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Published: July 24th 2010
More Berbatov than Britney
Mulatu's Man United alrightSix months have passed now since my exit from Assosa but in many ways it seems like a lifetime ago. I am firmly back into the world of work and kept even busier in the world of fatherhood.
Events here happen so quickly: social invitiations arrive by email, text message, telephone call, mobile and smartphone. Diaries are filled months ago. Weekends seem busier than weekdays...
During the occasional lull in the storm of work, parenting and appointments, I look back fondly on our time in Ethiopia and worry that I haven't yet finished (if yet really started) my reflections on our experiences overseas and make a mental promise to myself that "next weekend" I'll sort through and order my photographs, reach the magic 100 blog entires and spend some quality time, by myself and with Sara (and maybe a bottle of wine) looking back and fitting Assosa, Ethiopia and the VSO experience into that historical place in my life that it belongs to now.
But it is not easy.
And thinking about Ethiopia often makes me uneasy.
Perhaps that is a good thing?
I really shouldn't ever take
Chez Mulatu
Holy water hanging from the roof for granted the luxury I am allowed to live in over here in the UK. The facilities I enjoy, the electricity, safe drinking water, free medical help and good quality education that allowed me to earn the living and live the lifestyle I do.
***
We just spent the afternoon at a local Cheltenham pub, eating good food with the other new parents on our parenting course. Laughing, joking, talking about the "hardships" of lost sleep, grumpy babies after inoculation jabs, the wonders of Calpol - a baby painkiller in liquid form...for the baby, not the parents! 😊
We pick up our grumbling infants and whisk them around the pub garden in a baby "transport system" that cost more money than our first cars.
We stare lovingly at them as they drift into a pain free slumber and talk idly about which nursery we want them to get to (but oh! the waiting lists are SO long in Cheltenham)...
***
Then I remember with awkwardness the hungry mums sat on the dirty roadsides of Addis in the 30+ degree heat, holding up a sickly child and pleading for passers-by to spare some small change
Follow the red dust road
A Ferengi odyssey to Amba Setagyn to feed themselves - and so their child - for another day.
And I remember walking past them and rationalising my inaction in so many ways. And I wonder now, as a parent, would I do that again?
I guess the only way to answer that is to go back there - which we will - though next time as pure tourists not volunteers so the dynamic will be somewhat different - we will have surplus cash to spare I guess, when as volunteers we had less.
In the same way we forget our good fortune to be living in such luxury and accept it as part of life in the UK, we forgot the hardship we lived amongst in Ethiopia; and accepted it as part of the way of life over there.
As I said in a previous blog two years ago, the first time you are exposed to Addis street beggars you want to just open up your wallet and give it all away...but you quickly realise that path leads to short-term fixes and your own financial challenges.
We were volunteers in country working for a developmental charity after all; giving more of
oursleves than just our small change.
But then the Ethiopians have a saying about babies and pregnant mothers - look after the pregnant mother as the baby inside might just be a king!
Perhaps that mum you walk past on the street needs just one break today and tomorrow that kid grows up to be a "king"...?
I guess that is a suitable introduction for the blog entry I have been meaning to write for a while now.
...we did things differently there Over the two years, our friend and 'professional shopper', Mulatu had made a forthnighly journey into "the rural" to visit his Mum, his family and his old village - Amba Setaygn (Village 9).
As I've mentioned in earlier blogs, during the period of Communist rule in Ethiopia (the Derg era), many Ethiopians - mainly from the more northern Amhara region - were forceably resettled in areas of Ethiopia with better farming opportunities than the worn-out soil of their home town.
Assosa is surrounded by these small few-thousand strong villages of Amaharan exiles, who grind out a living on small patches of farmland and walk twice weekly into Assosa Town for
Fields of gold
(Sting & his lover left of third mango tree) the Wednesday and Saturday markets.
Ever since we had got to know Mulatu we had talked about visiting his family home and meeting his mother, but events transpired and opportunities were missed so in the end we (Sara and I) never made it as a couple.
Mulatu also tells us that our VSO predecessors - Jerry and Mura - were willing but not able to make the trip either (Jerry had a hip problem).
As my days in Assosa (and our time in Ethiopia - Sara was living, pregnant, on her own in Addis) drew to a close I began to look back at all our promises and missed opportunities and decided that by hook or by crook I'd make it to Mulatu's village.
We had fulfilled our promise to take Mulatu to Addis and I was keen to fulfill the promise of visiting Amba Setaygn.
Plans afoot Mulatu had mentioned to his mum the last time he met her in Assosa market that I was hoping to visit and we agreed that my penultimate Sunday in Assosa was likely to be the best time.
I had asked Mulatu if it would be
Communist Copse
Trees planted by the Derg c.1980s OK to bring some gifts for his mum - to which he agreed, then asked when I wanted him to go and buy them for me?
I replied that no way would he go and buy them!
If they were gifts for his mum, I must make the purchase. So the day before the trip the pair of us went shopping around Assosa and queued at various souks (shops) to pick up a couple of kg each of coffee beans, sugar, shiro powder and berberi spice.
Bekema - always keen to see more of the world - agreed to join us for the trip to Amba Setaygn and so come Sunday, I took out the gifts, filled several litre bottles with filtered drinking water and packed my rucksack for the journey.
First up we would head out of town to Mulatu's house, as again, over the course of two years, Mulatu had disappeared every night to this mysterious place on the other side of town and neither Sara or I had taken the trouble to visit it.
Chez Mulatu A good 15 minutes from the roundabout at the end of the high street and
Tiptoe through the sorghum
As it rattles weirdly in the wind south of the bike shop and "old town" we headed out along the road to the Management Institute (on the way to the Sudanese border), before diving off left past the Federal Road Building Depot towards Mulatu's housing area.
When we arrived, Mulatu disappeared around the back of the back of the house to find a key and invited us into the dimly lit single room that made up half of this mud house situated in a thinly wooded copse about 50m back off from the main dirt track.
Bekema sat on the bed while I stood and looked around.
It was no wonder Mulatu preferred to stay in our house, rather than come back home to here!
The room was about 10 by 15 foot and during much of the time we had known Mulatu his other two brothers had lived here too. Two of the boys sharing the one single bed and one sleeping on the mud floor.
The air was damp, even though it was the dry season and I imagined that during the rainy season this room was a haven for damp and mould, leading to the many chest-infections and asthmatic
coughs we heard around Assosa during the rain.
Our schedule was quite tight as we had to get to Amba Setayn and back by 3pm, so we didn't hang around.
As I left I asked what the bottles of water were hanging above the doorway? Holy Water, said Mulatu.
I would understand later.
The Mad Englishman Goes Out in the Midday Sun As we left, I heaved the backpack on and tightened the straps, ready for the 12km walk ahead.
Both Bekema and Mulatu had offered several times to carry my bag (as so many other polite Ethiopians do - well, Addis airport excepted, where there is a "tip" levied) but I was adamant.
These gifts were for Mulatu's mum: I would buy them and I would carry them.
Yes it was 35 degrees as midday approached and yes, the backpack weighed about 15kg (I had demanded to carry Belema and Mulatu's water too).
For two years Mulatu had carried
our shopping from the market and done errands whenever we asked him to, so the very least I could do, on this one occasion, was to carry my own baggage.
I was still crazy, however.
No Ferengi had ever walked to Amba Setaygn! The only Ferengis Mulatu had ever seen - through childhood and beyond - arrived and departed in 4x4s or on motorbikes!
Our pace was slow. I was wearing walking boots and sun resistant clothing but I was still lagging behind. Mulatu's 17 year old youthful energy and Ethiopian sturdiness meant that he was almost skipping ahead while Bekema and I ate his dust.
It was hot and it was hilly.
We passed a number of other villages before reaching the crossroads that I remembered as the furthest from Assosa I had traveled. Taking a less worn path off of the fork I headed into unknown territory.
I could tell we were getting remote. The footprints on the red dust track changed from town-bought trainers and bike treads into (cheap chinese) flat plastic shoed feet, to donkey tracks and then to barefoot tracks the further away from town that we travelled.
It seemed only women were out on foot in this heat.
Ones gathering firewood or visiting relatives while the men stayed in the shade at home. A few gave the
The Sudanese Birds
Holidaying in Ethiopia sweating, puffing Ferengi a double take; just in case I was some heat-generated mirage or trick of the eye.
The only males we met were on donkeys and looked as me incredulously.
A short exchange of Amharic between the father and Mulatu later (it was a father and son) led to me declining their kind offer of a donkey ride. I knew it would mean his lad being kicked off the animal for me to use. Besides I was determined to do the job on foot.
We passed fields of rustling sorghum, through small woods of eucalyptus and saw communist-planted acres of banana trees.
As we dropped down a dip, crossed a river, and headed up a rise, Mulatu said the village was close.
A huge flock of large black birds suddenly rose into the sky en masse, before settling 100m further along a field to our right.
We took a time out and observed. These were "Sudani birds" (said Bekema) - big black crow things from Sudan.
Mulatu's pace quickened as he sensed the closeness of his home and we crested the hill and saw a collection of round-roofted mud huts, sheltered
Village 9 ahoy!
Just some suburban bovine traffic to negotiate amongst foliage, disappearing into the far left of view.
We greeted a couple of tiny kids shelling peas and passed a cowherd snoozing under some trees before heading towards (I guessed) the centre of the village.
Power to the People I had heard about the "commuist lamp" that once hung in the centre of the village - a beacon to mark the "progress" made by Soviet-supported Derg regime.
As the CCCP crumbled, so did the support for all the Soviet cronie states around the world, and the bullets and AK-47 supply dried up as the 90's progressed, allowing the currently ruling party of the TPLF (Tigrayan People's Liberation Front - Tigray is the northernmost state of Ethiopia) and it's allies the chance to beat the Derg and claim Ethiopia.
The lamp-post is still there. Devoid of any power or even a lamp.
Some limited amount of electric power has once again reached a nearby village and the rumour is Village 9 is next, but it's hard not to feel that the lives of the rural inhabitants of these Ambas stays as tough as it always was, regardless of which political model is in current
Little fellas shelling peas
Sure beats 10-pin bowling on the Wii favour or which overweight politicans are drinking fine imported wines in the palaces of Addis Ababa.
I also saw the rusting hulks of the last few communist tractors.
With no access to spares (or even petrol/diesel) they were swiftly replaced by cows and ploughs once again; and left as relics where they died for kids to clamber over and the occasional ferengi visitor to reflect upon.
Mulatu led us past the small clinic - which was closed - being a Sunday and the single (presumably) satellite and solar powered public telephone.
You can pay one birr (5p) to call a mobile phone elsewhere in Ethiopia and quickly put the phone down before the called party answers.
This is the universal way of alerting someone that you need a call back. If your mobile phone rings once only, it means the caller has no credit and needs you to get in touch. This one phone (there was a small queue formed) was the only channel for information into and out of the Amba (by donkey and by foot excepted).
The Matriarch Once past the centre of the village we started bumping into more people
The Last Post
Socialist light long since extinguished Mulatu knew and eventually, just past a thickly leaved orange tree, we turned left to enter an open space, in the centre of which was a simple straw-roofed mud house.
We were greeted by Mulatu's sister who dived inside to wake Mulatu's mother - she had been sleeping.
I greeted his mum and in her face you could see etched a lifetime of hard work and devotion to her family. I have no idea of her age but people age quickly when they are poor and if someone had said she was in her late 50s or early 60s I would not have been surprised.
The reality was that she was no more than mid-forties. Blazing African sunshine, two previous marriages with at least 7 kids, poor diet, bouts of malaria and hard, hard work had added years.
She seemed pleased to see Mulatu and accepted my gifts before setting herself up around the little fire pit to brew up a coffee (which involves washing, crushing and roasting the coffee beans and takes quite a while).
I looked around the wooden hut. Of typical construction - vertical walls made of eucalyptus beams and dried mud,
Hmm, looks like dirt in the carburettor...
A litre of Redex should see you right (and maybe a couple more wheels) with a sloping grass roof.
The house looked well lived in. Cobwebs hung around the straw ceiling and pieces of the mud wall were coming away.
The inside of the house was sooty and black from the cooking fire and a number of aging saucepans lay arranged next to knife-opened cooking oil bottles that were now used for water storage.
There was one wooden pallet that Mulatu's mum slept on. Covered with a blanket that I recognised. We had given it to Mulatu to use; and like a good son he had given it to his mum.
It was then I remembered my other gifts. I pulled out my small solar powered light and wind up torch and passed them across to his mum. She looked perplexed but Mulatu's sister clearly understood the way the torch worked and I had primed Mulatu on how the solar light could function.
Mulatu invited me outside to see the garden and showed me the the chat plants that his mum cultivates to sell in the market.
Although the quality of the product around Assosa is poor, the cost will be lower (better chat gets flown in on
Amba Setagyn Beyt
Village 9 round house the Ethiopian Airlines flight from Addis - the *best* chat gets picked up at Jimma en route).
He also pointed out the goats and chickens that she owns (a sign of relative wealth), though the cow was being tended - probably by a sleeping cowherd outside of the village.
Cows are expensive and families rarely own more than one or two, so these cowherds round up these individual cows into a herd and are paid a small amount by each individual cow owner to take all the cows collectively out and mind them for days - before returning with the animals when they are due for milking or selling/mating.
The trustworthy cowherd looks after the cows; the less trustworthy spends the money on cheap "T'ella" beer and sleeps under a tree all day!
Back in the house and Mulatu's mum had changed into her special "Wollo" traditional dress.
Once white and pristine, it had been kept lovingly, but dust and lack of hanging space gave it a somewhat crushed appearance. It had been waiting (said Mulatu) for a special occasion.
Not for the first time I felt my eyes burn with tears as I
Heading deeper into the village
Better break out the Sat Nav :) looked upon what is essentially the backbone of rural Ethiopia and Africa.
Extremely hard working, humble women, surviving - often without the help of a male partner (dead/working away/run off) - and bringing up the next generation of rural Africans; hoping that their offspring avoid disease and malnutriton and can get a good enough education to not have to live in the hardship they grew up through.
As she offered me the shiro and sorghum injera she had prepared for her family dinner I had to look away and pretend the sweat from the walk had got into my eyes.
Here was someone who had very little but was offering you everything she had (and we who have everything, typically offer very little of what we have).
It is human nature to get on with things and not dwell on (if you like) the "unfairness" of life; particularly if it doesn't really affect you.
When you are in the UK, it's usually something you have seen on TV or read in a book and within 10 minutes the channel has changed or pages have turned. You move on.
I find myself getting as stressed
Oranges are not the only fruit
A few mangos and a fake banana too! as the next person when a driver is slow off the mark at the traffic lights or there is a slow moving queue at the supermarket checkout; when in the global scheme of things it really
does not matter .
I'm not sure what I am trying to say here. I have no answers or solutions to suggest.
Maybe neither would she (I couldn't even speak enough Amharic to ask). Perhaps as a religious person she will get to live in a comfortable afterlife?
Besides, she doesn't want or need our pity. If anything she needs our congratulation; for bringing up such a fine, hard-working and intelligent family despite all the hurdles Ethiopian rural life presented to her.
So I gratefully accepted her kind offer of food - as a fellow human being and hungry guest in her house.
We sat down and ate together (Bekema, Mulatu and I). She would not be permitted (culturally) to eat with me; and it would have been rude to force her.
(At my final house party I
insisted that the women who had cooked all the food - while the men sat around drinking beer - ate
Mulatu's ickle sister
Spitting image of Kidanu (her oldest brother) first. I was drunk and herded the women from the kitchen into the living room to eat ahead of the waiting men. The exercise completely back fired. The women were mortified and embarrassed; and the men were insulted. Fortunately I had been living amongst the guests for so long that my faux pas was forgiven.)
Through Mulatu and Bekema translations she praised her two sons - Kidanu and Mulatu.
Kidanu was now at University in Gondar and Mulatu was top of his class and would be off to University in under 2 years.
She said they had done so well as rural children.
They had no help, no rich family support nor benefit of party membership or ethnic advantage.
(The displaced Wollo Amharans are not indigenous to BG Region so do not get any educational breaks - Gumuz or Berta people may get an easier ride to University and are not allowed to fail; so always graduate with a degree, regardless of their scores. It is a form of short-term governmental positive descrimination designed to encourage more local tribes to consider the mainstream Ethiopian education system and move away from rural life).
I praised
The Melese family house
A Ferengi first encounter the pair too (through Bekema) and said that both sons were very bright, had worked very hard for us over the last two years (which we really appreciated), spoke excellent English and we expected them both to do very well at University.
Tips, sticks and mad dogs A number of small children had started to appear at the door to see the mysterious ferengi and I was told that Mulatu's older half-sister lived in the house opposite and these were her kids. We went outside so say hello.
As I watched a hen and her chicks drinking from a bowl, Mulatu explained that the trick to start a hen laying eggs is to put an already laid egg in a place where the hen likes to sleep. She will think it is hers and start laying more!
I made a mental note and thanked him. If Sara ever gets her wish to live in a house with chickens and a sheep one day then I'll know what to do 😊
Bekema was getting restless as he had a date with his new girlfriend, so we said our thanks to Mulatu's mum, waved goodbye to the
kids and set off on the journey back to Assosa.
Passing through the centre of town we spotted a group of 20 or so kids with sticks and a ball made of rolled up material. They seemed to be playing a game similar to hockey or hurling.
Mulatu called them over and explained to me it was called "gena" or "christmas" and was played only at this time of the year (Ethiopian Christmas is in early January).
He said this game was just a kids game but there would be bigger matches played by adults across the various sections of the village over the Christmas period.
The playing area we could see beyond us was where the houses to the left (Village 9, Section 8) played the houses on the right (Village 9, Section 7).
We left the Amba behind and dropped down a slope to cross the nearby river when Mulatu explained the subject of a worried conversation his mum had with him about his younger brother (the lad currently sleeping on the floor in Mulatu's house).
Apparently he had been bitten by a (possibly rabid) dog and was waiting to find out
Taking the weight off
Was a fair old hike in the 30 degree heat if he had rabies...in which case he would die.
No-one who has developed rabies has ever survived and even if you have the post-bite injection, it would cost more than Mulatu's family could afford plus it meant a trip to a hospital in (possibly) Gimbi, 6 hours away or (more likely) Addis (two days by bus day away).
It was then that the strange mix of Christian and tradditional beliefs became evident.
Mulatu said that rabies is believed to be caused by a small rabid dog living in your stomach - hence the injection in the stomach to prevent the onset of the disease post-bite (you have about 48 hours).
However to prevent the disease if you have no access to the injection you must (a) avoid looking in a mirror and (b) never cross water by foot!
You
can cycle across a river; but just don't get wet.
(I can see some logic behind these beliefs as rabies sufferers are sensitive to light and water.)
Finally (said Mulatu) to keep rabies at bay, you must hang holy water outside your house...which explained the collection of old plastic water bottles above the porch
Mulatu's Mum
Roasting coffee beans of Mulatu's house where his brother was sleeping.
Er. OK. I think I'll take the injection option if I can 😊
(of course, as a lucky Ferengi, I had already been inoculated against rabies)
The Journey Done The homeward trip was difficult.
Our feet all hurt, particularly poor old Bekema who had a pair of ill-fitting trainers on. I was lucky (once again) that I had the option to wear my super-light Brasher walking-boots.
After a couple of hours, covered in red dust and thirsty for water, we finally spyed the two trademark telephone masts of Assosa and breathed a sigh of relief.
(like many rural women Mulatu's mother does this journey twice weekly, with chat or vegetables on her back to sell at the market).
Mulatu departed to his house to finish some school work, Bekema headed off for a
very late appointment with his girlfriend; and I was left to rub my toes, drink chilled water and reflect on what had been a truly humbling adventure.
She may not have the wardrobe of a queen, but Mulatu's mother deserves equal respect.
For her two boys Mulatu and Kidanu
she had given her all. They were well on their way to becoming kings...
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Heather
non-member comment
I loved your photos and post from Ethiopia! I haven't been there yet but always hear incredible things about it, and I admire what you're doing. My blog is looking for travel photos, commentaries, reviews, etc, to share. We will soon have a special section for volunteer posts/info as well. If you have the time, check it out at dirty-hippies.blogspot.com, or email us at dirtyhippiesblog@gmail.com. Continued fun on your travels and good luck with everything! I hope that young man doesn't have rabies. Heather :)