BER, BIRR…
በር, ብር

The doors –or በር, (ber), in Amharic- of heaven have opened again and Yebelg wekt – the short rain season- is upon us once more, unleashing its torrents of much needed water, and its associated phenomena, goum, beredo and chika – fog, hail and mud. And until tsedai and bega come again – ‘spring’ and ‘dry season’ are close if not exact translations – it will be all umbrellas – djantila- and gumboots – botti, a recent and obvious loan word from French or Italian.

Brrr! Very cold indeed! But every cloud has a silver lining they say, and rain can be a good excuse to stay indoors –or behind bars, as it would be?- and enjoy gabis and hot coffee – and make up word games, why not? A door, or ber, is of course not to be confused with birr – silver – the word that in modern Amharic has come to mean money, just like in French where argent signifies the modern currency of France. But then argent means only that, silver, whereas for a foreigner’s ears –especially when cold, brrr!- ber – door – and birr, – money – sound very close indeed. But as rain makes you long for the sun, and forces one to stay indoors –the brrr! factor again – it is the very complexity of the language that makes it beautiful. Paraphrasing the English, one could say that when the doors – ber – of the heavens open, they also have a silver – birr – lining. At least in Amharic.

Equus Ethiopia will be organizing a two day farrier and teeth floating clinic in collaboration with Richard Klauber,  on the 1^st and 2^nd  of April 2013.

The clinic is free and all are welcome to attend. This is for anybody who is interested in better hoof and teeth care for their horses so please come along or send a couple of people from your stables. Bring the tools you have and a picnic. If you have a horse with special needs, bring your horse! The course will cover basic hoof care, trimming and even shooing, as well as teeth floating techniques and some common hoof ailments. As we say in French: pas de pieds, pas de cheval!

Richard Klauber is an American farrier and horse teeth practician with decades of experience. Richard Klauber regularly organizes clinics to share his knowledge with local communities when he goes on horse treks throughout the world. He has done this in places as far apart as India and Turkey. You can have a quick look at what he does here: http://www.facebook.com/richard.klauber. Equus is very glad for this opportunity to learn and get better at what we do, and wishes to thank Richard for giving his time and expertise free of charge.

Richard is coming with a group of friends to ride Equus Ethiopia’s new venture, the  Zara Yacob Trail, which runs from the forest of Menegesha Suba to the west of Addis Ababa to the forest of Wosh Wusha in Ankober on the eastern escarpment. You can see pictures from Equus’ trailblazing of the Zara Yacob in June 2012 here.

This 8 day trek is a recreation of the route taken by the Ethiopian Emperor Zara Yacob in the 15^th century, when the emperor brought tree seedlings from the forest of Wof Washa to Suba, in an early local attempt to protect and bolster Ethiopia’s indigenous forests.

The historical Zara Yacob Trail runs across some of the country’s best riding highlands and has been recreated to showcase Ethiopia’s riding potential and horse riding culture as well as bringing attention to the country’s rich history and the continued need to protect the environment, especially the national Menagesh Suba Forest and the Wof Wusha Forest on the eastern Rift escarpment. These two forests, with their rich endemic fauna and local tree species (African Olive, Juniper, Rose Wood) are precious relics of Ethiopian’s once bountiful highland forests.

You can download our information PDF about the Zara Yacob Trail and its indigenous story of forest protection dating back to the 15^th century here.

If you would be interested in attending Richard Klauber’s two day hoof and teeth care clinic at Equus’ stables in Solulta, please contact Yves Stranger:  info@equus-ethiopia.com.

Please circulate this information among Addis Ababa’s riding community. This is a great opportunity for Ethiopian riders to learn from a true professional.

A truly Uthiopian nativity scene from Equus Ethiopia. Happy Christmas to all and best wishes for the New Year (picture by Nicolas Henry)!

A Uthiopian nativity scene

Greetings, in this most hierarchical and codified of societies, have always been a vexing enigma to the outsider, and a subtle set of codes to the insider, to be used with extreme caution. How much time to spend shaking this hand? Does one use an elaborate ‘shoulder bump’ or an even more elaborate two-handed handshake (while grasping with one’s left hand one’s own right arm)? Does one spend five minutes in greetings or acknowledge with a cursory nod and a barely perceptible aspirated ishi? A sleight, a mistake, and you have an enemy; strike the wrong note and you have made a fool of yourself.

As the Italian Chao has all but displaced the declined  versions of ደኅና ሁን (Dena Hun)  since the Second World War – an inhabitant of Debre Marcos telling me the other day he had proof of its use in 17^th century Gondar… – the ubiquitous  ሂ ! (Hi!) and the modern mores that accompany its use – a limp movement of the hand and a reluctance to get up from one’s chair – are quickly replacing the older stylized ballets of greetings. In trendy offices, the Anglo-American Hi! has now become standard – I’m waiting for proof of its Semitic roots in old Axum.

Are we witnessing the shedding of an ossified and conservative society? Or the foregoing of what made greetings quintessentially Ethiopian? Don’t ask me: I never know what to do anyway and mumble my greetings so as not to be caught out.

See ‘ya.

The 18th Conference of Ethiopian Studies opens this Monday and Uthiopia was  invited to the press conference announcing this event in the sacrosanct heart of the cult in Addis Ababa, the library of the Centre for French-Ethiopian Studies. The High Priests of the Ethiophile sect declared that 300 members of the Ethiopianist laity were congregating in the small town of Dire Dawa. Some important announcements were:

* All important communications would be made in the language of the birds so that non-initiates would be left nonplussed.

&

* All French High Priests speaking in English would be translated into English, then back again into the language of the birds (there were audible sighs of relief amongst the lesser Ethiophile laity when this second item was announced).

I’m an Ethiopianist too

Although only an honorary Ethiopianist, Uthiopia has been invited to the week long conference in Dire Dawa, and hopes to achieve two aims while there:

1. To become fluent in the language of the birds

&

2. To understand just what exactly an Ethiopianist does.

 [Our Uthiopian correspondent will propose a modest paper on Ethiopian horses as well, proving once again if were needed, the broad nature of the Ethiopianist Church]

During the press conference, this matter of the nature of the church was only approached in an oblique manner, and it sometimes seems to your correspondent that everything indeed could be part of this broad church – or Sect of the Ethiophiles as it is sometimes known. Are Ethiopianists piano playing Ethiopians? Do Ethiopianists practice everyday? Is their congress louder than most? These questions and more will be explored by your unauthorized correspondent among the Ethiophiles in Dire Dawa, from Monday onwards.

Uthiopia once defined Ethiopian studies as ‘anything that has been studied, commentated or prefaced by Richard Pankhurst.’  But other great priests of the sect will be in attendance this time in Dire Dawa.

Here are some of the Great Priests of past and present times unmasked here for the first time and also the book cover and film poster of La Voie Sans Disque, the founding manifesto of the sect (the film was shot in Ethiopia in 1932 and will also be shown for the first time in Ethiopia, next week in Dire Dawa).

More dispatches will follow from your unauthorized correspondent amongst the sect of Ethiopianists/Ethiophiles. Your correspondent, always a passionate extoller of all things Abyssinian and other Aethiopica (he has written posts on Kaldi put to the test, applying Amharic in the email age and the underpinning psychological architecture of Ethiopian society as well as the undeservedly little known Tintin in Ethiopia), fully expects to become both conversant in the language of the birds as well as learn to play the piano like an Ethiopian in Dire Dawa (to wilfully misquote Michael Jackson).

Your correspondent particularly looks forward to the public projection of La Voie Sans Disque, a film that will be shown by the photographer and documentary maker  Hugues Fontaine, who rediscovered this film, together with a breathtaking short documentary on the Empress Zawditu’s coronation, while researching and writing his African Train/የባቡር ወጎች/Un Train en Afrique book, which comes out next week!

Disclaimer: Uthiopia would like to underline that  he is a very unauthorised correspondent, and that for those wanting to read the High Priests’ direct and authorised message, they should visit the website of the conference.

 

The Amharic term for slave, ባሪያ (baria) finds its origin in a tribe of the same name, in the north of the Horn of Africa – as does the English ‘slave’ deriving in turn from the northern European ethnic grouping’s name. But Bariew can also be an affectionate nickname for a ‘black’ lad given to him by his peers. ‘Which Solomon – the black or the red one?’ an Ethiopian will ask with a – dark – twinkle in his eye, when asked about ‘a’ Solomon. But if the question is often slightly facetious, it does underline complex Ethiopian attitudes to race and colour – as does the affectionate use of Bariew for a friend, which can also be a grave insult on the street.

It is said that the subtle division of human beings’ skins into varied shades is a constant of slave societies – see for example the octoroons, and quintroons of 18^th century Brazil – and likewise, Ethiopia, has at least four ቀለም (calum), or colours, into which to divide its inhabitants: ጥቁር (tikur – black), ጠይም (teyim – dark brown), ቀይዳማ (kaidama – light brown) and ቀይ (kai – or red). And these colours are often indeed used by Ethiopians to label each other and distinguish people – and in a country where Solomons and Tegists and Daniels abound, this is certainly useful. But the use of skin colour as a descriptive tool can rarely be resumed to a utilitarian reason. And a slave society Ethiopia certainly was, albeit one in which slaves could be freed, baptized and be a part of the household.  Ethiopia never had anything approaching ‘plantation slavery.’ But it did gaily sell human flesh for centuries and use it too, to wage its wars, plough its fields, and fetch its water. This is an issue that has been whitewashed in an Ethiopia keen to burnish its African – that is to say black – credentials. In this bland narrative, Ethiopia is a beacon for the ጥቁር ሰው (tikur sew – black people) of the world. But one may pause and ask: a beacon for which ጥቁር ሰው – the black or the red ones?!

Equus Ethiopia has availability on two of its three day rides over the next two months, both to the unique Montane forest of Menegesha Suba, which is to be the second port of call for the Zara Yacob Trail, named after the 15th century Ethiopian emperor that protected the forest.

Riding high alongside the junipers of Menegesha Suba Forest

The trek will comprise two relatively fast days over the open
highlands, to and from the forest, and a slower paced ride in the old growth forest.

* 19, 20 and 21rst of April

&

* 16, 17 and 18th of May

We will be leaving from Equus’ base in Solulta and riding straight to the forest on the first day, over the open highlands, will spend one whole slower day enjoying the forest and its wildlife, before coming back by a different route to Solulta, visiting a horse market en route for the April ride, and the Born Free Foundation’s lion sanctuary in Menagesha for the May ride.

RIDE FEATURES

* Two fast paced days on the open highlands

*Two nights in the rustic park lodge in the forest

*One leisurely day riding in the forest

*Old growth historical forest of Menegesha Suba

*Wildlife

*The horse market of Guddu with its hundreds of horses (April ride)

*The lion sanctuary in Menagesha (May ride)

The three day Menegesha Suba Forest & Highland Trek can also be tailor made  and a trek set up at any date for a minimum of 2 guests.

These two short treks (or similar custom trips) can be attended by Addis Ababa riders with their own horses as well. If you are a rider and would like more information about how to ride your own horse to the forest, please contact us.

Equus is also happy to organise trips for guests travelling on their own. Call us on 251 9 10 26 09/18 or 251 9 46 86 59 it you’d like to discuss options or email us:  info@equus-ethiopia.com

Colobus Monkey in Menagesha Forest

Open plains of central Showa

Two weeks ago, Equus – read Yves Stranger, the horse trekking outfit’s groom – in – chief - announced it was going to initiate The Zara Yacob Trail at the end of May, Ethiopia’s first highland horse trekking route.

Zara Yacob, one of Ethiopia’s greatest kings, started Africa’s original protected area, issuing an edict in the 15th century that the forest of Menagesha Suba no longer be logged and bringing seedlings from the forest of Wof Washa far away on the eastern Rift Valley escarpment near Ancobar.

Equus wishes to retrace this route on horseback for the first time in five centuries – and yes, we will of course be carrying seedlings from Wof Washa, all the way to Menagesha Suba forest.

Horse and boy in Sirti

The distance – as the crow flies – is close to 250 kilometres, but Abyssinian ponies are not crows, and the real distance may be closer to 300 to 350 kilometres – we’ll try and do it in six days, reconnoitering routes, possible stops, water points and rivers, and visiting beautiful churches on the way and talking with local people and asking for their advice (and a bed to sleep in, and some barley for sale for our horses!).

As showed in the Google Earth map below, the route follows a generally north-east to south-west direction, crossing the plateaus of Debre Birhan and central Showa long famous for their horse breeding. Today, these same lands produce donkeys for Gojjam, mules for Bale – and polo ponies for Addis Ababa.

The Zara Yacob Trail

Horse markets are a strong feature of this route with weekly markets in Kottu, Sirti and Guddu all proudly selling donkeys, horses and mules. Racing and showing off are also a strong element of these gatherings and literally hundreds of horses come to market – as they are still used as transport by the local people.

These plains without a single fence for dozens of kilometers are ideal horse breeding and galloping grounds. Welcoming people who live in unique villages, a traditional landscape still given over to pastoralism and plowing by oxen, migrating cranes, bleeding heart baboons, century old Orthodox Churches, old growth montane forests and the superb views from the eastern Rift Valley escarpment, together with the horse markets, make this a true Ethiopian highland experience.

The Eastern Escarpment

In my first post on the Zara Yacob Trail, I mentioned the Kokada Trail and the GR 10, but have since found something much closer to home, and to the idea I wish to implement. The Çelebi Way is an equestrian route founded a few years ago in Turkey, in which riders – but also hikers and bikers – follow in the footsteps of Evliya Çelebi, an Ottoman traveller who spent forty years traipsing the breadth of the empire, leaving ten volumes of his travels behind.

This route – and many others – has been mapped in Turkey by enthusiastic riders and trekkers, to promote the country and its natural and historic heritage. The Çelebi route is just one among a plethora of other historic routes that have been initiated in Turkey over the last ten years and trekkers – Turks and foreigners – are flocking to them in ever increasing numbers.

How about a trekking route through Tigray? And another from Lake Tana to Axum? Ethiopia, a country with a wealth of beautiful sites, history and a welcoming population, could very easily initiate trails such as these.

Since The Zara Yacob Trail’s first steps two weeks ago, Equus has partnered with a number of organizations to get the idea on the road:

Eminence, Addis Ababa’s premier social entrepreneur and media agency which is organizing a huge seedling exhibition on Mesqal Square for the World Environmental Day on June 5, is going to promote The Zara Yacob Trail to the media and associate it to its seedling event.

Sunarma an NGO which runs an indigenous tree nursery in Wof Washa, will provide the seedlings for the historic ride. Sunarma, with projects near Sirti in Jidda Woreda, in which it accompanies agricultural and development projects, is also interested in initiating community tourism projects.

Why not start a community horse trekking project in Sirti, bang in the middle of The Zara Yacob Trail?!

Horse country

The Ethiopian Heritage Trust with which Equus is now developing trails and overnight treks in their stunning Entoto site where they have planted millions of trees – it’s true, go and see them for yourself – would be happy to plant a ‘Zara Yacob seedling.’

Hoarec’s deputy director, Abdirahman, said he was lacing his boots and itching to be one of the first on the trail –  Hoarec’s many environmental programs in Ethiopia, especially in the Rift Valley, Gambella and the hills and mountains around Addis Ababa, have proven to be ground breaking projects when it comes to initiating integrated conservation projects in the country. Abdirahman, saddle that horse!

Ato Terefe, the owner of the Ankober Palace Lodge, asked about a ‘Menelik Trail,’ and indeed, why not implement a Menelik Trail which would run from Menelik’s first capital – Ancober – to his second – Entoto – finally reaching his third, Addis Ababa?!

Biniyam Admassu, who works tirelessly with the Frankfurt Zoological Society to promote and protect the Guassa Plateau (in Menz, just a few kilometres up the escarpment from Ankober) wanted to know why not have a trekking route that would follow the escarpment all the way up to Menz – and beyond. And why not indeed?

In making this first exploratory trip along The Zara Yacob Trail, Equus only wishes to take the first step on a journey that many more will make.

Equus Ethiopia wishes to introduce the first edition of the 200 Km historic Zara Jacob Trail/የዘርአ:ያዕቆብ መንገድ which will run from the forest of Wof Washa to the forest of Menagesha Suba on the occasion of the World Environment Day on June the 5th (with the actual ride taking a week).

As a kid, I grew up towards the end of the GR 10 trail that runs from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean all along the crest of the Pyrennese Mountain Range.

Everyday people would walk out of the woods with their backpacks, asking to camp, or to buy some produce from the farm. There were New York stock brokers, Brazilian teachers and French families doing the trail, which would take about a month and a half to complete, or if they were doing a small part of it, a few days or a week. They enjoyed the simple physicality, the act of walking over the mountains and being in a natural surrounding where they could interact with farmers and shepherds.

THE Zara Yacob Trail/የዘርአ:ያዕቆብ መንገድ would be something similar: a route by which to explore Ethiopia’s countryside and mountains, for foreigners and Ethiopian tourists alike. A way to mingle with the people who live there and get a feel for the terrain, on foot, on horseback, on mountain bikes. It will be something similar to the GR 10, or perhaps to the Kokoda Track of Papua New Guinea.

View of the Zara Yacob Trail from the north

Wof Washa is situated near Debre Birhan, between Ancobar and Debre Sina, on the Rift Valley eastern escarpment, and is one the last remnant forests from Addis Ababa to Mekele.

Menagesha Suba is an other of the Ethiopian Highland’s last forests of Podocarpus, Hagenia and Olive Trees, found just 30 Km West of Addis Ababa, on the flanks of Mount Wuchacha, which overlooks the capital city.

These two vestigial forests, important by their very continued existence, also share important historic ties. The Emperor Zara Yacob not only forbid all further cutting of trees in Menagesha, he also ordered seedlings of Juniper to be taken from the healthy forest of Wof Washa to be replanted in the forests of Mount Wuchacha – that is to say in Menagesha Suba.

This is an important tale as it shows Ethiopians care for their environment and is an inspiring story of indigenous care for indigenous forests. The late date of this story also makes it possibly a first occurrence of a state sanctioned environmental conservation scheme in Africa.

Equus Ethiopia will bring seedlings from the Wof Washa Forest to Menegesha Suba on horseback on the occasion of the World Environment Day on June 5th, for the first time in five centuries. Equus wishes, by creating this new Zara Yacob Trail experience in Ethiopia to:

- Promote an indigenous narrative of the protection of indigenous species

- Promote Ethiopia’s history and culture

- Create a good story around the Ethiopian environment for the World Environment Day on June the 5th

- Promote eco-tourism in general, and horse riding in particular

- Lay the foundations of a ‘Great Highlands of Ethiopia Trail’

Equus would like other partners and stake holders to not only be part of this event, but also participate in making the event first a yearly happening, and then a fully fledged trail which would:

- Become an established route from Wof Washa to Menagesha Suba (or vice versa)

- Take in the Entoto Hills and thus promote the conservation of forests there and the efforts and programs currently under way (Ethiopian Heritage Trust Site and Gulele Botanical Gardens)

- Branch off into trails to Chilimo Forest, Mount Megezaz, Debre Libanos Monastery, Itisa Church, Mount Yerer and Mount Zukwala thus promoting local weekend eco-tourism with horse trekking, trekking on foot and mountain bikes

- Be developed into a ‘Great Highlands of Ethiopia Trail’ which would go all the way to Menz and the great conservation and community projects linked to the Ethiopian wolf, Abuna Joseph, Lalibela and Tesfa’s community tourism projects

Equus will plant the seedlings it has brought from Wof Washa, in Entoto (in the Ethiopian Heritage Site and in the Gulele Botanical Gardens) and in Menegesha Suba and Addis Ababa, symbolically continuing the work of Emperor Zara Yacob – after a lapse of five centuries! This symbolic re-enactment will emphasise and create media coverage around the good work done by organisations such as Sunarma (in Wof Washa), the Ethiopian Heritage Trust and the Gulele Botanical Gardens (in Entoto), and the Forest Enterprises of the Oromia and Amhara regional states in both forests.

Equus would seek to collaborate and create synergy on this project with government bodies (the regional states and their forest enterprises, the ministry of tourism and culture, the local government bodies concerned with tourism and the environment in the different localities) as well as private sector companies such as tour operators and NGOs.

We can imagine mountain bike races, endurance feats on foot or on horseback along the trail (similar to the Kokoda Race which sees some doing the track in less than three days).

The Zara Yacob Trail/የዘርአ:ያዕቆብ መንገድ will boost the image of Ethiopia as well as enhance the country’s rich history and provide an indigenous narrative of conservation and create a positive atmosphere for the development of eco-tourism activities sports such as horse riding, trekking on foot and mountain biking and create a positive dynamic in linking tourism earning activities to the conservation of the environment as well as creating job opportunities for the surrounding communities.

To make the Zara Yacob Trail/የዘርአ:ያዕቆብ መንገድ a reality will surely be a long expedition, lots of work, a hard haul. But as the – Ethiopian ? – proverb goes: ‘ the voyage of a thousand 1 000 begins with one step.’ Anybody ready to take that first step with us?!

On your bike!

Lace your boots!

Saddle your horse!

ወደፊት! (March on!), as Zara Yacob would have said.

Yesterday I was travelling my favourite minibus route again – Arat Kilo to Mexico Square.

We’d hardly taken off from Arat Kilo when I registered something highly unusual: the 18 year old driver was driving slowly and extremely cautiously!

Something must be wrong with his vehicle I thought, for him to be exercising such uncommon restraint. It’s only once we began the long descent past the Hilton Hotel that leads to the challenging crossing of ‘Supermarket’ (in front of the Presidential Palace) and onto Meskel Square (also known as Chicken Junction) that the awful truth dawned upon me: the driver had never driven before and this was in fact a driving lesson!

The attendant – never to be called woyala – was the driving instructor and kept leaning past my shoulder, as I sat paralysed by fear in the front seat, to give him precise instructions:        ‘That’s good, now go into second gear. Stop! Let the white car  go first.’ At the  ‘Supermarket’ junction  we stalled – before nearly taking off into incoming traffic. In Meskal Square, we snailed our way through speeding traffic – never before had I wished for a minibus to go faster. In Stadium, we narrowly missed mowing down a whole crowd of pedestrians.

Seized by fright, I gazed at the road and at the driver’s earnest face as he gripped the wheel and edged forward. As to the other passengers? They smiled softly, as if all this was a daily routine to be expected. My female fellow front seat passenger had a lingering smile in the face of his confused efforts like a mother witnessing her infant’s first steps (but I did notice that she crossed her chest with application as we passed Stephanos Church, perhaps imparting to the saint her last wishes as we crawled out into the open killing space of Chicken Junction).

As the driver pulled up into Bunana Shai in Mexico, gently ramming the curb in the process, my zygomatic muscles – which had been stretched in a rictus of fake amusement and real fear – relaxed and I found that my voice had returned to me.

I leaned over to the driver and said in a conspiratorial tone: ‘taking driving lessons, heh?!’

The youth leaned back, looked down the bridge of his nose at me and said in an outraged voice: ‘What on earth do you mean?! Are you doubting my driving capabilities? I learnt in the best school, read my lessons and past my test! He leaned further back into the mysterious folds of his battered seat, and imparted to me as a clinching argument  I am, you know, a DRIVER!‘

And I, shamefaced from having doubted him and his function, slipped out of my seat without another word.

Which reminded me of another rule of cultural traffic:

In the Ethiopia as minibus vehicle, never ever doubt somebody’s position and touted skills or abilities. If they’re at the wheel, it must be real. If they’re sitting behind the desk, challenge them at your risk. The map is the territory, as long as you’re wearing the right kind of cap.

In Ethiopia, the driver may be driving naked but you should never, but never, raise such an unseemly detail.

I recently stumbled upon an article in the Daily Mail gleefully pointing out that a leaky roof in the Arc of Covenant’s chapel in Axum, north Ethiopia, would soon force the removal of the sacred artefact to an adjacent building, and thus reveal it to the world in all its glory.

As most people know from the widely beloved Tintin in Ethiopia (French serialised edition 1963-1966, English edition 1966) the Arc of the Covenant has been held in safety in Ethiopia since the destruction of Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem.

The story goes that Menelik the first, the son of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, brought it back to his mother’s country with the scions of Israel’s tribes, thus planting the seed of Israel in Africa and symbolically transferring God’s covenant from Israel to Ethiopia – all of this information is imparted to Haddock at the beginning of the story by a vehement Ethiopian to whom he has just said ‘Oh, the tabernacle thing, that disappeared from Solomon’s Temple, never to be seen again…’  while Haddock is comically fed gursha – hand fed that is – by two sprightly orthodox nuns who keep telling him to just say ishi. This is not to be his last force fed ingestion of Ethiopian culture!

But the Daily Mail article got me thinking about the Ark again, and turning to something more tangible, I reopened my favourite Tintin.  In case you are one of those adults who no longer thumb the classics of childhood, let me flip through it quickly.

The album begins in Moulinsart, where Haddock and Tintin are reading about the Negous (Emperor Haile Selassie) and his recent triumphal trip to Europe. Calculus is bumbling about with his pendule, darkly talking of a weapon to end all wars and mistakes Haddock’s ‘The Negous of Ethiopia!’ for ‘The Egg of Utopia’ and, to Haddock’s annoyance, begins a long philosophical ramble on what came first, Utopia i.e Eden, or the egg.

Of course, this is only a prelude to their adventures in Ethiopia – Hergé’s clear drawings make for wonderful depictions, of Lalibela, the highlands and the Semien Mountains and Lake Tana – I particularly like the moment when Tintin and Haddcock are travelling on the lake in a tankwa to the Monastery of Narga and mistake Calculus’s submarine for a new species of hippopotamus. Another favourite of mine is the Zar spirit invocation in the Fasilides Castle in  Gondar, in which the spirit takes over not Tintin or Haddock but Snowy!

When Rastopopulus arrives on the scene  it becomes clear that the Arc of the Covenant’s theft, in order to harness its devastating weapon like capabilities and transform the world into  a dictatorship ruled by a crazed and reclusive Russian Communist, is the real objective of the story – and not Tintin’s purported work to cover Haile Selassie’s Jubilee celebrations (which actually took place in the mid 1950s anyhow).

The 60′s were of course both the hight of the cold war, and of Haile Selassie’s reputation. The last image, of the avuncular and wise emperor waving from the steps of the Jubilee Palace as Haddock, Calculus and Tintin – and Snowy of course ! – is particularly poignant when one remembers that the emperor would be bundled from the steps of this same happy scene just a decade later, when he would be taken to prison in the back of a maroon Beetle Volkswagen. And how not to see in the conniving Sergeant Solomon a prescient precursor of  Colonel Mengistu?

There are some who see in this late work, produced by the Studio Hergé, a tired version of Tintin in Tibet – and it is true that there are close parallels between the Semien shepherd boy Mamoush and Chang of course, and that some scenes do seem at times directly transposed from earlier albums. For all that, it remains a startlingly accurate portrayal of Ethiopia after the war. The ethereal quality of Hergé’s style – always a quality of his clear line drawings – seems particularly suited to his subject here – just think back to those iconic scenes  in the Semien in which Tintin and Mamoush, disguised as Bleeding Heart Baboons, have to feast on grass and roots, in the middle of a 1 000 strong baboon pack. As the Bearded Vulture hover above, it is the reader himself who is given a bird’s eye view of what is may mean, in a perfect and platonic vision, to be in Ethiopia. Never has the particular light of the Ethiopian Highlands been captured so well.

But I suppose one should not read too much into a comic book, even when imagined by the great Hergé – likewise, I don’t think much of interpretations that see in this work the cartoonist’s  act of contrition for the colonial and ethnocentric Tintin in Congo.

In my opinion, Tintin in Abyssinia is one of the most clear sighted and accurate depictions of Ethiopia there is and I encourage anybody who wants to get a good feel for the country to go out and get it immediately – lest you be force fed cultural gurshas à la Haddock!

‘Merde!’ is of course one of those words that everyone knows (please do pardon my French), together with that perennial favorite ‘Voulez-vous coucher avec moi?’ and ‘Je t’aime.’ It would seem that whenever we come across a foreign language, we concentrate on the essentials of human relationships first: likes and dislikes.

Leaving amorous sentiments aside, let us concentrate on some words to express distaste, irritation or outright dislike for one’s neighbor in the Amharic language. This being a polite venue I will leave aside any expressions and expletives that mix the words for love and dislike together – the strongest insults seem to mix these in most cultures – and those that indulge in bringing into the argument your opponent’s mother.

Two relatively gentle expletives are ቂል (kill) and ጅል (jill) which could be roughly translated as ‘simpleton,’ or, less gently perhaps, ‘moron.’ As with many insults, even the nastiest, all depends on circumstance and setting, and the relationship of the people using these words. ጅል, used between friends, is a kind jest, a friendly jab. But talking of a particular individual whose actions you plainly think to be stupid, is can be a harsh judgment of character. ደደብ (dedeb) is somewhat harder, closer to ‘what a real idiot!’

መጥፎ ነው (metfo no) meaning simply ‘bad’ can again mean anything from a generic ‘it’s not good’ to the damming ‘he’s a nasty piece of work,’ which is again a hard take on somebody’s character.

A long time favorite which is widely used is of course ባለጌ (balegue) which can carry a lot of weight in Ethiopia, where it means ‘rude’ or ‘uncouth’ – a terrible insult in a country where everyone would like to believe they possess perfect manners. This word may come (?) from the meaning ‘from the country,’ ባላገር (balaguer), and be hence similar in meaning to the English ‘hayseed’ or ‘country bumpkin,’ two expressions that seek to belittle the perceived simple ways of country folk.

But my three favorites are  ለገምተኛ  (legemtegna), which has a nice sound to it and reminds me  fittingly of the English word legume – and denotes someone who is exactly that: extremely slow and lazy. In other words,  a vegetable or a couch potato! A ፈጣጣ (fetata) is a starer, somebody that looks too intently – something that is very unseemly to be in Ethiopian culture (Beware of the evil eye!). But the word that I most like personally is ጥጋበኛ (tegabegna), which can readily translate into the English locution ‘to be full of yourself.’ This is easily the supreme insult in Ethiopia as it denotes arrogance, a general lack of care and a sense that you’ve been treated too kindly for your own good and that you are now turning, as the English would have it, ‘on the hand that fed you.’

This fear of ‘raising a viper in thine own breast,’ as the Bible would have it, is pervasive in Ethiopia at all times. From this fear stems the Ethiopian practise of always keeping subalterns on a very short leash, and employees always seeking written confirmation for every decision lest they be suspected of actually taking – God forbid! – decisions on their own and thus risk being called, ‘full of themselves.’

In a way, to mix my racial metaphors, it is quite similar to the English constant fear of seeming to ‘take oneself too seriously,’ a damning assessment from another Briton if ever there was one. But, to quote the good Book one last time: ‘can the leopard change its spots?’ I leave my readers to finish the quote for themselves, sure as I am that they can read between the lines. But that last line of mine itself smacks both of ጥጋብ (tegab) or arrogance, and taking myself and my powers of interpretation too seriously!

But however mixed these metaphors may be, there are many similarities to be found between good Old England and Auld Abyssinia – not least in their similar inclination for understatement and the ‘stiff upper lip’ of the gentlemen of good manners or the ጨዋ ሰው (chewa so – a man/women… of good manners) – and who would never use bad words, to curse Jack. Or Jill.

Note: this post contains Amharic script. If you noticed boxes and squiggles you can install a free Amharic font from here to display the script correctly.

The Abyssinian Thibet

In Ancobar, where I was accompanying the photographer Nicolas Henry, I learned of the death of Zewde Nesibu, the last guard of Emperor Menelik II. A man of many years – 120? more? – Zewde was well known in the region, and, apparently, simply believed.

As one person told me: “Well, my father tells me he was already ancient when he was a boy…” (the man talking to me was at least sixty himself). Centenarians living in remote valley outposts used to be all the  rage (think Soviet Georgia or remote Andean villages) but seem to be less popular now that everyone gets to travel. Nevertheless there remains something alluring about remote valleys and springs containing the ‘elixir of life.’  Is it it the garlic based diet? The healthy Soviet ideology? The communal life and lack of stress… or simply the absence of birth records?

Be it what it may, if ever a place in Ethiopia were a likely candidate for Shangri-lah it would have to be Ancobar, sitting perched on its escarpment, truly sitting above the clouds like some ‘African Thibet.’ And Zewde – my crown – would have been the perfect lama of this realm.

I first saw Ato Zewde a few year ago while writing an article about Rimbaud. We had been invited to eat with the priests and we scooped up black injera and bean sauce directly from the hollowed out cavities in the massive juniper board that served as table. As we ate, Zewde made his appearance and  fumbled his way over the threshold and then down the wall, before stepping out gingerly in the direction of the table. He ate slowly and parsimoniously but accepted that his metal cup be refilled – twice I think – with the thin and bitter beer we were drinking. When he was done, he filled the pockets of his gabardine  with some leftovers, rose and again, fumbled his way out along the wall and over the threshold.

Ancobar was long the seat of the kings of Showa, an ideal gate post for the caravans to the Red Sea, towards the Indian Ocean, and to the interior, to Jimma, to the west. Salt, hides, musk, gold, and of course, slaves. I wonder what Ato Zewde would have thought of his being called Ato – or Monsieur – he who came from a day and age when Monsieur was only used to address royalty. They said he had been Menelik’s ashgar, a term which can mean a guard, a vassal… or, of course, a slave. We live in a polite age, and no one would have thought of calling Zewde ‘Menelik’s Last Slave,’ and be what it may be, there was a man who had seen much, and lived through times that were no more.

The second time I saw Zewde I rudely awoke him – it was only 5 pm but the cold was already biting, and he had retreated to his bed. He was easily coaxed into telling me some tales, of times past and here is one, about a lion, and its symbolic transfer, from Menelik to Haile Selassie

In the faltering light and fog of Ancobar, the old capital of the kings of Showa, Ato Zewde, ‘Menelik’s Ashgar’ as he is known along the escarpment, is retelling an old tale; a tale of a century ago. A time in which countries had emperors, and emperors had lions. Ato Zewde was seven years old when Emperor Menelik was crowed King of Kings of Abyssinia and the stories he tells, he saw. He is the man who saw the man.

“The lion’s name was Moges (…) They walked him on a chain, like a kind dog, from Ancobar to Addis Ababa, in three days. Over the stony mountains to Debre Berhan, and from there to Sheno, through the great grassy plains, not far from Saint Tekle Haymanot’s birthplace.”

(Zewde situates this around the time of Haile Selassie’s coronation of 1933 in the Gregorian calendar)

Haile Selassie wanted Menelik’s old lion as a symbol, as a token of filiation. The Lion of Judah had conquered all and would go on to conquer more and was the willful incarnation of the Solomonic line, handed down from Sheba and the kings of Israel in one long chain of events; from Menelik the first of Axum to Menelik the second of Addis Ababa; and now to Haile Selassie.

In Ato Zewde’s face there are creases and shiny furrows on which have shone a thousand and one suns. He fumbles in the dark with his story: the man who saw the lion and the splendor is, alas, blind. Seven at the coronation of the great monarch, the emperor’s personal guard at twenty, Zewde saw and remembers it all and on his face is written the awe of a forgotten age that now seems as ancient as the biblical stories of Solomon and Sheba themselves. The chain of events is broken, and when Ato Zewde, who saw it all, dies, it’s another piece of Old Abyssinia, like a tired lion pulled into the fog on a chain, that will be gone for ever.

 

The king is dead, long live the king! They used to shout, upon the monarch’s demise – and his son’s coronation. But now, we will murmur: the kind is long dead… and his final crown has been laid to rest. The man who saw it all is now dead.

A Russian Antonov takes off every day from the runway of Dire Dawa, in eastern Ethiopia. The V.I.P carried on this specially chartered plane is eagerly expected in Djibouti, like some august personage, and tremors of suppressed pleasure flutter through the arteries of the town. A hush of expectation descends and the town awaits Her with a dry mouth and a glint in its dusty eye. When the chartered Antonov lands, disgorging its precious cargo, a green wave surges out into the limp arteries of the town. First, there is a vociferation, then as mouths fill with cud, calm in the guise of an emerald veil descends on the torrid city.

Chatt (cata edulis) is Ethiopia’s fourth biggest export (after coffee, leather and oil seeds) and one that is growing every year. The traditional narcotic is exported mainly to Somalia and Djibouti, but also to the United Kingdom (73 tons last year) and a recent article in The Times of London pointed out that the consumption of chatt was becoming a concern among the youth of… Birmingham.

Closer to home, the leader of the new sharia courts in Somalia has been quoted as saying that he would ‘ban the leaf.’ But as Mohammed Seyid, a Somali shop owner in Addis Ababa told me, ‘that would be the end of them! Siad Barre – the leader of Somalia before the country’s descent into anarchy – tried the same. He quickly came back on that decision!’ ‘So, how about chewing a little, my friend? Nothing wrong in a few green leaves!’ Mohammed Seyid enjoined to me, with a grin on his face, showing me the green wares that hung from the roof of his minuscule shop.

Chatt is a narcotic, with calming effects and it is widely believed to be a tool in the hands of politicians. As Abdi Mohammed – not his real name- a Djiboutian health professional told me, ‘the damn thing keeps everybody complacent; they talk, and then they talk some more. They chew, then they chew some more. They make revolutions in the afternoon, forget them in the evening, sleep fitfully and get up to wait for the next plane.’ Nothing wrong in a few green leaves?

The first time I chewed chatt was on the deck of a dhow bound for Tadjoura. We had left the port of Djibouti in the late afternoon, and as we sailed across the gulf, dolphins dove into the surf and the sun set on the high black mountains at the bottom of the Ghoubbet el Kharab. A fisherman kept pulling silver colored fish out of the water with nothing but a hook decorated with a piece of crimson rag and clouds hung in a sky as blue and motionless as a photographer’s studio background. The chatt leaves were reddish green, bitter and chewy. ‘The best from Harrar, especially for you,’ Ali Suleiman, had said on the market in Djibouti. But he would say that. He was selling the stuff, and chewing it too. He had an intent gaze and pumped his contraband cigarette for all it was worth, a big bump of chatt filling his cheek. As I gingerly sampled the tough little leaves, the Djibouti gulf became a great mouth that swallowed the half walnut of a boat whole, chewing on us and swirling us around before spitting the dhow out onto the shore of Tadjoura. I had seen the green eye of the typhoon for the first time. ‘Her Majesty,’ Ali had called the intoxicating leaf, without a trace of irony.

The plan had taken shape during a chatt chewing routine with my friend Sammy Asfaw, chewer extraordinaire, dreamer, visionary and sometime writer. It must have been some very good chatt, because soon we had decided to take a trip, in the footsteps of Rambo, as Sammy was to put it later. We both, of course, thought this was a splendid idea. The strange thing is that for once, a chatt dream was put into execution and Sammy and I soon found ourselves gazing out across the escarpment from the ancient imperial seat of Ancobar, in central Ethiopia, towards what might have been Tadjoura in the distance with a lot of imagination and the help of a few good leaves.

The French poet Arthur Rimbaud (aka Rambo in Ethiopia) traveled from Tadjoura to Ancobar in 1886. He was running guns to the Negus Menelik, King of Kings of Ethiopia. The symbolist poet wrote his best poems before the age of 18, stopped writing altogether by the age of 20 and escaped to the ends of the earth – Scandinavia, Java, Cyprus, Yemen – then, finally, Abyssinia where he was to seek fortune for 12 long years, only giving up in the face of death.

And, five years after tasting those first leaves on the high platform of the dhow bound for Tadjoura, Sammy and I had decided to follow in the poet’s footsteps, from Ancobar to Harrar, where the best chatt fields of Ethiopia are found. ‘Why do you chew Sammy?’ I asked him, as we were chewing in the bus from Addis to Harrar. ‘I chew because I chew because I chew because I…’ I stopped him there and gave up on my question, a little ridiculous anyhow. ‘The Ethiopian youth of today chew because chatt is sold on every street corner, and because there are no jobs, and it wiles away time and it makes you feel good. You can be a genius for the afternoon before you go back to sleep in you tin hut’ Sammy declared sententiously a little later, a twinkle in his eye. ‘You can be anybody – even Rambo if you like,’ he added.
In Harrar the hills were covered in chatt and corn in alternated lines and Sammy smacked his lips in anticipation. Arthur Rimbaud lived in the walled city for many years, trading goods with local tribes and dreaming of making a killing, by selling guns, by finding limitless supplies of ivory. He talks disdainfully of chatt, ‘a mild stimulant that the locals use.’ Those words have been paraphrased countless times, although there is nothing mild about chatt and it is now a crop exported to Djibouti, Somalia and London. In Awadey, the Harrar chatt market, an old chewer was on skid row. His toothless mouth was full of leaves he had crushed with a mortar; his eyes were empty and his clothes torn. He insulted a man who picked up a stone and threw it violently at him, hitting him in the small of the back. The old man ran away. There did not seem to be a person in town, be it goat or human that wasn’t chewing and the atmosphere was volatile. Sammy, even in the midst of a chatt dream, had not accepted to come. They loaded the Isuzu truck till midnight, vociferating, pushing and fighting. Goats stepped in daintily and licked up twigs that formed a green mattress on the muddy floor. It was cold and the men’s mouths’ had an acrid smell when you moved too close to them.

Isuzu trucks are known by the name ‘Al-Quaeda’ for the daredevil driving of their chauffeurs that leaves trucks and road users wrecked and maimed. They leave at midnight from the walled city and there is a premium on arriving early in Addis Ababa –chatt depreciates fast with time. The drivers chew, soon fancy themselves to be driving tanks laden with green dreams and finish buried under the truck and load on the side of the road – a green dream turned green nightmare.

The driver drove with extreme concentration, as if our very lives depended on it, which they did. He considered bends and calculated the optimum speed to come out of them whizzing on the edge of his wheels, like in some action movie. He boasted he had never hit even a bird and I chose to believe him. He only took his eyes off the road to check how he was doing with his chatt supply that he ate the whole night long. We were stopped at check points in the rain where soldiers poked at our load and let us go. We saw hyenas bounding off back to the darkness where they belong. We saw, finally, a sliver of light towards the horizon in a sky that was gray and full of rain as we entered the suburbs of Addis Ababa. At the last check-point, a soldier asked me what I thought I was doing and I answered that I was traveling with my action hero, here at the wheel.

In Addis Ababa, the driver nodded to me, and as I slipped out of my seat I caught a glimpse of myself in the side mirror. My mouth was green, my face was gray and I was punch drunk from my travels with Rambo. Another chatt dream was dying. Nothing wrong with a few green leaves?