Ethiopia in pictures

The one for my Mother, who is petrified of heights



Ethiopia was an early cradle of Christianity. It is believed that one of the three wise men (Baltazar, the one with the incense), came from the Aksumite kingdom in modern day Northern Ethiopia. Nine saints are credited with bringing Christianity to Ethiopia over the next four centuries. For each of them, a church was built – not surprising in itself. What is surprising is the locations chosen for the said Churches – each was built on the most inaccessible top of the most isolated mountain ‘they’ could find. And in Northern Ethiopia, you’ve got some options.


But maybe the ubiquitous ‘they’ knew a little something about human nature. Bizarrely, twice-a-year-churchgoing spiritual-but-not-overly-religious European-church-fatigued I and New York Jewish and chronically cynical Eugene developed a fascination with these churches, and readily put ourselves through hours of gravel road / mountain path travel and considerable peril to reach them. The first one I we reached required off road travel, a hike and a 25 meter climb up a sheer rock face on a rope of braided goat skin to reach (click to enlarge the picture on the left and see Eugene attempt to make his way back down).

But the first picture above is taken after finally arriving at the second one after a barefoot climb scary enough so that the authors of the Lonely Planet confessed to not having dared attempt it (barefoot because you can get better grip with toes than shoes). I’m standing on a meter-wide ledge next to a 200 meter drop that marked the last 15 meters before the church entrance. You may notice that my weight is quite deliberately on my right foot, rather than my left.

The one with the Icelandic Tank Commander



This one is taken when we came upon a burned-out Russian built tank in the middle of a village in the countryside, around which a good 50-60 kids were engaged in a soccer game with a single ball made of plastic bags.

I would usually have joined in the game, but we didn’t have too much time as it was getting dark and our driver (whose wreck of an automobile, break problems and all, and rather disturbing habit of driving on the left side of the road was worrisome enough) had zero night vision. In any case, we couldn’t pass up the chance to check out the tank and pose for a quick photo op.

The one that was a pain in the ass


Eugene decided to get a different view of Ethiopia during one of our long road trips. Hardly the most comfortable way to travel on bumpy and dusty gravel roads, but he claimed it was well worth it for the view and the reactions he got from the local. We were eventually stopped by two policemen and an attention-grabbing AK-47 assault rifle, who started scolding the driver for having a passenger on the roof. We tried our best to intervene and explain that it was all our fault (as we were confident that whatever trouble we could get into would be minimal compared to what he might get into), but they insisted on lecturing him, possibly in hope of securing a little bribe from the foreigners. But the whole plan fell apart as car after car carrying literal truckloads of locals on top started arriving, as Eugene and I diligently pointed out. At first the police officers tried to maintain a straight face, directing the first two trucks to pull over to the side and chiding the surprised drivers for carrying people on top. But as car after overloaded car continued to arrive and our exasperated reactions started triggering waves of laughter in the crowds of villagers that surrounded us, the once menacing AK-47 was rendered insignificant. Eventually, the police officers gave up, joined in the laughter and sent us on our merry way - and the one holding the AK even posed for a photo before we left.


The one with the strange conversations



Taken at the market of one of the most remote, dirtiest and coldest (note the locals wearing Icelandic-style snow caps) mountain villages we came to, with my new friend Nonni the Icelander in the background (as briefly mentioned in an earlier post, I bizarrely ran into him and his friend Haukur after climbing the goatskin rope at the end of the world as mentioned above). I am engaged in a deep conversation with a group of 20 villagers, during which I established the going rate for donkeys, cows, horses, and camels (US$ 25, 110, 125 and 250, respectively), exchanged traditional Icelandic and Ethiopian songs, and was called upon to translate a document in medical English/Latin detailing a seriously unpleasant-sounding problem with some unfortunate person’s rectum.



When one of the world's greatest civilizations was in Africa



"I weary of writing more about these buildings, because it seems to me that I shall not be believed if I write more ... I swear by God, in Whose power I am, that all I have written is the truth."
- Francisco Álvares, a Portuguese priest and explorer(1465 - 1540)

Lalibela is a magical place. 12 huge churches and countless tunnels were hewn out of the rock from the top down during the reign of the Christian King Lalibela, who ruled Ethiopia in the 12th and 13th centuries, in an attempt to create another Holy City following the fall of Jerusalem to Muslims. Despite countless chauvenistic theories claiming "it couldn't have been done by Africans" and giving credit to anyone from the Knights Templar to Portuguese missionaries, there is overwhelming evidence to prove that these amazing structures were built by Ethiopian stonemasons. I feel fortunate to have had the luck to explore the place, intermingled with the local devout in the solemn silence that seems to envelop the sites (at least until the groups of tourists arrive). I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Children playing next to the preserved corpses in an open crypt



The local devout



St. Georges church - unbelievable



Beautiful



A resident of Lalibela



Finally, for the photography credits. Most of the pictures are courtesy of my good friend and travel partner Eugene. The rest of his pictures of this trip (and other travels, including some spectacular shots from our trip to Myanmar, Laos and Thailand in 2005) can be found here. Here's a hint: he, like I, appreciates comments! Other pictures are by Haukur the rock-dweller and yours truly.

I'm out of time, but here are a few more pictures.

A friend from Aksum



Our mode of transport in Addis Abeba



US Aid 1987 (click to enlarge - what happened to the supplies collected by 'Band Aid')



Education

Misr - y

Take the most high pressured, inefficient, chaotic and serially disastrous day of your working life.

Now multiply it by Egypt.

That was my day. 48 hours, actually - two crashed email systems, a dead phone, traffic jams, misunderstandings, translation issues, an all nighter, two hours of sleep and a wedding later I finally fell asleep while working in my hotel room, only to wake up three hours late and find my computer on the floor with half the screen smashed.

On the bright side, it all turned out well. The highlight has to be this quote from my colleague at 3:30 in the morning:

'I always thought that cabinet-level documents regarding issues of national importance would be written by specialized lawyers or people who know what they're talking about... and not two sleep-deprived consultants, one of whom has only been on the project for three days.'

There's a hole in my airbed

(Tune: "There's a hole in my bucket".)

There's a hole in my airbed
Dear Liza, dear Liza
There's a hole in my airbed
Dear Liza, a hole.

Then mend it
Dear Magnus, dear Magnus, dear Magnus
Then mend it, dear Magnus
Dear Magnus, mend it!

But how shall I mend it?
Dear Liza, dear Liza
But how shall I mend it
Dear Liza, how?

With glue,
Dear Magnus, dear Magnus, dear Magnus
With glue, dear Magnus
Dear Magnus, with glue!

But where can I get it?
Dear Liza, dear Liza
But where can I get it,
Dear Liza, where?

In the mall,
Dear Magnus, dear Magnus, dear Magnus
In the mall, dear Magnus
Dear Magnus, in the mall!

But how do I get there?
Dear Liza, dear Liza
But how do I get there,
Dear Liza, how?

In your car,
Dear Magnus, dear Magnus, dear Magnus
In your car, dear Magnus
Dear Magnus, in your car!

But I've been drinking
Dear Liza, dear Liza
But I've been drinking,
Dear Liza, drinking.

So sleep it off!
Dear Magnus, dear Magnus, dear Magnus
So sleep it off, dear Magnus
Dear Magnus, sleep it off!

But where shall I sleep it off?
Dear Liza, dear Liza
But where shall I sleep it off,
Dear Liza, where?

On your airbed!
Dear Magnus, dear Magnus, dear Magnus
On your airbed, dear Magnus
Dear Magnus, on your airbed!

But there's a hole in my airbed!

---

I'm hung over.

My new project

I’m writing this from a traffic jam in Cairo, where I’ll be spending most of the next few months on my new project. As in the city, hopefully not the traffic jam. Headed to the client site once more, which is a public entity much like the city itself – massive, chaotic, and extremely interesting. In essence, I’ll be doing the economic development work that I’ve always wanted to do.

As always, one should be careful what one wishes for. Through my travels I have gotten quite used to using public toilet facilities that are essentially a literal hole in the ground with a bucket of water fulfilling the function of Western toilet paper; in fact, I have gotten quite good at remembering that in large portions of the world people only ever pass things to one another with their right hand, and why.

But there’s something quite surreal about consistently having to use such facilities, with hygene standards described by my interpreter as “not human”, while wearing a suit and tie.

Work hard, Play hard

So far, that’s how I’ve been living my life in Dubai. It actually started when I was still in London (see my post “Enginn veit hvað átt hefur fyrr en misst hefur” below). This weekend was an example. It’s Easter, and I was hoping to take a couple of days off, or at least take a weekend. Instead, I worked hard every day - but only half the day...

Thursday night I went out with a few friends to one of Dubai’s amazing spots – a bar-restaurant built a few hundred yards into the sea and accessible via a walking bridge. Typically for Dubai, I found out that in our five-strong group, my friend Alex and I were the Dubai veterans, having started work one month and two days earlier. Stayed out moderately late, and had a great time.

Friday (first day of the weekend here, remember), I got up at seven, and worked very hard for six hours – at which point I hopped in my rental car with my new friend Tanya and took off to Abu Dhabi, which is just over an hour’s drive away, to watch the Red Bull Air Race. Don´t know if you´ve heard of it – it is absolutely insane. Sixteen pilots on small acrobatic planes compete in a race against time, hurtling two rounds through a 15-gate slalom course in a race against time and each other. The gates are marked with 18 meter tall inflatable columns, and the pilots lose points if they stray above the top of the gate. Eighteen metres – these are planes! These people seriously have no self-preservation instinct. But then, neither do the hundreds of thousands of people who show up to watch the race up close... ridiculously close... The happy Hungarian we were cheering for ended up winning, and we went home happy too. At that point I joined Alex and a collegue of mine for a Lebanese dinner until ten, and came home to work until 2am.

Saturday I got up at 7am to go Dune-buggying with Alex and a few collegues from both our companies. Dune buggies are light little off road racers designed for racing up and down sand dunes, swerving, surfing and jumping on the sand to the point where I’m still cleaning sand from my hair two days later. A lot of fun, and plenty of adrenaline. Afterwards, we went out of a couple of drinks, but I couldn’t stay past three in the afternoon because I still had quite a bit of work to do. Went back and worked for a few hours, but returned to join the group for the “Chill-Out Festival” at the Medinat Jumeirah – an incredibly beautiful hotel somewhere between Venice a 14th century Moroccan palace. Everyone was sitting around in the ampitheatre (which looks the way it sounds) on beanie bags and pillows, smoking sheesha pipes or having a drink or two, while an international lineup of DJs so good that the DJ from the Buddha Bar in Paris (which practically invented chill out music) was reduced to fourth billing. It was another long night.

Sunday comes along – Happy Easter. Woke up and worked again till one, at which point I had my rubber arms twisted into playing eighteen holes of golf for the first time in my life, at a golf course designed by Nick Faldo. Not too shabby. I came out of there exhausted (and pretty sure that I had pushed my luck with my Icelandic skin and Arabic sun), but determined not to leave Dubai for my next project without furniture, so I went out and spent an outrageous amount of money on a home shopping spree. I now have almost everything I need for my living room to go with my beautiful sofa, to be delivered in two weeks. Again, I am having great difficulty explaining how excited I am... I have stuff!

It's nearly two in the morning on a workday, and here I am writing. Yes, it's been crazy, and I haven't surfaced to breathe long enough to update my blog in more than two weeks. But I feel energetic, the way I have since those last six weeks in London.