In Ethiopia with a Mule

by Dervla Murphy

  I felt exhausted as we approached the tin roofs and truck noises. By 1 p.m. I had bought a big feed of dried peas for Jock (oddly, no corn was available), and had renewed my supply of insecticide. Then I retired to my cleanish room, in this Italian-built, Ethiopian-run truck-drivers’ ‘hotel’, and slept until 5 p.m.

  When I woke rain was crashing on the tin roof and one of the local teachers was awaiting me in the bar. He invited me to have dinner in his room and an hour ago I waded back here through an ankle-deep torrent of thin mud. If these are the ‘Little Rains’ one can easily believe that travelling is impossible in the highlands during the ‘Big Rains’ of June to September.

  16 March. A Shack by the Roadside

  Today we were following the motor-road for all of our twenty-three miles, yet Jock seemed alarmingly tired towards evening.

  This morning Waldia stank like a neglected public lavatory but beyond the town the rain-clear air was delicately scented by a flowering tree, with blossoms like balls of pale-yellow fluff, that grows here on many of the steep slopes. A long climb took us over the first of several passes, the road coiling around sheer, bare, brown mountains, from which streamed frequent miniature landslides of rain-loosened soil. Then we descended to a broad valley of many settlements and stubble-fields, where maize seemed to be the main crop. The landscape was bright with fifteen-foot-high pointed stooks of maize straw, looking like so many golden wigwams, and each stook had a thorn fence around its base as a protection against hungry cattle. These tall, thick maize stalks are a common local building material, being used to reinforce tukul walls and to form ceilings under the usual grass thatch. Most of the cattle here grow enormous, spreading horns – something I haven’t seen since leaving Tigre. This breed is lightly built and if the animals are underfed they walk as though their horns were too heavy for them to carry.

  Soon a strong wind arose and by one o’clock the sky was two-thirds clouded over. Colossal mountains towered ruggedly around us and here the road became another example of Italian engineering genius. Today Jock was slightly temperamental about traffic but luckily we had to contend with no more than eight buses and nine trucks.

  This big Jabarti compound is beside the road and high above it a Coptic settlement clings to the mountainside, half hidden by tangled bush and giant cacti. Despite its size the compound contains only one small tukul – the home of a young couple – and a long, Italian bungalow which may have been an army post during the Occupation. Five of the six rooms are no longer habitable and in the other lives a trio of ancient crones – one without a right eye, another without a left hand and the third pitifully burn-disfigured. These are my hostesses, and soon after I had entered their unfurnished, high-ceilinged home – illuminated only by the flicker of a tiny oil-lamp – the three abruptly rose, faced Mecca and began their evening prayers. They used a cow-hide prayer-mat and made a weird picture as they stood close together near the door, performing their rituals in unison, silhouetted against the cloudy dusk.

  A meagre supper of injara and bean-wat was brought from the tukul and though the poverty of this family is extreme everyone insisted that I should have some. Now two donkeys, a cow, a calf and Jock are being driven into another room, which I have decided to share with the livestock in preference to being a meal for bugs.

  17 March. A Camp under a Bridge

  St Patrick’s Day – appropriately, my first all-cloudy day in Ethiopia. When we set out at 6.30 it felt like a wet summer’s morning in Ireland, for soft rain was falling steadily and clouds hung low over a warm, dripping world. From the first pass I could see three new ranges with rags of silver mist trailing across and between their blueness. As we reached the valley floor the rain became a deluge and soon I was suffering from humidity – a strange sensation, after three months of exhilarating dryness. Here we slogged through mile after mile of thick, sticky mud and it was impossible to keep swarms of tickling flies off my face and neck. However, these incidental discomforts seemed well worthwhile when I looked around at the gloriously green countryside. Twice during the morning I stopped to graze Jock, who tore ravenously at the sweet, fresh grass. I hope his bowels survive this drastic change of diet.

  Then came another long, sweaty climb to a high pass where a sleety wind flayed us. From here sections of the road were visible for many miles ahead, descending around mountain after mountain, and it was three o’clock before we reached the valley floor. The rough terrain ahead seemed likely to be uninhabited so I called at a settlement, bought a bundle of straw for Jock’s supper and tied it to the top of the load, ignoring Jock’s hint that it was already supper-time. He is indeed an astute animal. Normally he never stops to shake himself more than once a day, but today he chanced to shake after I had bought the straw and a little of it fell off, so I foolishly paused to give him time to eat it. Cause and effect were not lost on our Jock. Soon he stopped to shake again, turned expectantly towards the few dislodged mouthfuls and looked cheated when I cruelly picked them up and stuffed them back with the rest.

  At the end of the next climb the road levelled out to wind around forested slopes where there were no sounds of voices or signs of cultivation. At sunset a barren valley appeared below us and on the far side I could see our road climbing another high, tukul-less range. I could also see a wide bridge, spanning a half-full river-bed, so as the sky promised more heavy rain I decided to camp beneath one of its arches. By the time we reached the bridge it was dark, and because Jock was stumbling wearily after our twenty-eight miles we had some difficulty getting down to river-level and finding a site. I cursed myself for having neglected to buy a torch in Waldia, where it hadn’t occurred to me that it might be necessary to camp out on the main road.

  In the morning I’ll have to wait for a passing truck-driver to load Jock. However, this shouldn’t cause much delay, as southbound trucks often stop overnight at Waldia.

  18 March. Dessie

  It rained heavily last night, but the Italians built solid bridges and I woke dry, though stiff. My bed was a pile of small boulders, yet having once arranged my body in the most comfortable position even this unpromising couch didn’t seem to matter. Wakening at 5.30, I saw that my tethering of Jock in the dark had been so inefficient that he had broken loose and had joined me under the arch, no doubt to shelter from the downpour.

  As I was packing up, the distant roar of a giant petrol-truck reverberated through the valley. The driver and his mate made a clumsy job of the loading – possibly because they were so astonished by the whole situation – but in a village on the crest of the next ridge, where I stopped at a rudimentary ‘bar-restaurant’, the servants reloaded carefully.

  I was relishing my third big glass of tea when a tall, elderly man entered the shack, wearing scanty rags and carrying a bundle tied to his dula. Sitting near me, he ordered a small glass of tea, which costs only five cents in many areas. Then he quickly asked ‘How much?’ and, on being told ‘Ten cents’, cancelled his order and stood up to leave without argument or complaint. Obviously he was starting a long day’s walk so I ordered tea and dabo for him, and after a moment’s surprised hesitation he accepted his change of fortune with dignified gratitude. This tiny incident affected me more than any number of statistics on poverty.

  All morning the road climbed gradually, the light breeze was cool and puffy white cloudlets drifted across a deep blue sky. We passed many settlements and on glistening pastures herds grazed contentedly, while from the smooth greenness rose long, brown mountains, with pine-woods darkening their lower slopes and round clouds resting on their summits – seeming to reflect faintly the cinnamon tinges of the earth beneath.

  At 10.30 we stopped in a small town and Jock applied himself to the fresh grass that grew around the talla-beit. On the way from Waldia I have rested in several towns and villages and I find the people of this (Wallo) province exceptionally friendly and hospitable. They seem less susceptible to the ‘main-road infection’ than the people of Begemdir – or perhaps they have
been less exposed to it – and in the village homes one sees few foreign innovations.

  On the long climb to the pass above Dessie the road wound around mountains so colossal that I felt like a midge on a cathedral wall; here every slope blazed with the waxy, orange-red flowers of a small cactus plant which grew amidst a scattering of shimmering blue-green eucalyptus saplings. Because of the contortions of these mountains one first sees Dessie – hardly two miles away, but far, far below – about three hours before one arrives. After a long westward detour over the pass the road swings south-east, crosses a minor mountain and drops abruptly to the provincial capital.

  On the pass we were joined by a friendly couple, also bound for Dessie, who offered to show me a short cut. Together we left the road and descended steeply to boggy, level pastures, which soon became waterlogged ploughland, divided into sections by channels some three feet wide and four feet deep. Here it was almost impossible to keep upright for this newly-turned, flood-sodden clay was like a mixture of butter and treacle. Then, as we were crossing one of the channels, Jock misjudged his jump and slipped backward into the water. At first only his hind legs were stuck, but in his struggles to free himself he turned, slipped again, and became wedged between the walls of the channel.

  For the next horrible half-hour the three of us, assisted by two small local boys, floundered through mud and water encouraging poor Jock to help himself. There was little else to be done, apart from removing his load and saddle – in the course of which operation I twice fell into the foul liquid at the bottom of the ditch. I could hardly bear to watch the unhappy creature again and again heaving up towards relatively solid ground, but always being defeated by slipperiness and lack of manoeuvring space. Then at last he freed himself sufficiently for me to force him to turn in the other direction and I persuaded him to work his way along, slowly, to a point where the channel widened enough for him to jump clear. He looked shaken and miserable as we reloaded and liquid mud had increased the weight of both load and saddle. So I decided to give him a day off tomorrow.

  On the outskirts of Dessie the friendly couple said goodbye and, as we continued towards the Touring Hotel, scores of delighted children were attracted to us by my mud-blackened person.

  According to the official guidebook this Italian-built hotel ‘offers fair service at moderate prices, but it is usually empty and has a gloomy atmosphere’. I have noticed before that the author of Welcome to Ethiopia makes it a point of honour never to mislead faranjs on the subject of Ethiopian hotels, and in his anxiety to be objective he sometimes goes too far. This enormous, clean building is furnished with elaborate tastelessness and, to the extent that only two of its one hundred and four bedrooms are occupied tonight, it does perhaps justify the adjective gloomy. Yet the staff welcomed us so cheerfully that it seems to me quite a jolly place. Two maidservants conducted me to my room, down an interminable carpeted corridor on which I deposited ounces of mud at every step; and when I apologised for the havoc in my wake they laughed loudly, patted me forgivingly on the shoulder and told me that I was like a buccolo in the tukul. Perhaps they were glad to have something to do.

  My 12/– room has a large window that opens, a knee-hole writing-desk, a comfortable bed, a bedside lamp, a washbasin into which water will flow (I am assured) tomorrow morning, and a palatial wardrobe whose door-handles fall off at a touch. (This last point is of merely academic interest, since I have no robes to ward.) But the most valuable feature of the whole extraordinary establishment is its garden – some three acres of uncut grass, on which Jock is now gorging in the company of four bullocks, two sheep and five turkeys. This opulent grazing more than compensates for the fact that none of the taps in the innumerable bathrooms produces water, so I had to de-mud myself under a hesitantly-dripping cold shower. The Manageress is a blonde Italian woman, who was born sixty years ago in Eritrea. Universally known as ‘Mamma’, she is by far the fattest and one of the kindest people I have ever met.

  19 March

  There is a tragicomic incongruity about some Ethiopian place-names. Dessie means ‘My Joy’, yet never have I seen such a depressingly ugly collection of human habitations. This is the third city of Ethiopia, with a population of about 80,000; but, as my guidebook explains, ‘It is actually hard to call Dessie a city or a town; rather it fits the description of “over-grown village”. Though the “town” is cramped in a small valley, its important position between the lowlands and the plateau and between Addis Ababa and Asmara, has contributed to its growth as an important commercial centre.’

  However, by switching off the current between eyes and brain it is possible eventually to derive some joy from Dessie. The friendly people seem much more outgoing than most highlanders and, despite its monstrous ugliness, I greatly prefer this city to alien Asmara. At least Dessie is genuinely Ethiopian, with donkeys browsing in front gardens throughout the ‘residential district’, and women washing clothes in the gutters of the main streets.

  Today I got into conversation with my fellow-guest – a withdrawn young government official from Addis, whose strained expression worried me until I discovered that dysentery is the cause. The patient blamed Dessie’s water and asserted that Ethiopia is a very dangerous country for travellers. This is the first time that he has left the capital, in all his twenty-six years, and he hopes never to be forced to leave it again.

  Jock’s condition is not reassuring tonight. I have misgivings about his ability to cope with our last lap across the high plateau of Manz.

  12

  Mournfully to Manz

  20 March. A Compound on a Mountain Top

  NOT SINCE LEAVING Asmara have I seen anything like the crowds that were coming into Dessie this morning. As we descended a steep path through thick eucalyptus woods our pace was slowed by the opposing ‘rush-hour’ traffic of hundreds of pushing humans, scurrying flocks of goats and sheep, scores of laden donkeys, horses and mules and many men and a few women riders, each with an attendant gun-bearer. This province seems to have an unusually big population of packhorses, pack-mules and riding-mules.

  At the foot of the mountain we crossed a bright green, semi-waterlogged valley where we were joined by a caravan of six men, ten donkeys, five horses and three mules, on their way home from yesterday’s market. As usual, Jock was keen to trot in the lead – but, alarmingly, he soon lagged behind with the slowest of the donkeys.

  A long, tough climb took us to a high pass from which our track dipped and rose through a magnificent wilderness of broken mountains. But it never dipped very far and we were steadily gaining altitude.

  Since noon the sky had been cloudy and at 3.30 one shattering clap of thunder was followed by a rainstorm that came sweeping across the slopes before an icy wind with the force of a waterfall. Immediately I was soaked and my companions, now wrapped in heavy blankets, were very concerned about my pathetic state – which was even more pathetic than they realised, for my flea-bag and Huskies on Jock’s back were also being saturated. Here we were at about 10,000 feet and soon the rain turned to painful hail as we sloshed muddily through a premature twilight.

  At five o’clock this cluster of compounds appeared on the mountainside above the track and as I slid with Jock up the precipitous path an amiable old man, carrying two new-born lambs, shouted an invitation above the roar of the wind and led us into this already overcrowded tukul. It is the biggest hut I have stayed in – some fifty feet in circumference – and it now contains nine humans, one mule, two horses, three donkeys and innumerable sheep, lambs, goats, kids, cocks and hens. They all make such a din – especially the kids and lambs – that one can hardly hear oneself think.

  The design of this tukul is exceptionally complicated. Its outer circle accommodates the livestock – except for one ‘kitchen’ section, where a cooking fire burns – and the stabling for mules, horses and donkeys is lower than the rest, so that their heads are almost on a level with the floor of the (theoretically) human preserve, where their fodder is thrown in he
aps.

  When we arrived extra wood was piled on the ‘sitting-room’ fire and I have spent the past two hours attempting, rather unsuccessfully, to dry my sodden clothes and flea-bag.

  21 March. A Compound in a High Valley

  The saddest date – for here I am parting from Jock.

  Last night my sleep was somewhat disturbed by dampness, coldness and the occasional sheep or goat strolling over me. During the small hours I woke, reached for my torch and felt a disconcerting substance under my hand; it proved to be the afterbirth of a ewe, who had just lambed by my ear.

  When we set out at 6.30 it was a cool, bright and very lovely morning, with a pale blue sky faintly cloud-streaked above wide brown sweeps of mountain. A few round stone huts were visible in the distance and on some lower slopes grew a scattering of twisted trees that might have been evergreen oaks. There was an oddly Scottish feel here. Acres of a green-brown herb, growing densely in little bushes, gave the illusion of heather and outcrops of silver-grey rock gleamed on the peat-dark soil.

  Our track continued to climb steadily and I was alarmed to see Jock making heavy weather of it at the start of the day. When we came to a stone shelter where two little boys were selling pint tumblers of tea I stopped and led Jock to a grassy patch – but he wouldn’t eat.

  There were two other travellers already in the hut, chewing hard dabo with their tea and, as I drank, a pathetic family group came slowly up the track. The wife was horribly blind – her eyes, face and neck were covered in open sores – and she was being guided by a daughter of about twelve who walked ahead holding over her shoulder a long dula to which her mother clung nervously, whimpering with misery every time she stumbled on the rough path. The father was an advanced tubercular case. After each bout of coughing he wiped his bloodstained mouth with the end of his threadbare shamma and his sunken eyes held an expression of hopelessness that was more harrowing than any physical symptom. He didn’t even beg medicine from the faranj. Indeed, when I paid for the family’s teas and gave them my own dabo he looked utterly bewildered, as though this minute shred of good luck was something entirely new in his life. Clearly, both he and his wife are dying on their feet. One can only pray that they die soon.