In Ethiopia with a Mule

by Dervla Murphy

  18 February

  The Land-Rover arrived at midday, and though John has a streaming cold and Sir Thomas has lumbago we achieved such a gay lunch party that I slept away the afternoon. At six o’clock the cocktail schemozzle started and I slunk back to my room, being allergic to such entertainments. But as I lay reading Wodehouse the children rallied round so loyally that the final accumulation of empty glasses looked positively debauched. Now early to bed, for I must be at the airport by 7 a.m. tomorrow.

  19 February. Bahar Dar

  On arrival here I was enraged to find Jock in wretched condition, though I had left an ample ‘feeding-fund’ for him. Obviously no one has bothered to supervise the servant in charge, who seems to have pocketed most of the money and given Jock some vile fodder that has blown him up dreadfully and made his coat more starey than I have ever seen it. When I called to him as I approached he pricked his ears and then came towards me – which was indeed touching, for by now he must associate his faranj owner with a variety of strenuous horrors and unnerving predicaments. Evidently he knows that he is appreciated.

  Our tiny Ethiopian Airlines plane left Asmara at 7.30 a.m. and arrived here three hours later, having stopped at Aksum, Gondar and Debre Tabor. Asmara has an International Jet Airport: elsewhere we came down on crude landing strips. The crew were all Ethiopians and the pilot was extremely skilful, but inevitably there were lots of bumps. As we flew low over the Semiens I heard my fellow-passengers exclaiming in awe and the Englishman on my left remarked that this was such a bloody impossible country one could only get around by air. I agreed politely.

  Then I found myself looking into the future instead of the past. Debre Tabor lies on our route from Bahar Dar to Lalibela and it was strange to think that the fifteen-minute flight will probably be a four-day walk. From what I could see of the terrain our next lap will not be an easy one.

  Bahar Dar is 2,000 feet lower than Asmara and feels almost tropical by comparison. I spent most of the afternoon swimming in Lake Tana – and now I must pack my sacks.

  9

  The Natives were Hostile

  20 February. A Compound on a Hillside

  FOUR YEARS AGO the Israelis, by way of ‘aiding’ Ethiopia, built a horrid bridge over the Blue Nile where it flows out of Lake Tana, and the desecration of this spot – once among the most romantic in Africa – has been completed by rows of shacks, a petrol station and a textile factory.

  Beyond the bridge we left the motor-road, went north-east for a few miles through rough scrubland, climbed a forested hill and slithered down to wide, hot grasslands, where the issue was confused by many rivers. One flowed broad and deep through a patch of thick, dark jungle, and beside it Jock looked at me reproachfully; so after a quick swim I led him back to the grasslands, where for two hours we wandered up and down the high banks of several narrow, shallow rivers, whose fording points were always elusive. A few settlements lay on distant hillsides but we only met one local, a youth who asked all the usual questions in Amharinya: ‘Where are you coming from? Where going to? Why alone? Why on foot?’ Trying to answer, I walked on through the knee-high grass, leading Jock – who dawdled today, if not led. (The girths had to be tightened three times during the morning, as he got rid of his wind.) Then I felt a nervous jerk on the halter and looked round to see our companion racing away, clutching my sun-hat and an injara-basket which had been tied to the top of the load. I was furiously angry – the more so as I had been about to stop to put on my hat – but pursuit would have been futile. This theft is serious, for the basket (recently purchased in Gondar) contained compass, map, altimeter, torch, tin-opener, spoon, today’s lunch-tin of tuna fish, water-pills and malaria pills. The pills and tin-opener I should be able to replace in Dessie, but the map and compass are irreplaceable between here and Addis – and without them it may be rather difficult to find Addis. At this latitude the midday sun doesn’t help much and my sense of direction is not reliable on wriggly tracks.

  When we got clear of the rivers a path of sorts led us across wooded hills and level grasslands until two o’clock. Then I saw a few compounds on a ploughed slope and a group of men beckoned me to join them for talla. This settlement seemed poor, yet all were eager to give me food as well as drink. I reported the theft here, and my host named a village from which the youth was likely to have come, declaring that its inhabitants are ‘metfo’.

  Another series of hills, plains and rivers brought us to this settlement on a slope overlooking a broad valley. By chance I sought hospitality at the priest’s compound, with a result that has been more diverting than edifying. My tall, thin, elderly host – who for some reason wears only his turban and a shamma – has friendly though cunning eyes and a stately manner. Like everyone else he was deceived by my Gondar haircut, and I hadn’t been sitting long in the compound when he led his granddaughter towards me and offered her love at two dollars for an hour or five dollars for the night. She was a very beautiful girl, who looked most willing to earn an honest dollar, and I pretended to consider the offer carefully. Then I settled for an hour, explaining solemnly that having walked from Bahar Dar I mightn’t be up to an all-night session. By now the whole family had gathered round, and everyone saw this point and nodded understandingly as the girl sat close beside me, intending to give good value by not limiting her co-operation to one hour after dark. A moment later Grandad’s little error had been discovered.

  The poor girl exclaimed ‘Set nat!’ – and there was an astonished silence, during which I grinned broadly at the company. Then everyone, including Grandad, roared with laughter. Immediately one man stood on a high rock to relay the joke to the next compound, illustrating his words with some not very decent gestures.

  Here the cattle are sheltered at night in one enormous, communal stockade, elaborately reinforced with thorn bushes and guarded against thieves and wild animals by a group of youths and a pack of dogs. When we arrived the herds were still grazing on the valley floor and from all directions shepherds came running up the slope to inspect the faranj before darkness fell. It is strange to think of the responsibility borne by these little boys. As soon as they can walk they learn how to herd, and by the age of eight or nine many of them are in charge of almost the entire wealth of a family.

  As I write two-thirds of a moon is brilliant overhead and lightning frequently spurts up the sky from behind the southern mountain. Neighbours by the dozen have been coming to view me and we are all sitting outside the tukuls – where it is so much brighter than inside – drinking talla and araki and eating atar from the pod. The loquacious womenfolk have become so engrossed in this impromptu party that there are no signs of supper, but I was given two raw eggs an hour ago and I’m now going to unroll my flea-bag on deep teff straw.

  21 February. A Compound on a Mountainside

  This morning I was shown the faint path to Debre Tabor by my host – still casually clad in a shamma, though canonically equipped with cross and fly-whisk. There is little traffic on this route and we were soon climbing into the first real mountains we’ve met since leaving the Semiens. This range is precipitous, heavily forested and almost entirely uncultivated; between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. we passed only two distant settlements.

  Soon after midday I saw a leopard – and my heart bounded with a mixture of delighted excitement and ancestral fear. The handsome creature had been lying along the branch of a tree, apparently asleep, and when our footsteps disturbed him he sprang to another tree and thence to the undergrowth in one swift, sinuous movement. I had tightened my grip on the halter, expecting some nervous reaction from Jock, but evidently his ancestral fears were not operating and he just plodded on, unflappable as ever.

  From the top of this mountain I could see our path winding for miles along a grassy ridge that was narrow in relation to its length and had a deep valley on either side. Beyond these valleys two other long, high, unbroken ridges induced a peaceful sense of seclusion and here I sat on a boulder to eat raisins while sniffing at the swe
et pungency of sun-beaten herbs, listening to a gentle orchestra of birdsong, and looking at a glory of flowering shrubs – pink, white, blue, yellow, purple, red. A few white clouds were making the intensely blue sky look even bluer and I hoped that soon they would cover the sun. With my head shaven and my hat stolen I’m already suffering from a burnt nape and burnt ears. (My ears being at right angles to my head makes them extra vulnerable.) As we continued a high, cool wind rose suddenly, driving masses of grey cloud before it – and once it even tried to rain. (For two months, from about mid-February, the highlands enjoy what are known as ‘the Little Rains’ – heavy showers that usually fall in the evenings.)

  On the next mountainside I lost the path, and by 4.30 the sun had told me that we were going due south instead of north-east. However, we soon came to a village where I found a wide track that took us east for five miles over high, ploughed hills. The few people we met seemed rather surly – though not sufficiently so to prepare me for my reception here.

  This settlement consists of five or six impoverished compounds near the top of a mountain. The first two families I approached not only refused me permission to sleep in their compound but shouted ‘Hid!’ and made threatening gestures with dulas. I hidded, endeavouring to combine alacrity with dignity, and cautiously continued towards two tukuls that stand in a stubble-field a little apart from the rest of the settlement. Here the gaunt young man of the house was far from welcoming, but he did grumpily agree to my sleeping in his compound, where there are two ferocious curs to repel hyenas and leopards.

  While unloading, I heard loud moans coming from one tukul – where I found my host’s young wife lying on a mud bed with a high fever. As she was complaining of severe pain in her lungs I decided to administer antibiotics and the first capsule seems to be working well. Her husband demanded murfee as soon as he realised that the faranj was carrying medicines and he turned quite sulky on hearing that I have none. These highlanders – like the Tibetans – much prefer injections to oral medicines. However, despite his churlishness towards the guest, my host is being endlessly patient and gentle with his wife. For the past three hours he has been sitting beside her, massaging her back, stroking her forehead and persuading her to drink tea and coffee. He also attempted the traditional ‘horn treatment’, which seems to have affinities with Tibetan medical magic. Taking a long cow’s horn he wrapped a large green leaf around the hole in the tip and tried to attach it to the body, on the site of the pain, by suction. To my disappointment his repeated efforts failed, so I don’t know what the next step would have been.

  This is an extremely poor household; the whole family looks undernourished and neither injara nor talla were served at supper-time, though there are three women sitting around the fire. Everyone had two fistfuls of boiled haricot beans and as much coffee as they wanted, for coffee is now commonly grown at this altitude.

  Half-an-hour ago a worn-looking man of about fifty – who had earlier chased us from his compound – came to give me five tiny new-laid eggs. He is the father of my patient and this valuable gift has been presented, I gather, as ‘compensation’. On learning that I am a woman he promptly volunteered to sleep beside me, as a bodyguard, and he seems quite overcome by remorse and gratitude – which confirms my opinion that these people’s hostility was based on fear rather than ill-will.

  Now I must give my patient another capsule and go to bed, hoping that I’ll wake during the small hours to administer the next dose. As I write the poor woman is trying to suckle her frantically screaming two-year-old son – which seems unwise, but is at least a sign that she feels better.

  22 February. Camping in a Valley

  Last night I slept brokenly, but this morning had the reward of leaving my patient smiling and feverless.

  We set off at seven o’clock and for two hours were walking east on a much-used track across undulating country. Many slopes were being ploughed and from every direction came the sharp cries and curious whistles of youths driving yokes of oxen, and the gunshot cracks of long whips echoed and re-echoed over the wide, serene landscape. Then the terrain became rougher and the track vaguer, but I never quite lost it and at eleven o’clock we reached a big village shaded by tall blue-gums.

  Already thirst was torturing me, for without water-purifying pills I am dependent on talla. So I toured the compounds, and at the fifth tukul was offered a feeble brew and a meal of stale, slimy injara and fiery berberie paste. Several young men came to sit around me, stopping on their way to examine Jock’s load, and the atmosphere was unpleasant. They lacked the normal highland courtesy and made no attempt to talk with me, but were all the time discussing me and my buccolo.

  When I stood up to leave my elderly hostess blocked the doorway and aggressively demanded two dollars for less than fifty cents worth of food and drink. This sort of thing angers me. I had intended giving one dollar, but now I handed over fifty cents and firmly pushed past her, to find myself followed by three youths, who attempted to take my purse from my pocket. I was about to be discreet instead of valorous when a gunman appeared around the side of the tukul, wearing a bush shirt, clean jodhpurs and an air of authority. He must have been a local official, for at once the youths slipped away around the other side of the circular hut. I then picked up Jock’s halter, exchanged greetings with the gunman and departed.

  The people of this area seem so unpredictable that I’m glad we didn’t begin our trek here. By now familiarity with highland ways has given me a lot more self-confidence, in relation to the highlanders, than I had when I landed at Massawah.

  Beyond the village I detected a faint path running east through tall jungle grass. Here we met another gunman who stopped to warn me, dramatically and emphatically, about the number of shifta said to be at present infesting the forests on the way to Debre Tabor. His was the first of six similar warnings I received today; but even if it is true that shifta abound locally I can do nothing about it – except pray that they won’t notice us.

  The noon sun felt brutally hot as we climbed a stony, shrub-dotted mountain. On the plateau summit, where much teff-threshing was in progress, we passed two locked churches and a few settlements before descending a precipitous, thickly-forested slope on a crumbling path. At the foot of this mountain, beyond a group of three dejected compounds, the path vanished and for the next four hours I saw no vestige of a track going in any direction.

  At 2.30 I enjoyed a long swim in a deep, narrow river. All day I had been sweating hard, so my self-control collapsed here and I drank avidly. I wonder if those experts who tell us that our sexual appetite is the strongest know what real thirst feels like; I can imagine the desire for water driving someone to commit a crime to which sexual desire could never drive them.

  Crossing the river we climbed another high hill, populated by grey baboons, and here a surprisingly unalarmed leopard went strolling through the grass thirty yards ahead of us – to the great annoyance of the baboons. For the next half-hour thick forest forced us to go in whichever direction was possible, rather than in the approximately right direction; and when the trees thinned we crossed two more hills, where flowering shrubs were bright between massive outcrops of rock. Here I heard several new bird-calls and saw some spectacular butterflies and many busily buzzing bees – one of whom got over-busy and gave me an agonising sting on the back of my neck.

  By 4.30 we were on top of a third hill which, like the other two, might be more accurately described as a mountain – if the climbing of three mountains in rapid succession didn’t sound a little improbable. I spent twenty minutes finding a way down from this broad summit. On one side the forest was impenetrable, on another there was a sheer 500-foot precipice overlooking a wooded ravine, and ahead there were minor precipices, fearsome tangles of thorny scrub, high grass and low trees. This scrub was excruciating. Its thorns proved easily detachable from its branches, but not easily detachable from one’s skin; just now I have been painfully picking them out of my arms and legs. Also the dry, slipper
y waist-high grass concealed treacherously broken ground, and on one steep slope I skidded, tumbled sideways into a gully and wrenched my right knee. This was slightly alarming, but having recovered from the first shock of pain I realised that the injury was not severe. Soon after I saw how we could descend, by zig-zagging to avoid cliffs, gullies and scrub-tangles, and half-an-hour later we were on level grassland, where hundreds of grey baboons swarmed between gigantic trees.

  Another mile brought us to inhabited country. Here three small boys, collecting wood beside a stream, fled into the undergrowth at our approach and a pathlet led us to a slope where a young man was ploughing, chanting as he followed his oxen. Like many of the people of this region he was very dark-skinned (evidently Agow blood is unusually thick here) and when he noticed us he paused to stare in silent astonishment, before shouting a shifta warning. Then – his duty done – he showed no further interest, but turned back to his oxen, cracked his whip and resumed his chanting.

  One of the most obvious highland characteristics is a lack of interest in the passing faranj. Even the few people who spontaneously offer hospitality remain essentially aloof from their guest, which can be disconcerting. Yet this aloofness is no longer creating the barrier it once did. My return to the true highlanders, after that ‘urban’ interlude, has made me realise what an unexpectedly deep affection I am developing for them – though the people around here are not conspicuously lovable.

  By now my knee had become troublesome and as we approached a large settlement of scattered compounds I was in real pain. Our appearance roused a hostility that seemed more deep-seated than last evening’s, and for some reason my antennae warned me not to trust these people. I was immediately chased out of the first two compounds I entered and, when the women stoned me vigorously in the third, while the men stood by applauding their wives’ initiative, I decided to get away from it all.