In Ethiopia with a Mule (29 page)

Then my one-eyed companion began to beg whiningly for clothes and medicines. When I denied having either his whining changed to truculence and he ran ahead, prodded the sacks and demanded to be told what was in them. As I replied ‘
Faranj injara
’ the young man turned suddenly and asked where my money was. I said that I had no money, whereupon both laughed unpleasantly and remarked that every
faranj
has much money. For a few moments they stood discussing the situation
sotto voce
, and then they invited me, with artificial
cordiality
, to spend the night at their settlement. Obviously they feared to unload Jock on a main track and to gain time I accepted their invitation.

The next fifty minutes felt like as many hours. Often I glanced back to see if anyone was overtaking us; at every turn of the path I looked hopefully for someone ahead or for signs of a settlement, and all the time I was listening for the calls of shepherds or ploughmen – but these mountains were too thickly forested to be grazed or cultivated. As I was considering asserting myself before we reached the settlement, where everyone would be likely to support their relatives against me, the path turned another corner and I saw a man and woman ahead, walking very slowly. Grabbing the halter I ran as fast as Jock would trot and we overtook them just where a faint path branched off towards my companions’ settlement.

The couple had been walking slowly because the woman was ill; her eyes were glazed with pain and she scarcely noticed me. Both husband and wife were, I should think in their forties, and the man, too, looked unwell. He stared at me blankly when I offered him Jock’s halter, pointed ahead and emphatically repeated,
‘Debre Zeit! Debre Zeit!’
Then the two toughs caught us up and his expression became uneasy as they began to talk angrily, pointing first to Jock and then towards their settlement, high above the track. They were claiming to have been put in charge of me by the local Governor, and my friend seemed a person of minimal intelligence who only wanted to keep clear of the situation. Making a gesture of indifference he turned away, beckoning his wife to follow. I despairingly pulled out my purse, thrust a dollar into his right hand and the halter into his left, and repeated pleadingly
‘Debre Zeit!’
He gazed for a moment at the money, frowned and returned it – but to my astonished relief he retained the halter, suddenly shook his
dula
at the toughs with unexpected vigour, and quickly led Jock down the main track. Strolling nonchalantly after him, I looked back and saw the toughs climbing towards their settlement, still glancing
covetously
in our direction. It is most unlikely that they would have harmed me, but in this country one never quite knows what might be regarded as a sufficient motive for murder.

At a small village I said grateful goodbyes to the pathetic couple. Here we were back in a region of overwhelming heights and depths, of symmetrical
ambas
, sheer escarpments and grotesquely eroded peaks. As the afternoon advanced the valleys were filled with a wonderful light, like pale blue smoke, through which I could see expanses of rose-coloured earth glowing on steep slopes above green-gold forests.

Near the base of the gruelling escarpment below this plateau we met a handsome young gunman who claimed to be ‘the Police’. I knew that he was
lying, and I disliked his plausible manner and mistrusted his speculative glances towards Jock’s load, but as my knee was now throbbing again it helped to have someone to show us the easiest way up the escarpment and when we reached this settlement everyone looked so surly that I chose the devil I knew slightly and accepted the youth’s invitation to sleep within his compound.

My host’s family consists of his mother, a child-wife and two other women, and the atmosphere in this
tukul
is unique. All the time I am being laughed at unkindly – a discourtesy I wouldn’t have thought possible among Ethiopian highlanders – and payment in advance has been demanded for every glass of
talla
I’ve drunk, for my
injara
and
berberie
paste and for Jock’s fodder.

As I write,
injara
is being cooked beside me. The batter is poured on to a flat iron skillet from an earthen jar (in which it has been fermenting for three or four days) and is then covered with a conical pottery lid. A round takes hardly five minutes to cook, over a hot wood fire, and when the housewife has skilfully slid it on to the
injara
-stand she wipes the skillet thoroughly with a filthy rag soaked in vegetable oil, and starts again.
Injara
jars are never washed so scraps of stale dough speed the fermentation of each fresh mixture.

Today I noticed some
tukuls
solidly built of stone and a few men wearing brown, or brown and black check blankets instead of
shammas
. These reminded me of the shepherds’ blankets in the Kangra Valley in northern India, though here the workmanship is much inferior to anything one sees in Asia.

Now I’m going to take my flea-bag out to the smooth turf of the compound and sleep beneath cool, brilliant stars; but because of the ferocity of the local hyenas Jock is being stabled in the
tukul
.

This morning my host woke me before it was light and seemed most anxious to see our backs, though highland hosts usually try to delay a guest’s departure. He had already brought out my kit from the
tukul
and was attempting to load Jock but could make no sense of the Italian saddle. He had tied the sacks, which I left open last night, and when he saw me untying one of them, to insert my flea-bag and Huskies, he became abusive. Investigating, I saw that he had stolen my
tin-box
of coins and everything else had been examined, though nothing else was missing. Now he was standing over me, scowling, and when I stood up he poked me roughly with his rifle and told me to load quickly and go. His fear suggested that by reporting to the headman I could recover my money, but remembering the unfriendly glares when we arrived last evening I decided to ignore the theft.
This incident was another illustration of the average highlanders’ lack of
intelligence
. Had my host behaved normally this morning I would never have thought of checking my possessions before leaving.

As we were walking across the table-flat plateau, towards a lemon-streaked, red-flecked east, I heard someone yelling ‘
Faranj!’ Faranj!
’ and looked round to see a young couple with three small children running to overtake us. They were going to visit relatives at Debre Zeit – twelve miles away, at the end of the plateau – and the father asked if their sickly five-year-old boy might ride on top of my load. Already the child was whimpering, so I could hardly say ‘no’, and he beamed delightedly when lifted on to the sacks. His eight-year-old sister walked sturdily with the adults, but his three-year-old brother rode all the way on Father’s shoulders.

For six miles our path ran level over parched grassland. Then it switchbacked through scrub – where baboons barked at us, and two hyenas went slinking into the bushes at our approach – and at 9.45 we saw the blue-gums of Debre Zeit against the horizon. I stopped briefly for
talla
at my companions’ destination, and then several boys guided me to the edge of the plateau and pointed out the downward path – a narrow, rocky stairway of blood-chilling instability.

I paused here, and looking north saw one massive square mountain, towering above scores of other blue giants. Undoubtedly this was Abuna Josef (13,747 feet), which overlooks Lalibela – and when without map or compass it is reassuring to have such a conspicuous landmark. Then I gazed down at the intervening chaos of mountains and gorges, and remembered that somewhere among them, hidden deep, the tortuous Takazze Gorge was waiting to renew our acquaintance. There are two special moments in a trek like this – the moment of challenge, when you first sight such a stretch of country, and the moment of triumph, when you look back over the same stretch as its conqueror. In the present case that moment of triumph still feels very far away.

From the base of the escarpment we slithered down a precipitous ploughed slope and were suddenly confronted with the most difficult descent yet. This was not a straightforward progress from high to low, but an involved scramble up, down and across a confusing complex of cliffs, ridges, and crags on which the path sometimes overhung drops of up to 1,000 feet. I enjoy rugged mountains, deep valleys and precarious situations – but one can have too much of anything.

We were three-quarters down when Jock lost his footing and went over the edge. I could hardly grasp the horror of it as I watched him fall. My mind refused to register that this really was happening. He landed on his back, on a narrow
ledge some thirty feet below the track – and then rolled off on to the next ledge, twenty feet lower. Mercifully this second ledge was about fifteen feet wide. Had he again rolled off he would have crashed onto rocks three hundred feet below.

Knowing nothing of the durability of mules I was astounded to see him scrambling to his feet, apparently intact. Impatience to examine him sent me down that cliff like a baboon – forgetful of my knee, which was severely
re-wrenched
on the way. The poor fellow was trembling all over – and so was I – but he seemed quite unharmed, and when I realised this I flung my arms around his neck and burst into tears. One could easily buy another mule, but one could never buy another Jock.

When we had pulled ourselves together I set about collecting my kit, which was strewn all over the two ledges. Yet the saddle was still in place: probably it had been both the cause of Jock’s fall and the shield which preserved him from injury. (Very likely Italian loading techniques were not adopted here because in these mountains it is safer to avoid protuberances on either side.) Little damage had been done, apart from a box of carbon paper being ruined by a burst tin of insecticide. Even my precious bottle of ink and my still more precious
fountain-pen
were unbroken. However, I soon discovered that it is not easy to load a mule on a ledge fifteen feet by ten, above a sheer drop of three hundred feet –
particularly
when the nerves of all concerned are in bits. It took me twenty minutes to get organised, and then we began timorously to pick our way across the cliff to rejoin what here passes for a path.

Twenty minutes later we were on the floor of a long, hot valley, where the arid earth was a dirty white and even the scrub looked unhealthy. Now I knew that my knee had been badly injured. Each step was such agony that I decided to spend the night in the nearest compound. But the second of the month is not our luckiest date. During the next four and a half torturing hours I saw not even one
tukul
in the distance – and I was afraid to camp out, lest a stiffening knee should leave me incapable of defending Jock from the possible attacks of hyenas or leopards.

The rough track led us out of the valley, up, across and down an
amba
, and then again down, down, down through dense forest to a broad river-bed where a shrunken stream flowed filthily between green-slimed stones. By then I was past caring about filth or slime. I drank pints to match Jock’s gallons, bathed and massaged my knee and in a daze of pain tackled the last lap – a
ninety-minute
climb to a wide plateau scattered with patches of stubble. A
settlement
lay half-way up a mountain at the plateau’s western edge, and though
our arrival caused some alarm my agonised exhaustion quickly reassured everyone.

Seven
tukuls
make up this compound (four for humans and three for animals) and the poverty and disease are heart-rending. I’m sitting now on a huge, smooth boulder, being demented by clouds of flies as I write on my usual food-box desk. Already the injured knee feels better, having twice been massaged expertly and lengthily by my hostess.

A few moments ago two shepherds drove the family’s wealth into the compound – one sheep, two lambs, a billy-goat, three nannies, two kids and five cows. All look dreadfully emaciated. This is the edge of the Lasta famine-area, which has been afflicted by drought during the past several years, and tonight Jock has had only half an armful of straw and I am on emergency rations. One of the shepherds, aged about fourteen, has limbs so frail and a head so
disproportionately
big and eyes so sunken that he seems to epitomise all the
starvation
in the world. Nor is his younger brother much better. There is a harrowing difference between sitting beside human beings in this condition and seeing Oxfam pictures of famine victims. Both boys, and the three younger girls, are clad in scraps of worn cow-hide. As I write two older girls are coming into the compound, bent double under huge water-jars; they must have had to carry these from some distant well or river, for they look near collapse. One of them has a gruesome leg, covered from knee to ankle with suppurating sores. Yet she seems quite cheerful, so now I feel ashamed of the fuss I have been making about my knee. Here medicine is not in demand – a sign that these people have had little or no contact with
faranjs
.

What a day! If any path to Lalibela exists in this region I’ve yet to find it, and at present Abuna Josef is my only hope of salvation.

This morning my knee felt less painful than I had expected and we were on our way by 6.30, but during the next three hours we can’t have gained more than three miles. Repeatedly our attempts to descend to river-level were thwarted by sheer, jungle-covered cliffs, which forced us back to the plateau to try another route; and when we did get into the gorge I couldn’t find a way out, for this was not one simple gorge, but a very beautiful labyrinth of deep ravines. We spent over an hour ploughing through soft, scorching, silver sand in search of a path on any of the forested cliffs that walled the various river-beds. Then, as we were following the most northerly stream, I saw people ahead – a surprise, amidst this
motionless, soundless wilderness. They were a laundering-party – eight children with their father and mother – and everyone was trampling patched clothes in stagnant pools.