by Kei Miller
Long after the show is over, I stick around. Some of your old friends are here—Zuks and Parselelo and Hana. We are ordering glass after glass of red wine. We are tipsy. Now we are telling our own stories, and we are laughing and we are crying, and Binj—this is the thing—every other story is about you! Parselelo raises his glass and says “To Binyavanga!” We all raise our glasses. We do it again five minutes later, and every time there is a story about you, we raise a glass to you.
I did not know you were dying. I only sensed, from afar, that something had happened. Something had shifted. It was as if you were unspooling. Online, everything you said seemed explosive, sometimes irrational. Parselelo says it seemed to him that you were trying to say everything that needed saying, to confess everything that needed confessing, to do everything that needed doing, to upload your giant brain and all its wonderful thoughts to the world, like a legacy. From afar, I did not understand this. It all seemed so erratic—so compulsive.
I am here. It is almost a dozen months and a dozen strokes too late. You are already gone, and you are forever here. You are forever in this place that you did finally write about—this place to which you brought your body back.
12
SOMETIMES, THE ONLY WAY DOWN A MOUNTAIN IS BY PRAYER
Kenya shares its longest border with Ethiopia—779 kilometres—a more or less horizontal line, but jagged enough that it doesn’t seem, at first, like the arbitrarily straight lines that Europe drew up and down all over this continent—lines that often ran across villages, or across a single family’s compound. Where one country ends and where another begins is not always neat or clear, though politics and walls and border police increasingly make it so. Still, it is possible to cross the border from Kenya into Ethiopia by car or even by foot. Moyale, Fort Banya and Omorate—all are possible entry points. A successful crossing depends on a few things—obtaining, from Nairobi, a forward-dated exit stamp in your passport, obtaining a police permit, and having the good fortune to meet gun-toting authorities on either side of the border who are in good and generous moods. I had briefly contemplated this, wanting some parts of my trek across Africa to be literally that—a trek—but it was not worth the headache. Instead, I get to Ethiopia by a plane and by a prayer.
About the prayer, I will say this—some habits die hard. I have found it easier, over the years, to give up on religion—the whole idea of it and the practice of it. It has been easy for me to do this when I consider religion’s history and also its present—so much of it bloody and hateful, so much more damage to be found there than nourishment. I have given up on Sunday mornings in Jamaica, on the hard pews, on the choirs, on the dodgy dogmas and the dodgy preaching, on what often feels to me like a shallowness of thought met by a depth of zeal. It has been easy for me to give up on religion, but harder to give up on the idea of God. Maybe it is this—that as a writer I spend so much time talking to myself, trying out sentences, it is a relief to sometimes direct that never-ending internal dialogue to something else—someone else out there who could be listening.
No. It is more than that. I am only trying to make sense of my contradictions. You see, on days when I am alone in my flat (I don’t know why I should find it embarrassing to admit this), I play Gospel music, and loudly. I play songs by Tasha Cobbs Leonard or Kirk Franklin—the kind of song where the lyrics are simple but whose power comes from the repetition of that simplicity; the kind of song that builds and builds into a magnificent tearful crescendo. And in those moments, certain that I am by myself, my body behaves in the way that it has always behaved in the middle of such music: I close my eyes, I mouth the words, my hands sway above my head. The body often betrays you like this. Sometimes my body betrays the fact that I am not quite the atheist I sometimes pretend I am.
I almost miss the flight from Nairobi to Addis Ababa because of my own carelessness, so the prayer became necessary. I had been told that I needed a visa to enter Ethiopia and that I should do this online at least a week before travelling, my Jamaican passport offering me unvisaed entry to few places in this world. I did not apply for the Ethiopian visa because I had also read that it was possible to simply get a Visa On Arrival. This was possible not with my passport but with the British Residency Permit I also held. At the airline desk the agent checks her computer and says no, no—it is not possible. You have read the wrong information! It cannot be done. You need to have been issued an electronic visa before boarding the plane. She is not being unnecessarily difficult; she has tried more than once to check me in, but the computer keeps on saying NO. This is when I begin to pray.
In the corner of the departure lobby, a man has set out a mat facing east. From that mat he is rising and falling and rising and falling and chanting. My prayer is not as extravagant, but I believe it is as earnest.
I go online to apply for the visa. They need a passport photo. I find a white wall and take one with my phone. They also need a picture of my passport. I take a picture of that too. I send in the application. I send a follow-up message, a desperate note about my flight being in just one hour, and whether there is any way the process can be sped up. I add another line about prayer, as if sounding pious might win me points with whichever bureaucrat is on other end of the email.
I do not know if it is the prayer that works, or if on Saturdays they are just extremely efficient at the Ethiopian Visa Office, but in half an hour my phone pings with a new email. My visa has been issued. I am able to board the flight for Ethiopia and I choose to believe it is at least partly the result of prayer.
I am only in Addis Ababa for a night so decide to make the most of it, but it takes me a while to leave the hotel. I have become overly suspicious. Cautious. It is a residue from the shock of almost being mugged in Nairobi. It seems, even to me, like a trauma I haven’t earned. What if my body had not been male, or had been smaller? What if I had in fact been mugged, had been hurt, and still had to go back out into the world like so many of us have been hurt and have had to go back out into the world? I wonder if I would have had the strength—the courage?
At the elevator, a man dressed in a red uniform asks me for my room number and I hesitate. “Why do you need to know?”
“Because you are only staying a night,” he tells me. “So that we can give you a wake-up call in the morning.”
But I do not trust this. I am suspicious of everything. I am wary that a random worker should know exactly how long I am staying and want my room number just as I seem to be leaving. I tell him I will arrange with the front desk for the wake-up call, but thanks. Paranoid, I sit in the lobby for a while. I replay the conversation. I return to my room and transfer everything important to my hand luggage, I hoist it onto the top of the wardrobe and push it into the corner where it cannot easily be seen. I say a prayer and I finally leave.
I had been told by the driver who dropped me to the hotel and by the staff in the lobby, that this is a safe neighbourhood. When saying this, both the driver and the staff in the lobby had pointed towards the UN building. “See! The UN! Yes, very safe here.”
Right outside the hotel, boys are trying to stop the passing cars, asking for money. There is nothing threatening about them. They are speaking with pretend-Jamaican accents and they find their own performance very funny. I find it funny too. I walk past them. I have decided that after walking around for a bit, I will take a taxi to the famous Addis Mercato but I’ve only gotten a few hundred feet into my walk when Haile strolls up to me. Observing him, I wonder if he is a priest—there is a quality of kindness to his face, and a wooden orthodox cross hanging from his neck. The crisp blue cotton shirt he is wearing, however reads to me as “bus driver” or “tour guide”. Haile is polite enough, but I am still so wary of these encounters. He says he saw me at the hotel and I nod, but he doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, walking step to step with me. I decide to ask him where the nearest coffee shop is, hoping it is somewhere along this street, that I will be able
to duck in while he walks on. This proves to be a mistake.
“Yes, yes . . . coffee,” says Haile. “We make great coffee here. I’Ll take you to a good coffee shop.” And now he has attached himself to me, guiding me through lanes and streets to what he promises is the best coffee shop around. It is a local shop and seems well patronised. Sitting on low seats, he takes out his wallet, and from that wallet a card—an official ID of sorts. His name really is Haile, and he is indeed a tour guide. Registered. He wants to assure me of this fact.
I make a second attempt to ditch him, though I am half-resigned to him being my tour guide for the day. It’s OK, I say to myself. I usually resist these kinds of things, but what’s the harm in giving in to it just for one day? I ask him how to get to Addis Mercato and he says, “Yes, yes, we will go to the market now.” He gets a taxi and gets into the passenger seat while I sit in the back. On the way we pass by what looks like a church and the driver and Haile are making extravagant but silent gestures towards it—a prayer—as if their bodies do not know how to pass by something so sacred without performing this ritual. I will see this many more times in Ethiopia. We pass by a large compound, the fence impressively tall and on two posts of the gate are mounted bronze lions. The Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah, I think, and at the same moment, interrupting but confirming my thoughts, Haile says, “it is the palace of Haile Selassie. The first palace though. There is a much bigger one that he built. It is very, very important that you see that.” He is already planning a tour for me.
It is not long before we stop. It seems the Addis Mercato is not so far away as I thought it would be. The taxi driver says he will wait—it is no problem, and Haile ushers me into a store that is the usual kind of tourist trap, selling all the kinds of souvenirs that I can never bring myself to buy. I try to smile politely at the shopkeepers who are fawning over me and showing all the cheap items probably made in China. I smile and say no thanks, no thanks. No, I am just looking. I give it just enough time that I think is polite and then walk away to explore other shops. “But why you don’t buy?” a woman insists before I can fully exit. I just wave my hand. Haile asks as well, “You don’t want to buy?” And I say, “No, I just want to explore the market.” “Oh?” he says, as if surprised by this. “You want to go to the market? OK we will go now.” “So this isn’t the Addis Mercato?” I swallow the tinge of annoyance. It’s OK. It’s OK. I’m saying the words to myself like a mantra. I’m just going along.
We get back into the taxi and actually head to the market this time. I know why I don’t like being guided, why I hate being literally pulled this way and that, having to walk ahead when it is I’d rather stop and explore, or else having your guide pounce on everything your eye happens to catch, saying “Oh! You want this? I will get you good price!” I know that Haile means me no harm. It is a hustle. That is life here.
I explore Addis Mercato—supposedly the largest on the entire African continent. The building in the centre of the market is a remnant from the Italians—but from that epicentre the market sprawls impressively in every direction. The streets seem to go back for miles. The lanes are packed and as you walk through them women keep on grabbing at you—“Please just look!” But like every market it is often just the same things again and again—knock-off clothes in one area, men hawking belts which they snap over and over in their hands, asking you to feel it. “Genuine leather!” they say, and snap it again. “Genuine leather.” Other areas sell sets of those small cups without handles in which coffee here is usually served. In other areas there are scents for incense, and every spice imaginable.
I do not linger much at any stall. Haile is hovering. Otherwise he is walking briskly and I am following. Sometimes he pulls me and it feels a little rough. “Yes, yes, I have to protect you,” he says. “Hold your phone tight!” he says. “Hold onto your money,” he says. “This way,” he says, even as he is pulling me and I swallow the urge to snap and say, “Yes I’m following but stop pulling me! I don’t like it!”
On the way back Haile is telling me what we will do tomorrow and I feel no guilt about the fact that I am lying to him. I have arranged to meet him at a time when I know I will be well on my way to Awassa, and from there to Shashamane—the Rastafari settlement. Soon he is talking to the taxi driver in Amharic and I look out the window. I get so used to the background hum of their speech that even when some sounds seem to make sense in English, I dismiss it as just the random accident that happens between languages. “Fat ass. Fat ass!” Haile is saying. It takes me a moment to realise that he has switched to English and is speaking to me again. We are stuck in traffic and he is pointing to a woman walking on the road. She is large and beautiful, walking with a kind of swag I associate with women from my own country. “Fat ass!” he says again, “So fat! Not Ethiopian. Nigerian I think. There are so many of them.” I do not know how to respond. He then says before going to the hotel we should stop at this lovely bar. There are women there, he assures me. He winks. Nice women. Not prostitutes. Nice women. Ethiopian college students. I decline. I tell him I am tired. At the hotel I pay the taxi and give Haile the rest of my money for his trouble. “Tomorrow?” he says.
“Tomorrow,” I agree. But tomorrow I will be in Awassa.
This is a true story: an American woman once stood outside the gates of Windsor Castle, about to go in for the tour. She was standing with a man, more than likely her husband. They wore matching wedding bands tight on their thick fingers. There was, in this moment, a plane flying overhead. Windsor Castle is very close to Heathrow Airport and the plane was coming in for landing. It was low enough that you could even read the writing on its belly. EMIRATES. The American woman looked up, shook her head, and then she tutted. She turned to the man and said, with a contempt as heavy as her Southern drawl, “Now who would build a castle in the middle of a flight path!?”
I am not sure why I think of her as I stand by the lake in Awassa, except I wonder what she would make of this place and its palpable history, so palpable in fact that it feels deeper than mere history; it feels like the history of history.
I have felt this before—in Jerusalem and in Egypt and in Iraq—though it was easier in these places to locate that sense of the ancient. It was in Jesus’s tomb; it was in the Pyramids; it was in some artefact of stone pushing its way up through the sand. It is not so easily located here, though it seems to touch everything, even the rust of modernity—zinc fences, forgotten sandals, Coca-Cola cans tossed to the side.
Earlier, on the streets of Awassa, we drove slowly as one might in the highlands of Scotland because sheep had clustered in the road. Here, it was a herd of cows that we had to slow down for while a man wrapped in shawls waved a stick and shooed them to the other side. And something about this felt as if I had slipped back to the beginning of time. The birds here are as tall as men. They walk the streets, these marabou storks, and there is something so majestic about them, and also, something terrifying. Their beaks are big and powerful, like a pair of machetes. Some people call them the nightmare birds. I feel certain they could kill a man. Here, at the lake, they fly against the setting sun while the hippos bathe on the other side.
In Binyavanga Wainaina’s essay “How to Write About Africa”, by which he really means, how NOT to write about Africa, or how to write about Africa, badly—he says with caustic irony, “the African sunset is a must. It is always big and red. There is always a big sky.”
Only here, at this lake, do I find his tongue-in-cheek advice difficult, because the sunset really is big and red, and the sky really is the biggest sky I have ever seen. And the acacia trees around the lake are beautiful. And everything feels like every word he warns us against throwing at this continent—timeless, primordial, ancient, holy. I remember the American woman and briefly wonder what she would make of this, or if she would even know how to make something out of it—standing here, unable to see either castle or plane—only the birds, and the hi
ppos, and the water, and the big red sun in the big wide sky.
For centuries people have been coming to Ethiopia to find God—to find the thing that they have been praying towards. My people have as well. They came to Shashamane.
I would have been disappointed in Shashamane had I not already had some idea of what to expect—not a thriving Rastafari metropolis—a vision of Mount Zion, but instead, a somewhat broken dream, a place where a prayer might come to die. Rastas from around the Caribbean had left the outskirts of one society only to join the outskirts of another. This is what happened: in Ethiopia there had been a revolution, and then there was another. Haile Selassie’s generous land grant to anyone of African descent in the Caribbean who wished to return “home” was rescinded. To date, none of the Rastas have received citizenship to Ethiopia, but still, it was OK. They had this town. They had Shashamane.
In the early days there were over a thousand Rastas here. It was a small town, but they outnumbered everyone else. Things have changed over the years. A major road now runs through the town that isn’t so small. The population doubled, and then it tripled, and then it quadrupled—multiplying over and over again. Shashamane’s population now stands at over 100,000; the population of Rastas has dropped to under 700. To be on the outskirts of Ethiopia was one thing; to end up on the outskirts of Shashamane itself is another.
And yet, there is no regret here—no sense that a wrong decision was made. Thomas is my guide. He pronounces it in its original Amharic way—Toe-mas. His features are distinctively Ethiopian but his accent is distinctively Jamaican. Only sometimes at the edge of it do you hear the Amharic underneath. I ask how it is that he perfected the accent to a place he’s never been to. “Yu done know,” he begins, “De I did grow up wid a Rasta elder and yu just pick it up after a while. And is dat de people dem waah hear who come fi tour, yu know. Mi naah pressure nuhbady hard, yu zeet. But a my hustle dis, suh mi haffi learn di talk.”