In Ethiopia with a Mule (24 page)

Then I ate a huge meal, slept for four hours, ate another huge meal, wrote this – and am now going to sleep again. 

W
ORDS FAIL ME when it comes to describing the dreariness of Bahar Dar – so I quote from my guidebook. ‘Bahar Dar is a small town on the bus route from Addis Ababa to Asmara. The only passable hotel in town is the Ras Hotel. The bus station is across the street from the hotel, near the Total petrol station. Ethiopian Airlines connects Bahar Dar with Addis Ababa. The airport is across the street from the hotel just beyond the Total station. Of interest to some is the Polytechnic Institute, a modern secondary school staffed by Russian and Ethiopian teachers and attracting an enrolment from all over the Empire. The school is just past the Shell petrol station and is distinguished by a number of large, modern buildings.’ To complete the picture add hundreds of tin-roofed hovels and a textile factory. Yet Abraha, in Zeghie, had described Bahar Dar as ‘a fine city’.

I overslept this morning, missed the early bus to Gondar and decided to hitch-hike instead of waiting for the afternoon bus. There was very little traffic, but I was soon picked up by an interesting American girl archaeologist named Joanne. She was driving a Land-Rover, with a mongrel pup on her lap, and beside her sat an elderly, fat, chain-smoking interpreter-guide, who had been appointed to help her by some cultural institute in Addis. Unluckily this man seemed to be convinced that digging in Ethiopia was a futile occupation.

After a twenty-five-mile drive over an arid, brownish plain we said good-bye and Joanne turned off the gravel road and went bumping away through the scrub towards a site. Four miles further on I was picked up again, by three young men in a WHO jeep. They were officials of Gondar’s Public Health College and, despite Jock’s absence, they had at once recognised ‘the Irish lady
with the mule’. The remaining eighty-five miles took us across a continuation of the featureless plain, and then over a splendid range of barren mountains; Lake Tana was rarely visible, as this road is far inland, and we passed only a few tin-roofed villages.

At half-past one I presented myself at Gondar Police Headquarters, where for ninety minutes I sat in a tiny office beside a rusty filing-cabinet reading
Talleyrand
while I waited for Colonel Aziz to return from his lunch.

Colonel Aziz is a stocky man of forty-five, with a round, brown face, keen eyes, a neat, slightly self-conscious moustache and a tinge of that pomposity common to most highlanders in responsible positions. His English is easily
understood
, though far from fluent, and I had much enjoyed our previous meetings; but obviously this official reunion was going to be embarrassing.

Already I had realised that the robbing of a
faranj
causes genuine shame and distress to the average highlander. This crime is ‘not cricket’ and had I wished to profit by my misfortune I could easily have done so, since every peasant was eager to compensate me to the limit of his resources. For those who know that I am writing about my travels in Ethiopia the situation is even worse, so when Colonel Aziz appeared – looking as guilty as though he had robbed me himself – my first task, as we walked to his office, was to cheer him up. I stressed that the robbery was an isolated reef in an ocean of kindness; I pointed out that Ethiopia is the sixth foreign country in which I have met robbers and – when he continued to look miserable – I abandoned patriotism and admitted that I had also been robbed in Ireland, where the police had made no perceptible effort to recover my property. At this the poor fellow brightened up. Pulling his chair closer to his desk, he rang a bell and said that of course things were quite different in Ethiopia, where stolen goods were normally restored to their owners within twenty-four hours.

A tall, slim young lieutenant appeared in response to the bell; he spoke excellent English, and after we had been introduced he sat down to take my statement. When I began to describe the priest the atmosphere suddenly became electric and simultaneously the officers exclaimed ‘Kas Makonnen!’ Then, as Colonel Aziz grabbed the telephone and demanded Gorgora, Lieutenant Woldie looked at me and said ‘You’re lucky!’

It hadn’t occurred to me that my quartet were
shifta
: they had seemed merely the extra-degenerate inhabitants of a region where most people looked somewhat degenerate. I had imagined
shifta
to be colourful types on fast horses who came galloping down hillsides brandishing rifles; but apparently every detail of my
description of the priest fitted one Kas Makonnen, a
shifta
-leader wanted for countless robberies and two murders.

Soon Colonel Aziz had arranged that at six-thirty tomorrow morning he, the lieutenant, the Governor of Gorgora (who is at present in Gondar), eight armed policemen and myself will leave for Gorgora, where the Colonel and Governor will wait, while the rest of us go man-hunting. When I explained that it might take me more than a day to locate the settlement, since I’d been thoroughly lost on my way there, it was decided that we would take a motor-launch along the shore of the lake and land where I recognised the
shifta
bay.

Colonel Aziz asked me not to discuss our plan or the identity of my ‘robber baron’. Only the Colonel, the lieutenant, the Gorgora sergeant, the Governor and myself are in the secret: neither the Gorgora nor the Gondar constables are to be given any information about our objective until we are aboard the motor-launch. This reversal of a familiar procedure interested me. At home the help of the public would be enlisted for a manhunt; here not only the public but the ordinary police are regarded as potential allies of the criminals – either through fear or friendship. Tomorrow the aim will be to capture men in terrain so difficult that if they once get a start pursuit would be futile. Therefore the surprise element is of first importance; and in Ethiopia the concept of a police force is new and not very popular.

This evening I am a little confused about Kas Makonnen’s status. One person has told me that he is not a priest but disguises himself as one (‘Kas’ means priest); yet I have also been assured that the Bishop of Begemdir will unfrock him when he is brought in chains to Gondar. This assurance naturally makes me suspect that the first statement was a face-saving manoeuvre on behalf of the Ethiopian Church – though if he is a priest one feels the Bishop might justifiably have unfrocked him by remote control quite some time ago.

Today has been suffused with improbability. For an ordinary citizen of Ireland there is something not quite believable about the business of guiding seventeen armed men through a remote corner of Ethiopia in search of a murderer.

By this morning it had been decided that sixteen policemen might serve our purpose better than eight and when we left Gondar at nine o’clock the new police Land-Rover, driven by Colonel Aziz, was so overloaded that its driver would have been arrested in any other country. Two hours later we reached Gorgora and went straight to the launch, which was moored at a little Italian-built jetty
– where sacks of
teff
, sorghum, millet and coffee were being unloaded off a great papyrus-raft just in from Kunzela. The next hour was spent waiting for the Governor to provide us with four baskets of
dabo
,
injara
and
wat
, two flasks of
tej
and several fat earthen pots of
talla
. Then, at twelve o’clock precisely, we pushed off, leaving the Colonel and the Governor waving on the jetty and calling final instructions and good-luck messages.

There were twenty-four of us aboard – a crew of three, sixteen policemen in civvies, two police officers, two undefined local officials and the
faranj
. Everyone except the crew and the
faranj
was so heavily armed – with a rifle and revolver each and a sub-machine gun between them – that I wondered the elderly launch didn’t sink. The lieutenant and the Gorgora sergeant had been in uniform, but now both changed lest someone ashore should notice their dress and warn the
shifta
. I was impressed by the sergeant – a small, wiry man of about fifty, who greatly distinguished himself as a Patriot fighter against the Italians. He has a strong, shrewd, kindly face and a reassuring air of calm authority; only a lack of English has hindered his promotion.

For two hours we travelled at top speed, about a mile and a half offshore, with the forested cliffs of the coast on our right. Frequently we passed between rocky, wooded islets of various shapes and sizes – each with its monastery or church half-hidden by trees – and all the time the sun shone and Lake Tana sparkled and the wind blew strong and cool. Standing at the prow I reflected that there are many less pleasant occupations than chasing
shifta
.

At about two o’clock I decided that we should move inshore. As we cruised along slowly I attempted to work out our position in relation to my route last week – but this was surprisingly difficult, for a landscape seen from
half-a-mile
offshore looks strangely unlike the same landscape seen from the middle, as it were. However, that ghastly semi-swamp put me right and at 2.30 we slid quietly into the wide bay. The crew refused to go close to the unfamiliar coastline, so a tiny life-boat was put down and we were rowed ashore in four groups.

We landed at the foot of the northern ridge and I suggested that, since surprise was vital, we should go along the water’s edge to the south ridge and follow it to the compound. Lieutenant Woldie then ordered everyone to bend double and we hastened along the lakeside with the fig-trees between us and the
tukuls
. By this time I was thoroughly enjoying myself. Skulking through jungle-grass, followed by my little army with its weapons at the ready, I felt like a cross between Napier on the way to Magdala and a child at play.

Suddenly a figure moved behind the trees. It was a scared-looking youth and instantly two policemen ran towards him, waving their rifles and gesturing that he must be quiet. He reacted by fleeing at top speed and then, since his flight could have been observed from the compound, we changed our tactics. The sergeant and six policemen went north-east, using the cover of a maize-field, while the rest of us sprinted west and followed the base of the ridge towards the settlement.

When we were thirty yards away, still hidden by an outcrop of rock, we paused to collect ourselves. Then we rushed into view, raced through the compound and saw our quarry sitting outside a
tukul
. He was seized as he rose to his feet. Whereupon I got the giggles, in reaction to this anti-climax at the end of our perilous manhunt.

The compound was now surrounded by police and within moments I had identified the other three robbers and all four had been securely roped and manacled. Lieutenant Woldie told me that both the older man and the slim youth had recently been released from gaol – which may explain their
disinclination
to murder
faranjs
. At this stage I became convinced that Kas Makonnen is an ordained priest. His companions-in-manacles were being handled brutally, yet he was not ill-treated but was allowed to sit in the shade of a
tukul
– with a guard on either side.

At first all four vehemently denied ever having seen me before – though the horrified recognition in the priest’s eyes when he found me standing beside him was a sufficiently eloquent admission of guilt. During our unsuccessful search of the eight
tukuls
police tempers became frayed, and then the older man was taken out of my sight. But he was not out of earshot, so it didn’t surprise me to see him reappearing ten minutes later looking ill. He was now most anxious to guide the police on an hour’s walk to a settlement where he said all my property would be found intact. The sergeant and eight policemen accompanied him, the rest staying to guard the prisoners and prevent anyone from leaving the compound, which had been put under ‘martial law’ pending the recovery of the stolen goods.

I then went to investigate a strange cave that I had noticed in the north ridge last week – when too distraught to pursue cultural interests. As I had suspected, it was a series of chambers and passages hewn out of the rock. My only light was from brands fired with matches, which was not very satisfactory – though it enabled me to see that the rock had been hewn smoothly and skilfully. I could find no traces of wall-paintings, but they may well exist, for my
exploration
was sketchy. When the system of corridors became too complex for my
nerves I retreated: this is not my luckiest area. Later I was told that the place is called Selassie Washa and is believed to have been hewn out of the mountain six centuries ago – about a century after the creation of Lalibela’s rock churches. But one can never rely on Ethiopian dates. The tradition is that Selassie Washa was used by kings (unspecified) as a refuge from their enemies and a place of religious retreat.

When I got back to the compound my ‘army’ was eating and drinking merrily and I was given a large meal of inferior
injara
and fresh milk. On such
expeditions
the police follow the ancient custom of highland armies and demand sustenance as their right. Indeed it may be said that they looted this compound, because on our return to the launch each man was laden with foodstuffs – none of which had been paid for.

At 5.30 the sergeant’s party reappeared in the distance and we cheered loudly on seeing a canary-yellow dot – my precious flea-bag – being carried by the prisoner. Everyone had known of my obsessional desire to recover this
particular
item, so the sergeant and his men were grinning all over their faces as I ran to thank and congratulate them.

My torch and Jock’s bridle had also been recovered, but nothing else – which didn’t worry me in the least, as I sat gloating over my flea-bag. The police, however, were very worried, especially about my camera, which I only mildly regretted since I am incapable of using it effectively. As the ‘fence’ at the other compound was away at a wedding his mother had been arrested instead, and I was told that she would be kept in gaol until he gave himself up and handed over the rest of my property. She was a frail, bewildered, terrified woman of about fifty and this procedure appalled me. Yet it would have been absurd for the
faranj
to deliver a lecture on Justice in such a situation, so I simply begged to have her released. This silliness was ignored; but now the poor woman, perhaps realising that she had my support, knelt weeping before three policemen and resumed her protestations of innocence and her pleas for freedom. In response all three kicked her hard on the shoulders, back and breasts. Whereupon I intervened very angrily. During the afternoon several acts of needless brutality had enraged me and at this point all my pent-up indignation was released. I gave the nearest kicker a box on the ear and called Lieutenant Woldie, who immediately
reprimanded
the constables – not, I fear, for kicking the woman, but for allowing me to see them kicking her.