In Ethiopia with a Mule (10 page)

When Mass was over the Governor summoned me into the church, the chief priest dispensed me from removing my boots and one of the
debtaras
handed me a prayer-stick – a five-foot staff, with a curved horizontal silver handle on which one can lean comfortably while taking part in the long Coptic ceremonies. We then walked around the straw-strewn outer ambulatory to a raggedly carpeted section in front of the torn sanctuary curtain, which is pulled aside at certain times during Mass so that the male congregation may see the altar. Here we paused for a few moments, because the choir – at the Governor’s request – were now chanting a special prayer for my safety in the Semiens. (This Dawit explained later, and I was touched by Ato Gabre Mariam’s so nicely expressed concern –
as indeed I have often been, during the past two days, by his various gestures of friendship. I only hope the final gesture won’t be the provision of an armed guard tomorrow morning.) Then four priests stepped down into the ambulatory and performed one of the traditional religious dances. Facing each other in pairs they advanced and retreated with stylised but vigorous movements, wielding their prayer-sticks as though they were spears, while the congregation clapped their hands rhythmically and drums were beaten and bells rung and
sistra
shaken. Next I was shown the few Ge’ez manuscripts – inscribed on goatskin parchment, bound in wood and richly illustrated – which have survived. These were thrown in a dirty chest on the floor of the inner ambulatory and obviously no one here deserves to have the care of such precious volumes; it is revealing to contrast the neglect of these books with the reverence shown towards any volume of the Buddhist scriptures by even the least educated Tibetan monk. As we left the church I echoed Dawit’s ‘Savages!’ under my breath. People who blow their noses into the fire hardly qualify for this epithet, but people who abuse centuries-old illuminated manuscripts most certainly do.

Behind the church ramshackle buildings surround a farmyard ankle-deep in dry horse-dung and it was impossible to distinguish the priests’ quarters from the stables. The chief priest’s filthy little room is over a granary and a perilous outside flight of loose stone steps leads up to the low doorway. When I sat on the edge of the iron bed my host covered my bare knees with a length of cotton – but in such a charming way that this mark of disapproval seemed almost a
compliment
. He is an old man, lean and white-bearded, with fine Semitic features and bright, kind, humorous eyes. Whatever may be the general level of virtue among the Ethiopian clergy, one knew that here was a true man of God.

When Dawit had joined us we were served with a quart of
talla
each – at 8.30 a.m., which even by my standards is a little early. Half-an-hour later breakfast began, and continued for two hours. Everyone ate prodigious quantities of
injara
, various kinds of highly-spiced meat-
wat
, hunks of tough steak fried in rancid ghee and strips of delicious raw beef dipped in
berberie
paste – the highlanders’ favourite delicacy and the source of their endemic tape-worm infestations.

Christmas is not among the major Ethiopian church feasts; the main
celebrations
are secular and the main secular celebration is eating – I’ve consumed so much raw meat today that I should be able to bound over the Semiens like an ibex. Other delicacies included hot unleavened wholemeal bread, eaten with honey and hard-boiled eggs – an excellent combination – and a strange fruit about the size of a Swede turnip, with a skin like a lemon (but much rougher and
thicker), and a smell like a lemon when cut, though the sweet, palatable flesh is hard, white and juicy. The locals eat this with salt, though I preferred it without, and the children eagerly eat the tough skin.

I have rarely seen a more gloriously situated village than this – or a more primitive one. Mercifully tin sheeting has not yet arrived and the oblong stone hovels have flat clay roofs, on which parched grass grows thickly. Apart from the central track there are no laneways. The dwellings are scattered haphazardly across this rock-strewn ridge, and even where a number have been built close together no one has bothered to clear the narrow intervening space of boulders and stones. Many are now in ruins, which gives the place a post-earthquake appearance; when houses begin to collapse their owners usually choose to construct new ones, rather than to repair the old.

During the afternoon Dawit invited me to his tiny room, and when I lit a cigarette he asked if he might have one – though yesterday, in his uncle’s compound, he had given the impression of being a non-smoker. He then explained that the highlanders have such a strong religious prejudice against tobacco that when he was seen lighting a cigarette, the day after his arrival here, four youths were encouraged to stone him by their outraged elders.
*
However,
faranj
smokers are now tolerated – fortunately for me.

As Dawit and I were finishing our second round of
talla
Giorgis arrived and invited us to his home, where steak was being fried by his sixteen-year-old wife for the delectation of the already replete
faranj
. On our way we heard an uncanny noise – one prolonged, wild howl, which Giorgis said had been produced by the women of a bereaved family to inform their neighbours of a death within the compound.

Giorgis is a tall, muscular twenty-year-old, who wears threadbare Western clothes beneath his
shamma
, to mark his position as a teacher and a native of ‘urban’ Makalle. His home is a recently-built, high-ceilinged, one-roomed
house, with two big doors which admit lots of light – and here the impression of poverty is far greater than in the average dusky
tukul
. This family has now been living in Aedat for six months, but their possessions are so few that the big, bleak room seems less a home than a temporary lodging. While Giorgis was fondling his eighteen-months-old daughter I noticed that already she has infected eyes. The filth of all highland toddlers, even in the Governor’s affluent compound, is shocking. Once old enough to look after themselves they make some attempt to clean their faces, but mothers never bother about this task and one is appalled by the sight of so many snotty, fly-covered noses and mouths, and encrusted, infected, fly-covered eyes.

There is no state school in Aedat and Giorgis is employed by the church school as a writing teacher at a monthly salary of £6 – as compared with the £22 which a state school writing teacher would receive.
*
Yet the Church is estimated to own at least 15 per cent of Ethiopia’s arable land, so Giorgis’ bitterly
anti-clerical
sentiments seem understandable.

As we were walking back to the Governor’s compound I was surprised to hear the alien cry of a muezzin: then Dawit pointed out an inconspicuous ‘mosque’ hut, with an unsteady little ‘minaret’ built on to one gable, and told me that Aedat has a community of native Muslim traders – known as Jabartis.

Soon after we had joined Ato Gabre Mariam and his cronies at their evening
talla
session a pretty, fair-skinned girl was escorted into the hut by two gunmen. She was wearing a white, full-skirted dress and a thick
shamma
, both with skilfully embroidered, brightly-coloured fringes, and she was carrying a bottle labelled ‘Haig’ but containing excellent
tej
. Dawit explained that she is the
seventeen-year-old daughter-in-law of a village headman and that on hearing of my arrival in Aedat she had got her husband’s permission to ride over the mountains to meet her first white woman – bringing as a gift this valuable bottle of
tej
. (In these parts the bottle itself is no less valuable than the contents.) Her enterprising curiosity must be uncommon among highland women, but when actually confronted with a
faranj
the poor girl was so overcome that she could only sit beside me staring at her toes. However, by suppertime she had relaxed somewhat (we had been co-operating well as
tej
-drinkers) and I then asked her – through Dawit – how long she had been married and how many children she had. My last question was a most unfortunate one; though married four years she is childless, and as she admitted this her smooth young face was suddenly haggard with misery.

Apart from the Italian occupation this region has never been in touch with the outside world: and I should think that after their war-time experiences the older generation cherish isolation. Today Giorgis pointed out a network of caves in a nearby escarpment and told me that during the occupation most of the villagers had hidden in these almost inaccessible rock-chambers, which centuries ago were used as hermitages.

I had planned to leave Aedat at dawn, but Ato Gabre Mariam insisted on my waiting for a ceremonial farewell breakfast – and this being Sunday all the women went to church, so the feast was not served until nine o’clock. Such a waste of the day’s best trekking hours irked me, yet a rejection of this final flourish of
hospitality
would have given great offence. A very appetising flourish it was, too – an enormous round tin tray piled with sheep’s kidneys, hearts and livers, and with huge lumps of mutton fat, all roasted on a spit over a wood-fire. Together my host and I attacked this mountain of meat, he dissecting the various organs with a sinister-looking knife – it had a razor-sharp, backward-curving tip – and then handing me the choicest titbits.

Half-way through the meal Dawit appeared, and to my consternation announced that he would be accompanying me on my way to the Takazze, as he had decided to visit his paternal grandfather – whom he had never met. However, for the moment his servant could not be found, so we must wait a little. I then accepted the fact that this was One of Those Days – acceptance being made easier by such a bellyful of meat that I felt disinclined even to walk across the room. The Governor immediately ordered an early lunch for the travellers;
and, in case I might feel peckish in the interval, a small tin kettle of sweet boiled milk was produced to keep me going. (Normally sugar is not used in this region, but my host had brought some with him from Aksum.)

We eventually got away at 12.30 – Dawit on a borrowed mule, with his armed servant and two other youths trotting beside him, Jock following, and myself in the rear. For a couple of miles the Governor – accompanied by five attendants – rode with us, as is the custom when a guest departs.

Beyond Aedat our track ran level between low mountains and on either side cattle were grazing the richest-looking pasture that I have seen in this country. Then we came to the edge of a deep crater-like depression, thickly lined with green shrubs, and on a hill in its centre, far below the track, stood a church,
surrounded
by the usual trees, which is greatly revered because during Mohammed Gragn’s invasion it is believed to have been miraculously made invisible, and thus saved from destruction. (The church is so improbably situated, even by highland standards, and so naturally camouflaged that I would never have noticed it had I been alone.)

Here we sat on the edge of the crater while Dawit’s servant took part in a fascinating ‘long-distance call’, which started when a minute figure on a hill-top far above us demanded information about the
faranj
. This figure proved to be the headman of a nearby village and, on hearing that I was a protégée of the Tigreans’ beloved Leilt Aida, he at once invited us to have
talla
some miles further along the track. Then the hills and valleys began to echo and re-echo with haunting, disembodied cries, as his orders for our entertainment were relayed to the village by invisible shepherds. When using this rather public but very effective method of communication the highlanders employ a high-pitched voice and a peculiar rhythmic chant that carries for miles through the still, thin air of the mountains.

For the next hour we were crossing an arid grey-brown plateau towards a formidable
amba
of sheer red rock that overlooks a broad gorge, dark with tangled vegetation. On the edge of this gorge a score of villagers greeted us and we sat on enormous, smooth boulders beneath a huge, gnarled tree and were given hunks of
dabo
and wooden tankards brimming with
talla
that had been carried from the village in an earthen jar on a woman’s back. These men were considerably agitated about my crossing of the Takazze Gorge. They affirmed that many
shifta
are now encamped there, lying in wait for Christmas traffic, and they tried hard to persuade me to turn back. I know that
shifta
do patrol the gorge, but I doubt if many of them lie in wait on this particular track, which is rarely used, even at Christmas time. (The depth of the gorge here has always
restricted traffic between the two sides.) When I declined to turn back because of
shifta
the despairing villagers tried the deterrent-value of snakes, leopards, malaria and extreme heat. Then they gave up, and their gloomy farewells would have been appropriate to a death-bed scene.

‘Precipitous’ is going to be an overworked adjective in this diary; but that can’t be helped, for unless a highland track is crossing a plateau it usually
is
precipitous. Our descent after the
talla
-halt was very precipitous indeed – a
slithering
scramble on loose soil around vast rocks between thorny bushes … When we finally reached the bottom Dawit remarked feelingly that had he known what the route was like his grandfather would have been left unvisited.

Another two miles brought us to our destination, an isolated compound on a wide hillside that was prickly with stubble and already cool beneath a dove-grey dusk. Half-way up its slope this hill becomes an
amba
, and beyond the immense, regular block of its summit lies the Takazze Gorge.

There are four
tukuls
here and we are being entertained in the largest – a
well-built
stone hut about forty feet in circumference, with a high, conical thatched roof (unsupported by any pole) and two mud double-beds. One of these is built into an alcove in the thick wall, which is unusual. As I write, amidst a throng of Dawit’s welcoming relatives, we are almost awash in
talla
, and outside the door three cooking fires are blazing rosily against the dark mountain. Oddly enough no fire has been lit in here and the only light – apart from my candle – is an oil-wick hung high on the wall and now glinting on the many rifles stacked beneath it.