Ship sets sail for Scott re-enactment

Family Fortunes : Two generations and their shopping habits

Interview with Swansea lovespoon carver  Edwin Williams who even gave us a spoon while we were there!

It’s a city of contrasts. The muddy tracks and corrugated iron houses meander around the asphalt roads and the odd skyscraper. Sheep and goats graze in the dirt lanes, elegant women totter on heels down the fashionable Bolé Road, the high walls of the Sheraton Hotel are surrounded by low slung slum houses.

Corrugated Iron and Sky Scrapers

The city is littered with the skeletons of half constructed buildings, so at points it looks as if it has been hit by an earthquake. The roads linking the skeletons are not yet built and covered in rubble.  Bright blue Toyota taxis rush around the legacy of the last Emperors, the palaces, the university, the ubiquitous lion of Judah statues.

Construction in Addis - the poster shows the end result

There is a beautiful park in the centre of Addis – complete with swing sets, benches and fountains. But no-one I spoke to had ever seen it open. It sits well opposite the prime minister’s residence, and near the United Nations building. So well in fact that the cynic would say it has just been built for show.

The large expat community ensures you can ‘get’ most things you would in the West. You can eat Indian, Thai and haute cuisine as well as the traditional injera. There are supermarkets selling everything from baked beans to plastic wrapped apples. Night clubs such as Harlem Jazz provide live music and a less seedy alternative to the hotel bars.

A night out in the city is unforgettable. You don’t see many people getting plastered, the party revolves around the dance and the conversation – and it’s not an exaggeration to say that it is some of the most fun you will ever have.  Live music makes you want to get up and dance, people ask you to dance, the singers force you to dance.  Sweet tej (honey wine) is passed around in glass flasks that look as if they’ve been taken out of a chemistry set. The azmari sing, dance and force even the most serious to explode with laughter at their rude, witty rhymes.

Children beg on the streets. Mothers clutching babies tap on the windows of taxis, desperately asking the occupants for spare change.  Bodies twisted by polio drag themselves along the pavement, flip-flops on their hands, thrown coins by people on the buses.  The many charities which operate in the country help provide for the very poor.  Yet of course the country doesn’t look like a sea of large eyes in hollow faces as you might imagine from television coverage.

It would be impossible to write about Addis without mentioning how religious it is. As well as the call to prayer from the mosques which serve about 30% of the population, the majority of the city flocks to the many churches which also play hymns and readings over the loudspeakers attached to their steeples.  People cross themselves when walking past religious buildings, even when services are not taking place crowds of needy people stand around the churches begging or selling religious artifacts.

The growing number of tourists who come to Ethiopia seem to ‘do’ Addis in a few days before they move on to greener pastures. I can see why. I felt very overwhelmed and culture-shocked by the city. But a few days in Addis cannot do it justice.  It is in the city that you get a sense of the whole. As most capital cities, it absorbs people from around the vast country. It is here that you can see many of the different tribes, ways of life and traditions of Ethiopia.

Runners in Meskel Square

On the afternoon following the feast, we were
destined to enjoy for a second time the honour of
visiting the king, for Harrington had brought a
message for him from H.M. the Queen of England,
which she herself had spoken into a phonograph.
As we entered the tent, nearly half of which had
been opened, we found the king seated as usual,
whilst around him stood a number of dignitaries,
Harrington and his sowars, with drawn and carried
swords, took their places immediately opposite the
monarch. A table was then set in front of the
king, and on this the phonograph was placed.
With the exception of the gurgling sound produced
by the instrument, dead silence pervaded the tent.
The Negus was highly gratified with the message,
even standing up that he might the more distinctly
catch the words, for he was much struck with their
clearness and firmness. He listened to the Queen’s
gracious words time after time, and readily con-
sented to my attempting to photograph the scene.
During this time a grand salute of eleven guns was
being fired to celebrate the occasion. I stepped
outside to try and take a picture of this event also,
and found soldiers running about in every direction,
anxious to learn why guns were being fired on
the sabbath.

The phonograph was then carried off to the
private quarters of Queen Taitu, who was equally
charmed with the message, demanding several
times a repetition of the Queen’s words. It was
a wonder to me that this particular cylinder was
not completely worn out. The Queen, although
understanding no English at all, was nevertheless
easily able to recognize the mention of her own
name.

Entoto Museum, Addis Ababa

As I wrote last month, I was recently asked by Hailesilassie, the curator of the Entoto Museum, to help locate the whereabouts of a voice recording of Emperor Menelik and his wife that allegedly lay in the British Museum.

Hailesilassie had read  that Queen Victoria had requested the recording, and he was desperate to obtain a copy for Entoto’s collection. The museum is dedicated to the Emperor who was the founder of Addis Ababa, and the man responsible for uniting Ethiopia.  The recording would really bring to life the small collection of Menelik’s possessions which make up the museum.

Amazingly, Ami Jones who is currently seconded to the Ethiopian Ministry for Education and his Father have found the recording filed in the British Library (rather than Museum) in London.

As Ami is based in Addis, he hopes to present it to HaileSilassie personally as a surprise once the wheels have been set in motion in London.

John Mellors of the Anglo-Ethiopian Society sent me the following email, which sheds more light on the subject:

“The story of the Menelik recording is told in a paper by Prof Ullendorff “Emperor Menelik’s phonograph message to Queen Victoria”, SOAS Bulletin, 32 (1969), 251-6. It’s been reprinted a few times and I’ve got a copy somewhere – I’ll try to find it for you. The recording is very poor but he managed to translate most of it. A copy was given to Haile Selassie during one of his visits to the UK but I can’t remember if this was why Ullendorf (who taught Amharic, Ge’ez and other Semitic languages at SOAS) translated the recording. I gather that it’s very difficult to understand what is being said but a couple of our members, one Ethiopian, listened to it recently at the BL and found it fascinating”

The Tigrai region is peppered with hidden churches and monasteries.  To satisfy my romantic desire to explore them, we walked up into the Lasta Mountains to visit Ashetan Maryam.  This monastery is a two hour hike to 3150m above sea-level, up from Lalibela which is set at 2630m.

When we finally approached a door set in the cliff face, the never-ending walk suddenly felt worth it. As entrance fee was paid to the priest – who must have seen us coming for miles – and we walked up through steep stone steps through the cliff, to come out by the main church, which was hollowed out inside the mountain.  The courtyard was open to the sky – it had been cut to be like a box with no roof.

As in each religious place we’ve visited, the priest opened up the wooden shutters to let light flood into the stone building.  He then selected some of the church’s treasures to show us – including a 14^th century saints book written in Ge’ez, King Lalibela’s cross and prayer stick.  A prayer stick is made of bone or ebony, and used to prop up worshippers during ceremonies which can last up to 2 hours, for which congregations are expected to stand.

During the long descent we saw scores of men and women making the long journey to villages up the mountain, carrying heavy sacks of grain on their heads.  Although by Ethiopian standards Lalibela has a lot of tourists, it doesn’t seem to have benefitted the region yet. It is still one of the poorest regions of Ethiopia.  Perhaps tourism here has not grown or brought wealth to the area as quickly as expected – certainly most of the new, luxury hotels that we saw were empty.

After the completion of 10 of Lalibela’s churches – the legend goes that Saint George visited King Lalibela to chastise him because none of the churches were dedicated to St George, the head of the saints.  In response, King Lalibela built one of the most exquisite churches in honour of Saint George, whose horse’s hoof prints are said to act as steps down into the site, a reminder of his visit to the King.

View down into St George's

Entrance to St George's

The church is set away from the others, a sign that it was built later.  It is a slightly conical shape, with a thick base.  This suggests that the workmen had learnt from the construction of the previous churches.

Hoof prints

This ‘new Jerusalem’ was created by King Lalibela in the 12^th century at a time when Jerusalem was under Islamic occupation.  The names, down to the River of Jordan and Bethlehem are taken from the holy city.  Despite being one of Ethiopia’s main tourist attractions, the town still feels very remote, and as it is a 2 day journey from Addis Ababa, inaccessible.

According to legend, the King was visited in a dream and told to build the complex of 11 churches which are cut into the pink volcanic rock of the Lasta Mountains. Workman (or angels, depending on who you speak to) would cut around a jagged space around a block deep into the hard stone.  Once the block was isolated (either completely, or with the walls still attached to the stone), it was carved into a beautiful church.

Locals and priests say that this work was accomplished in a mere 23 years.  Scholars dispute this, saying the stonemasonry is in keeping with the many other rock-hewn churches in Ethiopia, and as such would have taken place over a longer period of time. Neither view detracts from the extraordinary result.

The churches are accessed through a series of tunnels, unexpected entrances and underground steps which twist and turn on one another.  Crosses and signs decorate the churches which hint at a mysterious past, perhaps linked to the Knight’s Templar.

Lalibela remains an important place of pilgrimage for Ethiopians.  Although the priests wear sunglasses to protect their eyes from the flashes of tourists’ cameras, it is not a museum.  Worshippers come here every day and the site is flooded with people during religious festivals. The ‘fertility pool’ which opens each Christmas is prized as particularly potent.  Apparently one disbelieving faranji tried it and subsequently gave birth to 5 children.

Inside the stone churches have matted floors to protect worshippers’ bare feet.  Unlike the elaborately painted monasteries we saw on Lake Tana, the interiors of the churches in Lalibela were relatively simple.  Adornments and patterns were cut into the stone around windows and pillars, with occasional friezes covering the walls.

Lion of Judah pattern on rugs covering a church floor

Each church was so carefully constructed; it was easy to forget that they were carved out of rock.  Even more amazing was how well preserved the complex is.  Apart from the ugly white structures UNESCO put up covering the church chasms, Lalibela felt untouched since its construction.  It made me more curious to visit some of Ethiopia’s even more remote rock churches – some of which are so high in the mountains that they can apparently only be reached by rope.

The lady in a long white dress stood in front of us, hands on hips.

Faranji come to Ethiopia-a-a-a-a-a

(Dun-dun-dun)

Maybe they come from America-a-a-

(Dun-dun-dun)

And then a line in Amharic which had the audience grasping their sides, and Musbah pulling up his shirt to cover his red face.  It made us desperate to understand the singing! What was she saying about us?

The night of my birthday we went to a small pub where azmari singing was taking place. Sometimes described as ‘minstrel singing’, it is a bit like rhyming, sung stand-up comedy.  A female singer and a man accompanying her on the masinko (a stringed instrument) circle the room together, picking their victims from the audience and singing a song about them – particularly if they are tall, short, fat or of course faranji.

In between the singing, we tried to dance the Eskista or shoulder-shake, adding to the hilarity in the room, to the encouraging TSSSKKK TSSKKK sounds from the lady.  The laughter was infectious, it was a brilliant evening out, despite being the butt of most of the jokes!

Masinko

A short hop from the castles, is Fasilidas’ pool.  It is a huge empty swimming pool, the walls swallowed by tentacle-like tree roots and lichen.  As with most cities in Ethiopia, Gonder has a huge problem with water shortages.  Yet judging by the grubby postcards being sold at the door, it is still used for occasional religious ceremonies when the pool is filled with water and priests gather round it.

The walled castles of Gonder are the centrepieces of the old capital of Ethiopia (Addis Ababa became the capital in 1896).  They were built in the 17^th century after a period of religious conflict in the country, which saw the Muslim Harari governor Ahmed the Gragn chasing the Ethiopian Emperor from city to city – a fugitive in his own country.  To support their Christian fellows, the Portuguese sent troops to the Emperor’s aid.  But with the troops came Jesuit missionaries.  In 1622, Emperor Susneyos converted to Catholicism and decreed that Ethiopia must follow suit.

Thousands of Ethiopians were persecuted for following their traditional beliefs which caused uproar in the country.  In 1632, Emperor Susneyos was forced to resign in favour of his son Fasilidas who consolidated his power by settling his capital in Gonder – it’s mountainous position (2,200m above sea level) in the heart of trade routes and away from the malarial Lake Tana making it an ideal location for an defensible city.

Stables

To prevent any further Catholic conversions, foreigners were banned from Ethiopia for more than a hundred years from Fasilidas’ accession.

His successors each added to Fasilidas’ castle complex.  The architecture shows signs of Portuguese and Indian influences, with the distinctive Star of David insignia throughout, indicating the royal family’s holy lineage.

Gonder University graduates celebrate in the grounds of the castle

Empty lions’ cages served as a reminder of when the royal family kept the king of the beasts under lock and key as a sign of their strength.  Apparently lions were kept here until 1991, when they were moved to the Lion Zoo in Addis Ababa by animal rights activists.

Lions' Cages

Most of the castles are in fantastic condition. The few piles of rubble that sit amid the buildings were caused in 1941 by British bombardment of the Fascist Italians who were using the castle as a base.  We were shown one of the guard towers that they turned into a latrine.

The destruction has now stopped and the castles have been declared a World Heritage Site – with restoration currently underway by UNESCO.  Guides with perfect English are drawn from the local university, who use the castles as a springboard to walk tourists through Ethiopia’s fascinating history.

The views across the mountains made you feel on top of the world.  Our climb to 3,900m was never a straightforward ascent. We struggled up and down soft grass verges, narrow rubble paths and through rivers as our guide led us from one incredible ‘viewpoint’ to another.  I read somewhere that the Simien Mountains were known as the chess pieces of the Gods and it is true that the rock formations resemble the singular shapes of carved figures.

At points we were so high the sensation clutched at our stomachs as we peered over the edge into the frothy clouds below. And when the mists were high the mountains steamed like volcanoes.  We would walk through white clouds into glorious sunshine, from blank white to never ending views across the valleys.

To my surprise, there were many villages in the mountains, and we came across several shepherds and farmers on our treks.  Young children approached us selling woven slingshots, the traditional mountain hat (a stiff, helmet-shaped woven hat with a short bobble on the top) and cups made from horn.  Our scout knew many of the shepherds we met who smiled kindly at our struggles to climb the mountains they so effortlessly roamed over.

Gelada Baboon

One of the most incredible sights was the troupes of gelada baboons that move through the park – distinctive for the red heart shape on their chests.

The drive up into the Simien Mountains from the nearest town of Debark was terrifying. The unpredictably weather had meant there was a complete white-out, and we could not see more than a metre ahead of us.  Our driver hooted throughout our slow ascent, scattering people, cars and cattle aggressively out of his way. After an hour of nail biting turns, we arrived at the first camp site where the mists swirled round us as our cook prepared our meal.

Sankaber Camp

The next morning, standing around while 10 people debated how many men and mules we needed to carry our mountain of bags was embarrassing. At the centre of this argument was an elderly gentleman with a weighing scales, receipt pad (an Ethiopian staple) and a pen. Clearly the man in charge. Our guide was carrying a small rucksack, our scout was carrying his rifle and a red woolly hat and our cook had a headscarf and a miniscule bag to rival our guide’s. Liz, Musbah and I ended up with a convoy of 4 mules and men to accompany us from camp to camp.

Our guide and scout

It is obligatory to take a scout to the camp, to protect you from the animals. He was a local farmer (we met his young son on his travels) who supplements his income by working with people who want to visit the park.  Despite carrying a gun, he told us that he’d never killed anything. He had only used the gun once to fire into the air to break up a fight between some local villagers. The gun didn’t look like it would be much use in a confrontation with a leopard, I’m not even sure it was loaded.  He was a lovely man, and with not a word of each other’s language we managed to communicate through smiles and chocolate.

Our scout, Baze

Our guide was one of only two female guides, out of a total of 40 who work in the Simien Mountains.  She was only 20, and unlike her three sisters, was unmarried. “Can you imagine doing this job if you were pregnant?” she quite rightly said – she certainly couldn’t have scrambled up cliff faces in her goat like manner anymore. She explained that most women in Ethiopia get married young – although the new age restriction of 18 has changed this slightly.  She described herself as the independent exception to a culture which still encourages early marriages.

Our guide

The final member of the team, the cook was a luxury.  But when we came back from a long hike up a mountain, the tea, popcorn and biscuits she set out on the grass of the camp was the most important part of the day. We handed her the ingredients we had bought in Addis Ababa, and with clever additions of wild thyme and perhaps some chicken stock (I was never quite sure) she served up hot soups and tasty rice each evening.

St George and the Dragon

Many of the stories depicted on the walls of the monasteries are of Ethiopian saints. Some of these are very familiar.  England and Ethiopia share their patron saint; Saint George, and the monasteries are covered in the familiar image of the mounted saint slaying the Dragon.  The Virgin Mary is called Saint Mary in Ethiopia, and her image is one of the most popular in the churches.

Saint Mary

Some saints are less familiar. Christianity here is meant to have been spread by 9 Saints from Syria, who each established a monastery in a hard to reach place.  This includes Abuna Aregawi. God sent a python to lift him high onto a plateau where he founded the famous monastery of Debre Damo.

St Yared

St Yared – the patron saint of music – is regularly depicted.  The story goes that he left school without finishing his studies, and sat under a fig tree watching a worm trying again and again to crawl up the tree to reach the fruit.  Eventually the worm succeeded.  This inspired Yared to persevere with his work.  He wrote Ethiopia’s first hymn book, the music of which can still be heard in taxis throughout the country.

Belai the Cannibal may not be a Saint per se, but he is often pictured as an example of Saint Mary’s mercy.  A horrible cannibal, he ate everyone in his path, including his own family.  One day, he came across a leprous beggar who begged him in the name of God for some water.  ‘I don’t know God’ Belai replied to him. The beggar then asked him for water in the name of Saint Mary.  Belai remembered this name, and gave the beggar some water (he wouldn’t eat him – he had leprosy).  When the time came for Belai to be judged, Mary begged that he was spared – and he was allowed a place in heaven.

Belai gorging himself

Once upon a time, the Queen of Sheba went to visit King Solomon in Jerusalem.  Although she refused his advances, eventually he tricked her into being seduced by feeding her spicy food and refusing her water until she ceded to his demands.  When the Queen went back to Ethiopia, she was pregnant with the King’s child.  A son was born to them, Menelik. When he was old enough, he went to visit his Father and returned with the Ark of the Covenant, to Ethiopia.  The generations which followed, down to the last Emperor, Haile Selassie, thus claimed to be descended from the Solomnic line.

The Ark of the Covenent is believed to be stored in Axum, North of Gonder in Ethiopia, and hence each church in the country bears a replica of the treasure in the Holy of Holies.

Entrance to the Holy of Holies where the tabot is stored

I heard many variations on this tale in Ethiopia, which combines all of the best ingredients of a Dan Brown novel. Although no-one has conclusively proved the Ark’s existence, there is a gripping book by Graham Hancock on the subject which tries to establish it’s location in Ethiopia, The Sign and the Seal.

The chanting place

The defining feature of the monasteries is their circularity.  They are divided into three concentric circles representing the chanting place, the Holy Place and the Holy of Holy places.

The Holy Place (Ura Kidane Meret monastery)

The Holy of Holies is decorated on 4 sides, and can only be entered by members of the clergy. It contains a tabot, or representative of the Ark of the Covenant which is brought out on the 11 December, but even then is covered and not revealed to the public eye.

Angels guard the doors into the Holy of Holies

The four sides of the Holy of Holy’s depict scenes from the life of Jesus, scenes from the life of Mary, the lives of the apostles and martyrs and the miracles of Jesus.  The style is very distinctive to Ethiopia – almost cartoonish, highly stylised images.

Adam and Eve banished from the garden of Eden (Entos Eyesu Monastery)

The monasteries are treasure troves of ancient manuscripts which the monks took great delight in showing us.  I almost expected them to fall apart as these illuminated parchments were passed from hand to hand, photographed and snapped back on the shelf.  The manuscripts are writing in Ge’ez which is the language of Ancient Ethiopia, still read by most monks today. Some were under glass, but the majority were still used – in worship and as a tourist attraction.

Monk at Debra Mariam Monastery

Fishing on Lake Tana

Lake Tana is the largest lake in Ethiopia. It stretches from Bahir Dah in the South, almost to Gonder.  The lake is dotted with islands which conceal some of the country’s most famous churches and monasteries.  As with many of Ethiopia’s holiest places, they are not easily accessible. As women, we were not allowed to even attempt the journey to most of them as it would be seen as encroaching upon men’s retreat from daily life.

Monk at Ura Kidahne Meret monastery

Most of the monasteries were built in the 14^th century, and the majority are still active today.  We took a boat to visit three which were open to women. This is because nuns were working there, as were married priests.  In the Ethiopian Orthodox Church priests choose at a young age whether they want to be married or celibate – and only if you are celibate can you proceed to become a bishop, and potentially the Patriarch, or head of the EOC.  This is complicated however as if you divorce your wife or she dies, you revert to being a celibate priest.

Nun unlocking a door into the Entos Eyesu monastery

It was the first time we had witnessed a really ‘touristy’ part of the country.  Children lined the muddy paths up to the monasteries selling miniature papyrus boats, baskets and horn cups.  However there still were not many of us, and at each monastery the priests would unbolt several doors, quietly take an entrance fee from us, carefully write each entrant a receipt and lead us to take our shoes off before unbolting more heavy wooden doors to lead us into the sanctum.

Children selling handmade gifts to tourists

We organised our boat trip through Bisrat the son of the owner at the fantastic backpacker’s paradise: the Ghion Hotel on the shores of Lake Tana.  He regaled us with tales of injera flown back on Lufthansa jets to Ethiopian expats in Europe, parties at the Sheraton in Addis and drunken faranji.

Addis itself is a hotchpotch of rural village life and a more sophisticated urban experience.  As we pulled out of the city, the rural elements became more pronounced.   The landscape and people flowing past became more conservative, dressed in traditional clothes and using more rudimentary means of transport – tuktuks, mules and horse and cart.

Men walked carrying their dula (staff) across their shoulders, hanging their arms from each side as if they were bearing a cross.  Most goods were carried on the heads of the people walking by the sides of the road, who did not seem to bend at all under the strains of the sacks and fuel.  The scale of the country, the distances between each town, was emphasised as it took almost 12 hours to reach the town of Bahir Dah.

It was here that our introduction to the unique culture of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, founded in the 4^th century, began. Some parts of the religion were very familiar to me, but with its roots laying strongly in the Judaic tradition, others were less so.

The Asni Gallery main house

Gallery is perhaps the wrong word, but I am so glad we found this amazing place.  The gates opened to reveal a beautiful vast tree-filled grounds on a steep hill.  Climbing for 5 minutes, we came to the large 1912 rambling house of an ex-minister of justice with a smaller building next door. Uncrossing his legs and stretching up, a man approached us from a circle of young men sitting chewing at the top of the hill. He introduced himself as Tamrat Gezahegne. ‘Come in’ he said ‘we’re just preparing some pictures for the exhibition at the Sheraton next month. And when you’ve finished, please join us for some khat’.

by Tamrat Gezahegne

We entered the smaller building he gestured us to, where unmarked pictures lined the walls. He pointed to those he had drawn and introduced himself as one of the artists who worked in the ‘park’. Newspapers spread on the floor, and easels propped against the wall added to the informal feel. We then turned our attention to the beautiful old house, which looked like a work of art in itself. And indeed the group of artists had covered the outside in paintings and sculpture.

Paintings outside the house

In a strange inversion of a traditional gallery, there was hardly anything inside the house which felt very eerie, a chandelier was still in place, as were bathroom fittings – and the bare floorboards throughout felt as if there were going to break to the touch.

Inside the house

The grounds around the house were dotted with sculptures, made from rusted iron, plastic bottles and other odds and ends.  Around the terrace, broken pottery lay ready to be shaped into something.

It was an artists’ commune. We enjoyed wandering around the very relaxed and beautiful outside space in the sunshine, before declining the offer of khat and making our way back down into the smog of the city below.

Painting of the house

Next week, we are going to the North of Ethiopia to visit Lake Tana – famous for its island monasteries, the Simien Mountains for a 5 day trek, Gondor (the city of castles) and finally Lalibela where we will see the rock hewn churches.  We are due back in Addis on the 4th September.

As it is my birthday while we are in Gondor, we are having an Addis based celebration tomorrow night at ‘Harlem Jazz’ nightclub, where we are seeing Ethiopian singer Kenny Allen if he is not still touring. Fingers crossed.

Speaking of birthdays to people here has made me realise how much we take them for granted (not that mine isn’t very important).  This is because many people here have no idea when their birthdays are.  If you are born in a rural part of Ethiopia, it is unlikely your birth will be registered.  This particularly applies to the orphans we are working with who don’t know what year or day they were born, and so it isn’t something they celebrate.

People here seem to dwell less on age than we do.  School is determined by grade, not birth date, your ability and level rather than your age.

As a formality, it is possible to register for a birth certificate at a government department in Addis. Obviously birth certificates are necessary for visas, passports etc. So to get your ‘official’ birthday, you take along someone who was present at the time of your birth and an estimation of your age is made.

Last night we celebrated ‘bohé’ (my phonetic spelling of the Amharic) or ‘bonfire’ night at the Home, and with the rest of Addis Ababa. A religious festival to celebrate Jesus challenging his disbelieving disciples, it is celebrated by bonfires in the streets, lots of firecrackers (not gunshots as I initially thought) and the Hoya Hoya dance (Jenna’s very apt description).

Singing around the bonfire

By the sounds of it, the original meaning of the festival has separated somewhat from the celebrations themselves, and it’s a great excuse for a party. And the Ethiopian Orthodox church seems to have lots of those, about once a month a good old festival crops up. This is the biggest one in the run up to New Year on the 11^th September.

The bonfires are made by joining dry tinder in a tepee shape, which we danced round in circles, singing, clapping and generally jumping about in the dark. The boys from the Home today recreated the Hoya Hoya dance for the camera, as it was pitch black yesterday and impossible to film anything. Boys in Addis will go to their neighbours’ houses and improvise jokey songs about them to much hilarity, chanting and banging the floor with their ‘dula’ or long wooden sticks.

Once the fire died down, we went inside for the coffee ceremony. I’m going to miss delicious Ethiopian coffee, although I’ve bought all the necessaries to make a little coffee ceremony of my very own in England. Across straw spread on the floor, incense is burned, and coffee served from the traditional elegant black pottery.  We also ate a bread, baked for the occasion – though the Amharic name escaped me, as most of them do.

Coffee Ceremony in the Home

Churchgoers in Addis unperturbed by the rain

Having written a post about how regularly rain and electricity come and go here, I feel compelled to eat my words. It’s all got very exciting and unpredictable. In Addis we had power for 3 days in a row last week. Then, bam, none. Today, a power day, we have had none all morning. Even the lovely Jupiter Hotel – our local bastion of power which has its own generator and wi-fi, our living room on dark evenings – didn’t have power today.

As I’ve said before, power and rain are closely linked here – one begets t’other as the power is hydroelectric.

In Harar, as in Addis, the power is alternated between regions of the city. Luckily our government-run hotel, the Ras, had its own generator. Yet mysteriously there was no power to make coffee in the mornings, the waiter told us apologetically. An Italian lady staying there made a very incisive observation on the situation:

“There’s always power when there’s a football game”

And sure enough, for the premier league game on Saturday, the power mysteriously appeared.

Oh how exciting can one bus journey be? As requested by the author of our Bradt guidebook, Philip Briggs, I have below reviewed the spanking new alternative to local buses in Ethiopia: The Selam Bus Company. In a vast country such as this, it is pretty exciting news to have a coach, with your own allocated seat – rather than the long journeys undertaken by the local service.  These can be over-crowded, dangerous and uncomfortable. And as they don’t depart until the bus is full, they can be unpredictable.

We took the 10 hour journey from Addis Ababa to Harar on the new service. Getting a ticket is a bit of a palaver. You have to present yourself at the ticket office no more than 5 days before – and you cannot book a return as you need to be present at your destinations ticket office no more than 5 days before you want to come back.  There is no central booking system: the whole thing is done through inscriptions in a large black book in each place of departure. This means you live on a whim and a prayer as to whether you will be able to get your desired journey dates.

The 5.30am start is necessary when you’re going such huge distances. Ear-splitting pop music at this time is not. Bring ear plugs. On the plus side, at 8am mango juice and cake is brought round for breakfast.  Except for the lunch stop, the loo stops are non-existent for women; there was no cover in the vast fields we stopped by, so don’t drink too much of the water they bring round after lunch.  Everywhere in Ethiopia, open windows seem generally anathema to bus travellers. The air conditioning on the Selam is meagre, but apart from a few hours on the return journey, no one objected too much to a sneakily opened window.

The scenery was beautiful.  Travelling East of Addis for 10 hours we went through the Awash National Park, the land of the Oromos, hair-raising bendy roads through hills, passing camels, flocks of cattle, traditional round thatched houses.

As this is the main road to Ethiopia’s only port in Djibouti (as the border with Eritrea remains closed), we passed swathes of trucks carrying goods on their way to Addis.

All the while snaking next to us was the now defunct railway from Addis to Djibouti. Built by the French, the track is so thin it looks as if it were made to support a toy steam engine. Trains still run on it from Dire Dawa, and despite plans to resurrect the system, it is still unfortunately not working. I can only imagine how fantastic it would be if a train infrastructure were implemented here: it would revolutionise travel in the country.

Our driver on the way out was slightly crazy – not helped by Liz sitting behind him with a view straight out of the front windscreen, but our driver back was great. In the instruction leaflet we were handed (“Selam bus drivers will not be in a position to carry passengers on and off the coaches”), it forbade the drivers drinking or chewing which was reassuring, given some of the wrecks of buses we passed on the way. If the music and soap operas were turned down in the early hours of the morning, this would be a totally comfortable way to travel by road.

Harar

The sudden loud laughter, stretched-open eyes and juddery movements of some of the Hararis we met could only be explained by one thing: khat (pronounced ‘chat’). The city is fuelled by it.  The leaves of this locally grown plant are chewed to create a stimulating effect which some link into their religious worship. But it is also a social pastime – people literally get together and chew the “chat”.  As we walked through Harar, men sat in groups on rugs outside their houses surrounded by stalks stripped bare of the green leaves they incessantly chewed, occasionally tossing a leaf to a goat.

It is one of Ethiopia’s biggest exports, and is not just chewed in Harar, but particularly so there where it is ingrained in their culture. In Addis it’s sold everywhere. Wrapped in large leaves, it is dispensed through the outlets in the tiny corrugated iron outlets which pervade the city. You can see it hanging next to the bottled water, batteries and loo paper which these tiny stalls sell.  Apparently students are very prone to getting addicted to it, as one friend put it “if you take khat, you can stay up and read books all night!”. Tempting.

We teased Musbah that we were going to try some and sent him into fits of giggles. But I won’t try it – the look of chewing mounds of green leaves is not particularly attractive, let alone the green cud you see on the tongues of the heavy users.  The latter drink milk after they have chewed for a long time, to ease the acidity in their stomach. Another unappealing side effect.

Thinking back now, it makes me feel that some of the hassle we had in Harar was not only unfriendly locals, but locals high on khat, from which we recoiled nervously, making it worse. The few other travellers we spoke to there had found navigating the city difficult due to the reaction being a ‘faranjo’ provoked.  Yet Jenna and others who have travelled extensively in Ethiopia have always had a relaxed experience in the city. It makes me think the “hassle” was a combination of our sensitivity – the first time we had really left Addis – and a Harari Saturday where khat was the order of the day.

I suggested to some Ethiopian friends that next time I went to Harar I would wear a burka so no-one could tell what colour I was. One of them said “but then they’d call you Al Qaeda!” at which point I realised that you really can’t win. Stereotypes exist everywhere.  I am always going to stand out here and look different, which is always going to be a source of entertainment.

I just need to learn a better retort to the “faranjo” back chat in Amharic than ‘Ethiopian!’.

PS: 28th September 2009

I’ve just received the following email from Liz Lindesay which shows the khat addiction could be spreading as far as London, especially now the Square Mile is running out of cash to indulge in more expensive narcotics:

“There is the most hilarious and fortuitous article in this week’s Time Out about the escalating problem of khat use in London. Apparently it is becoming popular outside the African community, including amongst bankers who have fallen on hard times and can no longer afford cocaine.

But as one user wrote, “I don’t think I’d take it clubbing – going to club wiht a wad of privet sticking out of your mouth is not a cool look.”

A gate into the city

“FARANJO! FARANJO!”. As soon as we walked anywhere this word was spat at us, in an aggressive way which we had not encountered elsewhere.  As advised, we picked up a local guide to show us round the maze of streets in the old town. This had no effect. “Money! Money!” children stretched out their palms to us, index finger held up “1 birr!”. Young women in their beautiful gowns pinched us “Faranjo! Faranjo!”. It was a hostile, unwelcome environment – very different to what I had expected.

But maybe not surprising. It was ruled as a separate entity to Ethiopia until Menilik defeated the last Emir at the end of the 19^th century. The picture of the Emir sits on the main gate, and the monument in the main square is to the martyrs who fought for him. You get the feeling that this is still very much a city state.

Main Gate

The hostility didn’t detract from the beauty of the city – a stack of stone buildings painted sky blue, mint green and burnt orange rises on a hill looking out over the green surrounds. Corrugated iron shacks fill the gaps. We visited a traditional Harari house which have high ceilings and decorated walls with the woven baskets for which Harar is famous.

Traditional Harari House

The city has walls within walls. The houses are not obvious from the exterior, little doors lead you through courtyards to the vast space within.  Rimbaud’s House may not have been his house per se, but was a beautiful calm place to retreat and photograph the scenery.

Rimbaud's "House"

View of Harar from Rimbaud's House

Despite its ancient roots, the city is still very much a living, breathing entity.  A market selling meat, vegetables and spices sits in its heart. Men busily worked sewing machines, making garments from bright fabrics. This is perhaps one of the reasons we felt so unwelcome. We felt we were intruding on a very private space.

We spent the morning in the enormous swimming pool complex, and the afternoon wandering around one of the stunning lakes. Completely deserted except for a pelican and a tiny pleasure cruiser.

Firewood Carriers in Shiromida

This back-breaking work can have a detrimental effect on their children who often help to supplement the family income by selling small commodities such as chewing-gum in the city centres.  Added to this the growth in alternative fuels, it can be a difficult and destructive way of life.  There is an interesting article about it here.

Shoe Shiners - a common scene in Addis

The Former Women Fuel Wood Carriers’ Association is nestled on the street running up to the school.  It aims to provide these women with alternative sources of income through teaching them skills such as weaving.  As we wandered past it was a hive of activity, full of ladies working in the courtyard.

To consolidate this work, Give a Future and Little Voice are starting a new initiative: the Women Income Generating Project.  This aims to equip mothers of the school children with the business skills they need to develop their income. The need here is especially pressing.  By encouraging women to grow their businesses, it stops them sending their children to work.

The women are going to be given seed capital to start their businesses. So far 27 mothers have shown interest in the programme.

We got mobbed this morning. I have never felt as popular as I did on first entering the Give A Future and Little Voice co-funded Kindergarten.   As part of the total approach the charities take to child support, it is one of two schools that they run in the poorest areas of Addis Ababa.

The Kindergarten pupils

As ‘faranji’ (foreigners), our arrival was slightly unusual in the school. And even better, we arrived in the children’s lunch break bearing games – endless rounds of ‘Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes’ no less.  Luckily it wasn’t raining so we could be as noisy and as active as we wanted in the playground.

About 115 children attend the Kindergarten, a schooling not offered by the state.  With 7 teachers, the class sizes are significantly smaller than the government run schools.

The Kindergarten is based in Shiromida, (on the way to the Entoto Mountains in the North of Addis), which is renowned as an area of the city where local shawls are sold.  The Primary School is in Menin.  Once the children have passed grade 4 (the top grade) – they are sponsored to go onto private schools. This gives them a better chance of getting a good education, and removes the burden from some of the poorest family in Addis.

As it is now the summer holidays (slightly unfair timing due to the rain!) – the kids are currently taking part in summer school programmes which still gives their parents the opportunity to work and earn money during the summer months, while their children continue to learn.

Ticket Office Opening Hours

As they follow the Julian calendar, in their celebrations, they’re also slightly behind. Their Millennium took place in 2007, and Beyoncé was one of the star guests at the celebrations in Addis.  Unfortunately we are leaving Ethiopia just a few days before this year’s New Year’s Celebrations – on September 11.  There are rumours that Sean Paul might be coming to town….

I have arranged to meet one of the reporters on local newspaper Fortune next week.  Hopefully this will give me a greater insight into the fallout from his anticipated release.

Pairs gets heated

The language barrier with the children is still there, but Musbah and Afnan in particular have been brilliant at helping us to translate. Plus, when you’re playing, we’ve found you can generally make yourself understood!

Yetenyte and Afnan

On Sunday, some of the children took part in a dance class which was amazing to watch. Luckily for everyone, I resisted calls to join in and set myself up as cameraman and photographer. We’ve got some great videos of the Home, but uploading them from here is proving difficult.

Dance class

We have also met their English teacher, who we are joining with on Wednesday evening, along with an Ethiopian English teacher from Awassa, to give a quadruple English lesson dose.  I hope this is more fun for them than it sounds! Many of the children are actually fantastic at English but do not have the confidence or the practice to communicate with it.

The St Mary museum is dedicated to Emperor Menilik who is credited with unifying Ethiopia and defeating the Italians, and so is greatly revered by Ethiopians. According to Hailesilasse, Queen Victoria requested a recording of the Ethiopian monarchs speaking, which was duly sent to her and now resides in the British museum. Having worked in the St Mary museum for 17 years, Hailesilassie is deeply knowledgeable about Ethiopian History and Theology – he conveyed that listening to this recording would mean the world to him. If anyone knows anything about this (I can’t find anything on a quick Google search) – please get in touch, I have all of his details.

Today was our Entoto trip, the mountains North of Addis with half of the children from the Home.  Entoto is the home of the Mariam Church where Menilik was crowned and is also the site of his resting place and palace.  We spent the first half of the morning viewing the museum and brightly coloured circular church.

Then it was time for a game of football to let off steam on the flat stretch of grass on the hills above the church.

As we passed by the sides of barley fields we saw a few sheep, donkeys and cattle grazed tended by shepherds. Through the forests there were monkeys swinging from the trees. Riding made photography difficult but here are some of the less jolty ones.

As we returned to the stables, we saw vast white greenhouses lining the green hills.  These are apparently where flowers are grown for sale in florists abroad.  The scale of this industry has angered some who argue the water and resources would be better used to develop the agricultural industry to feed people in need during the common droughts.

It was a completely different experience to any we’ve had to far. We had our first glimpse of Ethiopia’s beautiful countryside, and for the first time in a week – total silence.

One of the biggest markets in Africa, if not the biggest, we asked Musbah to take us round the Merkato area of Addis. He raised an eyebrow at this, but met us on Wednesday to take a minibus there. It took us about half an hour to find one, a sign perhaps of things to come. It was heaving! Wednesday is the busiest day for markets here, and it felt like the whole of Addis was taking the minibuses shouting ‘Merkato! Merkato!’.

We had been forewarned by the guidebooks. This was not like any market we had seen before. The size of it is hard to grasp, a mini-city in itself. The stalls are grouped thematically in blocks: shoes, plastic bowls, coffee pots, cleaning equipment, spices, shawls…if you want it you can find it here.

Through hoards of people, we made our way to the spice section.  All the time ducking to avoid those carrying vast sacks who bent double – could only shout warnings as they ran through the street, and almost took the heads off those around them.  Our lack of Amharic meant we didn’t always catch the warnings, so others around us pulled us in different directions, out of harms way.

It was an adventure. Mainly because we didn’t know where we were going. We had to keep asking how to get out of the maze of streets and alleyways which twisted and turned seemingly leading deeper and deeper into the market. But we emerged with our precious bundles of incense, traditional black earthenware coffee pots and the ‘gabi’ a large white shawl worn by Ethiopian men. The colours, sounds, people were overwhelming. It is the one place Musbah told us that even locals struggle with for its size, scope and unpredictability.

As we were winding out of the narrow alleyways lined with stalls, with people sitting on the ground with stalls under the stalls, Musbah grabbed our hands. In front of us, a man kicked another next to him to the ground. This is apparently a common pick pocketing trick. As you watch the fighting scene, they make the most of your distraction.

We went back to Jenna’s home in Kazanchis in a minibus known here as a ‘discussion’, because the back has two benches facing one another – which encourages the passengers to talk. Although the language barrier is enormous, we’re managing to join in a little bit.

The flooded primary school

‘Ethiopia, going for a tan then?’ some people asked when I said where I was spending the summer. Tan? It’s the rainy season! As I looked on the BBC website in the run up to my flight, an ominous dark rainy cloud hung over each day of the week in Addis Ababa.

The weather here is a continuing source of fascination, defining what you can do and what you wear at each point of the day. No-one believed me when I said it was raining here. But raining it is. And it needs to. 97% of the city’s power is generated through hydroelectricity. The rains were delayed this year, hence we only have electricity every other day. Parts of the city take turns to have electricity – our days are Friday, Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday.

According to the local English language newspaper, Fortune, two new hydroelectric plants are due to open: GGII in September 2009 and GGIII (Gigel Gibe), under construction since 2006. The newspaper also states that once open, 25% of the power produced will also be exported to Kenya.

The good thing about the weather, is like the power situation, it is quite predictable. The mornings are sunny and dry, allowing for expeditions around Addis and outdoor activities.  But the afternoons see the beginnings of a deluge, worse than the rains in London when I left.  The sky turns grey, flashing with lightning, and the heavens open.

The streets of Addis turn to rivers, and everyone dives into the nearest shelter they can find, bus stops, cafes, restaurants all turn into temporary shelters for the length of the storm. Jenna warned us to bring wellies – which thank goodness we did, and which we change into each lunchtime.  However this has had a downside too: everywhere we go children point and laugh “Booties! Booties!”. The Ethiopians in Addis don’t seem to wear them, just sporting normal footwear in the storms.  Apparently the boots we think are so practical are worn by those who live in the countryside, and are not suitable for sophisticated city dwellers.  Jenna has just learnt the Amharic for “at least my feet are warm and dry” in response to the booties comments.

And wow have the booties come in handy. On a visit to one of the primary schools which Give A Future funds, children were stranded by a newly formed river, from leaving the school. Jenna and I were able to wade in and put a wooden bench between the classrooms and main school building to help them cross.  The drains get blocked quickly, so the teachers are looking to get some more permanent wood to link all of the school buildings.

I don’t know what we would do without him. Our (very) few words of Amharic don’t carry us very far. We’re still not completely up to speed on the minibus system…cries of ‘Arat Kilo’ and ‘Piazza’ are fine, but anything else and we’re pretty thrown. Musbah is also very knowledgeable about Ethiopian history, politics and culture. And not just Ethiopian, I caught him giving some of the children in the Home a whistle stop tour of 20th century politics the other day.

Having been to the UK and Spain, he’s keen to reciprocate and show us around Addis, answering our often inane questions about what and why something is as it is. We have been to the Ethiopian National Museum and seen Lucy – the missing link, as well as Haile Selassie’s throne. He took us to Addis Ababa University where we climbed up the ‘facist’ steps, built by Mussolini – one for each day of fascism. (A slightly pointless unfinished external spiral staircase). These now seem to be used by celebrating graduates.

Inside the university we saw the Institute of Ethiopian studies founded by Richard Pankhurst – son of Sylvia Pankhurst (of suffragette fame), who was one of Ethiopia’s strongest supporters during the Italian and British occupations. When she died in Ethiopia, Haile Selassie gave her a state funeral. (For more on this, read Michela Wrong’s brilliant “I didn’t do it for you”.) Richard Pankhurst is now the world’s leading authority on Ethiopia.

As well as giving us a cultural tour of the city, Musbah has been introducing us to the city’s culinary delights. We’ve had lots of “injera” – a grey cloth like substance made of fermented ‘tef’ (a local grain) onto which toppings are piled. It is very delicious, although we still haven’t quite got the neat local rolling technique – instead using more of a touristic pinch, to everyone’s amusement.

Thursday evening, we suggested that on our way back from the Home we would stay around the Piazza area to eat and then head home. ‘Alone?’ said Musbah ‘without me?’. When we suggested that this was our plan, he shook his finger at us and forbad it strictly.

He didn’t like the idea of two English girls wondering around Addis by themselves at night. Like an over-protective brother there was nothing we could do. Although we did consider going a few stops on the bus and then hopping off when he wasn’t looking….

*Ethiopian Education Foundation – EEF (www.ethio-ed.org) provides excellent schooling for severely under-privileged yet motivated and academically promising students in Ethiopia, helping them reach their full academic potential and enabling them to drive real change in Ethiopia.
Established by 3 friends who shared a vision to cause positive change in Ethiopia, EEF is giving its students an otherwise unattainable secondary school education and with it the knowledge and skills that they believe will change not only the student’s lives but also the fortunes of one of Africa’s poorest nations.

Twister

The Home has a veranda looking out over a garden which the children tend to. During a football game, if the ball goes into one of the flower beds, everything freezes. The game stops as the ball is carefully extracted out of the plants in an attempt not to damage anything. In our first few days we have been playing lots of games, and trying to teach some of the younger ones English words. Twister which Liz thoughtfully brought has proved a huge hit with them. There are lots of games of foosball and puzzles and colouring with the girls. We’re just getting to know one another this week, and having lots of fun in the process.

The Home was the vision of Jenna and her friends who direct the project, Ashenafi and Mamoush, who wanted to make a real home for children who come to them when they have nowhere else to go, have suffered neglect, abuse or lost their families. They had all worked in other NGOs involving children, and this gave them a clear idea of what they thought did – and didn’t – work.
Like any family, they have issues which they sit down regularly to resolve. This could be small scraps between the little ones, or bigger problems – such as the older boys wanting more independence. To tackle this last, the boys are being given responsibilities and tasks to see whether they’re ready to go into another home, which will still be staffed but they will be given pocket money and much more freedom.

We’ve got two trips planned with the older ones: on Monday, we’re going to the Entoto Mountains, just outside Addis and on Thursday to Debre Zeyit in the Oromo region – famous for crater lakes.

A hairdressing session

Street children in Addis
According to government statistics, there are 50 – 60,000 street children in Addis Ababa, but UNICEF estimate it to be three times this. Statistics aside, this is clear from the moment you step into the city. The streets are teeming with children working as shoe shiners, selling sticks of chewing gum, or just holding out their hands crying ‘money, money’. UNICEF writes a thorough, if dry,
assessment of the situation here.

I can’t understate how shocking it is to see this number of children on the street, who survive through begging and selling things. Some of them have families, some of them don’t, but either way it has become an acceptable and commonplace way of existing which we witness
everyday.

Jenna has explained that it is like an addiction for many children. That working the streets offers them some independence, away from often difficult or broken home lives. And the people working to tackle this are the many NGOs in Addis.

Our first day passed in a blur of unfamiliar sounds, sights and names. We opened the gate to our house to overflowing skips of rotting vegetables which were being picked through by groups of young men with plastic bags. Next to this was the World Food Programme building which was imposingly set in glass and concrete, with a red and white barrier, across one of the paths leading up from the main road.  We walked down the uneven path and after a delicious macchiato and banana bread at a local cafe, Jenna took us on a mini bus into town.  Although the map of Addis looks pretty comprehensive, the initial sense of it was quite different. All of the streets are named after African countries – but none of these are actually used, we were soon told. So you navigate yourself around the city using landmarks. What look like crisp lines on a map are actually colourful, noisy and initially very baffling places. And when a storm bursts (about once a day), the landmarks blur and you can’t see anything more than a metre in front of you. There are people everywhere. People begging, young children selling toothbrushes, chewing gum and magazines, smart people in suits, shiny new 4x4s next to the bright blue Toyota taxis and minibuses which zoom all over the street.

It felt like we were in a different world. We took the mini-bus to the bank to change some money. The mini-buses have a driver and a conductor who shouts their destination out of the window to collect passengers on the way. The buses were crowded but when we got the hang of the landmarks and the name calling and the different prices for long-medium and short journeys it was fine.

I still haven’t got over the extremes of the city. The pervading poverty next to the palatial Sheraton Hotel which towers over Addis, and the street children, the young mothers cradling babies, the begging, the deprivation and yet the incredible restaurants, the juice bars with piles of mouth-watering fruit outside.  As an example, we ate at an Italian restaurant in the evening which was also an art gallery, full of well-to-do Ethiopians surrounded by beautiful paintings and sculpture.  All by local artists who depict stunning Ethiopian landscapes and busy scenes of Addis. Then you step outside and there are people sleeping on the verges next to the roads.

We only have electricity every other day in our house, so we are spending this evening at the nearby Jupiter Hotel which has its own generator and wifi in the lobby. So here we are now, trying to get as much writing done as possible, until we go back to our torch-lit house.

In my head, a product of Live Aid, an Eighties child devouring articles on AIDS, poverty and disease in the Third World, the word Ethiopia has always equalled Famine. And I have a vague memory of my history lessons rushing past Haile Selassie as he pleaded for his country on a box in front of the League of Nations in 1936. Yet in the last month I’ve been reading anything and everything I can get my hands on before we fly out on the 1st August, and you only need to scratch the surface to realise that Ethiopia doesn’t equal any of those things.

One of the facts Ethiopia is most proud of, is that it was never colonised. It contains one of the two mouths of the Nile. It is considered the cradle of humanity, the home of the Queen of Sheba, the place where humans are believed to have first walked.  As one of the earliest adopters of Christianity, it is the home of ancient monasteries set on islands in Lake Tana and churches that seem to have grown organically out of the rock in Lalibela. Often described as a haven for twitchers, the wildlife and landscape are varied – from the Simian Mountains to the many national parks. The list of fascinating and beautiful facts and sites seems to go on and on.  Speaking to Miles Morland who introduced me to Stephanie and who has worked in Africa for many years, he asserts that it is a problem faced by many African countries. In the West, we’re bombarded by images of poverty and warfare, yet we never see the positives.

I’m not ignoring the country’s problems. The orphan crisis which The Give a Future Foundation aims to tackle is the one of the biggest in the world.  AIDS is a huge issue here, with around 3.5% of the population carrying the disease, rising to as high as 10% in urban areas. The news organisations describe political unrest as the current Prime Minister Meles Zenawi of Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) took power for a third term in May 2005.  The elections were heavily disputed, several journalists such as Serkalem Fasil were arrested and violence in the streets led to around 80 deaths. The border disputes continue with their northern neighbour, Eritrea. Despite the Lonely Planet writing about the two countries together in their publication about the area, you still can’t cross between them.

But from all the reading that I’ve done, there seems to be a tremendous energy, activity and progress in Ethiopia.  And with perfect synchronicity I’m seeing Ethiopia everywhere. I’ve discovered the Anglo-Ethiopian Society, the many Ethiopian restaurants in London, I opened Metro the other day to discover Ethiopian band Dub Colossus playing to rave reviews in Camden, it turns out that my brother’s Godfather knows the Mother Theresa nuns in Addis, Newsnight recently showed a documentary tracing 25 years of an Ethiopian man…

Liz and I are going to be allocated a ‘shadow’ or intern for the time we are there, Musbah, who is going to help us translate as I interview the Give a Future children.  He is also going to take us around Addis Ababa and the surroundings and I plan to document this journey in this blog. I’m sure we’re going to learn a huge amount from Musbah, the other children we work with and the country we don’t yet know and we will be sharing this as much as we can over the next few weeks.