The Hamer's of the South

When I got to Abra Minch I contacted Elie, the Israeli/American I had met in Addis. He seemed very sweet, though not the sort of guy I would usually opt to travel with, only because he was young and American, but at this late stage in the game I didn’t have much choice.

I hadn’t met any other tourists heading to the South of Ethiopia, I hadn’t actually met any tourists in over 2 weeks except for the Dutch women in Lalibela who were not heading south and weren’t particularly interested in another travel companion. I sure as hell was not prepared to get lost in the wilderness with tribes I know nothing about, as a white woman alone, especially considering that I was still recuperating from spending weeks beating away men in the North. After my recent temper tantrums and threats to go home early, the warning signs were clear that I was about to lose my battle with patience. Mine was a fuse that was getting shorter and I could tell because my lower lip was now prone to occasional trembling: always the first sign that my composure is wavering and the frustrated ‘ugly cry’ is brimming.

Elie had given me a short window of time with which to meet him at a market place in Dimeka. He had already found his guide and that guide was taking him to spend a couple of nights with a Hamer tribe, an opportunity I was not going to miss. I hopped on yet another long bus ride, and this time I sat next to a girl who kept calling me Kim. She was a very affectionate girl, she kept holding my hand and stroking me and at one stage she even fell asleep on my lap. I am not at all naturally affectionate, and I spent the whole bus trip awkwardly not knowing where to put my hands while this girl lay slumped across my body.

At the end of the ride she asked me for money.

“What for?” I asked.

“For friendship” she replied.

“At home I have friends who work for free, I don’t need to buy friends” I said. I thought I was being funny but she just stared at me blankly. What I wanted to tell her was that she should have been paying me rent money for my lap.

I wish that I had the words to adequately describe the sight that greeted me at the Dimeka markets. Stepping off that bus I felt a wave of sensory stimulation wash over me. It was so overwhelming that all I could absorb was a sea of earthy browns and bright reds, a general human chatter resonating like a single music chord over a steady drum beat and a smell of something distinctly warm and raw, a comforting smell at first, because it is so innately human, later I was able to identify it as a mix of dirt, human body odour and meat – both dead and alive.

I wasn’t allowed much time to take it all in. Elie grabbed me and my bag within seconds of getting off the bus and he told me that there was less than five minutes to catch the next bus out. We had to get to Turmy, the closest town to the Hamer tribe hosting us for the next few nights.

I did a quick lap of the markets. This wasn’t a show for tourists; there were no other tourists there. It was their weekly meeting place, and place of trade. There were a lot of clay pots, beaded jewellery, bags of tobacco and dried meat spread out on animal skins or the bare dusty ground. People packed themselves under the slither of shade offered beneath the only tree in the market place, and they stared at me, of course, but they didn’t seem bothered by my presence. It was me who looked like I was going to faint. I was that character in a film who sees the real Santa Claus and his reindeer or flies into Jurassic Park and collapses at the mere sight.

In hindsight I was pretty lucky to have that feeling all over again. It was the same way my body had involuntarily reacted in Opuwo in Namibia when I first came across the Himba’s. It’s a nervous, giddy, uncontrollable energy that comes from thinking you’ve discovered something that nobody else ever has… a treasure map, a fairy in the garden, a tribe of people hidden deep in Southern Ethiopia’s mountains. Of course, I am not the first foreigner to have travelled there or seen these people, many travellers, writers and film makers have stood where I stood, but nobody I know has been there yet, and I also knew that I would probably never be back there in my whole life ever again, which is what made it such an exciting place and such an exciting moment in my life.

My favourite thing was a whole heap of men wearing AK-47’s slung over their shoulders. At first I was horrified, but I quickly realised that they were all carved from wood! There were loads of these men, in their beaded skirts, and beaded head pieces, often holding each others hands, proudly wearing their fake, wooden rifles across their back.

Elie, myself and Elie’s guide Gino boarded the beat-up bus. Inside it was a whole other sight worth describing. It was red; red cushions and red material decorated the walls and the roof of the bus and red feather boas were strewn across the dashboard.

As I got on and wedged myself on the edge of the front seat I looked around me. Every person on there was half naked, wearing cow-skin hides and beaded headpieces. This one woman was sitting across from me, her long dreads matted in clay, her bare breasts bouncing beside her hips, between her breasts sat elaborate loops of metal and beads and she just sat there open mouthed and staring at me, I think she was in shock. I was thinking it was just like a comic piece, this woman and I could not have looked more different and yet we shared the same facial expression, just staring back at each other in disbelief.

A man reached over and held his fist out in front of my face. In his hand was a small vile of dark brown powder. I knew that it was ground tobacco, and I assumed it would make me sick, but I also didn’t think I could say no.

I took a pinch and snorted it and straight away my eyes watered and it burned my nose and the back of my throat, like I had expected that it would. It took a few seconds to run down the back of my throat and then I started gagging. Wow it was strong stuff. It took about half an hour for my stomach to settle, for my nose to stop running and for the head spin to subside… I think it was just tobacco? He kept offering me more and I no longer cared how rude I came across saying no, that stuff was gross!

I smiled to myself. Even as my throat burned and my stomach churned from the tobacco. I was on a red-feathered bus with a rowdy group of Hamer people heading off to stay in one of their villages, and for the next few days at least I had some English speaking company and a little bit of protection, in a guy I could pretend was my boyfriend.

Or Was This Rock Bottom?

“When I have had time and space to calm down I will be horribly ashamed of my actions”, is what I had written that night.

The recently found energy that had gotten me on that plane to head down to the South of Ethiopia didn’t last long.

Half way through my flight when I was happily alone reading a man got out of his seat and sat in the empty one beside me. ‘You have got to be kidding!’ I moaned at myself as he started on the same usual questions every man asks in Ethiopia:

“Hello. How are you? Where are you from? Ah Kangaroos! What is your name? Where is your husband? What is your work? You are beautiful! I will always remember you. What is your number? And your number in Australia? What is your email?”

I had arrived in Abra Minch and was met by a large old man in a Hawaiian shirt that practically blinded me: Mamo’s friend. He was upset that the plane was late and he had waited an hour for me to arrive. He was definitely sulking on the way to the hotel room he had booked for me.

The room was basic but I had my own bathroom and it seemed safe enough. He told me he had already paid for the room, it cost 80 birr (AUD$5). I gave him the 80 and another 40 for the effort he went to picking me up. But he insisted that I owed him more than thirty, charging me for the time he had stood at the airport waiting for me.

I used the internet in a small café in town and laughed out loud when I had glanced at the screen in front of the young guy beside me who had done a Google search for ‘what to say to impress a girl’. It reminded me of the poetry about vampires and stars that Kingsley had sent me in Ghana.

After that though I checked an email from Mattius telling me that he promises to make me happy. I was annoyed that I always felt like I had to hide away in my hotel room for fear of men harassing me, men feeling as though they have a right to tell women what to do, pressure and stalk them. They may not see men and women as equal but I do and I had had the shits over this for moths now.

I also got an email from someone else I must have met on my trip, I don’t even remember who it was, but he was begging me for money.

I then saw on Facebook that my girlfriend was going out with the girl she had slept with recently and I felt that familiar brick of jealousy in my stomach.

I vowed not to check my Facebook again.

After that I took myself out to dinner, it was a large and relatively trendy café where I sat on the veranda and ordered a pizza… a pizza! In Ethiopia!

Of course I wasn’t alone for long. Three men at the table beside me beckoned me to join them. I tried to refuse but they told me how rude it was to deny an invite for dinner, and I knew that to be true in Ethiopia. I sat at their table and we had a few beers together, though their company was nice enough. Several times I tried to leave but they kept ordering more beer. Eventually the only way I could leave was by giving them my number and promising that I would have dinner with them again on my way back through to Addis.

I went back to my room about 10pm and the security guard let me in.

He stood at the door to my room and waited.

“What do you want?” I asked, really not knowing.

“You owe me money for the room!”

“I paid already! My friend, he paid you already – 80 birr”

“No! A black man paid for the room. 80 birr. But for white people it is 100 birr. You are white. You owe me 20 birr”.

This is where the shameful act begins.

I went off!

“So you are a racist and a thief!” I shouted. “If you came to my country we would treat you the same (maybe not entirely true) same price for white and black!”

He repeated again: “But you are white. Different price for white and black”

“You believe in God? The Ten Commandments say stealing is wrong. The bible says treat all people equal. What you are doing is wrong. You are bad!” I yelled.

He looked hurt, innocently hurt like a child “I am not bad”.

I pulled a wad of cash from my pocket. All in 1 and 2 birr notes. I quickly flicked through it and easily got twenty birr, no single note worth greater than 2 birr.

I threw the notes up in the air. Soft crumpled brown paper rained down on him, and for a second I thought how beautiful it looked, like a gust of wind had swept up a pile of autumn leaves.

“Take your fucking money! But you are bad!” I yelled at him.

“No, not bad! He started to gather the bills scattered on the floor at his feet. He extended his clenched fists full of crumpled paper notes, he tried to hand them back to me. He still looked hurt. Like when a dog gets yelled at by its owner and you can see that the pain in their eyes comes from confusion and betrayal more than anything tangible.

“Keep your money and go to hell!”

I literally slammed the door in his face.

I stood behind the closed door and stared at my room. It felt cold and bare like a prison cell. I was still angry, I felt like a pot boiling over only I wasn’t angry at him anymore, I was angry at myself. Mortified, humiliated, ashamed.

I contemplated rushing outside to apologise, taking it all back, begging for forgiveness. I still cannot believe that I threw money at someone in one of the world’s poorest countries. That I swore in someone’s face in a place so culturally conservative. That I used religion against someone in a country where religion is the only thing most people have. And that I insulted the pride of an Ethiopian, and Ethiopians are renowned for their pride.

And all that for 20 birr! A measly couple of dollars!

I wasn’t seriously considering heading home, I didn’t regret my decision to go South to find the tribes, but I was seriously wondering how close to the end of my tether I had come, and I wondered how out of control my mood swings were going to get.

A Trickle of Energy is all it Takes

At 5am I wedged myself in the front seat between the driver and the passenger, sitting right on top of the hand brake. The four other men were wedged in the back seat and all 7 of us had bags shoved in the back piling to the roof and caving us in.

And so I spent a very long, hot, squishy 15 hours in a van with 6 Ugandan priests and a gear stick up my arse.

I would have thought that my chances of getting along with 6 Ugandan priests were as likely as me sitting in that van with my shoulders wedged behind Jesus himself. But pleasantly they surprised me with their easy chatter, their good humour and their love for reggae.

Denis, the priest in training, spent only the first few hours challenging my atheism:

“How do you explain Jesus visiting me in my sleep? How do you explain miracles? So who created the Big Bang? How can you think  the bible was written by man? It is the word of God! It is… I know it is!”

At breakfast Denis called over a man who was standing on the street selling scarves. Denis told the man he wanted to buy 20 scarves from him. The man’s face lit up like diamonds were falling from the sky. I wondered if this man even sold that in a week normally. But Denis certainly made him work for it.

The man had at least thirty scarves flung over both shoulders, and Denis unfolded, hung up and scrutinized each one. Some had a stitch or two loose, or a stain that was barely visible. And Denis told him that he could not find twenty that were good enough and he sent him off to go fetch some more.

Mamo, who was by far the funniest of the men said to Denis:

“Man, are you planning to open a shop or what?”

Denis: “No I actually have friends. And unlike you I care for my friends and want to get them something”.

Mamo in mock defence held his hands palm out on either side of his face in an act of surrender:

“Hey man, I don’t mind if you buy your two friends ten scarves each!”

It was the sort of banter and playful insults my friends and I do at home, but for some reason I didn’t expect such humour from Ugandan priests.

Word must have spread around town, because another man selling scarves showed up with another thirty slung over his shoulders. And then another and another. A man selling dresses also showed up at our table, another selling babies clothes and a man selling wooden crosses. The flurry and activity lifted the rest of us from our seats and we all started to inspect the scarves, the dresses, and the baby’s clothes. It became quite the spectacle. In the end I think every man that had gathered around us sold at least one thing, but none could be nearly as happy, or flushed and sweaty, as the man who sold twenty scarves.

Although the ride home was nothing short of painful (physically), I felt comfortable in their company. Safe. And I was hassle free all day.

That night back in Addis they dropped me at a decent hotel and I had a shower and crashed into a disturb-less sleep.

The next morning Mamo and I went out to have eggs and coffee for breakfast and I told him my current dilemma.

I told him how tired I was. Tired of being stared at, hassled by beggars and hassled by men constantly at my heals and waiting outside my bedroom door. I was tired from all the moral dilemmas caused by own white guilt. I was over long bus trips, bad food, flea-ridden beds. I was over being alone all the time. I had been sick, robbed, grabbed at and groped. I had had hotel staff and tour guides harass me. I had been in arguments and fights and waited on the side of the road in the heat waiting for rides. I had been shit scared and broken down in tears both on numerous occasions. I had fought often with my partner at home, and missed numerous celebrations, birthdays and events of family and friends that made the loneliness well up inside. I had seen things that my mind still is unable to process: so much sadness, sickness and poverty and I had taken it all in and it had eventually worn me down.

I told him that I was thinking of taking the next flight home.

On the other hand I told him that I wanted to see the tribes of the south, how intriguing they sounded to me, with their stretched lip plates and bizarre ceremonies. I wondered if I would regret getting so close to them and not summoning that last little bit of strength to head south and find the tribes of the Omo Valley.

He listened to everything I said and thoughtfully pondered my options. I felt guilty. I felt like I had insulted Africa, Africans and therefore him personally. I felt like a whingeing spoilt brat, and worse… I felt weak.

“You have made it this far” he told me with no judgement in his voice. “You have gotten though all of this, through three and a half months, what is just ten more days?”

He was right. I knew this already. I just wasn’t sure if I had a reserve of energy hidden somewhere. But at that moment I felt a fresh ripple of energy? Not the burst I was hoping for but it was definitely there. My easy day with the funny Ugandans and now having a local man who seemed to understand me, and not hit on me once, was good energy that was slowly trickling through me like syrup.

“I am going to do it!” I declared. And as soon as I had made up my mind and decided to stay I felt more and more of that positive energy seeping through the pores of my skin. I felt this urgency, to do it now, now before I changed my mind again, or before that energy ran out of me quicker than it had oozed in.

I sent my mother an sms.

‘Can you please look up skyscanner.com when is the next flight from Addis Ababa to Abra Minch?’

I knew that a 12 hour bus trip would be a trigger for bad moods and a change in heart. A domestic flight sounded ridiculous, but I could not face another long bus trip like that, not yet.

My mother’s reply came only ten minutes later

“2pm today”

It was already 11am. Mamo had the airline’s number. I booked a ticket. He ran back to the hotel with me, helped me pack my bags and pointed me in the direction of the airport. Before I left him he called his friend in Abra Minch, told him to book me a room in a hotel there and to pick me up from the airport when I land. I thanked him and he said “no problem”, but I wasn’t thanking him for calling his friend or packing my bags, I thanked him for the energy, the kindness and the experience I was about to have that I felt was going to be a good one, and all because of him and his gentle push.

I walked to the airport, hot and sweaty, but practically skipping.

Checking Out Early

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When I departed from my tour guide, giving him the tip he not only desperately needed but also deserved, I strolled down the hill to see the local food markets closing up for the day.

I was escorted by an un-invited young guy, probably only 19 or 20 named Umbrella.

“That’s really your name?”

“Really! Umbrella!”

He told me he was studying medicine to become one of the few doctors they had in Lalibela. I told him I don’t have money to give him and he genuinely looked hurt.

“I don’t want money from you. I am not like other people. I just want to talk to you… and really, you should be careful who you trust here”.

I let him show me around. We came across a small protest of about 50 people.

“What are they protesting about?”

“Some film makers came here and said that we are all beggars, that we annoy tourists for money and try to scam them, and now people are angry.”

“And they think this isn’t the truth?” I asked incredulously, hoping the tone in my voice wasn’t too cynical.

“No! Not the truth!” he too was clearly very angry.

For the whole walk, and the rest of that day, I kept getting text messages. They were from the man behind the desk in the entrance to the monasteries, the one who gave me the guide’s number. Before entering the area I had to fill in a form asking for my name, my passport details and unfortunately, my mobile number. I ignored his persistent texts, and phone calls.

On the walk back to my hotel we came across a group of boys, one of them his friend, practicing to be an azmari on his homemade instrument. They both walked me home and on the way I bought us some drinks and snacks and left them both at the entrance to my hotel. Before I left they informed me of a large Christian festival happening at sunrise the next day and ask if I would like to go. Of course I wanted to go! We arranged to meet at 4am, I was told that I had to wear a long white robe. I thought about the white cloth that was spread across my hotel bed and figured it would do. I was excited again.

“Will you come out tonight?” Umbrella pleaded.

“Not tonight. I have had a big day and we have to get up very early tomorrow… see you back here at 4am”

I walked in to my hotel and was met by a man at the door.

“I have been watching you all day”, he told me. “I want to invite you back to my house for traditional coffee ceremony. My sister will give it to you”.

“Um, no thanks. If you have seen me all day you know it has been a big day and I need to lay down and rest”. Although a small part of me was curious, a man whose opening line is ‘I have been watching  you all day’ is not someone I should be following into a strange house alone.

“I have a present for you” he held out his hand. Curled up in a web of string was a green stone cross.

“I can’t take it from you” I tried to protest.

“You must! It is a gift. You cannot say no”.

Reluctantly I took the cross, but I still excused myself to leave.

“First come here I have to show you something”.

I let him lead me to the front of the hotel. He pointed at the large stone house a few doors up. That is my house. After you rest you come over for traditional coffee ceremony.”

“Maybe” I said as I walked off, feeling him watching me all the way to my room.

In the small courtyard beside the door to my room three white women were sitting quietly reading. I was dying to speak to other travellers.

It turned out they were Dutch, one woman lived in Addis and her sister and their friend had come for a holiday to visit. The woman who lives in Ethiopia loves it, but the other two women didn’t speak so highly of Ethiopia and Ethiopians, which I actually found comforting.

Bitching with other tourists about other cultures and people sounds cruel, ignorant and almost colonialist. But it actually is a great stress reliever. It is venting: venting the frustrations of culture shock and exhaustion. For me, it was a way of re-empowering myself after feeling like a lost and helpless child for the last couple of weeks that I had wandered through Ethiopia alone and bewildered.

After an hour-long chat they all excused themselves to get ready to go out for dinner. I was hurt, I had expected and hoped for an invite out, and felt rejected when they walked right passed me out of the hotel.

I was restless inside my room. I had spent so many nights alone bored in hotel rooms by myself so I decided to take a walk out.

When I walked passed reception I walked right into Umbrella. He had been sitting there waiting for my ‘rest’ to end. A groan slipped out when I saw him and I felt so bad that he may have heard it that I actually agreed to get a drink with him.

We walked up the main street together when the man from a few doors up crossed our paths.

“You said you would come to my house!” He yelled at me!

“Well, actually I didn’t actually say I would”.

“You did! You said you would and now you are with him!”

He was fuming!

“Forget it!” I yelled back. I am going back to my hotel. Alone!! I don’t want either of you to follow me!”

I stormed off but Umbrella followed close behind.

“Wait Kai wait!” he called out.

I almost started to run when I saw the three Dutch women ahead of me.

They asked what the problem was and I told them I was sick of being followed by men.

“Come with us”.

They saw Umbrella and the woman who lives in Addis yelled at him to leave me alone.

I defended him, saying he is not that bad, it was another guy who had upset me. So umbrella joined the three Dutch women and myself to a tej bar to drink honey wine.

The Dutch women were meeting up with friends of theirs: 6 Ugandan priests that were jovial and kind. Umbrella sat awkwardly beside me guzzling his tej.

“What is it that you want from me?” I finally ask Umbrella. I know you want something, not just friendship, so why don’t you tell me what it is!”

“I don’t want money, I am not like that”. He protested almost innocently. “I just want you to buy me things”.

“I am not going to buy you things”.

“I don’t want much, just my school fees and books”.

“I am not going to. Sorry, really, but our friendship ends here. Do you understand?”

As I got up to leave the Dutch women asked when I would be leaving Lalibela.

“Maybe tomorrow, or the next day, I have to find a bus to Addis”.

That is when one of the Ugandan priests chimed in.

Tomorrow we drive to Addis, we can take you”.

“Really? Yes! That would be great! Are you sure you have room?”

We discussed the logistics of it and decided to meet at 5am.

Umbrella looked hurt. There was no way I could go to the religious ceremony in the morning. There was no way I could sponsor this kids education. I am sure he didn’t fully understand it. To him I was made of money and yet I refused to help him, and with something as important as his education.

When I got up to leave, Umbrella pulled something from his pocket and handed it to me; a white cross on a string necklace, my second that day.

“Umbrella, I can’t accept this!”

“Take it” he insisted. So I put it in my pocket and walked away.

At the hotel room I began to pack and it suddenly dawned on me that I paid for my hotel room twice. I remembered paying when I checked in, and then I remembered paying when I came in from my tour. The second time I had told the man that I hadn’t paid for the second day yet. For some reason I thought I had slept there two nights already, yet I hadn’t even slept there once yet. To top it off he took it probably knowing full well that I had paid twice.

Reception had closed up for the night, but I asked the guy on watch duty if he thought it was possible to get it back. He tried calling the boss but couldn’t get through (or so he said). He walked me to my room and let himself in sitting down on my bed. I faked a yawn a few times, but the message wasn’t clear enough. Eventually I had to order him out. I stood at the door, pointed outside and said “Go! Leave!”

I felt like I was losing my mind. It really did feel like time to go home. 

Lalibela

Despite all odds the bus eventually arrived at Lalibela, though quite late at night.

The usual hoards of hustlers, self-appointed tour guides and hotel minions swarmed around the bus, grabbing at me and trying to pull me away. As usual I settled on a guy for no other reason than that I had to pick one quickly so that the rest would back off. He promised to take me to a hotel that was “good” and only cost 80birr (AUD$5)

The room was dark and smelt like mould. The toilet had someone else’s waste inside it and the whole place just felt filthy.

“Is there a better hotel?” I asked the guy who had brought me here. I thought he was a regular guide and had no bias for any particular hotel.

“For this price it is the best” he assured me. “Better hotel across the road but is 300birr a night”.

It was late and I didn’t know if I should roam the streets in hope or just put up with it for a night. The man asked me if I needed a guide for the next day.

“I’ll think about it” I paid him the 80 birr and he left.

I cleaned the toilet as best I could with a bucket of water, it didn’t flush of course. Then I just sat on the end of the bed.

I decided to find something better.

I walked out of the room, past the tour guide who was hanging out the front with friends and strolled around Lalibela.

The town is perched on top of a hill. The streets weren’t very well lit yet the place had a buzz to it. It felt like it was full of tourists and full of energy, even though the streets weren’t that crowded and I didn’t spot any other foreigners. I could see that the town spilled down one edge of the hill, it looked heavily condensed down there and I figured that was where the majority of people lived, and that the top of the hill where there was space and a thin veneer of organised structure, was reserved for foreigners and the money they brought in. I wondered where the ancient underground monasteries lay hidden. Was I walking on top of them? Or were they protected and absorbed by the dense village down the hill which was deliberately established to covet the ancient secrets?

I asked passers by if they knew of a good, but cheap hotel. I was pointed in the direction of a large stone building that looked hundreds of years old but inside it was nicely decorated in colourful rugs and other ornaments. The staff in there were lovely and showed me a room that was nicely furnished, didn’t smell and the toilet even flushed! It was 150 birr, a fair bit more than the other room, but still only $8, and worth it compared to the mould heap I was about to sleep in.

I went back to the other hotel and asked the guide for my money back.

“It is too late, he told me. The owner already collected the money from me and now he is gone.”

I was annoyed again, as was the norm lately, until an older man came out from one of the rooms.

“What is the problem?” he asked me. Turns out he was the owner.

“I already paid for my room but found a much nicer hotel near by and now I want my money back”.

“What is wrong with the room?” he asked.

“It is dirty, and I found another room which is better and worth the  price”.

“How much did you pay for this room?” the owner asked me.

“80 birr”

“80?! This room is only 40 birr!”

He glared at the guide who had brought me here who now looked away somewhat sheepishly.

“Please stay”. He begged me. “For just one night. I will have the boys clean it for you and then in the morning you can leave if you wish. 40birr. Very cheap”.

He handed 40 back to me and I agreed to stay the night.

The boys rushed in to clean the room as I waited outside with the owner.

“These boys, they are poor, very poor. You know they are good boys but need money and they do anything to get money”.

I understood. I really did. And I couldn’t blame them cause in their shoes I’d do the same thing. I also wondered if it really was these boys trying to rip me off unbeknown to the owner, or if this guy was really the driver of the scam.

When the boys left the now clean room the original guy stopped and asked me if he could still be my tour guide for the next day.

“No thank you” I said. And I did feel bad when his hopeful face dropped.

In the middle of the night I woke a dozen times or more from the mosquitos buzzing around me, and in the morning I examined the hundreds of little pink fleabites all over my body. I packed my stuff pretty darn quick and left.

A few hours later I was following the directions of locals and winding half way down the hill to the entrance of the cathedrals. Inside I asked the tourist information for a guide. He told me that he is not meant to give the details of any particular guide but he did anyway, making me promise not get him in trouble later.

When I called the guide I asked him to meet me when the cathedrals re-open after lunch. “How much?” I asked.

“Usually 250, but for you 200” I thought ‘yeah right!’ Until he added:

“There are no tourists now, I have not had work for nearly two weeks and I can’t lose your business”.

Whilst I waited for my guide and the monasteries to re-open I perused the small gift shops selling what I was told, and actually believe were real antiques. Not hundreds of years old as they made out to be, but perhaps a hundred or so. At each shop I struggled with the keeper, they kept showing me things I would never consider buying like massive silver crosses and bright bling-bling jewellery that I would never wear. When I told them I didn’t want it they kept lowering the prices. I was interested in some slim wooden hand-carved boxes. You opened the door of each face to reveal a hand-panted replica of some biblical scene or other, depicted like a quirky comic strip. They weren’t cheap, and I was seriously considering buying one, but I wasn’t ready yet.

I was sitting in the gutter on the side of the road talking to my girlfriend back home in Australia. It had been months since we had seen each other. And she was a world away, not just literally but it really felt like we didn’t share the same life anymore. I wanted to go home. I only had about two weeks of the trip left but I wanted to cut it short. I craved everything I had and knew back. I wanted anonymity, I wanted to walk down the street and not be stared at, or begged from. I was sick of getting lost and being aimless and eating bad food and stressing over water supplies. I wanted a hot shower, a toilet that I could sit on and not a hole in the floor. I craved speaking fluent English again, not broken English. I was sick of pretending to be confident, fearless, heterosexual. I missed my relationship, my family, my own bed.

I was wanting to tell her all this on the phone when this beautiful young girl bounced over to me beaming. She was small and delightful and had hair like Crusty The Clown in the Simpsons which made her even more utterly adorable. She grabbed both my hands in hers and swung them side to side. She was jumping up and down on the spot giggling. She had a snotty nose and was covered in dust and dirt but her giant smile and wide innocent eyes made my heart melt. I put the phone to her ear and said “Salamno. Say salamno” For a while she was too busy smiling to say anything into the phone. But eventually her tiny little voice broke and she gently said “salamno” without her smile dropping to form the words. She lifted my hands to her mouth and kissed them.

I never got to tell my partner all the things that were burning up inside me.

As it turns out my guide was the closest to a professional that I had found in Ethiopia. He seemed to really know his stuff. He knew history, dates and names. He led down a deep flight of stairs. Dusty and manky and smelling of centuries of history, I instantly felt awed.

He led me past and through 11 churches in total, all cut from the living ground. Apparently they were carved out, by hand, in the 12^th century after Muslims put a halt to Christian pilgrimages, and so a new Holy Land was created. One of the churches is the largest monolithic church in the world (when he told me this it didn’t actually mean much though he said it in such a way I felt like I had to respond with “oooh”, and so I pass this bit of information on to you to do the same).

The whole time I was there I only came across two other groups of tourists, no more than ten foreigners in total. The space felt practically empty, though there were innumerable numbers of priests and religious men slinking around corners and leaning against pillars. Slow, silent men tip-toeing in long white robes. They had the presence of powerful men, men with secrets, who live a life of confidence, the kind of confidence that only men who believe they have all divine powers on their side have.. Like an Orthodox Christian illuminate or something.

Inside one tomb was a racket of men chanting, singing, beating drums and banging cymbals. I left my shoes at the door and crept in as inconspicuously as possible.

It was dank and dark inside. It felt wet. Shoe boxed size crosses had been carved out of the thick stone walls to allow some light in. Just enough to make out all the shapes, but it was dim enough to feel like I had walked into a secret.

There was a flurry of movement. A large group of men in a small space all swishing around in white robes and white cloth caps that in the grey/blue light looked like thick floating fog, I tried to focus on their dark faces scattered amongst the whirl of white. I wasn’t sure if they didn’t know I was there or they were just very good at ignoring my presence. I had the distinct feeling that I shouldn’t be there. But I wasn’t going anywhere. I was dying to know what happened next. I had only witnessed scenes like this in movies and I expected them to start divulging the plot of a crime or spilling the kind of secrets Dan Brown wrote about… actually, that was exactly what it felt like: I was in a chapter from Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code. I was acutely aware that there was not a single Ethiopian woman in sight. And of course that made me angry.

Back outside and on the earth’s surface, in the glaring bright sunlight I stood on a hill and stared down at the secret underground city from above. It really is one of human kinds greatest achievements. I wondered why this place was not as famous (and crowded) as the pyramids of Giza. Out of the solid ground an entire temple had been carved out in the shape of a crucifix. From a thousand years ago when technology was not even dreamed of yet an unknown number of men carved and chiselled this cross shaped church, free standing from solid ground, with their bare hands, sweat and blood.

Looking down on it I still didn’t believe in God but I was sure glad that all those people did all those years ago so that something as incredible as that could been in existence still today.

The (not-so) Great Escape

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That evening I had slipped out the door and made it to reception without being spotted ad stopped by Mattias, Daniel and their friends. The worst of the gastro was over, though my body felt internally bruised and utterly shattered. I had the overwhelming urge to flee Bahir Dar, and that horrible feeling of being trapped and powerless. The hotel staff arranged for a bus to pick me up at 5am the next morning. It was going to take me all the way to Lalibela on a twelve hour journey I was not looking forward to.

I had slept heavily and undisturbed, with no further signs of illness.

At 5 am I stood in the empty semi-dark laneway waiting for my bus. I waited as the sun slowly crept into my little part of the world. I watched as the light woke shadows, crying babies and feral dogs. Finally the bus pulled up at my feet at 7am.

With the help of the driver and an obligatory tip I loaded my backpack on the top of the bus and hopped in to the front seat. Apart from the driver there was just one other young guy on board. The bus took off and I was instructed to pay way too much money, and I wasn’t polite about it either. I was so desperate to get out of the city that I paid it anyway.

The bus drove about 4 blocks and stopped. The driver, and the young guy, got off and left me sitting there alone so that they could buy chat. Then they sat and drank coffee. I got off and bought a plain bread roll. I hadn’t eaten at all the day before, and though I was still wary that my guts were still gurgling I figured I wouldn’t last 12 hours without eating something.

After half an hour at this stop we boarded the bus again. It drove about four blocks and pulled up in the same lane way out the front of my hotel where I had already spent two painful hours waiting.

“What are we doing?” I tried to ask. But neither man spoke English. The driver cut the engine and the two men just sat there waiting… for something… I never found out what. I got off the bus and tried to find the hotel staff to find out what was happening.

“They are probably just waiting for more passengers” I was assured by the hotel man who booked the bus.

It was 8:30 and the sun had finished warming up and was beginning to burn. I was about to board the bus for some shade relief when right in front of me the engine sputtered into action and it took off.

I stood dumbfounded, watching the back of the bus bumping up the lane away from me. My bag with almost all of my belongings was still tied to the roof and I watched helplessly as it sailed further and further away from me.

I plonked down on the side of the road, sitting in a heap of trash. I was conscious of the smell of shit from a source close by, but I didn’t care. I didn’t know what else to do. So I just sat there. I remember feeling fairly calm, all things considering. I wasn’t crying or angry or stressed out or even making a plan of action. I just sat there, staring at the rubbish and smelling the shit. I simply didn’t know what else to do.

People walked by occasionally, gawking at me of course. Probably mildly amused at the sight of a white (therefore automatically rich) woman sitting in a heap of crap in the burning sun on the side of the road. When they asked me for money I just stared back at them. ‘Are you for real?’ my expressions plainly read. Taking the whole sight in they didn’t linger for long.

I still had the bread roll in my hands. I didn’t have anything else to do so I started to eat it. I knew that it was in-polite to eat in public, but at that time I took a slither of satisfaction by saying ‘stick it’ to Ethiopian manners.

What felt like hours later, but was possibly only a half hour later I heard the throbbing of an engine and saw my bus, saunter back down the lane way. My bag was still tied to the roof, and I was surprised to see that it still looked full. It pulled up in front of me and the driver motioned for me to board the bus.

I should have felt an overwhelming flood of happiness and relief but instead I was utterly peeved.

I stayed sitting in the pile of trash and ate my bread roll.

The driver got off and stared at me. It was hard to tell if he was confused by the sight of me and the smell of crap, if he was finally feeling in patient and ready to leave or was mortified that I was eating in public.

“If you guys can shit and piss in the street and drive off with my luggage I can eat a frikkin bread roll”.

He cocked his head, his expression changed slightly but I still had no idea what it was telling me.

Reluctantly I rose, I wiped the crap off my butt and boarded the bus.

In my diary on the bus I wrote:

“This is what I am finding out about Africa. It will leave you alone, defenceless and sitting in shit… but in the end, eventually, you get picked up again.”

The time was 10:50. I had first waited for the bus at 5:00am.

At 11:30 the bus pulled over for a half hour breakfast stop.

You might initially think that 4 months in Africa would teach someone patience… it didn’t. More and more Africa was wearing me down. More and more I was turning into a short-tempered neurotic bitch. Less and less I was able to empathise with people, to smile kindly at them. And at least once a day I was throwing a tantrum from frustration.

As I sat slumped against the bus window I was beginning to calm down. I was wishing that I could take photos through the window but each scene flashed passed in seconds. Long enough to have a moving effect on me but not long enough to get my camera out.

They were simple scenes, like naked children playing outside stick huts or a line of girls trudging up the dirt hillside, hunched over with the weight of water barrels on their head or bundles of sticks and branches loaded across their backs. Behind them were rolling hills, as beautiful as they were in the The Sound of Music. I found it simultaneously calming and thrilling. While I enjoyed those images I also wondered how much energy I had left, I wondered how much longer I could stay in Africa. It felt like my time there was coming to an end.