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Published: November 26th 2013
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Last sunrise in Gondar
Photo courtesy of Jonathan Farewell to Gondar My morning has started off on rather the wrong foot. Something I ate last night disagreed with me. In the classic traveler’s manner. For some undetermined time since the dawn, I’ve been up continually, stumbling over bags, bumping into corners, apologizing to my poor and very kind roommate, and heading to the bathroom and then going back to collapse into bed to fall half-asleep until the next bout. It’s not terrible and I feel fine otherwise. At least it’s the last morning and at least I still have energy and excitement enough to carry me through. In fact, when the alarm finally does go off, I can feel the sagging ache in my body, craving more sleep, but I’m moving quickly with bleary purpose.
No birdwatching for me this morning. I’ve gotten up earlier than my compatriots the other mornings to avidly watch the always-surprising bird diversity. This morning, though, many folks in my group have risen to watch the sun rise over the low mountains and so we chat in low tones and take pictures of our last golden-hued morning in Gondar. I decide to eat nothing for breakfast and drink plenty of water.
Sedake telling us about microfinance
Inside the restaurant owned by the group of mothers helped by the JDC Loan Fund Soon, we’re back at the airport. The bucolic country-air of the airport stands in stark contrast to the armed soldiers at the entrance to the airport property who check our passports and even look over our luggage. (Did I forget to mention that there were armed soldiers at the exit of the Gondar airport building too?) We’re up in the air again and this time, I’m trying to finish writing postcards while also catching last glimpses of the countryside. After we land we are shuttled back to our Addis hotel where they store our luggage. While waiting in the buses, we just happen to glance out to see a man walking down the sidewalk carrying a water bottle…without a stitch on. I catch only the rear view but several got full frontal. He’s a younger man, walking swiftly with assurance…and did I mention he was naked? We excitedly ask our driver what in the world was that about?! No one else on the street seems especially surprised or alarmed. We’re told that this happens every week (!!!) and he’s likely someone from the hospital. I am not sure if something is lost in translation here but what a way
to come back to the big city.
Microfinance for women Our last JDC learning venture is at a run-of-the-mill restaurant. Not the type we’ve eaten at this entire trip but a bonafide local eatery. It’s tiny and likely normally only fits a dozen people at the most. Now we’ve crammed our 20-odd group into the space along with the owners and a couple of patrons. It’s on a busy commercial street, no big buildings but shack-like shops packed in tight. We learn that this restaurant was started by a group of “mothers,” 12 originally and now 10, who banded together to receive micro-loans to start this business. The JDC Loan Fund project here in Addis only gives money to women, having learned through other microfinance models that working with women provides high success rates for multiple programmatic goals.
Some of the mothers who started this are crammed in the one-room restaurant with us now. They don’t speak up but they quite willingly shuffle us to the back rooms (again, think small spaces!) to show us around. We squeeze around each other and finally see injera-makers. The patrons, who had been shuttled to this back room, graciously offer
us their food so we can taste how good it is. Seems like standard Ethiopian fare. This is someplace I’d treat like my local American diner, serving comfort food at good prices that makes me feel at home.
Mercato vs. market Our next economic stop is the Mercato Market. This is the largest open-air market in all of Africa and covers several square miles. This is not a shopping venture for us but a cultural experience. And I can see why. Shopping here would be a bit of an ordeal with its hubbub and haggling, and it definitely doesn’t cater to tourists so the language barrier would likely rise. We stay in a tight pack with a designated leader and back-end person. One brief pause in this market warren and you’d completely lose the group. Though…asking where the “ferengis” went would likely lead you straight to us. We’re the only obvious foreigners within eyesight.
Stalls press in close and sometimes seem to lean into each other across the walkways. Hard-packed dirt with scattered bits of broken concrete and washed-away ruts that make walking and looking seem like active multi-tasking. Spices, foods, baked goods, and the normal run-of-the-mill
market fare but then we enter the metal area where there is clanging and men carrying heavy loads. Here the locals start taking pictures of the tourists with their phones! Now this is a new one on me. But I laugh as they laugh and I even stop to pose briefly for a few, smiling broadly. A feeling of near-relief spreads through me to be on the other side of the camera. We pass into a leather area and I excitedly hover near the donkey-saddles, odd little peaked saddles with colored decorations. I haven’t seen anything like this one donkeys but I presume they’re for special occasions. We emerge onto a larger, actual street and have a glimpse of the mercato sloping down from us. It’s a dulled reflective sea of corrugated tin roofs, spilling onto each other in uneven wave after wave.
I would happily amble around here more, but our attentive leader Sedake (sp?) feels that some in our group feel a bit overwhelmed in this unvarnished hive of activity. We head back to the buses and then to a very different type of market. We have a few hours to do some actual touristy shopping for
souvenirs. We are taken to a more spacious series of shops that clearly cater to tourists. I am glad for the opportunity to purchase a few items, having a couple of folks in mind for whom I wish to buy gifts, but I feel aimless. I realize quickly that I have no idea what to buy. In all my other international adventures, I’ve had enough time to see the country, learn the history, learn a wee bit about traditions and cultures to know what tokens may be meaningful and representative. I realize I haven’t had that type of learning here in Ethiopia. It’s been geared toward learning the JDC and about the now-mostly-vanished Ethiopian Jewry. I don’t know the natural resources (other than agriculture) that are quintessentially Ethiopian, the right materials of cloth, the traditional style of basket weaving or pottery. So I walk into half a dozen shops before making my first purchase, seeing what items repeat themselves, what items stand out to me as ones I’ve seen before, in actual use. An odd tourist moment for me.
The take-aways Our last meal is at a crowded but upscale (again) restaurant near the airport. The
seats are low and the fare is pure Ethiopian. But my stomach is upset again so I don’t even touch the deliciously sour injera and chickpea and lentil medleys. I drink a coke instead and sit back to watch the group. I realize how much I will miss this crew. I have never done group travel before but I have a strong suspicion this is a very special group dynamic. Fluid, easy, engaged, interested. In each other and the world around us. I get sentimental in my corner, sipping my coke, watching the lively conversations, the poring over pictures and stories. Just prior to this we had our last group session where we discussed next steps. How we as individuals and as a group could continue, if we wished, our participation in the JDC and with the Ethiopia program. No hard and fast conclusions were reached but I know I was not alone in feeling a strong commitment to furthering what I have seen, learned, and felt here. To sharing that with others, keeping the connections I’ve made in this flickering-fast week, and possibly deepening my involvement with the JDC. My memory of this time in Ethiopia will not just
be shaped by the country itself, the children holding my hand, the stretches of smooth green crops, the tribal shoulder-dances. I will also remember how much money it took to build a two-room, plain cinder-block school-house, the conversations about the culturally-influenced definition of happiness and poverty, the impact a carefully sited well might have on women’s backs. This may be the start of a sea-change. I welcome it!
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