paths; we establish clear prices beforehand so no one gets peeved later. Of course we still get caught occasionally. Sometimes we can talk our way out of it, and sometimes we can't. But by and large we deflect the vast majority of flack that flies our way, sometimes in astonishing swarms, with a system of our own that can honestly only be called a scam itself... Please, meet the scammers.
The first part of it was formulated in Yaounde, Cameroon, in response to our difficulty getting rooms with two beds. Church missions had such rooms for low prices, but refused to hostel them to unmarried pairs; while they weren't about to demand a marriage license, it was an uncomfortable falsehood we were both unwilling to play, and failed anyway to explain why in the world we would insist on two separate beds.
David deserves all credit for the stroke of brilliance that has made hotelling a thousand times easier since - "What if you're my niece?" We worked out the details. He's my mom's younger brother, thus the surname difference, and no need to mention my older sisters who would seriously call into question my mom's age or his (almost 15 years apart). Finally, a simple explanation for why we travel together, inoffensive to this most religious of continents, and readily believed by everyone from hoteliers to market sellers to commanders of the rebel forces in northern Cote d'Ivoire. Even better, it has the added advantage of actually fitting our relationship rather well - David is definitely the senior partner on our team and deals with the everyday finances, and our rapport is one of obvious high familiarity and friendliness - yet lacking the romantic element that would normally be present in a co-ed pair on vacation.
Such has been the success of this 'scam' that we've expanded it from its original hotel-room dimensions to the marketplace and motorpark, enabling David to help me lower prices by 'refusing' to pay for a niece's frivolous excesses. I can show my willingness to buy to keep a negotiation going, normally risky because it screams Charge me ANYTHING!, yet with Uncle David, I also demonstrate a financially restricting force more tangible and immediate to the seller's eye than a vague, incomprehensible reluctance to pay ten times an item's value. For his prices, David plays the act of an interested but wafflingly indecisive customer, wholly dependent on the hip opinion of his highly skeptical niece. It's a fabulous scam, and I only wish we had thought of it earlier.
(Pardon the second interjection, but I would like to pre-empt any criticism that the above behavior is unfair to local business, that my post-colonial duty as a white tourist in Africa is to distribute as much money as possible among the locals. I suspect that such behavior is hardly likely to engender mutual respect and genuine cultural exchange, and doesn't provide a fair or sustainable source of aid anyway. Besides, may I assure the audience that Africans are *just* as intelligent as anyone else and generally more canny than most cultures I've met, and no seller is going to part with something at a price not worth their while. They don't want handouts, they want business - and hopefully a lively haggle.)
Part Two of our scam, formulated exclusively for francophone countries, is even better. The inspiration for this dates back to purchasing our Dem Rep of Congo visas at their consulate in Kigoma, Tanzania. I was interpreter, but once visas were obtained I skedaddled gleefully to the sunshine outside, stamped passport in hand, leaving David to shake hands goodbye with an official keen to extract a bribe. "Ah, j'ai beaucoup travaillé pour faire ces visas..." I heard him falter behind me to a blankly smiling David, who quickly exclaimed a heavily accented "Merrcee! Mercee!" over the diplomat's delicate attempts to suggest that we could peut-être offer something de petit for his travail exceptionel. His travail exceptionel (which, considering the current demand for DRC tourist visas, it probably was) would unhappily for him be recompensed only by the visa fees and his salary, for without an interpreter present, he had no access to the party identified as Mr. Pocketbook. Though we hadn't planned it that way (or foreseen the bribe attempt), it was the perfect devise for sidestepping a scam. "Merrcee!" David cried with naively broad grins as he waved goodbye, confiding later that he had indeed understood. (But why give that away?)
In francophone West Africa, we've combined David-the-French-buffoon with Uncle-David to produce the ideal situation - one in which we understand that which goes on around us and communicate what we need to, while conveniently 'not' understanding scam attempts. At many Côte d'Ivoirian motorparks/military barriers/random spots by the roadside where we stopped to play what I came to call Musical Vans, random herders or pseudo-soldiers would occasionally demand immediate payment of extra 'fees'. In the face of their fierce demands, the interpreter inexplicably sat silent as a stone, chatty just a moment earlier but apparently moneyless, while Mr. Pocketbook fumbled back a classic je-ne-parler-francais-pas that would make any good Français cringe. A few frustrated scammers were ultimately driven to screaming "Give money! Money!" at David in English in an attempt to break through our joint incompetence, but that was decidedly less eloquent, persusasive, and crowd-convincing than whatever they had to say in French, and soon after they generally gave up.
It's a rollicking good scam.
Yet we're still only amateurs among the best that NGO- and tourist-experienced West Africa has to offer, and trying to foresee the traps that will materialize out of thin air with snaky ropes already around our ankles occupies a considerable amount of my time in motorparks, that most fertile of scam-havens. Herder fees, union fees, baggage scams, van-switches, false destinations - it's definitely enough to keep you busy (and also probably entertained).
"They're gonna try to scam us," I complained out loud of the sketchy herders in a recent motorpark, plotting out some possible escape route. "Oh well," David shrugged, unconcerned: "If they scam us, we'll scam them right back."
Saturday, June 13
Government by the people
While we say we have democracy and the free market in the West, we don't really employ it at anything other than a macro-governmental level. Even then it's more republican - government by representative - than direct governance by citizens. Heck, we don't even elect our president.. those enigmatic elector chaps do.
Shift a few time zones to the east, and you arrive on a continent notorious for the tendency of its governments to creatively reinterpret democratic institutions. Legislatures serve to approve the decisions of the rulers; judiciaries serve to legitimize them. Elections are regime birthday parties. National security and presidential security are blurred to the point of serving the same function. Welcome to Africa, home of some of the world's longest-ruling/ most-murdering/ best-manipulating rulers in the world... and several of my favorites among them. Speaking of which, may I dedicate this entire entry to the all-too-timely passing of one of the longest.. Rest In Conscience, Omar Bongo. Perhaps now Gabon finally has its own decades-late shot at free and fair elections, but from the critical vantage point of many of my jaded countrymen, democracy anywhere on the continent too often has an icicle's chance in hell.
But in the most interesting way, at the most basic level Africa has stripped away all the trash we pile on top of popular rule and the free market. Welcome to Africa, the world's last preserve of Micro-Democracy.
You see it in the haggling - in a world where the only real price is the price you're willing to pay, there is no such thing as vendor decree. Instead, the buyer (me) and the seller (her) settle on a balance, some number in the hopefully overlapping ranges of the highest price I'm willing to pay, and the lowest price at which she can still make a profit. There is a price below which the sale is no longer worth it to her, and a corresponding price above which the item isn't worth it to me. The haggle system is idyllic in that it favors the perfect result every time - a compromise in which the buyer walks away happy because they found an item they wanted/needed at an acceptable price, and the vendor goes home happy because she made the highest profit possible.
The system is attended by all the non-governmental controls theory predicts - with more time than money, consumers will check their wares over carefully before purchase, and vendors know that low-quality or spoiled wares either won't sell well, or won't sell at all. Even under most dictatorships, the micro-economy will still continue to function under democratic principles. It's as simple as that, it's Friedrich Hayek's dream - it's a free market.
You see it in the group compromise - when David warned me early on that I wouldn't always be able to open my window on a stuffy bus, I understood him to mean that the windows were often stuck shut. (Which they are.) I accepted that, but couldn't believe what he had actually meant - that other people in the bus not wanting my window open would mean I couldn't have it open.
"What do you mean, other people??" I demanded indignantly, fresh in my righteous American individualism. "It's my window, they can keep their own windows open or closed however they like."
He warned me that such an attitude might not get far, and he was right - in shock would I discover that the cross Ethiopian women sitting meters away from me in the bus could actually claim power over the window right next to my face. The force at work was one I came to appreciate (and, in time, also use) - crowd appeal. If the women could convince a few other people to ally with them against just me, they already had a clear majority to my minority, and even the window-apathetic factions in the bus would recognize their right to tell an outvoted minority what to do with her window. I wallowed in scandalized outrage each time this happened, each time I was consigned to gasping away the dusty hours in a 100°F bus only millimeters of glass away from the fresh air outside, just because some dumb #@$*% didn't want to mess up her hair. It's probably pretty obvious that a part of me still hasn't gotten over this. But I've learned to accept the fairness behind it - even small affairs I intend to control myself will be subject to a democratic system of approval or repeal.
You see it in the power of popular pressure - I perhaps did not truly appreciate the fairness of crowd appeal until a memorable pick-up ride in Zanzibar. We had paid the herder with a large bill for the trip, and asked the price from him; upon inquiring from other passengers in the truck bed what the real fare was, we asked him for our change. Seeking to squeeze a little extra profit out of the situation, he first feigned ignorance, then denied what the other passengers said, before finally decreeing that it didn't matter since we were foreigners anyway. The awkward discussion grew increasingly heated in the small benched space until he and David flew into equal and opposite rages.
Despite all David's fury, without the resource of crowd appeal, we would probably never have seen our ten bucks again. As it was, David and I enlisted the quiet sympathy of the other passengers, all of whom had witnessed the situation and all of whom knew the exact fare. Though the herder might have been able to convince just one other person to go along with him on grounds of racial solidarity, in the face of a local crowd he had no choice but eventual capitulation.
The ultimate returning of change was judiciously, impartially, and professionally brokered by the two men across from David, a senior Muslim and a middle-aged businessman who emerged by their status and age as Arbiters. (This, by the way, is just as important a personality as any I've ever talked about before - even more interesting than the Shopper - and has become by far my favorite.) Their calm counsel was understood to represent the local opinion, and they were thus able to exert far more pressure on the herder to relinquish our money than any threat we could have made. Popular pressure demanded that he back down, and popular pressure alone upheld the standards of fairness.
And when members of society break that trust, you see it in the instant (and all too excessive) public justice. While in areas of tension this goes dangerously overboard, in daily life it serves to settle disputes fairly - as in Zanzibar - or punish unacceptable behavior. A guilty party may present to those present their excuses or mitigating factors - think of it as an instant trial, with a jury of witnesses. A judge (the Arbiter) emerges naturally among the bystanders as a local authority, perhaps a senior member of the community, or just someone who can command a presence of calm impartiality and reason. Redress is decided upon and carried out, and in irreparable cases the transgressors of acceptable conduct are punished with shaming.
I'm not sure if this would work in the private, individual culture of the United States, where scorned refractory citizens are all too happy to retreat from the public eye to the sacred territory of their own home (or the internet). Here in Africa, however, to be shamed is worse than a slap. The power of public shame is immense, the mere threat of which serves to hold together the delicate trust fibers of one of Africa's best inventions - Window Shopping.
I was blown away the first time I ever witnessed the window shopping. Though I wouldn't have imagined it, it was impossibly simple - as vehicles slow for police roadblocks or speed-bumps, locals from neighboring villages run up to the car or bus windows bearing goods for sale in their hands or on their heads. Passengers roll down their windows or lean down from high seats to peruse the wares, which most often are local produce, but occasionally other food or crafts.
In creating thus the potential for direct producer--consumer exchange at minimum prices and maximum profit, the window market makes perfect sense.. until you remember that it's taking place on one side from the interior of a barely paused vehicle, and sometimes at a vertical distances so great participants have to throw things at each other. All too often transactions are completed as the vendor begins to jog alongside the bus, hand outstretched to catch that last coin as it drops from the window, or holding the purchased sack of freshly fried dough-balls towards receding fingertips. Yet I have almost never seen a failed sale. Each time the buyer manages to catch all his purchases, and the vendor (often a kid), all his coins.
As an American I never understood this - what's to make sure I really do toss down my coins after my wares are thrown up? I'd only have to hold out a moment before the bus began to move, and then I'd be scot-free. Or alternatively, what's to stop them from grabbing the coins and scampering off if I throw down first, or if I don't have exact change? One of us has to go first, and neither of us is in a position to protest if the other doesn't follow through.
David and I discussed this through several countries before deciding that in the case of a cheating vendor, the passenger must ask the driver to stop; likewise, against a cheating customer, the locals must flag the driver down. This didn't really provide a satisfying explanation, however, because what's to say the bus-driver cooperates? or even hears over the oft-blaring radio? We still wondered.
Our Congolese train trip killed this fledgling theory beyond any resuscitation, for despite the conductor being insulated from any appeal dozens of cars away, the window market was as strong as ever. Yet it also ultimately revealed the true explanation behind why the window market works in
As we delayed for a 'croisement', women and kids from the neighboring villages swarmed below the train windows with platters on their heads. Aside from the varied produce were bottled drinks, plastic sacks, clothes, grilled meat, and tupperware, but I wasn't paying much attention to the market. When we finally started rolling again, a clamor taking place outside the bus drew even my sleepy, jaded attention; women and kids were screaming and began to run alongside the train, now gathering speed. Other locals noticed and began to yell also, smacking on the side of the car below the high windows and attracting the notice of the other passengers, who instantly got involved. A female Arbiter emerged from the seat behind me - she was a really cool, friendly lady with natural presence - and pushed her way up the crowded aisle to sort out the situation. As it was all conducted in a local language, I couldn't follow the details, but it was pretty obvious that a man on the train had somehow cheated the woman still sprinting alongside the train, yelling with energy but falling behind. The Arbiter was pissed at such a clear breach of the window-market trust, and the entire train car fell silent as things got ugly. Though it was kind of too late for payment, it was our impression that under popular pressure, he did throw the last few coins out the window for the woman to hopefully find later; excuses were muttered but not accepted, and as the Arbiter made her way back to her seat, her stony face signalled the response of the entire train car, quietly united in their disapproval of this one man.
I imagine that the remaining 6 hours in the crowded car were not very pleasant for him. Maybe it was worth the 80 cents for him. Maybe in American eyes, he still got away with it. But here in Africa, where 80 cents can mean a lot of money, the honor is still worth more.
So Africa may not be a champion of democracy as we know it, but it definitely employs government by the people. Democracy can be a bit thin at the national level, and it isn't always assured that your government will watch your back.. but at least you know that the people will.
Shift a few time zones to the east, and you arrive on a continent notorious for the tendency of its governments to creatively reinterpret democratic institutions. Legislatures serve to approve the decisions of the rulers; judiciaries serve to legitimize them. Elections are regime birthday parties. National security and presidential security are blurred to the point of serving the same function. Welcome to Africa, home of some of the world's longest-ruling/ most-murdering/ best-manipulating rulers in the world... and several of my favorites among them. Speaking of which, may I dedicate this entire entry to the all-too-timely passing of one of the longest.. Rest In Conscience, Omar Bongo. Perhaps now Gabon finally has its own decades-late shot at free and fair elections, but from the critical vantage point of many of my jaded countrymen, democracy anywhere on the continent too often has an icicle's chance in hell.
But in the most interesting way, at the most basic level Africa has stripped away all the trash we pile on top of popular rule and the free market. Welcome to Africa, the world's last preserve of Micro-Democracy.
You see it in the haggling - in a world where the only real price is the price you're willing to pay, there is no such thing as vendor decree. Instead, the buyer (me) and the seller (her) settle on a balance, some number in the hopefully overlapping ranges of the highest price I'm willing to pay, and the lowest price at which she can still make a profit. There is a price below which the sale is no longer worth it to her, and a corresponding price above which the item isn't worth it to me. The haggle system is idyllic in that it favors the perfect result every time - a compromise in which the buyer walks away happy because they found an item they wanted/needed at an acceptable price, and the vendor goes home happy because she made the highest profit possible.
The system is attended by all the non-governmental controls theory predicts - with more time than money, consumers will check their wares over carefully before purchase, and vendors know that low-quality or spoiled wares either won't sell well, or won't sell at all. Even under most dictatorships, the micro-economy will still continue to function under democratic principles. It's as simple as that, it's Friedrich Hayek's dream - it's a free market.
You see it in the group compromise - when David warned me early on that I wouldn't always be able to open my window on a stuffy bus, I understood him to mean that the windows were often stuck shut. (Which they are.) I accepted that, but couldn't believe what he had actually meant - that other people in the bus not wanting my window open would mean I couldn't have it open.
"What do you mean, other people??" I demanded indignantly, fresh in my righteous American individualism. "It's my window, they can keep their own windows open or closed however they like."
He warned me that such an attitude might not get far, and he was right - in shock would I discover that the cross Ethiopian women sitting meters away from me in the bus could actually claim power over the window right next to my face. The force at work was one I came to appreciate (and, in time, also use) - crowd appeal. If the women could convince a few other people to ally with them against just me, they already had a clear majority to my minority, and even the window-apathetic factions in the bus would recognize their right to tell an outvoted minority what to do with her window. I wallowed in scandalized outrage each time this happened, each time I was consigned to gasping away the dusty hours in a 100°F bus only millimeters of glass away from the fresh air outside, just because some dumb #@$*% didn't want to mess up her hair. It's probably pretty obvious that a part of me still hasn't gotten over this. But I've learned to accept the fairness behind it - even small affairs I intend to control myself will be subject to a democratic system of approval or repeal.
You see it in the power of popular pressure - I perhaps did not truly appreciate the fairness of crowd appeal until a memorable pick-up ride in Zanzibar. We had paid the herder with a large bill for the trip, and asked the price from him; upon inquiring from other passengers in the truck bed what the real fare was, we asked him for our change. Seeking to squeeze a little extra profit out of the situation, he first feigned ignorance, then denied what the other passengers said, before finally decreeing that it didn't matter since we were foreigners anyway. The awkward discussion grew increasingly heated in the small benched space until he and David flew into equal and opposite rages.
Despite all David's fury, without the resource of crowd appeal, we would probably never have seen our ten bucks again. As it was, David and I enlisted the quiet sympathy of the other passengers, all of whom had witnessed the situation and all of whom knew the exact fare. Though the herder might have been able to convince just one other person to go along with him on grounds of racial solidarity, in the face of a local crowd he had no choice but eventual capitulation.
The ultimate returning of change was judiciously, impartially, and professionally brokered by the two men across from David, a senior Muslim and a middle-aged businessman who emerged by their status and age as Arbiters. (This, by the way, is just as important a personality as any I've ever talked about before - even more interesting than the Shopper - and has become by far my favorite.) Their calm counsel was understood to represent the local opinion, and they were thus able to exert far more pressure on the herder to relinquish our money than any threat we could have made. Popular pressure demanded that he back down, and popular pressure alone upheld the standards of fairness.
And when members of society break that trust, you see it in the instant (and all too excessive) public justice. While in areas of tension this goes dangerously overboard, in daily life it serves to settle disputes fairly - as in Zanzibar - or punish unacceptable behavior. A guilty party may present to those present their excuses or mitigating factors - think of it as an instant trial, with a jury of witnesses. A judge (the Arbiter) emerges naturally among the bystanders as a local authority, perhaps a senior member of the community, or just someone who can command a presence of calm impartiality and reason. Redress is decided upon and carried out, and in irreparable cases the transgressors of acceptable conduct are punished with shaming.
I'm not sure if this would work in the private, individual culture of the United States, where scorned refractory citizens are all too happy to retreat from the public eye to the sacred territory of their own home (or the internet). Here in Africa, however, to be shamed is worse than a slap. The power of public shame is immense, the mere threat of which serves to hold together the delicate trust fibers of one of Africa's best inventions - Window Shopping.
I was blown away the first time I ever witnessed the window shopping. Though I wouldn't have imagined it, it was impossibly simple - as vehicles slow for police roadblocks or speed-bumps, locals from neighboring villages run up to the car or bus windows bearing goods for sale in their hands or on their heads. Passengers roll down their windows or lean down from high seats to peruse the wares, which most often are local produce, but occasionally other food or crafts.
In creating thus the potential for direct producer--consumer exchange at minimum prices and maximum profit, the window market makes perfect sense.. until you remember that it's taking place on one side from the interior of a barely paused vehicle, and sometimes at a vertical distances so great participants have to throw things at each other. All too often transactions are completed as the vendor begins to jog alongside the bus, hand outstretched to catch that last coin as it drops from the window, or holding the purchased sack of freshly fried dough-balls towards receding fingertips. Yet I have almost never seen a failed sale. Each time the buyer manages to catch all his purchases, and the vendor (often a kid), all his coins.
As an American I never understood this - what's to make sure I really do toss down my coins after my wares are thrown up? I'd only have to hold out a moment before the bus began to move, and then I'd be scot-free. Or alternatively, what's to stop them from grabbing the coins and scampering off if I throw down first, or if I don't have exact change? One of us has to go first, and neither of us is in a position to protest if the other doesn't follow through.
David and I discussed this through several countries before deciding that in the case of a cheating vendor, the passenger must ask the driver to stop; likewise, against a cheating customer, the locals must flag the driver down. This didn't really provide a satisfying explanation, however, because what's to say the bus-driver cooperates? or even hears over the oft-blaring radio? We still wondered.
Our Congolese train trip killed this fledgling theory beyond any resuscitation, for despite the conductor being insulated from any appeal dozens of cars away, the window market was as strong as ever. Yet it also ultimately revealed the true explanation behind why the window market works in
As we delayed for a 'croisement', women and kids from the neighboring villages swarmed below the train windows with platters on their heads. Aside from the varied produce were bottled drinks, plastic sacks, clothes, grilled meat, and tupperware, but I wasn't paying much attention to the market. When we finally started rolling again, a clamor taking place outside the bus drew even my sleepy, jaded attention; women and kids were screaming and began to run alongside the train, now gathering speed. Other locals noticed and began to yell also, smacking on the side of the car below the high windows and attracting the notice of the other passengers, who instantly got involved. A female Arbiter emerged from the seat behind me - she was a really cool, friendly lady with natural presence - and pushed her way up the crowded aisle to sort out the situation. As it was all conducted in a local language, I couldn't follow the details, but it was pretty obvious that a man on the train had somehow cheated the woman still sprinting alongside the train, yelling with energy but falling behind. The Arbiter was pissed at such a clear breach of the window-market trust, and the entire train car fell silent as things got ugly. Though it was kind of too late for payment, it was our impression that under popular pressure, he did throw the last few coins out the window for the woman to hopefully find later; excuses were muttered but not accepted, and as the Arbiter made her way back to her seat, her stony face signalled the response of the entire train car, quietly united in their disapproval of this one man.
I imagine that the remaining 6 hours in the crowded car were not very pleasant for him. Maybe it was worth the 80 cents for him. Maybe in American eyes, he still got away with it. But here in Africa, where 80 cents can mean a lot of money, the honor is still worth more.
So Africa may not be a champion of democracy as we know it, but it definitely employs government by the people. Democracy can be a bit thin at the national level, and it isn't always assured that your government will watch your back.. but at least you know that the people will.
Thursday, May 28
Punch Buggy
When I was a child, one of the magical and increasingly rare highlights of any day was to land a victory punch on an unsuspecting companion in the classic game of Punch Bug Spotting.
Never would I have believed, until five months ago, that there existed Americans who did not know of this game; cautious in my recent experience of punch-bug ignorance, however, I will explain the rules. They are but two: that (1) Whosoever espies a true, original, Volkswagon bug in any recognizable state of repair has license to [gently] punch their companion, while informing the victim of the color of applicable punch-buggy for their verification. Naturally, rule (2) follows that since any spotter can punch, after revealing the presence of the bug in question the punch initiator had better protect him or herself from an eye-for-eye reprisal by calling "No back-tacks". These are the only two rules, rendering the entire planet a free-for-all for whoever has the quickest eye, fist, and claim-calling combination (which I usually didn't), and explaining why the game was so enormously attractive to the five, seven, or ten-year-old versions of myself.
I say five, seven, or ten, but in truth I have never really stopped playing the Punch Bug Game. It is more the sad disappearance of true VW bugs around the time of their modern replacement than any onset of maturity that caused bug-punching to peter out of my life in middle and high school. My assumption at the time was that true punch bugs were nearing extinction, and that I had better get used to their sleek, shiny, more highly evolved strain and relegate the days of the true Punch-Buggy and bug-punching glory to the fond memory archives of my childhood.
But not so.. punch-bugs, I have been delighted to discover, live on in their own unassuming afterlife.. for Africa is where punch-bugs come to die.
I first noticed this on a side street in Khartoum, probably not more than a week into the trip. Out of the corner of my eye I spotted a sight I hadn't seen in years, one that made my heart leap so suddenly with unexpected joy I almost forgot myself before leaping into action - had David already seen it?? - I flew to punch him first, hollering the triumphal cry of the puncher: "BLUE-PUNCH-BUGGY-NO-BACK-TACKS!!"
David stopped short, staring, bewildered at his lightning defeat. Well, of course I could sympathize with that - he had just missed the only punch-bug opportunity either one of us might see for the entire trip, and even in my impromptu victory dance I well understood that anyone would be upset.
David, however, was remarkably obtuse to the causes behind the swift and unexpected blow he had received. How foolish, to forget such a classic game - even in a ten-year lapse of punch-bug activity - or fail to apreciate the implicitly global nature of the playing field! I began to chide him mericlessly for it.
Difficult and slow was it for me to grasp that David - hold onto your hats here - had never played the punch-buggy game and - WORSE - did not even know of its existence. !!! The mind boggles. What about popular culture?? I demanded. Books, television, movies?? "Heck," I demanded in frightened defense of such a time-honored institution, "what'd you think we called them 'punch-buggies' for anyway??"
He denied ever even having heard such a term.
Well, I wasn't about to let his incomprehensible ignorance rain on my punch-bug parade; it was just too bad he was the only plausible victim within arm's reach for the next eight months and when we (incredibly!) saw another VW bug two weeks later, he was pummelled a second time. "Green-punch-buggy-no-back-tacks!"
The confusion of the first attack was now replaced with an annoyance that threatened to grow dangerous if my hit-and-runs were repeated. A small voice of reason piped that I should let it go; it wasn't worth it, it wasn't adult, and it wasn't fair in any case to play against an uninitiated. But punch-bugs were too deeply absorbed into my character - years of being punched by my quicker, smarter sisters and much quicker, smarter dad meant that a punch-bug victory was like a golden trophy, the pennant of glory for the youngest and slowest member of the family to wave in triumph for the few hours (or minutes) before it would inevitably be snatched back: the Holy Grail of my childhood. Despite losing almost every time, I had revered the Punch Bug Game with an ardency explicable only by my youth (but which the onset of adulthood has done little to erode). To let a VW-Bug pass quietly by with no comment, as if nothing had happened, was unthinkable.
And besides, I had fully explained to him both rules. He was just as eligible as I to be the puncher instead of the punchee. As far as I was concerned, the playing field was level, and let the punching begin.
Not even I expected the massacre that awaited in the capital of Ethiopia, however. The streets of Addis Adeba were lined with '60s Volkswagons in all shapes and sizes, and classic punch-bugs proliferated in every color of the rainbow. (No, really - favorites were burnished gold, turquoise with white racing stripes, and iridescent purple.) After perhaps his 20th time getting punch-bug-punched, David announced in a voice that brooked no discusion that he was through, and declared a moratorium on the Punch Bug Game.
I was nettled. This was the punch-bug paradise I'd been waiting for since age 10, when true punch bugs began to melt out of the West like roaches at a Raid party. No Punch Bug Game? On what grounds?? "You know, you can play too," I charged. "I don't wanna play!" he snapped. I was pretty sure the maneuver was illegal but could think of no, and mutinously began to count up all the punches I was missing out on. I made it to 77 before we left the capital a day later.
It was well into March before I ventured another punch. I had let about a dozen beautiful opportunities slip by, quietly tacking them on to my embittered total of Denied Punch Bugs, but as the memory of the Addis VW Spree faded I began to hope for a gradual and perhaps unnoticeable punch-bug recussitation. My first tentative efforts, quiet and delicate, won looks of contempt but no damning decrees, and soon we were back to the normal pre-Addis level of a few punches a week. I'm not actually a terribly observant person, but after a decade of scouring streets for a punch bug even the chancest glimpse of one of those pastel rounded roofs has the effect of a mild electric shock. Before long, it had a similar effect on David, who began to associate old VWs with vague yet impending danger. He never attempted a counter-attack, though, preferring to retaliate with snide comments relating to his being engaged in some other task, such as finding a taxi or changing money, which might have trumped vintage-car spotting. Such remarks always carried the unmistakeable whiff of superiority; the implication, of course, was that perhaps I ought to restructure my priorities.
I knew better.
But as always happens when one's competition is sub-par, I too got slower, and lazy. No need to race to the punch, really. It would still be there, and let's face it - so would David.
And so it happened one watershed morning about four months into the trip that, as I drifted in and out of cognizance in a share-taxi station wagon, David caught sight of a punch bug and thought : Red-punch-bug. With a stroke of brilliance he identified the ready opportunity and a negligent victim, and spluttering "RED PUNCH BUG! RED PUNCH BUG!" he began to wail on my shoulder with the zeal of a beaten-down underdog suddenly clawing its way to the top. He was so excited that he punched me six or seven times. Irked at the unexpected reversal, I archly informed him that You're only allowed one punch per bug, before punching him back because he had neglected to preclude that possibility by calling no back-tacks. He was oblivious to anything but his triumph. The impossible had come; he had beat me at my own game; anything could happen. I was similarly affected and began to keep greater vigilance, getting him back with another one a few hours later.
At five months, I have now probably punched David close to five hundred times (not counting, of course, the Lost Bugs of Ethiopia). For his part, David claims 24 victories, a modest total until I add that 22 were in the last fortnight, and 21 of those this afternoon in a memorable drive through what could only have been the Final Resting-Place of Punchbugs while the other passengers leaned away from us with looks of alarm and disapproval. Then the moment came - a white bug loomed up suddenly by the side of the road. Instantaneously, we both whirled in our cramped seats, fists almost colliding on their way to target, blurting "WHITE PUN--" Recognition dawned of mutual victory and mutual defeat, and I realized: He is worthy of the Punch Bug Game.
I suppose every master worth her talent must one day come to see herself challenged by her prodigy... but I pity the next person he takes to Africa.
Never would I have believed, until five months ago, that there existed Americans who did not know of this game; cautious in my recent experience of punch-bug ignorance, however, I will explain the rules. They are but two: that (1) Whosoever espies a true, original, Volkswagon bug in any recognizable state of repair has license to [gently] punch their companion, while informing the victim of the color of applicable punch-buggy for their verification. Naturally, rule (2) follows that since any spotter can punch, after revealing the presence of the bug in question the punch initiator had better protect him or herself from an eye-for-eye reprisal by calling "No back-tacks". These are the only two rules, rendering the entire planet a free-for-all for whoever has the quickest eye, fist, and claim-calling combination (which I usually didn't), and explaining why the game was so enormously attractive to the five, seven, or ten-year-old versions of myself.
I say five, seven, or ten, but in truth I have never really stopped playing the Punch Bug Game. It is more the sad disappearance of true VW bugs around the time of their modern replacement than any onset of maturity that caused bug-punching to peter out of my life in middle and high school. My assumption at the time was that true punch bugs were nearing extinction, and that I had better get used to their sleek, shiny, more highly evolved strain and relegate the days of the true Punch-Buggy and bug-punching glory to the fond memory archives of my childhood.
But not so.. punch-bugs, I have been delighted to discover, live on in their own unassuming afterlife.. for Africa is where punch-bugs come to die.
I first noticed this on a side street in Khartoum, probably not more than a week into the trip. Out of the corner of my eye I spotted a sight I hadn't seen in years, one that made my heart leap so suddenly with unexpected joy I almost forgot myself before leaping into action - had David already seen it?? - I flew to punch him first, hollering the triumphal cry of the puncher: "BLUE-PUNCH-BUGGY-NO-BACK-TACKS!!"
David stopped short, staring, bewildered at his lightning defeat. Well, of course I could sympathize with that - he had just missed the only punch-bug opportunity either one of us might see for the entire trip, and even in my impromptu victory dance I well understood that anyone would be upset.
David, however, was remarkably obtuse to the causes behind the swift and unexpected blow he had received. How foolish, to forget such a classic game - even in a ten-year lapse of punch-bug activity - or fail to apreciate the implicitly global nature of the playing field! I began to chide him mericlessly for it.
Difficult and slow was it for me to grasp that David - hold onto your hats here - had never played the punch-buggy game and - WORSE - did not even know of its existence. !!! The mind boggles. What about popular culture?? I demanded. Books, television, movies?? "Heck," I demanded in frightened defense of such a time-honored institution, "what'd you think we called them 'punch-buggies' for anyway??"
He denied ever even having heard such a term.
Well, I wasn't about to let his incomprehensible ignorance rain on my punch-bug parade; it was just too bad he was the only plausible victim within arm's reach for the next eight months and when we (incredibly!) saw another VW bug two weeks later, he was pummelled a second time. "Green-punch-buggy-no-back-tacks!"
The confusion of the first attack was now replaced with an annoyance that threatened to grow dangerous if my hit-and-runs were repeated. A small voice of reason piped that I should let it go; it wasn't worth it, it wasn't adult, and it wasn't fair in any case to play against an uninitiated. But punch-bugs were too deeply absorbed into my character - years of being punched by my quicker, smarter sisters and much quicker, smarter dad meant that a punch-bug victory was like a golden trophy, the pennant of glory for the youngest and slowest member of the family to wave in triumph for the few hours (or minutes) before it would inevitably be snatched back: the Holy Grail of my childhood. Despite losing almost every time, I had revered the Punch Bug Game with an ardency explicable only by my youth (but which the onset of adulthood has done little to erode). To let a VW-Bug pass quietly by with no comment, as if nothing had happened, was unthinkable.
And besides, I had fully explained to him both rules. He was just as eligible as I to be the puncher instead of the punchee. As far as I was concerned, the playing field was level, and let the punching begin.
Not even I expected the massacre that awaited in the capital of Ethiopia, however. The streets of Addis Adeba were lined with '60s Volkswagons in all shapes and sizes, and classic punch-bugs proliferated in every color of the rainbow. (No, really - favorites were burnished gold, turquoise with white racing stripes, and iridescent purple.) After perhaps his 20th time getting punch-bug-punched, David announced in a voice that brooked no discusion that he was through, and declared a moratorium on the Punch Bug Game.
I was nettled. This was the punch-bug paradise I'd been waiting for since age 10, when true punch bugs began to melt out of the West like roaches at a Raid party. No Punch Bug Game? On what grounds?? "You know, you can play too," I charged. "I don't wanna play!" he snapped. I was pretty sure the maneuver was illegal but could think of no, and mutinously began to count up all the punches I was missing out on. I made it to 77 before we left the capital a day later.
It was well into March before I ventured another punch. I had let about a dozen beautiful opportunities slip by, quietly tacking them on to my embittered total of Denied Punch Bugs, but as the memory of the Addis VW Spree faded I began to hope for a gradual and perhaps unnoticeable punch-bug recussitation. My first tentative efforts, quiet and delicate, won looks of contempt but no damning decrees, and soon we were back to the normal pre-Addis level of a few punches a week. I'm not actually a terribly observant person, but after a decade of scouring streets for a punch bug even the chancest glimpse of one of those pastel rounded roofs has the effect of a mild electric shock. Before long, it had a similar effect on David, who began to associate old VWs with vague yet impending danger. He never attempted a counter-attack, though, preferring to retaliate with snide comments relating to his being engaged in some other task, such as finding a taxi or changing money, which might have trumped vintage-car spotting. Such remarks always carried the unmistakeable whiff of superiority; the implication, of course, was that perhaps I ought to restructure my priorities.
I knew better.
But as always happens when one's competition is sub-par, I too got slower, and lazy. No need to race to the punch, really. It would still be there, and let's face it - so would David.
And so it happened one watershed morning about four months into the trip that, as I drifted in and out of cognizance in a share-taxi station wagon, David caught sight of a punch bug and thought : Red-punch-bug. With a stroke of brilliance he identified the ready opportunity and a negligent victim, and spluttering "RED PUNCH BUG! RED PUNCH BUG!" he began to wail on my shoulder with the zeal of a beaten-down underdog suddenly clawing its way to the top. He was so excited that he punched me six or seven times. Irked at the unexpected reversal, I archly informed him that You're only allowed one punch per bug, before punching him back because he had neglected to preclude that possibility by calling no back-tacks. He was oblivious to anything but his triumph. The impossible had come; he had beat me at my own game; anything could happen. I was similarly affected and began to keep greater vigilance, getting him back with another one a few hours later.
At five months, I have now probably punched David close to five hundred times (not counting, of course, the Lost Bugs of Ethiopia). For his part, David claims 24 victories, a modest total until I add that 22 were in the last fortnight, and 21 of those this afternoon in a memorable drive through what could only have been the Final Resting-Place of Punchbugs while the other passengers leaned away from us with looks of alarm and disapproval. Then the moment came - a white bug loomed up suddenly by the side of the road. Instantaneously, we both whirled in our cramped seats, fists almost colliding on their way to target, blurting "WHITE PUN--" Recognition dawned of mutual victory and mutual defeat, and I realized: He is worthy of the Punch Bug Game.
I suppose every master worth her talent must one day come to see herself challenged by her prodigy... but I pity the next person he takes to Africa.
Wednesday, March 18
THERE IS ONE PAVED ROAD OUT OF ETHIOPIA...
... and David and I took it with relish.
(I feel comfortable making this statement given that I have now crossed through all of the open borders in the country, and none of them without bruises on my butt and dust up my nose.)
Satisfaction in the smooth exit aside, I have really enjoyed Ethiopia, and summarizing all the various experiences I've had over the four weeks we've spent here is not an easy task. But I will try..
Ethiopian Money:
Minted in paper denominations of 1 Birr (USD $0.09), 5 Birr (blue), 10 (maroony brown), 50 (pale orange), and the lovely 100 Birr (jungle green). In general the bills are in far better shape than those of the Sudan, though the 1 Birr bills are usually of a hue closer to black than to their original white. (Acquisition of a brand new 1-Birr bill is actually the only way I learned what color they originally are.)
The coins, on the other hand, are often quite brilliantly shiny new. There is a large silver coin (0.50 Birr), a small silver coin (0.25), a large gold (0.10) and a small gold (0.05). I spent about two and a half weeks hunting for the theoretically necessary 0.01-Birr coin, but eventually gave up after repeated restaurant bill-roundings to the nearest 0.05. I despaired of ever finding this coin, which would be worth less than one-tenth of an American cent, until the magical day when David presented me with a whole fistful of them. They look and feel just like the one-yen coins we used to have as bingo chips in class (it was cheaper), and are worth almost as much.
I must say, I'm relatively impressed with the state of the money - the bills are newish and, other than the 1-Birr, mostly intact, and the coins are in great shape. In lieu of my own theories on why Sudanese money was in such poor shape, David has postulated that it reflects the confidence of the populace in their government. To him, it indicates simply that banks- the authority by which unacceptable money is filtered out of circulation- do not enjoy full patronage among the populace.
I suppose he's probably right.
People:
After the Sudan, the first thing I noticed about Ethiopia is that there are simply a heck of a lot more women around. It's probably only a normal amount, but it was an amazing sight after the pseudo-Sharia states of the Sudan.
The second thing I noticed (also a contrast) was their hair. Beautifully styled in dozens of ways, braided, straightened, curled, beaded, half-veiled, or plaited along the scalp, it's absolutely stunning to look at. (And the way the women carry themselves, you can tell they know it too.)
This is another part of the national psyche that I respect and admire: Ethiopians do tend to have a noticeable pride in themselves, their ethnic identity, and their homeland (though they might not always identify this last as Ethiopia). And they have a lot to be proud of; no matter where you go within these borders, their country is stunning, historically rich, and fascinatingly diverse.
Other than that.. I will be honest. It's hard for me to fairly assess the Ethiopian character, since the national attitude towards foreigners (faranji) is disdainful, openly mocking, or opportunistic. There were of course cases of Ethiopians who were friendly and kind, and who treated us with respect (especially in Tigray or the ethnically Somalian regions), but we always felt lucky to find them. Sadly, such people were soon made harder to find by the defensive attitude both David and I adopted to protect ourselves: suspicion by default of anyone who approached us, bordering on downright hostility if they proved to be tenacious accompaniment. Many well-meaning, curious, but shy Ethiopians could have been put off by that. And so our international understanding deteriorates with each new foreigner instead of improving, as foreigners carry away stories of being mobbed and scammed, and locals hold memories of tourist coldness and hostility. It's not an easy problem to solve, but I think re-assessing the way we think about NGOs and the implementation of foreign aid could be one place to start.
It's like a tight spiral staircase, international charity is.. a theoretically beautiful concept, and one I support whole-hearedly, but one that is not without serious implementation challenges. And if you're not careful in how you construct it, it's going to end up hurting the very people it's meant to serve.
Best Scam: So many of our early-morning bus-rides end up with us waiting to depart in a poorly-lit gravel parking lot with a beautiful blanket of stars overhead. I have always loved stargazing, and never miss a chance to stand around like an idiot, head back and mouth open, staring up, to piece together the few shapes I know in the sky.
Doing this in Shashamene, I ignored my usual orbiting contingent of hopeful scam artists, until one demanded my attention with a highly creative ploy: noticing my gaze, he pointed at the sky and then at me and brusquely declared, "NO BUSINESS!" He then stuck out his hand and intimated in the worst of English that as a foreigner, I owed him payment for enjoying so fully 'his' night sky.
I can't actually call this a "worst experience" 'cos it frankly made me laugh my pants off.. which I shamelessly (though not literally) did right in the face of the enterprising star-businessman. And David did, too, when I told him.
Best Experience: In rural Wukro, we met Bereket, a guy employed by the awesome Tigray Tourism Commission to lead us up into the rock mountains of the countryside, ascending to the area's famous centuries-old, rock-hewn churches. The churches, amazing though they were, ended up playing second fiddle (for me anyway) to the incredible view obtained from the top of these cliffs - it looked just like New Mexico! - and the delightful experience of clambering around on them in the fresh air, enjoying the unfeigned, jovial banter of my first Ethiopian friend.
Could I live here? My experience living in Ethiopia would probably be a very challenging and very rewarding one, and while I do think I would ultimately end up loving the country, I think I probably would leave it for the same reason I sadly left Japan - I would never, ever, truly be welcomed as belonging.
(I feel comfortable making this statement given that I have now crossed through all of the open borders in the country, and none of them without bruises on my butt and dust up my nose.)
Satisfaction in the smooth exit aside, I have really enjoyed Ethiopia, and summarizing all the various experiences I've had over the four weeks we've spent here is not an easy task. But I will try..
Most Important thing first, The Food: MARVELOUS
Ethiopian food is, in a word, MARVELOUS. Generally, meals consist of a saucy type of dish, perhaps meaty or soupy, served directly or in a small round dish atop a huge (no, really) crepe-like pancake called injera. The courses are often spiced deliciously with red berbere, and on "fasting" (non-meat) days, you get to eat the just-as-delicious vegetarian "fasting food".
A few of the usual suspects:
Shiro - absolutely delicious yellow-orange chickpea-butter puree, often served as a fasting alternative (tegabino) but sometimes served with meat (bozena shiro). MAGNIFICENT.
Wat - a sort of tasty stew with hunks of meat, the most common being doro wat (chicken). Rarely ordered by me because the meat comes still on the bone, and you have to use your fingers to grip the slippy, saucy flesh and rip it off. Let's not talk about the state my hands are usually in when I'm eating. (Though I must give the Ethiopians credit, more than almost anyone else they provide you with a chance to wash your hands before eating.) Also popular is the extremely spicy kai wat.
Tibs - bite-sized hunks of pan-fried meat, usually lamb, served in a red berbere sauce. usually spicy, but sometimes a bit tough. David and I concurred, this was our least-favorite dish.
Injera - the bread it's all served on. About two feet wide (the edges are often folded in when it has to fit on a normal dinner plate) and 8mm thick, injera doesn't have much of a taste but soaks up other flavors wonderfully. To eat the gooey main dishes, just use your right hand to rip off some injera, scoop up some goodness with it and cram the whole tasty bundle into your mouth.
Maharaberoisvxneubweolmijr (spelling approximated) - this m-word dish is the best idea ever, and roughly translates to "a little bit of everything". Your injera will come heaped with little piles of all sorts of goodness, some spicy, some not, perhaps also little piles of raw veg to much on, and disgusting purple beets that you can feed to David, quick before they stain and taint all the rest of your food.
Western food, especially Italian food, is also widely available, and has been very smoothly integrated into local cuisine. I have several times seen Ethiopians scooping up tomato-sauce spaghetti with handfuls of injera. Unfortunately, Western food seems to dominate the dessert menu, having replaced whatever national sweets tradition may have once existed, and I have despaired of ever finding something like a truly "Ethiopian" treat.
Best Thing Eaten: Shiro, whether tegabino or bozena, was generally the best part of my life any time it happened.
Best Thing Drunk: delicious coffee, locally grown and freshly ground, served floating on a half-cup sea of hot milk and topped high with white foam in the national drink Ethiopians inexplicably call a macchiato.
Worst Thing Eaten: Most of the desserts I tirelessly forced upon myself in a desperate search for a good Ethiopian dessert are serious contenders for this prize, but ultimately I gotta pick a local winner: the juice. Infallibly, when Ethiopians think of juice, they think of.. avocado puree. I couldn't make this up. Stir that into your fresh papaya juice with a squeeze of lime. FOUL.
Ethiopian Money:
Minted in paper denominations of 1 Birr (USD $0.09), 5 Birr (blue), 10 (maroony brown), 50 (pale orange), and the lovely 100 Birr (jungle green). In general the bills are in far better shape than those of the Sudan, though the 1 Birr bills are usually of a hue closer to black than to their original white. (Acquisition of a brand new 1-Birr bill is actually the only way I learned what color they originally are.)
The coins, on the other hand, are often quite brilliantly shiny new. There is a large silver coin (0.50 Birr), a small silver coin (0.25), a large gold (0.10) and a small gold (0.05). I spent about two and a half weeks hunting for the theoretically necessary 0.01-Birr coin, but eventually gave up after repeated restaurant bill-roundings to the nearest 0.05. I despaired of ever finding this coin, which would be worth less than one-tenth of an American cent, until the magical day when David presented me with a whole fistful of them. They look and feel just like the one-yen coins we used to have as bingo chips in class (it was cheaper), and are worth almost as much.
I must say, I'm relatively impressed with the state of the money - the bills are newish and, other than the 1-Birr, mostly intact, and the coins are in great shape. In lieu of my own theories on why Sudanese money was in such poor shape, David has postulated that it reflects the confidence of the populace in their government. To him, it indicates simply that banks- the authority by which unacceptable money is filtered out of circulation- do not enjoy full patronage among the populace.
I suppose he's probably right.
New Hygienic Lows:
In Ethiopia, we saw toilet seats again. It was a pretty exciting moment (see post on my brief stint in the high life), but it led inevitably to another crack in my cleanliness facade..
Up until this point in my life, I was psychologically unable to perch upon a toilet seat that did not belong to myself, family, or a close friend. I cannot justify this rationally; it's simply a fact that I learned to deal with.
At least in the case with clean facilities, I no longer suffer from this handicap.
Music:
Unfortunately.. I did not find myself falling for the pop scene.
Ethiopian pop music tends to feature the same single synchopated but relatively uncreative beat, offered in two speeds, repeated without variety for the full ten-minute duration of every single Ethiopian pop song.
The singing, if you could call it that, seems to consist of the vocalist wildly flinging his or her voice rapidly around a series of far-flung notes. In the case of female singers, it deteriorates to a frantic, high-pitched shrieking that, when blasted at maximum volume in your ears continuously for more than a few hours trapped in a stuffy bus, makes your thoughts run along dangerous lines.
Our feelings for and impression of Ethiopian pop coalesced into one single extremely popular Teddy Afro song. David and I heard this song many dozens of times while here, and upon hearing it "one last time" on the morning of our last day, we both smiled that we would never hear it again.
Stupid fools we were, for we did not anticipate that in our last four hours before actually crossing the Kenyan border, we would hear it four more times. We both swore that it was actually still playing in the streets behind us as we walked out.
Thankfully, Ethiopian music, though faithfully and fervently loved by Ethiopians, enjoys little popularity elsewhere. I can't imagine why..
Up until this point in my life, I was psychologically unable to perch upon a toilet seat that did not belong to myself, family, or a close friend. I cannot justify this rationally; it's simply a fact that I learned to deal with.
At least in the case with clean facilities, I no longer suffer from this handicap.
Music:
Unfortunately.. I did not find myself falling for the pop scene.
Ethiopian pop music tends to feature the same single synchopated but relatively uncreative beat, offered in two speeds, repeated without variety for the full ten-minute duration of every single Ethiopian pop song.
The singing, if you could call it that, seems to consist of the vocalist wildly flinging his or her voice rapidly around a series of far-flung notes. In the case of female singers, it deteriorates to a frantic, high-pitched shrieking that, when blasted at maximum volume in your ears continuously for more than a few hours trapped in a stuffy bus, makes your thoughts run along dangerous lines.
Our feelings for and impression of Ethiopian pop coalesced into one single extremely popular Teddy Afro song. David and I heard this song many dozens of times while here, and upon hearing it "one last time" on the morning of our last day, we both smiled that we would never hear it again.
Stupid fools we were, for we did not anticipate that in our last four hours before actually crossing the Kenyan border, we would hear it four more times. We both swore that it was actually still playing in the streets behind us as we walked out.
Thankfully, Ethiopian music, though faithfully and fervently loved by Ethiopians, enjoys little popularity elsewhere. I can't imagine why..
After the Sudan, the first thing I noticed about Ethiopia is that there are simply a heck of a lot more women around. It's probably only a normal amount, but it was an amazing sight after the pseudo-Sharia states of the Sudan.
The second thing I noticed (also a contrast) was their hair. Beautifully styled in dozens of ways, braided, straightened, curled, beaded, half-veiled, or plaited along the scalp, it's absolutely stunning to look at. (And the way the women carry themselves, you can tell they know it too.)
This is another part of the national psyche that I respect and admire: Ethiopians do tend to have a noticeable pride in themselves, their ethnic identity, and their homeland (though they might not always identify this last as Ethiopia). And they have a lot to be proud of; no matter where you go within these borders, their country is stunning, historically rich, and fascinatingly diverse.
Other than that.. I will be honest. It's hard for me to fairly assess the Ethiopian character, since the national attitude towards foreigners (faranji) is disdainful, openly mocking, or opportunistic. There were of course cases of Ethiopians who were friendly and kind, and who treated us with respect (especially in Tigray or the ethnically Somalian regions), but we always felt lucky to find them. Sadly, such people were soon made harder to find by the defensive attitude both David and I adopted to protect ourselves: suspicion by default of anyone who approached us, bordering on downright hostility if they proved to be tenacious accompaniment. Many well-meaning, curious, but shy Ethiopians could have been put off by that. And so our international understanding deteriorates with each new foreigner instead of improving, as foreigners carry away stories of being mobbed and scammed, and locals hold memories of tourist coldness and hostility. It's not an easy problem to solve, but I think re-assessing the way we think about NGOs and the implementation of foreign aid could be one place to start.
It's like a tight spiral staircase, international charity is.. a theoretically beautiful concept, and one I support whole-hearedly, but one that is not without serious implementation challenges. And if you're not careful in how you construct it, it's going to end up hurting the very people it's meant to serve.
New Words Learned: Amharic (with a touch of Tigrayan and Oromo)
I made some progress with Amharic and really enjoyed using it at every opportunity, though unfortunately I didn't get very much past the "survival Amharic" level. Tigrayan, while fun to hear, offered several sounds reminiscent of Arabic that I could never manage to produce from my own throat.
Telling phrases: I hate to say it, but "bakachu HIDOU!" (Please leave us alone) came in handy more than once.
(It was necessary for me to learn 'hiccup' in a variety of local languages. Sikuta, hikta, nahuda, higo, and ekisuu managed to imprint themselves decently enough that I can remember them all, but unfortunately not well enough for me to always get the right word in the right region.)
Doing this in Shashamene, I ignored my usual orbiting contingent of hopeful scam artists, until one demanded my attention with a highly creative ploy: noticing my gaze, he pointed at the sky and then at me and brusquely declared, "NO BUSINESS!" He then stuck out his hand and intimated in the worst of English that as a foreigner, I owed him payment for enjoying so fully 'his' night sky.
I can't actually call this a "worst experience" 'cos it frankly made me laugh my pants off.. which I shamelessly (though not literally) did right in the face of the enterprising star-businessman. And David did, too, when I told him.
Best Experience: In rural Wukro, we met Bereket, a guy employed by the awesome Tigray Tourism Commission to lead us up into the rock mountains of the countryside, ascending to the area's famous centuries-old, rock-hewn churches. The churches, amazing though they were, ended up playing second fiddle (for me anyway) to the incredible view obtained from the top of these cliffs - it looked just like New Mexico! - and the delightful experience of clambering around on them in the fresh air, enjoying the unfeigned, jovial banter of my first Ethiopian friend.
Could I live here? My experience living in Ethiopia would probably be a very challenging and very rewarding one, and while I do think I would ultimately end up loving the country, I think I probably would leave it for the same reason I sadly left Japan - I would never, ever, truly be welcomed as belonging.
Classic Quote: Here in Ethiopia, in many ways the most challenging country so far, David and I have often encountered an entrenched, unquestioned lack of understanding between the locals and tourists who come here. The expectation of pens, the impression of coldness, the false ulterior friendliness.. all are indicative and causal of the strange barrier that has risen so often here to prevent genuine affection between people of different cultures.
One odd phrase came to symbolize this mutual misunderstanding for me: celebrating my birthday with a drink all around, David and I were both surprised to hear the locals cheerfully toast me in unison, "Welcome the Dead!"
I politely toasted back and sipped my wine, working up the courage to ask a moment later why in the world this would be an appropriate birthday phrase.
"Welcome the dead?" They had no idea what I was talking about. They had actually only been wishing me a Happy Birthday.. Melkani Lidet.
Mikele Lidet.. Welcome the Dead, indeed.
One odd phrase came to symbolize this mutual misunderstanding for me: celebrating my birthday with a drink all around, David and I were both surprised to hear the locals cheerfully toast me in unison, "Welcome the Dead!"
I politely toasted back and sipped my wine, working up the courage to ask a moment later why in the world this would be an appropriate birthday phrase.
"Welcome the dead?" They had no idea what I was talking about. They had actually only been wishing me a Happy Birthday.. Melkani Lidet.
Mikele Lidet.. Welcome the Dead, indeed.
Monday, March 16
24 ! ! !
(February 26th, 2009)
I spent my 21st birthday wandering the streets of Venice on the last day of Carnivale, en masque, ultimately getting serenaded by a flock of large, drunk Italian chickens.
The next year, though less of a Kodak moment, was no less joyous as I spent it in Texas’s best medical center getting the MRI that would prove my four-year-long (now six) hiccupping stint is not, in fact, indicative of a brain tumor.
Birthday 23, though I wasn’t expecting anything, turned out to be just as delightful, as my entire elementary school threw me surprise birthday celebrations, complete with Ingrish renditions of Haapi Baasudei from every staff, teacher, and child (and awesome homemade cards).
Given such a run of luck with birthdays, I hardly could have expected anything special from this year, but again I was wrong – and David truly made it memorable. From seeing my first zebra herds – UP CLOSE! – on white savannah grasses and managing to sneak past at least a dozen crocs in Lake Chamo of Ethiopia’s rift valley, to photographing pelicans, storks, herons, and eagles fishing and almost inciting a hippo charge, I’d be hard-pressed to say it didn’t set a new high for birthdays.
Even better, of course, was that the crocs didn’t decide to try out American flesh instead of pelican; that the hippo decided we weren’t worth the energy after his first warning leap; and that the huge tse-tse flies buzzing about us all day landed elsewhere than on me. In other words, that I successfully survived 24 complete years of seriously fantastic living on this planet. And to prove that survival effort (for which my parents do not give me nearly enough credit), here are 24 ways in which we have skirted probably-fine-but-potentially-really-unpleasant situations so far on this trip, such that I am alive.. to see my 24th.
1) avoiding the infamous Nile River parasites
2) not alarming or annoying the trigger-happy military guards outside Bashir’s palace in the capital
3) battling off in a four-day war the triple-attack eye/throat/stomach virus
4) extricating ourselves on the Day of Rage from the sudden angry mob in Omdurman
5) not getting bitten by the wild and possibly rabid dogs that charged us in the Kareima desert (they were chased away with rocks by locals)
6) sustaining 140 bug bites in a single night with no lasting infection
7) slipping under the radar of the ICC backlash in the Sudan that, despite the BBC’s warnings, didn’t result in nasty foreigner-targeted violence (for us, anyway)
8) keeping a cool head and a tight grip during the great Shihedi fistfight of the 18-year-old male population
9) not sliding off the seriously slippery rocks in my slippy flip-flops at the bottom of Tis Isat, the Smoking Waterfall and the source of the Blue Nile
10) managing with a great force of will to retain all of my body parts (and most of my things) in the 4 a.m. Lalibela bus-crush
11) walking away from the Great Bump of the Dire Dawa border bus that almost rearranged my spine
12) just barely managing to keep my footing on the sheer rock-faces we scaled to reach the Tirayan rock-hewn monasteries (or, more honestly, timing my fall so that when it happened, someone else was there to grab my hand)
13) not having to spend the night of February 10th out on the streets of Djibouti
14) getting hopelessly stuck in deep Somalian desert sand, but not without rescue in the form of the next LandRover
15) religiously using Purell to ward off Hepatitis for the first three weeks of this trip (during which my innoculation was not yet effective.. oops)
16) meeting only with the crappiest of aims from the glass-bottle-hurling kids in Berbera
17) not chancing upon the occasional suicide bomber or other interesting fanatical militant during our time in the Somaliland
18) feeding a half-wild Harar hyena mouth-to-mouth for the sake of a picture and David's amusement
19) not tipping over or crashing (miraculously enough) in any one of a number of crazy bush-taxi rides
20) not angering the defensive, nursing warthog upon whose den we stumbled in Bale Mountain National Park
21) remembering with remarkable reliability to take my malaria pill every Tuesday
22) not catching the malevolently squinting eye of the preying crocodiles of Lake Chamo as they floated by us in their deceptively innocent log-like way
23) quickly getting away from (and thus losing the interest of) the angry hippos who started to charge us
AND no. 24) surviving the last, the smallest, and probably the most serious threat yet of the trip, the huge black and yellow tse-tse flies who buzzed around us all day on my birthday, innocent bugs infamous for their coma-inducing and occasionally fatal bite.
Yessir, we have survived all these (and more).. and I'm officially 24 !
I spent my 21st birthday wandering the streets of Venice on the last day of Carnivale, en masque, ultimately getting serenaded by a flock of large, drunk Italian chickens.
The next year, though less of a Kodak moment, was no less joyous as I spent it in Texas’s best medical center getting the MRI that would prove my four-year-long (now six) hiccupping stint is not, in fact, indicative of a brain tumor.
Birthday 23, though I wasn’t expecting anything, turned out to be just as delightful, as my entire elementary school threw me surprise birthday celebrations, complete with Ingrish renditions of Haapi Baasudei from every staff, teacher, and child (and awesome homemade cards).
Given such a run of luck with birthdays, I hardly could have expected anything special from this year, but again I was wrong – and David truly made it memorable. From seeing my first zebra herds – UP CLOSE! – on white savannah grasses and managing to sneak past at least a dozen crocs in Lake Chamo of Ethiopia’s rift valley, to photographing pelicans, storks, herons, and eagles fishing and almost inciting a hippo charge, I’d be hard-pressed to say it didn’t set a new high for birthdays.
Even better, of course, was that the crocs didn’t decide to try out American flesh instead of pelican; that the hippo decided we weren’t worth the energy after his first warning leap; and that the huge tse-tse flies buzzing about us all day landed elsewhere than on me. In other words, that I successfully survived 24 complete years of seriously fantastic living on this planet. And to prove that survival effort (for which my parents do not give me nearly enough credit), here are 24 ways in which we have skirted probably-fine-but-potentially-really-unpleasant situations so far on this trip, such that I am alive.. to see my 24th.
1) avoiding the infamous Nile River parasites
2) not alarming or annoying the trigger-happy military guards outside Bashir’s palace in the capital
3) battling off in a four-day war the triple-attack eye/throat/stomach virus
4) extricating ourselves on the Day of Rage from the sudden angry mob in Omdurman
5) not getting bitten by the wild and possibly rabid dogs that charged us in the Kareima desert (they were chased away with rocks by locals)
6) sustaining 140 bug bites in a single night with no lasting infection
7) slipping under the radar of the ICC backlash in the Sudan that, despite the BBC’s warnings, didn’t result in nasty foreigner-targeted violence (for us, anyway)
8) keeping a cool head and a tight grip during the great Shihedi fistfight of the 18-year-old male population
9) not sliding off the seriously slippery rocks in my slippy flip-flops at the bottom of Tis Isat, the Smoking Waterfall and the source of the Blue Nile
10) managing with a great force of will to retain all of my body parts (and most of my things) in the 4 a.m. Lalibela bus-crush
11) walking away from the Great Bump of the Dire Dawa border bus that almost rearranged my spine
12) just barely managing to keep my footing on the sheer rock-faces we scaled to reach the Tirayan rock-hewn monasteries (or, more honestly, timing my fall so that when it happened, someone else was there to grab my hand)
13) not having to spend the night of February 10th out on the streets of Djibouti
14) getting hopelessly stuck in deep Somalian desert sand, but not without rescue in the form of the next LandRover
15) religiously using Purell to ward off Hepatitis for the first three weeks of this trip (during which my innoculation was not yet effective.. oops)
16) meeting only with the crappiest of aims from the glass-bottle-hurling kids in Berbera
17) not chancing upon the occasional suicide bomber or other interesting fanatical militant during our time in the Somaliland
18) feeding a half-wild Harar hyena mouth-to-mouth for the sake of a picture and David's amusement
19) not tipping over or crashing (miraculously enough) in any one of a number of crazy bush-taxi rides
20) not angering the defensive, nursing warthog upon whose den we stumbled in Bale Mountain National Park
21) remembering with remarkable reliability to take my malaria pill every Tuesday
22) not catching the malevolently squinting eye of the preying crocodiles of Lake Chamo as they floated by us in their deceptively innocent log-like way
23) quickly getting away from (and thus losing the interest of) the angry hippos who started to charge us
AND no. 24) surviving the last, the smallest, and probably the most serious threat yet of the trip, the huge black and yellow tse-tse flies who buzzed around us all day on my birthday, innocent bugs infamous for their coma-inducing and occasionally fatal bite.
Yessir, we have survived all these (and more).. and I'm officially 24 !
Sunday, March 15
The Other Ethiopia
Re-entering Ethiopia from the Somaliland land border, I admit I sighed a bit with anticipation at what awaited me. After a week of respite, I still wasn't ready for the screams of FARANJI!!! MONEY!!! and throngs of adults- older than I am- insisting that my 23-year-old self is responsible for their family's maintenance. I will admit it, I gritted my teeth on that border a bit.
But I was wrong.
Upon arrival in Jijiga, in the eastern and culturally more Somalian area, David and I did our usual scheme where one of us goes unburdened to locate and arrange a cheap hotel, and one guards le baggage. I was on guard duty at the corner of two streets, and soon enough attracted the attention of a boy. He held out his hand to me repeatedly, asking for money, so wholly undeterred by my lack of interest and my polite refusals that I tried my old trick and began to sing. So I stood there with our stuff, leaning on David's bag and singing the French national anthem, while he kept me company with his hand out, chiming in with his refrain of "money.. money, money." A typical scene.
But not for long. Within moments a man ran up to the boy, grabbed him by the arm, and hauled him bodily away a few meters to lecture him very seriously in Somali. I was shocked. I stopped singing and, jaw half-open in mid-Allons, started staring instead.
Then the most fantastic thing happened.
Still angry, the man came back to lecture me, just as severely and in just the same tone he had used with the boy,
"DON'T give him money!! If you do, this will become our CULTURE!!"
I wanted to marry him.
Unfortunately he was less interested in me, and stalked proudly away.
I gazed fondly after.
It wasn't just him, either: a few minutes later I acquired another beggar boy, and soon after he too was scolded and chased away, this time by two passing woman. I couldn't believe it. Could it be a coincidence?? It was at this point that I realized that there had been no crowds of would-be scammers around me; I had not been beseeched by adults for money; in fact, few people were really paying me much attention at all. Was I in the right country?
Amazing but true. Throughout the rest of our time in that region, we experienced remarkably less begging and con-artistry than is normal for the northern, touristy regions, and I even managed to create delightful (if fleeting) friendships with various women shopkeepers and sweet-sellers in the marketplace. (Mostly just because I knew the Somalian word for 'thank you' and 'hiccup'.) Still, this was an Ethiopia I had not expected, an Ethiopia I would have foolishly denied.. but an Ethiopia that very much deserves to be included.
So, I would now like to make an addendum to my previous impressions, and specify that they do not accurately represent Ethiopia as a whole. While I would bet my hijab that many visitors to Amhara, Tigray, or the capital have felt as I have, it must be said that another Ethiopia does exist.
But I was wrong.
Upon arrival in Jijiga, in the eastern and culturally more Somalian area, David and I did our usual scheme where one of us goes unburdened to locate and arrange a cheap hotel, and one guards le baggage. I was on guard duty at the corner of two streets, and soon enough attracted the attention of a boy. He held out his hand to me repeatedly, asking for money, so wholly undeterred by my lack of interest and my polite refusals that I tried my old trick and began to sing. So I stood there with our stuff, leaning on David's bag and singing the French national anthem, while he kept me company with his hand out, chiming in with his refrain of "money.. money, money." A typical scene.
But not for long. Within moments a man ran up to the boy, grabbed him by the arm, and hauled him bodily away a few meters to lecture him very seriously in Somali. I was shocked. I stopped singing and, jaw half-open in mid-Allons, started staring instead.
Then the most fantastic thing happened.
Still angry, the man came back to lecture me, just as severely and in just the same tone he had used with the boy,
"DON'T give him money!! If you do, this will become our CULTURE!!"
I wanted to marry him.
Unfortunately he was less interested in me, and stalked proudly away.
I gazed fondly after.
It wasn't just him, either: a few minutes later I acquired another beggar boy, and soon after he too was scolded and chased away, this time by two passing woman. I couldn't believe it. Could it be a coincidence?? It was at this point that I realized that there had been no crowds of would-be scammers around me; I had not been beseeched by adults for money; in fact, few people were really paying me much attention at all. Was I in the right country?
Amazing but true. Throughout the rest of our time in that region, we experienced remarkably less begging and con-artistry than is normal for the northern, touristy regions, and I even managed to create delightful (if fleeting) friendships with various women shopkeepers and sweet-sellers in the marketplace. (Mostly just because I knew the Somalian word for 'thank you' and 'hiccup'.) Still, this was an Ethiopia I had not expected, an Ethiopia I would have foolishly denied.. but an Ethiopia that very much deserves to be included.
So, I would now like to make an addendum to my previous impressions, and specify that they do not accurately represent Ethiopia as a whole. While I would bet my hijab that many visitors to Amhara, Tigray, or the capital have felt as I have, it must be said that another Ethiopia does exist.
Thursday, March 5
Ethiopian Land Border Number Two
(backdated: Febrary 10th)
After a whirlwind two days in Addis Adeba, David and I headed east through Dire Dawa to cross through our second Ethiopian international boundary, that of Djibouti... a bit sad to leave Ethiopia, true, but I knew I'd be back before long. (Before about 8 days, to be exact.)
WE ARRIVED IN DJIBOUTI after what could only be described as a seriously bumpy bus ride. And this from someone who loves old wooden rollercoasters and delights in bumpy rides, metaphorical or otherwise. (In fact, as a child I used to press my head against the schoolbus window so the vibrations would make my teeth chatter gently.)
To say that my teeth were chatteriong in m y head, despite my sitting upright, does not do the experience justic. I eventually stuffed my clean-ish sweatshirt sleeve into my mouth to keep from chipping a tooth or biting through my tongue. I caught air several dozen times within the first half hour; after that, aware that at least five hours remained, I stopped keeping track. Sleep was unfortunately not a possiility, particularly unfortnate since we had woken at 1 a.m. to board the early-early bus at 2. After a few hours, I found a loose, rolling sort of position which at least allowed me to doze.
It was in this bouncing, semiconscious state when we hit something, or possibly leapt over a fissure in the Earth's surface, and suddenly everyone was airborne. I felt suddenly and briefly weightless before a smack alerted me that I had hit the metal ceiling, recently a good two feet above my head. A long, low collective moan rose involuntarly from the bus's occupants as they abruptly found themselves soaring through the air, completed with a loud "OOF!" as we made touchdown and all suddenly re-found our seats. My own unfortunate landing involved a sharp pain to my elbow and a cracking noise in my spine, but after a few moments, everything was still moveable. I had the sensation that my insides had instantaneously collapsed, or been squashed flat.
That journey over, the border crossed, and the next four-hour cramped- but smoother!- bus ride through the country completed, we were naturally very happy to arrive in Djibouti Port, and desired nothing more than a place to rest our weary, dusty heads for a few hours. Any hotel would do.
Not just any hotel was available, however; the first we tried was fully booked, as was the second, and the third. Bewildered and bleary-eyed from exhaustion, and nervous at the astronomical rate at which taxi-ing around was eating into our few Djiboutian Francs, David left me camped with our bags on the porch of one hotel and tramped around on foot to find us a place to stay.
There was nothing... and it was Somalia's fault. (Not a first-time phenomenon for problems in the region.) Turns out our visit coincided with the end of the much-reported Somalian delegation to Djibouti for the purpose of choosng a president. Applications for the post were apparently welcome from anyone willing to pay the hefty "application fee", regardless of experience (or even citizenship). How exciting! David considered having a go at it himslf, but alas the man had already been chosen by our arrival.
Presidential business concluded or otherwise, however, the entourage had yet to decamp, and hotels in town were still booked to the max - all except - wait for it - the ritzy Sheraton. With roughly 7.5 hours of sleep in the past 35 hours between the two of us and nowhere else to go, we had no choice. The Sheraton-Djibouti it would be...
...and I didn't even have the energy to complain about it.
(And dang, but those beds were soft!)
After a whirlwind two days in Addis Adeba, David and I headed east through Dire Dawa to cross through our second Ethiopian international boundary, that of Djibouti... a bit sad to leave Ethiopia, true, but I knew I'd be back before long. (Before about 8 days, to be exact.)
WE ARRIVED IN DJIBOUTI after what could only be described as a seriously bumpy bus ride. And this from someone who loves old wooden rollercoasters and delights in bumpy rides, metaphorical or otherwise. (In fact, as a child I used to press my head against the schoolbus window so the vibrations would make my teeth chatter gently.)
To say that my teeth were chatteriong in m y head, despite my sitting upright, does not do the experience justic. I eventually stuffed my clean-ish sweatshirt sleeve into my mouth to keep from chipping a tooth or biting through my tongue. I caught air several dozen times within the first half hour; after that, aware that at least five hours remained, I stopped keeping track. Sleep was unfortunately not a possiility, particularly unfortnate since we had woken at 1 a.m. to board the early-early bus at 2. After a few hours, I found a loose, rolling sort of position which at least allowed me to doze.
It was in this bouncing, semiconscious state when we hit something, or possibly leapt over a fissure in the Earth's surface, and suddenly everyone was airborne. I felt suddenly and briefly weightless before a smack alerted me that I had hit the metal ceiling, recently a good two feet above my head. A long, low collective moan rose involuntarly from the bus's occupants as they abruptly found themselves soaring through the air, completed with a loud "OOF!" as we made touchdown and all suddenly re-found our seats. My own unfortunate landing involved a sharp pain to my elbow and a cracking noise in my spine, but after a few moments, everything was still moveable. I had the sensation that my insides had instantaneously collapsed, or been squashed flat.
That journey over, the border crossed, and the next four-hour cramped- but smoother!- bus ride through the country completed, we were naturally very happy to arrive in Djibouti Port, and desired nothing more than a place to rest our weary, dusty heads for a few hours. Any hotel would do.
Not just any hotel was available, however; the first we tried was fully booked, as was the second, and the third. Bewildered and bleary-eyed from exhaustion, and nervous at the astronomical rate at which taxi-ing around was eating into our few Djiboutian Francs, David left me camped with our bags on the porch of one hotel and tramped around on foot to find us a place to stay.
There was nothing... and it was Somalia's fault. (Not a first-time phenomenon for problems in the region.) Turns out our visit coincided with the end of the much-reported Somalian delegation to Djibouti for the purpose of choosng a president. Applications for the post were apparently welcome from anyone willing to pay the hefty "application fee", regardless of experience (or even citizenship). How exciting! David considered having a go at it himslf, but alas the man had already been chosen by our arrival.
Presidential business concluded or otherwise, however, the entourage had yet to decamp, and hotels in town were still booked to the max - all except - wait for it - the ritzy Sheraton. With roughly 7.5 hours of sleep in the past 35 hours between the two of us and nowhere else to go, we had no choice. The Sheraton-Djibouti it would be...
...and I didn't even have the energy to complain about it.
(And dang, but those beds were soft!)
Tuesday, March 3
To get to Mekele, you gotta...
So there was this one time that David and Jana decided they wanted to go to Mekele, the regional capital of Tigray in northwestern Ethiopia.
Jana quickly noticed that trusty Ethiopian Airlines could fly the distance in 90 minutes for a scant forty bucks apiece.
David, however, was tracing the faint dotted line on Lonely Planet’s Ethiopia map that indicated a somewhat-passable road, and looking at the tiny side note: “Scenic Route”.
Two more fateful words have rarely been written.
Even though the joy of the Gonder trip was still fresh in my mind (and the dust in my lungs), I knew a lost cause when I saw one. Local buses it would be, the acquaintance of which would be our pleasure for at least two days. As one who hopes for the courage to accept the things I cannot change, I resigned myself to the discomfort, and mentally wrote off those days in my mind.
So, 4 a.m. in Lalibela found David and myself dragging our suitcases half a mile uphill through sand and grit, to push and fight and squeeze our way onto a crowded-twice-legal-capacity bus, at last wedging ourselves in between a foul-smelling woman and two bushels of chat.
Blissfully, bumpy bus-rides put me to sleep like a baby, and the first few hours of tight, dusty, airless discomfort passed in a wink for me. Not so for David, who by the time I woke up was suffering from the pain of having his knees banged against those of the man sitting in an improvised seat across from us, and having his feet periodically stomped on. (Not that this last was new or surprising; I’ve often thought I could write an entire posting on the travails inflicted by Africa on David’s feet. Maybe I will.)
We passed the next few bumpy hours in a small-scale battle waged against the other occupants of the bus, in which we would crack the dirty window an inch to let in a beautiful sweet breath of clean, cool mountain air, and our fellow space-occupiers would squawk and quail and push it shut again, quick, before any of that fresh air got them. I won a decisive victory about two and a half hours in – by this point I was standing up in the ten square inches of floor space in front of my seat, both feet pointed sideways out of necessity, because it was less painful than trying to sit and fold my legs into that same space. Queasily carsick as ever, I had my face right up next to the life-saving wind of nourishing refreshment that came wafting in through that cracked window. It was temporary bliss, and as the next wave of popular protest against my open window surged through those around me, I had a sudden inappropriate inspiration. Pointing to the window, I smiled pleadingly and mimed heavy vomiting. The imitation was perhaps too well-executed; both hands were involved. Embarrassing, but effective. My right to have at least an inch of open-window access
was not challenged for the rest of the ride.
After seven or eight hours in the bus, we arrived at Woldia. It was past noon, so there was no hope of catching any further local transport on to Mekele that day. Prepared for this eventuality, we dragged our dusty, battered bodies and luggage up to the center of town, where we entertained vague hopes of hitching a ride on a passing truck. It was here that the lamb melodrama played out; the ensuing staring was escaped (again, only in the nick of time) by the discovery of two free seats in a furniture truck headed our way!
Well, sort of two free seats. 'Two free seats' as in, there were two good-sized adult men sitting in the cab, and if David squeezed next to the passenger, and I sat on the console/gearshift, it all worked out. And two seats among three passengers still made for far better odds than the arrangements we'd endured all morning. Plus, it was a short
ride, 256km, paved roads the whole way (!), five hours tops! He said we'd be there by 8, which seemed a bit slow, but still acceptable. And we'd be saving a whole day!
Upon reflection, we were ourselves lamb-like in our happy ignorance of the crushing tire about to fall. After covering the first third in no time at all (up to a village where we made a furniture delivery), the driver lost all will to continue with any appreciable speed. The last 180 km would not be covered over the course of three hours, or even four, but several times that. Discussing the strange metamorphosis afterwards (he had been averaging fully 60 kmph until the delivery), David wondered if the driver wasn't trying to drag the trip out another day, and thus be re-hired by default to take us to the next town after Mekele. Indeed, he took as long as possible on the well-paved, empty road, dragging the drive past the evening and well into the night. From my vantage point on the gearshift, I had an uninterrupted view of the odometer, allowing me to pass the time working out our various average speeds - overall, before the village, after the village, up this hill, for the past 10km, etc. I discovered with some bitterness that we were getting along at a rate of about 13.25 miles an hour. Yes. On foot and in good shoes, I possibly could have out-run us. But no, neither David nor I ever complained, figuring he had his reasons.. until the breaking point.
This came at about ten after midnight, when - with only 24 km left to go - the driver abruptly stopped in the last small town before the capital, declaring that we weren't going to make it to Mekele after all and that we had better stay the night.
Not for nothing had I been keeping religious track of our progress, and I was quick to point out that Mekele was only 24 km away.
Surprised but not deterred, the driver and his friend then countered that due to the late hour, we'd never be able to find a hotel in the capital, and that we'd better stay in this po-dunk town.
This was David's turn to jump in, insisting what we all knew to be true - that hotels are 24-hours, or at least open late, and in a city as big as Mekele we'd be able to find SOMETHING, thanks very much.
Beaten back on two points, the driver then changed tack, complaining of how very tired he was, to which David very rightly said, "Well if you didn't drive so slowly, we'd already have been there by now!" At which point the driver foolishly attempted to claim (very energetically for one so tired, I thought) that he had been going - wait for it - 50kmph all along.
OH ho.
REALLY.
"YOU SIR." I snapped archly, "have for the past SEVEN-PLUS hours at no point averaged more than TWENTY-ONE POINT THREE KILOMETERS AN HOUR."
David and I, travelling since 4 a.m., united in our cold fury, were a formiddable team, and a force to be reckoned with. Cross but cornered, the driver got back in the cab, and we positively flew those remaining 24 kilometers to Mekele.
(I couldn't stop grinning.)
And oh, never has a bed been so soft as those wonderful, Mekele [24-hour] hotel beds.
Next stop after Mekele, the national capital... then (overland via the west) A NEW COUNTRY!!
...All said and done, I suppose it was a rather scenic route..
Jana quickly noticed that trusty Ethiopian Airlines could fly the distance in 90 minutes for a scant forty bucks apiece.
David, however, was tracing the faint dotted line on Lonely Planet’s Ethiopia map that indicated a somewhat-passable road, and looking at the tiny side note: “Scenic Route”.
Two more fateful words have rarely been written.
Even though the joy of the Gonder trip was still fresh in my mind (and the dust in my lungs), I knew a lost cause when I saw one. Local buses it would be, the acquaintance of which would be our pleasure for at least two days. As one who hopes for the courage to accept the things I cannot change, I resigned myself to the discomfort, and mentally wrote off those days in my mind.
So, 4 a.m. in Lalibela found David and myself dragging our suitcases half a mile uphill through sand and grit, to push and fight and squeeze our way onto a crowded-twice-legal-capacity bus, at last wedging ourselves in between a foul-smelling woman and two bushels of chat.
Blissfully, bumpy bus-rides put me to sleep like a baby, and the first few hours of tight, dusty, airless discomfort passed in a wink for me. Not so for David, who by the time I woke up was suffering from the pain of having his knees banged against those of the man sitting in an improvised seat across from us, and having his feet periodically stomped on. (Not that this last was new or surprising; I’ve often thought I could write an entire posting on the travails inflicted by Africa on David’s feet. Maybe I will.)
We passed the next few bumpy hours in a small-scale battle waged against the other occupants of the bus, in which we would crack the dirty window an inch to let in a beautiful sweet breath of clean, cool mountain air, and our fellow space-occupiers would squawk and quail and push it shut again, quick, before any of that fresh air got them. I won a decisive victory about two and a half hours in – by this point I was standing up in the ten square inches of floor space in front of my seat, both feet pointed sideways out of necessity, because it was less painful than trying to sit and fold my legs into that same space. Queasily carsick as ever, I had my face right up next to the life-saving wind of nourishing refreshment that came wafting in through that cracked window. It was temporary bliss, and as the next wave of popular protest against my open window surged through those around me, I had a sudden inappropriate inspiration. Pointing to the window, I smiled pleadingly and mimed heavy vomiting. The imitation was perhaps too well-executed; both hands were involved. Embarrassing, but effective. My right to have at least an inch of open-window access
was not challenged for the rest of the ride.
After seven or eight hours in the bus, we arrived at Woldia. It was past noon, so there was no hope of catching any further local transport on to Mekele that day. Prepared for this eventuality, we dragged our dusty, battered bodies and luggage up to the center of town, where we entertained vague hopes of hitching a ride on a passing truck. It was here that the lamb melodrama played out; the ensuing staring was escaped (again, only in the nick of time) by the discovery of two free seats in a furniture truck headed our way!
Well, sort of two free seats. 'Two free seats' as in, there were two good-sized adult men sitting in the cab, and if David squeezed next to the passenger, and I sat on the console/gearshift, it all worked out. And two seats among three passengers still made for far better odds than the arrangements we'd endured all morning. Plus, it was a short
ride, 256km, paved roads the whole way (!), five hours tops! He said we'd be there by 8, which seemed a bit slow, but still acceptable. And we'd be saving a whole day!
Upon reflection, we were ourselves lamb-like in our happy ignorance of the crushing tire about to fall. After covering the first third in no time at all (up to a village where we made a furniture delivery), the driver lost all will to continue with any appreciable speed. The last 180 km would not be covered over the course of three hours, or even four, but several times that. Discussing the strange metamorphosis afterwards (he had been averaging fully 60 kmph until the delivery), David wondered if the driver wasn't trying to drag the trip out another day, and thus be re-hired by default to take us to the next town after Mekele. Indeed, he took as long as possible on the well-paved, empty road, dragging the drive past the evening and well into the night. From my vantage point on the gearshift, I had an uninterrupted view of the odometer, allowing me to pass the time working out our various average speeds - overall, before the village, after the village, up this hill, for the past 10km, etc. I discovered with some bitterness that we were getting along at a rate of about 13.25 miles an hour. Yes. On foot and in good shoes, I possibly could have out-run us. But no, neither David nor I ever complained, figuring he had his reasons.. until the breaking point.
This came at about ten after midnight, when - with only 24 km left to go - the driver abruptly stopped in the last small town before the capital, declaring that we weren't going to make it to Mekele after all and that we had better stay the night.
Not for nothing had I been keeping religious track of our progress, and I was quick to point out that Mekele was only 24 km away.
Surprised but not deterred, the driver and his friend then countered that due to the late hour, we'd never be able to find a hotel in the capital, and that we'd better stay in this po-dunk town.
This was David's turn to jump in, insisting what we all knew to be true - that hotels are 24-hours, or at least open late, and in a city as big as Mekele we'd be able to find SOMETHING, thanks very much.
Beaten back on two points, the driver then changed tack, complaining of how very tired he was, to which David very rightly said, "Well if you didn't drive so slowly, we'd already have been there by now!" At which point the driver foolishly attempted to claim (very energetically for one so tired, I thought) that he had been going - wait for it - 50kmph all along.
OH ho.
REALLY.
"YOU SIR." I snapped archly, "have for the past SEVEN-PLUS hours at no point averaged more than TWENTY-ONE POINT THREE KILOMETERS AN HOUR."
David and I, travelling since 4 a.m., united in our cold fury, were a formiddable team, and a force to be reckoned with. Cross but cornered, the driver got back in the cab, and we positively flew those remaining 24 kilometers to Mekele.
(I couldn't stop grinning.)
And oh, never has a bed been so soft as those wonderful, Mekele [24-hour] hotel beds.
Next stop after Mekele, the national capital... then (overland via the west) A NEW COUNTRY!!
...All said and done, I suppose it was a rather scenic route..
Friday, February 27
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!!
Friday, February 20
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!!
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!!
Wednesday, February 18
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.
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.
Monday, February 16
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.
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.
Sunday, February 15
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.
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
