In Ethiopia with a Mule

by Dervla Murphy

  I then went to a talla-beit to drink several pints in preparation for the next eight-mile stage to this settlement. Jock had already been unloaded and provided with straw; he looked disillusioned on being reloaded so soon – by a group of local experts – but resignedly followed me when I set off in the cruel midday heat.

  At first the track was ankle-deep in stifling volcanic ash and, as it wound between heat-reflecting boulders, I streamed sweat; but here the air is so dry that clothes never get damp – though my hair, under a wide straw hat, quickly becomes saturated. After a few miles I saw a woman and her filthy toddler sitting under a wild fig-tree beside a fat earthenware jar of talla. Assuming this to be the highland version of a roadside pub I collapsed nearby – to the terror of the toddler – and downed a quart at one draught. It was a thickish, grey-green brew, full of husks and unidentifiable bits and scraps, but I only cared that it was wet and had been kept cool by green leaves stuffed into the narrow mouth of the jar. The gourds used as drinking vessels never encounter washing-water; they are merely rinsed with a little talla before one’s drink is poured. While I was imbibing my second quart two old men came along and stopped to look wistfully at the talla-jar – and then hopefully at me. I stood them a drink each, and that was the end of my solitude for today. They too were coming here, so they insisted on accompanying me, one leading Jock. (It is considered frightfully non-U for a faranj to walk instead of riding and the absolute bottom for a faranj personally to lead a pack-animal.) The only traffic we saw was a man on a cantering mule, escorted by two servants running alongside – one armed with a rifle. Highlanders rich enough to own riding-mules never travel unprotected and their servants are natural long-distance runners. No wonder Ethiopia’s representative has won two Olympic Marathons – he probably regarded the twenty-six mile race as a sort of pre-breakfast stroll.

  The track was easy, running smoothly over a burnt-up golden-brown plain, with dusty-blue mountains in the middle distance and contorted red cliffs nearby. The highest of these cliffs was used for exterminating Italians during the war and one can still see a few bleached human bones lying at its base.

  This settlement is on a hilltop from which superb mountains are visible in every direction and when we arrived, at half-past-four, it seemed that my appearance was the most shattering local event since the Italian invasion. A ten-year-old boy who goes to school at Abbi Addi was summoned as interpreter; his English is minimal, but he conveyed that soon the headman would come to welcome me. This encounter took place fifty yards from the edge of the settlement and pending the headman’s investigation I was not encouraged to approach any nearer. None of the many staring men who had surrounded me seemed at all well-disposed – which is understandable, when one remembers what this region suffered during the occupation and how impossible it is for these peasants to distinguish between Italians and other faranjs.

  Indicating that Jock could safely be left, Yohannes, my young guide, led me to a nearby Italian military cemetery where scores of graves lie in neat rows – their headstones smashed or defaced – at the end of an avenue of mathematically-planted giant candelabra. In a country where neither building nor cultivation is planned or arranged, but everything appears merely to have ‘happened’, this little corner of forlorn orderliness was alien indeed – the epitome of the whole Italian-Ethiopian tragedy.

  On our return we found Jock surrounded by Workhsegeh’s entire male population and the headman stepped forward to greet me ceremonially. He looked rather ill-at-ease in rumpled khaki slacks and a patched tweed jacket, so I deduced that he had been delayed by a compulsion to don these garments of state in my honour. It is sad that Western clothes have become status symbols – the highlanders look so dignified and right in even the most tattered shammas, which hang around them in swinging folds and gracefully emphasise their proud, erect bearing.

  Yohannes explained that I was to stay in a hut in the chief’s sister’s compound; but another long delay followed because the hut was being cleaned out for my reception. There are some forty compounds here, each containing two or three tukuls and all securely fenced in by thorn bushes as a protection against hyenas and leopards. This hut is used only as a bedroom-cum-storeroom. A narrow mud platform runs around half the circumference and opposite is a mud ‘double-bed’, with a built-in ‘pillow bump’ at one end. The cow-hides and goat-skins must secrete bugs by the million so I have already sprayed fanatically, uncharitably wishing the livestock on the three children who will be my hut-mates. As I write, by the light of a tiny wick floating in oil, a clay vat of talla is fermenting audibly beside me.

  The chief’s elderly sister is friendly though shy. When I entered the compound talla was immediately produced and each time I half-emptied my quart-measure gourd it was filled to the brim by Yohannes.

  My supper consisted of two minute raw eggs, sucked from their shells, and a rusty tinful of fresh milk. Then I sat by the door watching the sunset colours and the first stars darting out in a still-blue sky. The men were all sitting on their haunches in the compound, talking and drinking talla, their shammas wrapped tightly around them against the evening air – which to me feels only pleasantly cool. The women were pounding peppers for wat in a hollow piece of tree-trunk, or cooking injara over a wood-fire in the main hut; probably none was offered to me because of a mistaken idea that it is unacceptable to faranjs.

  My attempts to buy barley for Jock have failed and he is tethered to a gnarled, dry-leaved tree, mournfully chewing pale teff straw – which contains no nourishment whatever, though presumably it will take the edge off his hunger. This whole compound is rather miserable; a few thistles grow in corners and a little enclosed patch of cotton-bushes is the ‘garden’. But the people are very handsome, like most highlanders. Both men and women have the basic bone-structure that good looks become even more pronounced with old age and everyone shows the finest of teeth that seem never to decay. Few highlanders are conspicuously tall, though the young sub-chief here is well over six feet and devastatingly handsome. I suspect that he and several of his contemporaries have some Italian blood. This is not because of any difference in colouring (many of the highlanders are quite fair-skinned, owing to their part-Semitic ancestry), but because of a difference in physique. The spindly limbs of the highland men and the exaggerated buttocks of the women clearly distinguish them from any European race.

  Ten minutes ago ferocious fighting broke out nearby. The roars and screams of pain and rage were rather alarming, but Yohannes calmly explained that it was only a quarrel about cattle-stealing between neighbours armed with mule-whips. Now all is silent again, and as the boys have just come in to sleep I’ll do likewise – I hope!

  1 January 1967. Mai Cheneta

  This has been an irritating New Year’s Day. When I was ready to start at 6.30 a.m. disaster befell me, for Yohannes was unequal to explaining (or the chief was unwilling to believe) that Leilt Aida had said I might travel alone. Therefore an escort of two was inflicted upon me and as these youths were anxious to get home this evening we arrived here at 2 p.m., having covered sixteen miles of rough terrain in six hours.

  Our departure was delayed by the chief’s insistence on giving my escort a chit, to be delivered to the police on our arrival here; then the boys would be given a receipt from the police for the chief, confirming my safe delivery, and another chit from me informing all whom it might concern that they had done their duty in proper fashion. Such a preoccupation with the written word seems odd in a country where at least 99 per cent of the rural population is illiterate; but possibly it is because of this illiteracy that chits are considered so immensely significant. The sub-chief was the only person in Workhsegeh who could write and, when I had provided paper and pen, all the elders held a long and inexplicably acrimonious discussion about what was to be inscribed. Then the young man began his anguished struggle to form the Tigrinya characters. Merely to watch this effort made me feel mentally exhausted – and when we arrived here the whole performance
was repeated, with variations.

  Before we left I shocked everyone profoundly by trying to pay for my lodgings; looking at me with scorn Yohannes said – ‘Here we don’t like money.’

  At 10.30 we stopped briefly for the boys to eat hunks of dark brown, bone dry dabo, which they wished to share with me. I can’t imagine how they swallow it without water: and they never seemed to get thirsty, despite the heat.

  All day we climbed steeply up and down countless arid grey-brown hills, dotted with thorny scrub. An amount of white marble was mixed with the rock and clay – great chunks of it glistened in the sun and sometimes marble chips lay in such profusion that the slopes looked like urban cemeteries. No settlements were visible, though we passed several herds of cattle and flocks of goats – tended, as usual, by small, naked, circumcised boys. In the heat of the day these children wear their folded shammas as thick pads on top of their shaven heads.

  Our toughest climb was during the hottest noon hour – up a precipitous mountain of bare rock on a rough, dusty path. Yet in these highlands a strong, cool breeze often relieves even the midday heat. This climb ended on a high pass, where I paused to drink deeply from my water-bottle while gazing across the hills that we had traversed since morning. Already the weirdly shaped ridges around Workhsegeh were blurred by haze and distance.

  My impatient bodyguard had hurried on with Jock and, as I trotted downhill after them, I reflected that the machine-age has dangerously deprived Western man of whole areas of experience that until recently were common to the entire human race. Too many of us are now cut off from the basic sensual gratifications of resting after violent exercise, finding relief from extremes of heat or cold, eating when ravenously hungry and drinking when the ache of thirst makes water seem the most precious of God’s creations.

  My map proclaims that Mai Cheneta is another town and I’m beginning to get the idea: any village with a police post and a primary school is a ‘town’.

  My arrival here almost caused a riot. Hundreds of people raced to stare at me, the children trampling on each other in an effort to see the faranj clearly. Then a Muslim tailor invited me into his tiny workshop, ordered tea and sent his son to summon an English-speaking teacher. As I gulped the black syrupy tea three men had to stand by the door, beating back the populace with their dulas: in my experience this was an unique scene.

  Soon the teacher arrived – a quiet, kind young man named Haile Mariam, who at once offered me his room for the night. I’m now installed in it, being attacked by apparently spray-proof bugs, while small rats scuttle round my feet. The Italians are responsible for most of Mai Cheneta’s solid buildings, of which this is one – high-ceilinged, about fifteen foot square, with a tin roof, an earth floor inches deep in dust, once whitewashed stone walls and a small, unglazed window. When I arrived the only piece of furniture was an iron bedstead with a hair mattress. (All the teacher’s possessions hang on the walls.) Then a battered table and chair were imported from the police station, so that I might write in comfort, and a few moments ago Haile Mariam came in with a big, bright oil-lamp.

  When Jock had been looked after the three teachers urged me to visit their school-house on the summit of a hill overlooking the town. This house was built as the Italian CO’s residence and is now a semi-ruin. All the windows and doors have been removed, part of the tin roof has collapsed and hundreds of pigeons roost in the rafters and cover the floor with their droppings. There are four fine rooms, completely unfurnished save for small hanging blackboards and rows of stones brought in from the hillside as seats for the pupils. Two years ago, when the school opened, there were thirty on the roll; now there are ninety, despite much opposition from local parents and clergy. As is usual in such communities many parents are anti-school, preferring their children to herd flocks rather than to study; and the highland clergy resent the recent intrusion of the state on a domain that hitherto has been exclusively theirs.

  Looking at a diagram of the planetary system on one of the blackboards I wondered how the parents of these children would react if their youngsters had the temerity to discuss astronomy when they went home from school. The highlanders still think that the earth is flat: some imagine it to be square, some see it as a disc and others believe it to be limitless. For them day and night are caused by the rotation of the sun above the earth, and the moon is responsible for the crops’ progress after the sun has brought the seedlings above ground. Theoretically it is desirable that such ignorance should be dispelled; but will these children be any better off, as they till their fields throughout the years ahead, for having had their conception of the cosmos thoroughly disorganised?

  On returning here I found the Chief of Police, the headman and a character described as ‘the Sheriff’ sitting in a row on the bed debating how best to deal with the problem of me. A group of privileged children – presumably the offspring of the officials – had been permitted into the room and were squatting motionless along the walls, gazing at me as though hypnotised, while various other locally important personages stood around joining in the argument.

  Had I been willing to ‘do in Rome …’ I would have accepted an escort for tomorrow’s trek; but escorts are so ruinous to my enjoyment that I remained obstinate – and eventually won the battle. I was then asked to write out and sign a statement (in triplicate: one copy for each official) declaring that I had been warned of the dangers and offered an escort, but had insisted on continuing alone. Obviously if I believed in these dangers I wouldn’t be such a fool; but the risk of being shot at by shifta while walking through Ethiopia is probably no greater than the risk of being strangled by a maniac while hitch-hiking through Britain.

  In the course of our argument Haile Mariam had said reproachfully, ‘It is not part of our culture to travel alone’; and I suspect that the unconventionality of my trek upsets these people as much as the possibility of a faranj being murdered and local officials getting the blame. They cannot understand why anyone should want to travel alone – and not understanding they disapprove.

  While our dispute was in progress a touching number of gifts were being brought to me by the locals – dozens of eggs, gourds of curds, flat slabs of different kinds of dabo and four chickens, all squawking frantically in premonition of the pot. (The teachers will benefit greatly from my visit.) Meanwhile the headman’s wife was pouring us tea from a kettle and handing round an earthen bowl of damp, roasted flour, rather like the Tibetans’ tsampa: we all dipped in for our handfuls and then kneaded them into little balls. The curds, too, were delicious; they tasted strongly of wood-smoke, as do some types of talla. One of the chickens became durro-wat for my supper, which I shared with the teachers.

  Like many semi-educated young highlanders, these teachers despise their own Church. Haile Mariam ridiculed the Ethiopian fasting laws and said that the people endure them only because of a superstitious fear of the priests. Perhaps there is an element of truth in this, yet fasting is so emphasised by Ethiopian Christianity that to the average highlander ‘keeping the fast’ and ‘being a Christian’ are synonymous. These fasts have long been known to weaken the highlanders. Both Muslims and Gallas repeatedly attacked the highlands during Lent, but throughout the centuries the Church has been increasing the strictness of the laws, until now the average highlander is expected to fast on 165 days each year and the clergy and elders on about 250 days.*

  Donald Levine states that ‘the rationale commonly given for the extensive schedule of fasting is that man’s nature is wicked and only by weakening himself in this manner will he be turned away from some act of aggression against others’. This reason for the imposition of such irrational laws is interesting. It hints that from the outset Ethiopian Christianity found itself incapable of effectively spreading Christ’s teachings among a people temperamentally opposed to any gospel of gentleness: so a desperate remedy was adopted and the highlanders’ harsh aggressiveness countered by an equally harsh code of mortification – which in time came to assume a disprop
ortionate importance at the expense of most other aspects of Christian teaching. Yet even in the curbing of aggression the Ethiopian Church has not been very successful. It is still regarded as an honourable act to kill anyone who has given even the mildest provocation, and the lines of a popular Amharic poem say:

  ‘Kill a man! Kill a man! It is good to kill a man!

  One who has not killed a man moves around sleepily.’

  Haile Mariam and his two comrades are natives of Aksum, the religious capital of Ethiopia, and all three accused the priests of living in luxury off the peasants – and of being far too numerous anyway. Whatever about the former hackneyed accusation, the latter is evidently true; in Asmara I was told that Ethiopia has an estimated 70,000 Coptic clergy – and fewer than seventy doctors.

  Which reminds me – this morning we met a comparatively well-dressed man, carrying a rifle, who produced a phial of penicillin and asked me in sign language to inject him. I tried to explain that even if I had a syringe I certainly wouldn’t inject anyone without knowing his medical history; but sign language is not really up to this sort of explanation and my would-be patient went on his way looking aggrieved. The Amharic word for ‘needle’ – and therefore for ‘injection’ – is ‘murfee’: so my name always causes great amusement.

  Trachoma and other eye-diseases are tragically common here; also a number of men are blind in one eye – possibly as a result of injuries received while fighting.

  2 January. Adua

  I set off at 7.30 a.m. and arrived here ten hours later, having ambled along happily for eighteen miles, seeing only five adults and a few young shepherds.

  All day the track climbed gradually between ridge after ridge of low hills. For miles a narrow river ran beside it, the water moving clear and green among gigantic, rounded boulders – many of them looking remarkably like Henry Moore’s reclining figures – and twice the temptation of deep, wide pools proved irresistable. Saying ‘Hang bilharzia!’ I turned Jock loose and jumped in, clutching a bar of soap.