Leaders of the peasant associations were quick to realize the potential their offices had, and soon became corrupt. Monies changed hands for bigger and better parcels, and grudges were settled by assigning a bad lot to a neighbour in disfavour. It was not uncommon in the highlands for a single peasant family to be assigned and reassigned tiny pieces of land scattered all over the landscape, making it immensely difficult to look after their crop. There was no way to appeal the decisions of the peasant associations.
The peasant had to cope with another obstacle: the socialized market. Peasants were required to sell, at a bare minimum, fifty percent of their produce to the state-run “Agricultural Marketing Corporation” (AMC). Naturally, the AMC set the price. The balance of the produce could be sold at the local market or consumed by members of the peasant household, but roadblocks, checkpoints and other methods halted anyone from smuggling grain into the cities. I vividly recall having to walk through the jungle to bring Mam a few kilos of grain from Kuni, a mere half-hour drive from Asebe Teferi. Prices in Kuni were as little as one-fifth of those in Asebe Teferi.
Collectivization of the peasant holdings—pooling the land, draft animals and farm implements—was meant to overcome the inefficiencies of small farms, taking advantage of the benefits of larger-scale operations. They developed in stages. In its final form, a collective farm would abolish private ownership of land altogether, and income would be distributed among the farmers based on labour contributions. Unlike state farms, which are owned and operated by the state, collective farms are the property of the farmers in the group.
For an Ethiopian farmer, to help out a neighbour in need is as primeval an instinct as sharing a feast with him. But collectivization had nothing to do with helping neighbours; it was an alien culture that had set itself on a collision course with the treasured attitudes and values of the peasants. Collective farms removed ownership of land and tools from the individual’s reach, and made them properties of the community. They made it impossible for the peasant to walk into “his” farm to pick a few ears of corn for his hungry kids, and taxed the saint’s days he had always observed.
Collective farms were slow to progress. On that summer day in 1978, as I was having a cold beer with Tesfu under the bright eyes of the heavenly stars, there were only a couple of dozen in existence. At their peak, there were only about forty, as the peasants put up stiff resistance. In one memorable act of defiance in early September 1979, a hundred and fifty people in the province of Sidamo were done to death by the regime for protesting against collectivization.
Other peasants managed to express their displeasure in a less risky but equally powerful way: through output. A 1983 report by the Ministry of Agriculture confirmed what we had always known, that private farms invariably outperform collective ones. Comparative yields for private and collective farms tell the whole story: for barley, private farms produced an average of 11.5 quintals per hectare while collective farms yielded just 6.48; for wheat, the comparative yield was 13.2 to 2.38; for maize, 20.2 to 11.05; for sorghum, 12.5 to 3.47; and for teff, the main staple food of most Ethiopians, the figure was a staggering 11.3 to 0.52.
One could easily follow the threads of famine weaving in the junta’s farm policy long before it became public in 1984. Forced collectivization of the farmer; the instability of private holdings; artificially depressed prices for farm produce; and the absence of consumer goods for the peasant to aspire to purchase—encouraging him to enhance his produce—triggered the crisis, exactly one decade after the last one of similar magnitude had helped bring down the old monarchy.
State farms were the brainchild of the chairman of the junta. The experts weren’t confident that the state was properly equipped to operate such an enterprise, but the chairman wouldn’t hear of it. State farms were the socialist thing to do. They generated imports, alleviated food shortages, and would be impressive sites for visiting dignitaries, the chairman believed.
And so, shortly after the Land Reform Act, teams were dispatched to seek out potential state farm sites. A team consisted of agronomists, land surveyors and political cadres. The first stops this team made were at existing farms—the peasant holdings. The peasants had not yet finished celebrating their recently acquired land “ownership” when the regime came knocking at their doors.
This team visited the farms during the peak of the rainy season, when the rivers and streams overflowed their embankments, and the land was wildly alive. The fertile soil would have been nowhere visible for the verdant growth that extended from river’s edge to horizon, like an emerald-coloured tapestry. The agronomists, cadres and surveyors stood on the high ground, as in some biblical drama, and envisioned the future of the land. Their words would decide what would become of the inhabitants, what the birds would sing and how the rivers would flow. Soon after, the militia would be dispatched to evict the peasants from their homes and relocate them far away—where no one knew what the land would yield, what the Adbar would exact. The peasants would have to find that out on their own.
In the meantime, all traces of the peasants were eradicated. Bulldozers destroyed their homes in preparation for the construction of the residences, schools and facilities required for a large-scale operation. Settlements were built for the managers, the political cadres and the proletariat, according to their Communist class distinctions. Huge equipment sheds were constructed, in anticipation of the hundreds of tractors, combine harvesters and other farm machines that would be requested. Money, however, was in very short supply. The World Bank and other international money-lending institutions actively shunned the regime. They still looked askance at the junta which had so recently confiscated foreign-owned industries and businesses without paying a cent in financial compensation. In addition, the West was not keen on state farms, and they had plenty of failures to point to in socialist Africa, Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. But the junta would not hear of it—this wasn’t a matter of mere accounting, but ideology.
Once again, the Soviet Union intervened. An open-ended line of credit was bestowed upon the regime, and thousands of tractors, combines and other farm implements were sent from the Eastern Bloc countries, primarily Russia and East Germany. Repayment of the loan was to be in coffee, at a friendly price, delivered at the ports.
Unfortunately, the new machinery did not perform half as well as the old, which had earned a reputation after years of the most demanding conditions. The new machines required frequent maintenance and broke down easily. Replacements were in short supply. Very soon, the state farms started cannibalizing one machine to get another moving. After a few planting seasons, the state farms looked like graveyards for high-tech gadgetry.
The new state farms were plagued not only by failing machinery, but declining yields as well. Every new season was overshadowed with uncertainty. As the farm managers wondered what the ground was capable of yielding season to season, the regime’s quota for the farm multiplied exponentially. The original idea of improving on the achievements of the peasants by growing the same crops with better seeds, machinery and skilled labour had been a fiasco. The planners had forgotten to consult the peasants’ own considerable farming lore, the result of many generations of trial and error.
As the rains kept to no man’s schedule, the peasants had learned to adjust their planting season so that it would fall within the narrow band of optimal days. The primitive tools used for turning the soil were also an asset, as they disturbed only the top few inches, allowing the depths to retain their water much longer than earth that had been turned with a tractor. During the growing season, each peasant would cover his small plot with mulch, to reduce evaporation, a practice the state farms were incapable of emulating on such a large scale. All these small factors, coupled with the peasant’s personal stake in success, made the small farms outshine the large state enterprises.
The junta may have won the war against its political opponents, but the failure of its entire policy had not been completely lost on it. It
wasn’t for me to underpin that policy, linking my arms with the high brass in office. My life needed new direction, but that would only be found in time. What I hankered after, for the moment, was a well-deserved vacation, away from rough-and-tumble politics, and for that I could think of no better place than my beloved Kuni.
* * *
IN THE SAFE retreat of Yeneta’s homestead, the two-month vacation passed quite speedily. I had to prepare for school. Earlier, I had requested and received a transfer to the Alemaya College of Agriculture, which was set in a rural area twenty kilometres from Harar. I had never had any interest in agriculture. I had always wanted to be a civil engineer. But civil engineering courses were given only in Addis Ababa, and I was determined never to set foot there again. My hope was that the distance from the city, and from the paved highway, would be therapeutic—and that the cadres would have better things to do than drop by.
ECLIPSE OF THE STAR
HALF AN HOUR’S drive from the city of Harar, five kilometres from the asphalt highway, tucked between sky-blue Lake Alemaya and peasants’ holdings, lay the Alemaya College of Agriculture. The vast, fertile land on which the campus had been founded was farmed, shielding from view the school buildings, the research centres and the residential villas. During the growing season, the only clue to the existence of the campus was the two three-storey apartment buildings that housed the junior staff.
There were only five departments on campus, and most of them were related to the study of agriculture. I settled for agricultural engineering.
My first year in Alemaya passed quite uneventfully, except for one major incident. One Saturday morning, at about 5 A.M., I was shocked awake as though struck by lightning. I was sweating profusely and was shaken through with tremors. I had no idea why. I hadn’t had a nightmare or been ill. But I was afflicted with such a feeling of restlessness that I couldn’t stay in bed any longer, so I went out for a walk.
I walked for over an hour, and when I was finally exhausted I headed for a farm run by the horticultural section of the plant sciences department. A variety of flowers, both domestic and exotic, covered the landscape like an exquisitely wrought Persian carpet. It was breathtaking to look at, even for someone like me, who was inured to the beauty of nature. I wandered from one plot to another, from greenhouse to greenhouse, before finally sitting down to let the morning sun settle into my skin, and watch the birds and insects gorge themselves on the sweet flowers.
Around ten o’clock, I returned to my dormitory to have a shower and tidy up. Then, as I stretched myself out on the bed and stared at the featureless ceiling, I heard a knock on the door. My good friend and roommate Mitiku answered it. From the pitch of the visitor’s voice, I was fairly certain that it was a man employed at Students’ Services. I remembered this man as loud and ill-mannered, and thought that I was mistaken in his identity, for today his voice seemed sedate, and unusually businesslike. After exchanging greetings with Mitiku, and confirming that I resided in the unit, he asked my friend to step outside to speak with him.
Mitiku returned a moment later. He was nervous and rushed me out of bed, to change, as he was already doing himself. I was told that a car was waiting for us downstairs, and that we had to get on the road, quickly. My meticulous friend, who would never cut lumber without measuring it twice, was suddenly impulsive? He refused to say what it was all about, and why he had the sudden urge for a trip. His polite ambiguousness and his refusal to look me in the eyes betrayed him. Someone close to my heart had died. I just didn’t know who.
Tears ran down my cheeks, breaking free of generations of inhibition. I wailed through the twenty-kilometre ride, which for some reason seemed to stretch to the far end of the globe. The old Peugeot rattled. Grey dust floated up into the cabin through cracks in the floor. The Adere driver, intoxicated by a night-long feast of chat, tried to force the little car to disengage from the shackles of gravity. He swerved wildly on the narrow asphalt road, sending highland donkeys, laden with sacks of freshly harvested chat, careening into open ditches.
Ages passed before the old Peugeot finally pulled into a hospital compound. I recognized Jegula Hospital immediately. It was only two years ago that Mam and I had brought the frail body of Henok here for urgent treatment.
I stumbled out of the grey car, and instinctively headed for the small group of familiar faces congregating at the gate to the hospital morgue. I was a few feet away when the group broke into an orchestra of wailing. I resumed my cries. The women beat their chests in the time-honoured Christian tradition, shedding tears that had been held in check until my arrival. The men covered their faces with colourful handkerchiefs and began their monotone dirge. I was not told who the deceased was, and didn’t find out until one of the ladies called Mam’s name between her sobs.
Mam had been killed by Somali rebels who had peppered the bus she was riding in with machine-gun fire. She was coming from Jijiga. She had died that very morning, before the sun had broken free of the sombre horizon.
Unknown to me, Mam had gone to Jijiga to assess the damage done to our property by the Somali enemy, and find out about the casualties sustained by our friends and relations. Now she herself was a casualty. I knew this should never have happened. Jijiga had already been retaken by Ethiopia, and the Somalis forced back to their rightful borders. It was a time that friends and foes should have spent assessing the damage, licking their wounds, and putting the pieces of their shattered lives back together. It should have been a time for us to forgive and forget.
Mam had believed in fairy tales, in angels and spirits. She’d believed that there were spirits who were good and bad, and who were responsible for the noble things we did and for the wickedness that befell us, but that there were no good or bad people. She’d believed in the powers of the Church and its many saints, and the ancient powers of the Adbar. Things in our lives might go wrong, but it was nothing that a heart-to-heart conversation with the towering Adbar and a few humble sacrifices to Mam’s favourite saints couldn’t fix.
Once, when I was still a kid, Mam showed me a primitive painting done on finely beaten sheepskin. It had come from the northern highlands. There were all sorts of animals on that hide. There were lions lying next to a small water hole, watching, with neighbourly eyes, a pack of zebras quenching their thirst. There were cheetahs and gazelles rubbing shoulders in a heavenly wilderness. Vultures shedding tears over the remains of their brother rabbit.
I was captivated by the contradictions and sheer incredulity of the painting, and asked Mam about it. In her usual matter-of-fact way, she smiled at me and gave me her simple and intuitive answer: “No animal goes out of its way to exterminate his neighbour,” she said. Yes, they fight one another to assert their territory; they stalk the weak from time to time, to feed their own young; but they also accept that it is everyone’s right to share this world. It never occurred to me to ask if my fellow humans were so accommodating. I doubt if Mam would have told me if she had known the truth. But on that fateful day my unasked childhood questions were vividly answered.
* * *
MAM’S REMAINS HAD been placed in an unvarnished wood casket, quickly thrown together by a local carpenter. The wood was pitiful and the workmanship shoddy. A famished snake could have passed through the gaps between each plank. The casket, when it was handed to us, had already been nailed shut. Three men hoisted it onto the top of a Land Rover that belonged to the son of Mam’s uncle. I used to see this man on the streets of Jijiga, but our families did not often see each other socially. I thought it was nice of him to show up at such a terrible hour, to share our grief and incur the funeral expenses.
The inside of the Land Rover was quickly filled. Besides myself, there were three women and the driver, all of whom were close relations. All my siblings were in Asebe Teferi, except for my elder sister, Meselu, who still lived in a different town.
It was a memorable trip. A light rain fell. The sky was shadowed by ink-dark clouds that moved swiftly over the mo
untains until the wide expanse of the heavens was completely carpeted. Only a handful of people were to be seen on the streets of Harar, most wearing plastic hoods over their heads, eyes fixed on the ground. Their minds seemed to be elsewhere, and their legs led them to a land of lost dreams. A donkey stepped out of a clutch of eucalyptus trees, laden with sacks of freshly harvested chat. Once its feet possessed the hard ground, the animal refused to make way for passing cars. Our driver cursed it, in a low voice. He opened his window and insulted the Oromo peasant who accompanied the creature, reminding him that the road was reserved for motorized donkeys. The peasant chose to ignore him.
The road was littered with potholes, and our car hit one now and again, shaking us violently. I was becoming quite alarmed, and was afraid that the poorly built casket would fall to pieces, forcing me to stare at the bullet-riddled body of Mam. Twice during the trip, I asked the driver to stop so I could get down and check on the integrity of our precious cargo.
Grandma, the neighbours and our few relations already knew about the tragedy. When our arrival was announced, a small crowd emerged from a teetering mourning tent that had been erected for the occasion. They cried and beat their chests in a harmonious melody. Able-bodied men lined up to take a turn at the casket, carrying it at a snail’s pace up the unsteady hill. The ladies intensified their wailing, jumping higher and higher, beating their chests more and more violently, until their exposed skin looked like raw meat.
The wailing continued until the elders, who stood at the periphery of the small crowd consulting the heavens, the stars, all good spirits and angels, made a solemn declaration that it was enough. They told us that any further wailing would be considered an open protest against the Almighty’s decision, and would carry grave consequences for the living. The crowd quieted immediately.
Throughout the cacophony, I could see my youngest brother, Henok, standing high on the cliff watching the drama unfold at his feet. His amused five-year-old eyes could not make head or tail of the hullabaloo around him, so he didn’t realize that there had been a loss in his life, and that his future no longer held that promise of warmth. Seeing me, the boy came running, glad that I had returned early from school. He hoped that I would lift him high above my head, as I always did, and tell him some good stories. That day he was disappointed.
Notes from the Hyena's Belly Page 27