Baboons, Rock Hewn Churches, and Saying Goodbye to Ethiopia

After leaving the comfort of Awra Amba, our next adventure was a hiking trip in the Simian Mountains. We were looking for a trip that was mostly full so that the price was already at its lowest before we signed on. It was a game of talking to recruiters (guys on the street organizing trips for travel agencies), seeing what their particular trip offered, and how low they could take the price. We played it for a few days and then we signed on for a trek. The price included a guide, two armed guards, a tent, sleeping bags, and all of our meals. A major highlight of a hike through the Simian Mountains is the wildlife, and each trip promises a citing of gelada baboons. I wasn’t exactly sure how they could “promise that we would see baboons” and I was worried that we would somehow be the unlucky few who don’t see them.

The first morning of our trek we were warned about the altitude, told to drink plenty of water, and to go as slow as necessary until our bodies adjusted. The air felt cool in the mountains, almost chilly, but then the sun would beat down on us until we were sweating. Our guide was particularly knowledgeable about the natural medicines and herbs found in the mountains. I was enthralled by the St. John’s Wort, thyme, and lavender that grow wild there.

Sitting next to St. John’s Wort enjoying the views of the Simian Mountains

Each group is required to have an armed guard for protection from bandits in the mountains. Our group had two. The park seemed incredibly safe to me so having two armed men accompanying us seemed unnecessary. But then I found myself feeling so much gratitude and admiration for these men. They know the mountains like the back of their hands. They climbed expertly despite wearing plastic “jelly” sandals and worn boots with several holes.

Certain stretches of the mountains were covered with loose rocks. There was a period of time on our first day of the hike when I kept slipping. My feet kept finding the loose ones, and before I knew it I’d have lost my footing. One time, my foot slipped when we were on the edge of a very steep escarpment. I would have fallen off the side of the mountain if one of the scouts hadn’t grabbed the shoulder of my shirt. The entire hike, he never left my side. Every time I slipped he was there and he held my hand down the steepest mountain sides. He didn’t speak English, so we never communicated with words other than my sincerely saying Amesegenallo (thank you in Amharic) over and over. I thought to myself in some mixture of humor and gratitude, “Today my angel is carrying a shotgun.”

Today my angel is carrying a shotgun

The guards enjoying the view

Nighttime in the Simian Mountains is very cold. I was surprised to find that the guards slept outdoors with only their blankets thrown around their bodies. Many of them had holes in their clothes and no socks. At night, when we were sitting around a fire they insisted that we take the warmest seats. We refused adamantly until we realized that they would only take the warmest seats if we left, so we stayed only briefly and decided to enjoy their company during the day instead.

It wasn’t until we had finished the hike and were on our way back to the camp that we finally saw the baboons. A whole pack was crossing the road right in front of us.

Gelada baboons crossing

Gelada baboons grazing

A few weeks later when we were in Lalibela, we went on a day hike up the steepest mountain I have ever climbed. We were taken on the hike by Messay and Mengesha. Messay and Mengesha are brothers in their early twenties. They live in one room that serves as both living room and bedroom, but with no toilet or kitchen. They rent out their room on airbnb.com, which is how we met them. For 4 days their room was ours. Their meals mostly come from the owners of the complex who live in a house next door. When they have renters, they stay with their neighbor. The toilet facilities were a cement hole covered by a modest curtain out back. This may sound bleak, but Messay and Mengensha are 2 of the most gracious people I have ever met. They went out of their way to make us comfortable and we were in complete awe of their spirit.

They took us on the hike on our final day with them. The peak seemed beyond my ability level and I didn’t think I could make it. Many times I didn’t think it was worth it to keep going. I was humbled by the countless women and children we saw climbing the steep mountain with heavy loads on their backs and heads and, sometimes, with no shoes on their feet. I knew that even though I was tired, I could never complain. With everyone’s encouragement, I kept going and we reached the top.

Trekking up a steep mountain with a little help from my friends

Messay almost at the top

Mengesha making me very nervous with this jump shot

Enjoying a tea with Mat after reaching the top

It was totally worth it. There were the most sublime views ever and for the second time we saw baboons. But this time the baboon siting seemed even more special. There was a pack of about 100 baboons grazing in a field and we were able to get within 10 feet of them. And then the farmer whose field they were grazing in came out and threw rocks at them while yelling curses in Amharic. He chased them all the way down a mountain. The baboons ran away and hid on the side of the mountain as if they were waiting for the right moment to return We all laughed lots at the scene, but especially Mengesha and Messay who understood all the farmer’s curses.

I know that most people will say that the rock hewn churches of Lalibela are the major highlight of the city, but for me it was meeting Mengesha and Messay and completing the hike that I thought I couldn’t complete.

The rock hewn churches are nothing to sneeze at though. They are incredible feats in architecture and design, as well as a great testimony to the power of story. The stories of the King of Lalibela have remained unchanged for hundreds of years and the people’s belief in their veracity make up the fabric of their faith and general raison d’etre.

A quiet moment in one of the rock hewn churches

Skeletons of pilgrims who died after making a pilgrimage to the churches

It is truly amazing to witness people of my generation unaffected by logic and/or cynicism and willing to believe the stories of their people. I believe that it is this strong hold of faith that has gotten the people through periods of famine and that has allowed the nation to consistently defeat would-be colonizers.

However, I also know that religious conviction and a lack of cynicism can make people complacent. Indeed, there have been very few improvements to their way of life over the centuries. 90% of the people work in physically demanding agriculture with no modern machinery and youth unemployment is rampant. How does a nation reconcile these things?

While these questions swam about in my head, I began to feel impatient with Ethiopia. I yearned for familiarity. Everything in the country felt thoroughly foreign to me and I needed a reprieve. Our next country was Nigeria and I was anxious to finally be there with my family.

To top it off, I was beginning to feel sick. My skin and hair were constantly dehydrated from the dry mountain air. I had begun to get mysterious bumps all over my body (which we later discovered were a side effect of our malaria pills), and I had unexplainable stomach pains daily (also from the malaria pills). I began to miss my friends terribly. While I was interested in the places we visited, my mind was on the riots happening back in the states. I was angry about the police brutality and the subsequent acquittals related to Eric Garner and Michael Brown. I wanted to take part in what was happening in the states.

But there was no reprieve. We said goodbye to Lalibela and Mengesha and Messay and got ready to go to our final city in Ethiopia.

Mat on his way to the Simian Mountains

Ready to go!

Views of the Simian Mts. also called the rooftop of Africa

The road up to the mountains

The marketplace in Lalibela

Gone But Not Left- A Revolutionary Village in Northern Ethiopia

We arrive in the town of Bahir Dar one afternoon after a 12 hour bus ride from Addis Ababa. Because of its location on a lake, Bahir Dar feels like a beach town. The wide avenues are lined with palm trees, attractive restaurants, and hotels. We see people biking the mostly flat streets in the sun. This feels very different from the aggressive, urban Addis Ababa.

When we get to the hotel that we are looking for, we find that is has been shut down for weeks. How could that be? We had just read a review for it on lonelyplanet.com that was written 2 days ago! The people hanging around the abandoned hotel tell us that things change quickly and the hotel probably couldn’t pay some government tax. Of course, one of the people is a young man who wants to take us to his hotel instead. We refuse his offer and sit on the steps of the closed hotel to look in our guidebook. We find the names of a few other hotels and set out looking for them.

After looking at 5 unacceptable places (2 claim to be hotels but are really only restaurants), we sit on some steps feeling homeless, hot, and exhausted. We are approached by another young man offering to show us his hotel. We turn him down and get ready to go to the next hotel on our list.

When we arrive, we see the same young man.

You walked all around to come to my hotel anyway!, he says.

We laugh and we agree to let him show us some places. He finds us a beautiful room with a view of the lake right in the city center that is within our price range.

The place also has wifi so I set about sending emails to my friends who I am missing more and more everyday. Because internet connections are usually shoddy, I type emails to friends in word documents so that when I have internet the emails are queued up and ready to go. By the time I send emails, I’ve usually been working on them for days.

Our helper’s name is Aleymeyhu. After he finds us a hotel, he offers us a spot on a boat tour of the monasteries of Bahir Dar, which are beautiful ancient structures situated in the “jungles” of the islets surrounding the city. Because these monasteries are on islands, you need a ferry to get to them and the rides are only offered to groups. It looks like we have to join a group but we have to negotiate a better price. After we turn down his offer he returns to our room hours later offering a better deal. After a half an hour of negotiating, we sign up. The boat leaves in the morning.

The boat ride is peaceful and I enjoy seeing pelicans on the water and fisherman in the traditional bamboo canoes. The monasteries are interesting, but I find myself more drawn to the small dirt paths of the islets than to visiting the monasteries. Each island has an air of mystery created by the jungle canopies. I am captivated by the vegetation (including wild coffee) and the serenity of each place. A rustle in the trees makes us look up and we see a monkey jump a branch.

The boat ride to the monasteries

A monkey catches our attention

Wild coffee

After a while, Kristin, another young woman in our group, and I strike up a conversation. She is African American but has spent most of her life abroad, and now lives in Addis Ababa. We talk about the relationship of African Americans to Africa, books, and lots more. I enjoy her company and at the end of the day we make plans to have dinner together at night. I am grateful to enjoy her company after so many weeks of not bonding with any women.

The following day, we take a journey to Tisa Bai to see the Blue Nile Falls. It is the bumpiest ride of my life (45 minutes on a dirt road in a 3 wheeled tuc tuc), but I am in awe of the life that I see around me. Everywhere I look along the road seems to be a photograph—people in bright colors carrying loads on their heads, leading cattle, laughing, and yelling things at us along the way. I imagine stopping the tuc tuc to take pictures, but I feel like an intruder in this world. I am grateful to just pass through to witness the sights. The next day we leave Bahir Dar to go to what we expect will be a major highlight of our time in Ethiopia, Awra Amba.

A month before we left NYC, Mat came across a documentary about Awra Amba, a village in Ethiopia of 400 people that is somewhat of an anomaly. Everywhere else in Ethiopia, men and women have very strict gender roles. There are jobs that are considered to be for men and those for women. In Awra Amba, the person who is best suited for the job does the job, regardless of gender. So some men are cooks, which you find nowhere else in the country. The proceeds of their industry, weaving, are shared evenly among the villagers. There is no begging, no poverty, all children attend school (and many go on to university), and old people are taken care of without having to work or beg. There is also no church or mosque in the village, though they are not atheists and the villagers are free to worship outside of the village.

Mat contacted the filmmakers for the contact information of the village so that we could visit. He also found out that they were looking for a place to screen the documentary in NYC. We ended up hosting the screening at Gratitude Café in Brooklyn and it was a big success.

Now we are here in Ethiopia and every time we mention Awra Amba to locals we meet, they are very happy and excited that we will visit. We can tell that the village is very respected.

We take a 2 hour bus ride to Awra Amba and we are let out on a road that is a 2km walk to the village. A child shadows us along the way. This happens very frequently in Ethiopia. Children follow you around hoping to be given money or candy to get lost. Finally, I turn and ask the girl her name. I ask if she is from Awra Amba. She says yes, but I know she is lying. “If you were from Awra Amba,” I say gently, “you would not be asking for money.” I’m not sure if she understands me, but I think I see a hint of shame in her face. Soon she stops following us.

The longer we are in Africa, the more I see the harm of fostering a culture of dependency. Everywhere we go, we meet intelligent, capable people. If children make money begging on the streets, there is no incentive for them to go to school and a cycle of dependency is perpetuated. So I am excited to visit Awra Amba where begging is not permitted, to see first-hand the ingenuity and wealth of a group of African people who have put their noses to the ground to create better lives for themselves. The people are humble, industrious, and self-reliant.

We take our things to the visitors’ quarters and are given a tour of the small village, where we learn the principles and history of the group. We meet Deresa, the man who is called “the angel of visitors,” as he is responsible for hospitality. Deresa is a sweet man with a warm smile, who laughs through almost all of his sentences. He wears an apron that was woven in the village. He takes our dinner order (our usual baiyenetu) and shows us our room. All of the buildings in Awra Amba are cement with tin roofs. Our room is painted yellow and has 2 small windows.

Deresa, “The angel of visitors,” posing in an Awra Amba made scarf and apron

Getting settled into our room in the visitor’s quarters

On our first night, we join the children of the village in a volleyball game. The children are so good that I soon decide to enjoy the game from the sidelines. Mat plays a good game and makes friends. I sit on the grass, imagining what they are saying, and watch the sunset. Because of the language barrier, talking to the villagers is next to impossible. Only a few speak English and those that speak English tend to have greater responsibility so they are quite busy.

The village is on about 50 acres of land and there is a tree in the center. Fields of cattle and beautiful mountain views surround the homes, cafeteria, school, museum, library, store, visitor’s center, and administrative building. I am happy to learn that the children participate in art programs that are conducted by volunteers who wish to donate their talents. There is very little money to pay for art programs. I contemplate doing theater with the children, but I don’t see a way because of the annoying language barrier. When we saw the documentary, I was concerned that art did not seem to be present in the lives of the people. Now I understand why. While they are prosperous and growing, every cent must be watched and art programs seem tertiary.

Our days here are very restful. We spend most of our time learning Amharic letters and words from some of the children and sitting under the welcome tree. We also play cards with another man who is visiting, reminding us of our many nights of card playing with Wes in Egypt.

Soon it is time to go. We leave the village with Gebahayu, the man who was our main contact before we came. He is an accountant and manages programs for the village. We discuss the agricultural goals of the village, my questions about art programming, and the recent trips the founder, Zumrat, has been invited on to discuss the ideals of the village.

When we say goodbye on the road, I feel our time has come too soon. Awra Amba has left an indelible mark on my heart already. The more time we spend in Africa, the more I realize how revolutionary this small village is. Though we have left, it has not left me. What happens when a group of people think outside the box, does something out of the ordinary, and uses humble ingenuity to re-imagine life? Awra Amba!