In Ethiopia with a Mule (7 page)

At the base we waited for the Chief Clerk and the junior policeman, who were holding hands like a pair of frightened children as they came slowly slithering down in a cloud of dust. A moment before the sun had reached the top of the escarpment, and I gazed up with joy at those grotesquely eroded pinnacles, now looking as though freshly drenched in burgundy.

During the next half-hour we were crossing an already-too-hot area of black lava-beds, interspersed with deep, powdery, white ash and bluish chunks of rock which made a tinkling cinder-sound beneath our feet. Then came a steep descent, through an unexpected tangle of lush greenery, into the shadowed, narrow ravine of a dry river bed. Here walking was made difficult by unsteady stones lying hidden beneath fine, pale dust; but occasionally I paused to look up at the serrated tops of gold and crimson cliffs that were rising gloriously against a deep blue sky.

We passed many pools of scummy water – the breeding sites of malarial mosquitos – and now it was the mules’ turn to feel frustrated. They paused often to sniff at these pools, but had too much sense ever to drink from them.

Within the past few hours we had descended from 8,000 to 6,000 feet and, as the ravine widened, I began to suffer from the strong rays of this equatorial sun; but soon we turned up a cul-de-sac side-valley and came to a grotto where sparkling spring water dripped from the rock into a deep pool. The object of this detour was to water the animals and give everyone an opportunity to wash all over.

Abbi Addi is the administrative centre of the Tembien district, yet it is
misleading
to refer to the place as a ‘town’. Walking through its laneways one has to negotiate small boulders and minor gorges, and all the houses are single-storey, roughly-constructed shacks. The headquarters of the district administration is an extraordinary building, made of iron-sheeting, even to the floors; and because many sheets are missing one has to jump over six-foot-deep holes, half filled with chunks of rock.

When we reached the Governor’s office a pleasant man of about forty, dressed in a dark lounge suit, respectfully received me. He was sitting behind a paperless desk on which stood an antique winding telephone, and he looked so pitifully perplexed by my presence that I wanted to pat him on the head and tell him not to worry – though this wouldn’t have done much good, as he spoke not a word of English. There is no post office here, but an Italian-initiated telephone link
of uncertain temper is maintained with Adua and Makalle, so I pointed to the machine and said loudly and clearly, ‘Leilt Aida’.

It took an hour to get my call through and while I was waiting the policemen, who had been standing to attention in the background, were signed off duty and eagerly came towards me to request a written testimonial for presentation to their superior officer. The possibility of any Ethiopian ever being able to decipher my handwriting – even if he could read English – is incalculably remote, but here the collection of such chits has become an obsession, which again indicates a deep-rooted lack of trust. Subordinates feel it necessary always to
prove
that they have done their duty well, where in our society this would be taken for granted.

After a brief argument with Leilt Aida, on the subject of bodyguards, she relented and spoke reassuringly to the perplexed Governor – though it was obvious that even her permission did not quite reconcile him to the idea of a lone
faranj
wandering around his district.

I then went to a
talla-beit
to drink several pints in preparation for the next eight-mile stage to this settlement. Jock had already been unloaded and provided with straw; he looked disillusioned on being reloaded so soon – by a group of local experts – but resignedly followed me when I set off in the cruel midday heat.

At first the track was ankle-deep in stifling volcanic ash and, as it wound between heat-reflecting boulders, I streamed sweat; but here the air is so dry that clothes never get damp – though my hair, under a wide straw hat, quickly becomes saturated. After a few miles I saw a woman and her filthy toddler sitting under a wild fig-tree beside a fat earthenware jar of
talla
. Assuming this to be the highland version of a roadside pub I collapsed nearby – to the terror of the toddler – and downed a quart at one draught. It was a thickish, grey-green brew, full of husks and unidentifiable bits and scraps, but I only cared that it was wet and had been kept cool by green leaves stuffed into the narrow mouth of the jar. The gourds used as drinking vessels never encounter washing-water; they are merely rinsed with a little
talla
before one’s drink is poured. While I was imbibing my second quart two old men came along and stopped to look wistfully at the
talla
-jar – and then hopefully at me. I stood them a drink each, and that was the end of my solitude for today. They too were coming here, so they insisted on accompanying me, one leading Jock. (It is considered frightfully non-U for a
faranj
to walk instead of riding and the absolute bottom for a
faranj
personally to lead a pack-animal.) The only traffic we saw was a man on a cantering mule, escorted by two servants running alongside – one armed with a rifle. Highlanders
rich enough to own riding-mules never travel unprotected and their servants are natural long-distance runners. No wonder Ethiopia’s representative has won two Olympic Marathons – he probably regarded the twenty-six mile race as a sort of pre-breakfast stroll.

The track was easy, running smoothly over a burnt-up golden-brown plain, with dusty-blue mountains in the middle distance and contorted red cliffs nearby. The highest of these cliffs was used for exterminating Italians during the war and one can still see a few bleached human bones lying at its base.

This settlement is on a hilltop from which superb mountains are visible in every direction and when we arrived, at half-past-four, it seemed that my
appearance
was the most shattering local event since the Italian invasion. A
ten-year-old
boy who goes to school at Abbi Addi was summoned as interpreter; his English is minimal, but he conveyed that soon the headman would come to welcome me. This encounter took place fifty yards from the edge of the
settlement
and pending the headman’s investigation I was not encouraged to approach any nearer. None of the many staring men who had surrounded me seemed at all well-disposed – which is understandable, when one remembers what this region suffered during the occupation and how impossible it is for these peasants to distinguish between Italians and other
faranjs
.

Indicating that Jock could safely be left, Yohannes, my young guide, led me to a nearby Italian military cemetery where scores of graves lie in neat rows – their headstones smashed or defaced – at the end of an avenue of
mathematically-planted
giant candelabra. In a country where neither building nor cultivation is planned or arranged, but everything appears merely to have ‘happened’, this little corner of forlorn orderliness was alien indeed – the epitome of the whole Italian-Ethiopian tragedy.

On our return we found Jock surrounded by Workhsegeh’s entire male population and the headman stepped forward to greet me ceremonially. He looked rather ill-at-ease in rumpled khaki slacks and a patched tweed jacket, so I deduced that he had been delayed by a compulsion to don these garments of state in my honour. It is sad that Western clothes have become status symbols – the highlanders look so dignified and right in even the most tattered
shammas
, which hang around them in swinging folds and gracefully emphasise their proud, erect bearing.

Yohannes explained that I was to stay in a hut in the chief’s sister’s compound; but another long delay followed because the hut was being cleaned out for my reception. There are some forty compounds here, each containing two or three
tukuls
and all securely fenced in by thorn bushes as a protection against hyenas and leopards. This hut is used only as a bedroom-cum-storeroom. A narrow mud platform runs around half the circumference and opposite is a mud ‘double-bed’, with a built-in ‘pillow bump’ at one end. The cow-hides and goat-skins must secrete bugs by the million so I have already sprayed fanatically, uncharitably wishing the livestock on the three children who will be my hut-mates. As I write, by the light of a tiny wick floating in oil, a clay vat of
talla
is fermenting audibly beside me.

The chief’s elderly sister is friendly though shy. When I entered the compound
talla
was immediately produced and each time I half-emptied my quart-measure gourd it was filled to the brim by Yohannes.

My supper consisted of two minute raw eggs, sucked from their shells, and a rusty tinful of fresh milk. Then I sat by the door watching the sunset colours and the first stars darting out in a still-blue sky. The men were all sitting on their haunches in the compound, talking and drinking
talla
, their
shammas
wrapped tightly around them against the evening air – which to me feels only pleasantly cool. The women were pounding peppers for
wat
in a hollow piece of tree-trunk, or cooking
injara
over a wood-fire in the main hut; probably none was offered to me because of a mistaken idea that it is unacceptable to
faranjs
.

My attempts to buy barley for Jock have failed and he is tethered to a gnarled, dry-leaved tree, mournfully chewing pale
teff
straw – which contains no nourishment whatever, though presumably it will take the edge off his hunger. This whole compound is rather miserable; a few thistles grow in corners and a little enclosed patch of cotton-bushes is the ‘garden’. But the people are very handsome, like most highlanders. Both men and women have the basic bone-structure that good looks become even more pronounced with old age and everyone shows the finest of teeth that seem never to decay. Few
highlanders
are conspicuously tall, though the young sub-chief here is well over six feet and devastatingly handsome. I suspect that he and several of his
contemporaries
have some Italian blood. This is not because of any difference in colouring (many of the highlanders are quite fair-skinned, owing to their part-Semitic ancestry), but because of a difference in physique. The spindly limbs of the highland men and the exaggerated buttocks of the women clearly distinguish them from any European race.

Ten minutes ago ferocious fighting broke out nearby. The roars and screams of pain and rage were rather alarming, but Yohannes calmly explained that it
was only a quarrel about cattle-stealing between neighbours armed with
mule-whips
. Now all is silent again, and as the boys have just come in to sleep I’ll do likewise – I hope!

This has been an irritating New Year’s Day. When I was ready to start at 6.30 a.m. disaster befell me, for Yohannes was unequal to explaining (or the chief was unwilling to believe) that Leilt Aida had said I might travel alone. Therefore an escort of two was inflicted upon me and as these youths were anxious to get home this evening we arrived here at 2 p.m., having covered sixteen miles of rough terrain in six hours.

Our departure was delayed by the chief’s insistence on giving my escort a chit, to be delivered to the police on our arrival here; then the boys would be given a receipt from the police for the chief, confirming my safe delivery, and another chit from me informing all whom it might concern that they had done their duty in proper fashion. Such a preoccupation with the written word seems odd in a country where at least 99 per cent of the rural population is illiterate; but possibly it is because of this illiteracy that chits are considered so immensely significant. The sub-chief was the only person in Workhsegeh who could write and, when I had provided paper and pen, all the elders held a long and
inexplicably
acrimonious discussion about what was to be inscribed. Then the young man began his anguished struggle to form the Tigrinya characters. Merely to watch this effort made me feel mentally exhausted – and when we arrived here the whole performance was repeated, with variations.

Before we left I shocked everyone profoundly by trying to pay for my lodgings; looking at me with scorn Yohannes said – ‘Here we don’t like money.’

At 10.30 we stopped briefly for the boys to eat hunks of dark brown, bone dry
dabo
, which they wished to share with me. I can’t imagine how they swallow it without water: and they never seemed to get thirsty, despite the heat.

All day we climbed steeply up and down countless arid grey-brown hills, dotted with thorny scrub. An amount of white marble was mixed with the rock and clay – great chunks of it glistened in the sun and sometimes marble chips lay in such profusion that the slopes looked like urban cemeteries. No
settlements
were visible, though we passed several herds of cattle and flocks of goats – tended, as usual, by small, naked, circumcised boys. In the heat of the day these children wear their folded
shammas
as thick pads on top of their shaven heads.

Our toughest climb was during the hottest noon hour – up a precipitous mountain of bare rock on a rough, dusty path. Yet in these highlands a strong, cool breeze often relieves even the midday heat. This climb ended on a high pass, where I paused to drink deeply from my water-bottle while gazing across the hills that we had traversed since morning. Already the weirdly shaped ridges around Workhsegeh were blurred by haze and distance.

My impatient bodyguard had hurried on with Jock and, as I trotted downhill after them, I reflected that the machine-age has dangerously deprived Western man of whole areas of experience that until recently were common to the entire human race. Too many of us are now cut off from the basic sensual
gratifications
of resting after violent exercise, finding relief from extremes of heat or cold, eating when ravenously hungry and drinking when the ache of thirst makes water seem the most precious of God’s creations.