Hundreds of bodies litter the killing field. Many still twitch as the cherry red blood bubbles out of slit necks and pools in the mud. Blood-splattered butchers hunch over the bodies, their axes methodically rising and falling as they hack through flesh and bone. Others peel away the skin with long curved black bladed knives. Cows that had fifteen minutes before been chased across the field by squealing children are now fat marbled slabs of meat laid out on eucalyptus leaves for sale. Near a pile of steaming entrails and flesh covered skulls, a woman squats in front of a plastic bucket churning blood, allegedly for drinking. Perhaps this, like kort, as the raw meat dish is called in Ethiopia, is a delicacy. The hecatomb is to celebrate Meskel, the Ethiopian Orthodox Christian holiday commemorating the ... read more

A light drizzle falls from a slate sky. It is colder than expected. Inside, the percussive tremulous flurry of flamenco guitar rattles the bar’s tinny speakers. Tapas spread across the low wooden table - viridescent garlicky olives, thinly sliced jamon serano, fat-rippled chorizo, honey drizzled manchego cheese sprinkled with ground coffee, and a steaming plate of golden fried anchovies. The tapas, the cold beer, and the weather are strong incentives not to go anywhere. I thumb through a stack of postcards, images delineating the contours of Andalusia: In one, the Mezquita in Cordoba, a building encompassing the layers of history and culture that have shaped Southern Spain. A cathedral within a mosque built from the ruins of a Visigoth church and a Roman pagan temple. Another shows a tile of swirling Arabic calligraphy from the Alhambra, ... read more

This all started a few months ago. I was in the Gambella region of western Ethiopia bouncing down a road to visit a Nuer village, one of the indigenous tribes of the area. For miles, all along the newly graded road, the forest was being enthusiastically dragged down, piled up, and burnt. Clear cutting toward a better future. Rounding a bend, a enormous piece of John Deere industrial farm equipment sat on the edge of the field. Its just-off-the-factory-line new green and yellow paint gleamed in the harsh sun bleached washed out colors of the countryside. We stared at awe. Although in Midwest America, it would be barely worth mentioning, such a thing in rural Ethiopia was like seeing ET and Bigfoot sipping tea next to a flying saucer. Since then, something has been festering in ... read more

A couple of the emails said, “Rwanda . . . huh”. The skepticism was palpable. The messages plainly implied that this decision was significant in so far as it indicated deteriorating mental capacities and an alarming uptick in questionable decision making. Oprava’s email was more blunt: “Christmas in Rwanda sounds like, well, hell, but what does the white man know.” Precisely. What does the white man know? The media’s business is infotainment. It breathlessly recounts the horrific apocalyptic flavor of the moment for riveted audiences before rushing on to the next catastrophe in the heart of darkness. The news’ steady diet of natural disaster, civil war, famine, disease, and public uprising liberally indulges the schadenfreude of the fickle observer. Consequently, the Rwanda of public imagination is, and perhaps forever will be, rooted in the undeniably hellish ... read more

Sinking into his chair, Haptu, a corpulent Chinese buddha looking Ethiopian, lifts his steaming cup of tea and smiles broadly. “What we do is go look at those people”. Haptu smelled opportunity. In Ethiopia, tourists follow the highland ‘historic circuit’ to Gondor, Axum, and Lalibela or go south to see the tribes of the Southern Peoples. Western Ethiopia, bereft of historical-mythical ties to Christianity, ancient architecture, or people with plates in their lips, has, so far, largely escaped attention. However, outside of Gambela, near the Sudanese border, there are villages inhabited by traditional tribes, the Anuak and the Nuer. We were going to look at them. Haptu’s company, Vast Ethiopia Tours (http://www.vastethiopiatours.com), would blaze the tourist trail west, but first, he needed to assemble the A-team. (cue music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MVonyVSQoM) Nico,... read more

It’s July, cold and rainy in Addis. In America, it’s hot. A grand time to be there instead of here. The Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt leaves Bole International Airport near midnight. They call it the ‘Baby Snatcher’ as it leaves under the cover of darkness filled with white folks retuning west with Ethiopian babies. Though I’ve got no baby on board, there will be plenty stateside I’ve never met: Henry, Mira, Waylon, Gretchen, Ryder, Pearl, Veronica. The rest of home leave will entail little sleep, an orgy of meat and drink, a little art, and the hopeless attempt to make meaningful the relationships of memory. In the end, only the babies are unburdened by memory. Within moments of landing in Frankfurt, I know I have come back to the future. In the airport bathroom, the toilet ... read more