CHARLEY: The ride was fantastic except for the dark visor. The rain was so fierce I ended up with the visor fully open and my left hand shielding the side of my face because it was the only way I could see. A mountain road in a thunderstorm and riding one-handed. Fucking amazing! I could hear Ewan whooping it up over the radio; his being the only one that was transmitting now and as it turned out that was about to pack up. Not before I heard his latest song, though; he makes them up as he’s riding and this one went something like: ‘Riding along in the pouring rain, think I might be quite insane’.
I’d managed to get my waterproof trousers on so by the time we got to Adigrat all that was really wet was the bottom half of my T-shirt. I loved this country, though it was a tough life for the people, it really was. But to ride through it was just incredible; it had sand, mud, gravel, rain…everything you could possibly want. It was just beautiful.
It was already dark when we finally arrived, but UNICEF had organised a small hotel in a gated compound where the bikes would be safe. The town was buzzing, a real border place full of soldiers, bomb disposal experts, truck drivers and the kind of professions that followed them.
Sarah and Wendy were waiting for us and it was great to see them. They introduced us to Indrias, the UNICEF communications officer who was to be our guide. He was Ethiopian but had been to school in Massachusetts and university in Philadelphia. He was based in Addis Ababa but worked a lot in Tigray region. Previously a journalist, he’d covered the Eritrean War.
Ewan was soaked and all he wanted to do was get dry so he could concentrate on the briefing for tomorrow’s visit. First things first, though, the girls had been in touch with our families and brought out some food parcels, namely chocolate and sweeties. For Ewan there was also a photo of all of his girls, and for me pictures of Doone and Kinvara on holiday in France where they’d made ‘still life’ tableaux of Long Way Down.
The following morning we were up early and in the back of a UNICEF 4x4 heading for the border. The UNICEF drivers are locals with years of experience. They know every inch of the road and for once it was nice to be off the bike with someone else responsible for getting us to where we were going.
Indrias sat between us and we talked about the country generally. He cited the successes UNICEF was having with education: these days 70 per cent of Ethiopian children are receiving at least primary education whereas just a few years ago the figure was only about 15 per cent. Although AIDS is a huge issue (as it is in most of Africa), with one and a half million people infected, preventable diseases had been greatly reduced. Basic sanitation such as we’d seen in Kenya had brought the mortality rate among under-fives down significantly. Indrias told us that as recently as 2005 almost half a million under-fives were dying of things that could easily be prevented. In malaria-affected areas, twenty million nets were being distributed, although along some of the rivers the men used them for fishing. Dug latrines, wash basins and soap were preventing diarrhoea and therefore dysentery, another big killer. UNICEF was also drilling thousands of wells fitted with handpumps, just one of which could serve five hundred families.
We were about forty to fifty kilometres from where the serious fighting had been and many of those displaced had fled to Adigrat. Technically there was no war any more but then there was no peace either. Indrias explained that the level of rhetoric had risen again recently and the people lived in a constant state of fear.
Most of the fighting had been from trenches, lines and lines of which were dug along the one thousand kilometre border. The casualty figures were staggering and the conflict had been compared to World War I.
Three hundred thousand people had been displaced, many of them Ethiopians deported from Eritrea who, when the ceasefire was declared, had no homes to go back to. The ones that did go home found their houses and watering holes were now in the middle of minefields. Both sides used mines but at least the Ethiopian government was able to furnish the UN with maps. The Eritrean mines hadn’t been mapped and subsequently the casualties mounted. Over five hundred people have been injured in Tigray since 1998 – three hundred of them children – and a quarter of those died. There are more than a million mines along the border and Ethiopia is one of the worst affected countries in the world. It costs three dollars to lay a landmine and $1,000 to destroy it. UNICEF estimates that more than two million Ethiopian children live in mine-affected areas.
EWAN: Indrias explained what steps UNICEF was taking to try to combat the risk. They’d initiated a Mine Risk Education Programme. Education (particularly for children) is the key and so far they had reached over two hundred thousand youngsters through school clubs and out-of-school peer education. As a result, 69 per cent of kids had altered their behaviour. Tigray had been really successful but nevertheless huge numbers had sustained hideous injuries. UNICEF hopes to provide at least three thousand of the most badly injured with a new Mobility Cycle, one of which was on the roof of the truck ahead of us. Specifically designed with mine injuries and the tough terrain in mind, they’re powered by hand pedals which work independently of one another. They can climb and descend, they have three gears and the difference they make to a child’s independence is incalculable.
Indrias went on to explain that as part of its Mine Action advocacy work, UNICEF was calling on all countries not only to sign but also to ratify the Ottawa Treaty banning anti-personnel land mines. Ethiopia signed the treaty more than ten years ago but only ratified it in 2004. Countries such as the United States and China have yet to sign it.
It isn’t easy to get countries to give them up, however, because landmines make the perfect guard. An army can occupy an area, scatter the mines and clear off again knowing they don’t have to feed or pay anyone, plus they have an early warning system in place. Trouble is, when the war is over the troops leave and the real victims start appearing. One wrong step and lives are either over completely or ruined for ever. In this particular conflict mines were deliberately placed where civilians would come into contact with them: along river banks, for example, where water carriers or goat herders would get blown up; around the cactus plant that bears the prickly pear, a fruit often picked by children. Worst of all, though, were the ones deliberately planted on somebody’s doorstep.
We were in high desert now having climbed beyond rivers where we saw women washing clothes, people taking baths, other people washing buses. The country was no longer green, the terrain barren and sand coloured, though the fields were cultivated; we watched men with oxen and hand ploughs tilling the soil in the same way they’d been doing for a thousand years. Off-road we headed for Addis Tesfa, a small sandstone village of low walls and cacti. There was a desolate beauty to it – kids running around barefoot, donkeys wandering here and there, and of course the skinny but beautiful cattle. With their huge horns and soft eyes they reminded me of drawings we’d seen on tombs in the Valley of the Kings.
We had come to see a guy called Tesfu. He was twenty years old, slightly built with cropped hair and a pencil-line moustache. Six years ago he lost his right leg to a mine.
Shaking hands he showed me and Charley to a bench that ran along the wall outside his house. He spoke little English and Indrias interpreted.
Tesfu had been a bright student and had got as far as the equivalent American eighth grade, but because of his injuries he’d had to drop out of school. Even now, almost 85 per cent of Ethiopians are illiterate and Tesfu is acutely aware that education is the key to his future.
His voice had a gentle timbre and he was a guy who used to love running and playing football. When war came he and his family fled to Adigrat where they stayed for two years. When it was deemed safe to go home they found their house all but ruined and that same day started building a new one. The old house had been on the other side of the courtyard from where we were sitting. They’d been back a couple of days perhaps, trotting in and out without incident, when one afternoon Tesfu was by himself and went inside to get something. The mine had been laid r
ight outside the door.
He remembers the time – four o’clock. He was fourteen years old. Fortunately there was a soldier in the area who heard the blast, but it took two hours to get him to Adigrat and medical attention. Four days later he regained consciousness with one leg missing below the knee and the other a mass of shrapnel slivers.
He told us the mine had been waiting for him.
He has a prosthetic leg now but to be honest it was a bit knackered. It was held above his knee with a strap and the foot part was actually broken. But it was better than nothing and he didn’t want to use one of the new cycles even though once trained he could then train others and UNICEF would pay him. He needs an income and with the sort of daily challenges he faces, it might be an idea. But emotionally he says the last thing he can deal with is a wheelchair: not even when he’s an old man. He’s young, male and proud, and who can blame him.
He really wants to be a doctor, because doctors saved his life and he wants to save other lives. The problem is school, though, because the nearest one is a three kilometre walk and he can’t make it. The wound where they tidied up his leg wasn’t brilliant, apparently, and it gave him a lot of pain. A better prosthesis is what he needs, but the real pain actually came from the shrapnel still embedded in his other leg. He showed us a hole in his kneecap where the skin is stretched and white from scarring. His body is apparently repelling the shrapnel and they can’t operate right away. Tesfu told us that the leg was examined recently and perhaps something can be done but he has no idea when. In the meantime he’s doing all he can with massage and a traditional healer.
CHARLEY: He was a brave kid, and who could blame him for not wanting the stigma of any kind of wheelchair? As far as he was concerned he could still walk, he just needed a little help, that’s all. He had a few tears in his eyes when he showed us where the entrance of the old house had been, and relived the ordeal. He was brave to roll up his trouser leg and show us the false leg. He was brave to show us his other wounds; like some old warrior seated on a chair outside his mother’s house. He desperately wanted to finish his education to the point where he was trying to figure out how he could get the money to rent a room in a town with a school. He told us he was unlucky and yet lucky, God had saved his life. He wanted his independence and he was active in helping educate other children about the dangers of mines. I really admired him and at the same time I was disgusted by the cruelty he’d been subjected to. I couldn’t get my head round a person who’d place a landmine on a doorstep, a deliberate act to fuck someone up. What we were seeing was the reality, the pain and suffering, young lives ruined and we’d heard it from the horse’s mouth. I really felt for the poor guy, he was so clearly struggling to find his niche and get educated so he could do something with his life.
Tesfu went with us to Addis Alem, where we were greeted by a procession of school children. The flags were flying and a banner had been put up proclaiming a welcome to Ewan and Charley. Talk about humbling: there were hundreds of kids – boys on one side and girls the other – all clapping their hands and singing a song of welcome.
The first of the mobility cycles had been delivered to a fifteen-year-old girl called Abrehet. Three years ago she was walking home from school when she stepped on a mine. The blast blew off one leg and ripped the flesh from the other leaving just the bone. It meant she couldn’t walk with any kind of crutch. She could handle the bike, though, and seemed pretty proud of the fact.
She led the procession down to the school buildings where the children were going to show us one of the plays they’d devised specifically to educate other children about mines. Abrehet was one of the first people in Ethiopia to receive the mobility cycle and after only three days she was using the controls to go forwards, back up, brake and turn circles; she gave us quite a performance. And if she suffered from the same feelings of stigma as Tesfu, she didn’t show it: I reckon we were there for an hour or so and the smile never left her face. Ironically it was watching her that changed Tesfu’s mind; having seen the bike in action he realised that far from being embarrassing it was actually quite cool, and by the time we left he’d told Indrias and Ewan that he’d like one. It was brilliant: now he had a way of getting to school, and with school he had a future.
We were told that Abrehet received nine hundred birr – around $100 – as compensation from the government, and she’d used it to buy eleven goats. Her favourite subject at school was social studies and she wanted to become a businesswoman. By my reckoning she was well on her way – a year after she bought the goats the eleven had become nineteen.
Welcoming us, the head teacher told us a little bit about the area and Ewan and I were appalled when he explained that forty-eight people had been killed by mines and another 127 injured. He spoke about the challenges the community had overcome and those they were still facing. He told us that the immediate area had been cleared and they had found a staggering 3576 mines.
We were then introduced to Daniel, a young guy who cleared mines for the UN. He showed us how he located them and just how long it took.
First, however, he showed us the mines themselves. There was one in particular, Jesus Christ; it looked like a bit of wood some kid would pick up for the fire. Daniel told us it was an RGD6 and came from the old USSR; the cover was wooden and it contained four hundred grammes of TNT. We saw various other mines and metal fuses that could blow off a child’s fingers. Three dollars to lay a mine, remember, and $1,000 (not to mention the decades it takes) to get rid of them.
That’s what Daniel does. Dressed in a chest plate, protective helmet and knee pads, he uses a piece of wood that’s about a metre in length. It’s painted red and coiled with string at both ends. The other end of the string is tied to a couple of rocks and with this contraption he forms a pathway through a minefield.
He uses a mine detector (like a long handled metal detector) and if it throws up a sound he marks the spot with a stone which later he sprays with yellow or red paint. Then he’s on his knees and using his prodder, a metal spike on a plastic handle. He curls one finger over the spike like a pool cue and very slowly digs around the area. It’s painstaking work, not to mention incredibly stressful. If it is a mine he will either render it safe or – if he thinks it’s booby trapped – blow it up in situ, using a shaped charge or a hook and line. This is tough manual work and takes amazing patience. If Daniel is lucky he can clear a metre of ground in a day.
EWAN: The children acted out a scene from a hillside where two young lads were herding some cattle. It was very funny at first, the boys beating the cattle (two other kids wearing animal skins) with sticks, when along came a bloke carrying a sack and yelling out like a rag and bone man. Apparently there were peddlers who travelled around the area buying up old bits of metal, which they sold on to blacksmiths in the bigger towns.
The children know they can get money for any metal they find, the trouble is most of the fragments are left over from the war. Anyway, the metal-peddler was chatting to the kids when one hurried off to find something he’d spotted earlier.
It was a fuse and the mine went up. It was very dramatic. The boy made it look as though his arm had been blown off and was rolling around, screaming. The other kids backed off immediately. The extent of his plight was really brought home when I realised no one could get to him. An injured child in agony, perhaps bleeding to death and no one could get to him. The whole area could be mined and there was nothing anyone could do except get hold of someone like Daniel.
The children read poetry then acted out another scenario, this time a classroom scene where the dangers of what they might find lying around were spelled out. Peer education. It’s worth repeating that since UNICEF began the programme 69 per cent of children have taken it on board.
After that we danced, the kids with drums and a man playing the krar – a traditional Ethiopian instrument with five strings on a frame, his carrying a sign that said: ‘BAN LAND MINES’. Charley and I were each given a calico sarong to
wear and someone handed me a banner: ‘A MINE DESTROYED IS A LIFE SAVED’.
We danced with the kids, clapping and singing. The whole experience was really moving. I told you I’d always thought Ethiopia might be the nirvana that Mongolia became on Long Way Round and it certainly is an amazing place; a country that for a while forgot the world and was for a while forgotten by it.
We were due to go on to Zelambassa, but still had one last privilege to perform in Addis Alem. The name translates as New World and that is fitting because in Ethiopia the year is 1999. They use the Julian calendar and their millennium is ushered in on 12 September. Indrias told us that as part of their millennium celebrations the country is planting sixty million trees, twenty million by school children. A hundred years ago, 40 per cent of the country was covered with trees, today it’s less than 3 per cent and they’re cutting down more trees than they’re planting. On top of that the most prevalent tree is the eucalyptus; it’s not indigenous, its roots spread disproportionately, and it sucks up all the nutrients in the ground. When the kids were asked what they wanted to do to mark the millennium they came up with the idea of trees to make sure their country had a viable environment for the future.
We were each given a native cedar sapling. There was a mantra: ‘Plant a tree, protect yourself, and protect Ethiopia’s future.’
CHARLEY: This was the third such visit we’d made since we left John O’Groats and it was hugely inspiring to see what one human being can do for another, especially when set against the backdrop of what one human being can do to another. We both felt very emotional, we were exhausted from the riding and Ewan was especially thoughtful. He’s not mentioned it but only yesterday we’d heard about William. We’d met him at Robin House, the children’s hospice in Scotland, just over a month ago, and his ambition had always been to meet Ewan. A few days after he achieved that ambition he passed away. We’d only just heard however. It was very sad news and our hearts went out to his family. His mother said that William loved meeting Ewan. He told all his friends that he was meeting him and loved making everyone jealous. He was so happy he got his DVDs signed and couldn’t wait to show everyone. It was a great moment; a memory the family could share forever.
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