The Attack of the Killer Rhododendrons (31 page)

This resulted in the introduction of eucalyptus plants from Australia starting in 1895. Seeds and young trees were distributed at little or no cost, and land planted with eucalyptus was exempt from taxes. They were planted in such great numbers that travellers in Ethiopia could tell when they were approaching a settlement by the abundance of trees. Eucalypts grew so quickly and regenerated so readily after harvest that some authorities claim that they have been among the most important factors in creating a modern Ethiopia. Indeed, Addis Ababa means “new flower,” the name chosen by Menelik II for the newly planted eucalypts. Addis Ababa has been described as a “city in a forest”—but the same can be said of Puerto Princesa in the Philippines, Knysna in South Africa, Dalat in Vietnam, Olsztyn in Poland, and Atlanta in the United States.

The debut of eucalypts in Ethiopia was one of the rare examples of a species that had been successfully introduced with tremendous
benefit and no immediately obvious negative consequences. I had been told that large chunks of Ethiopia are now covered with several species of eucalyptus, and Lindsay and I were off on a two-week circuit to see them.

On other adventures, I always felt a modicum of anxiety that I might not be able to find my chosen introduced species. Not a problem in this case; Lindsay and I saw eucalyptus trees and their impacts even before we left Addis Ababa. Legese explained that they grow furiously but aren’t allowed to attain great height before being harvested. Even so, they were generally the tallest trees we saw. Eucalyptus is used as a building material; in rural settings, traditional round dwellings are constructed on a framework of eucalyptus branches, completed using mud, straw, and cow dung. Twigs and leaves fuel cooking fires. However, its role as scaffolding material in the cities was easily the most dramatic. Sections of eucalyptus trunk were tied together with cord; we spied this rickety-looking scaffolding everywhere in the capital city. Almost every building was under construction or rejuvenation, and all of them had eucalyptus scaffolding. Two storeys up, three storeys up … I saw workers scrambling over eucalyptus scaffolding nine storeys above the unforgiving pavement. I wouldn’t have been willing to join them.

It took us quite some time to clear Addis Ababa. With 3.6 million residents already, it is growing at the astonishing rate of 8 percent per year. Housing fully 19 percent of the population of Ethiopia, Addis Ababa is the world’s largest city in a landlocked country. Even so, at the city’s largest intersection, traffic came to a halt to allow a herd of goats to pass. Traffic moved, but slowly and erratically, with frequent, rapid, and unsignalled lane changes. As a driver, I wouldn’t have lasted five minutes. Driving with a broken horn would be neither practical nor safe. Many vehicles spewed masses of black smoke, which left Lindsay and me with sore throats even before we left the capital heading south.

The rotating power outages had come to Sodo, our stop for the night. It was late, and we had had a very long day. However, we felt
there was nothing to be learned of life from sitting on the porch of our modest hotel room, so Lindsay and I set out for a walk along Sodo’s main street.

Most of the 55,000 residents of Sodo were walking the packed-earth street that evening. We were an oddity, and virtually everyone stared long and deeply. Most tourists drive through Sodo without stopping, and so a couple of
faranji
(Amharic for “foreigner”) walking the darkening streets was probably an uncommon sight. “Hello, hello!” was a common greeting. “You, you, you!” was another. We heard shouts of
“Faranji, faranji!”
which is not always used in a derogatory sense, so I was fine with it. A few people shouted “American!” after we had passed them, and it was said in a way that didn’t sound entirely welcoming.

Approaching the edge of town, we had gathered an impressive collection of children, who turned back toward the hotel when we did.

“Hello, hello,” they sang.

“Hello,” we replied.

“How are you?”

“I am fine. How are you?”

“I am fine.”

“Good. My name is Glen.” That last one required a bit of gesturing to get the point across.

“I want money.”

“I am sure you do.”

“I want money!”

“And I want a pony, but I’m pretty sure I’m not going to get one.”

“What?”

Lindsay was keen to buy fruit from roadside vendors, whose wares were spread out on blankets in front of them. She tried to get a shy young girl to tell her the price of a banana. Nervous chuckles were all the girl could manage. I suggested that Lindsay try to negotiate a price with the vendors herself. Sitting on their heels in front of their offerings, they were all staring at us and smiling, and there
was no way under Heaven’s skies that any of them were going to try to cheat her.

Lindsay squatted down in front of one woman, probably five years her junior but who looked twenty years older. The dozen or so youngsters who had been following us squatted around her. Lindsay negotiated for two bananas and a mango (1 birr, about 10 cents, each) and a pineapple (2 birr). The children were having a great time watching Lindsay as though the circus had just come to town. Lindsay didn’t mind being a source of entertainment. But among the growing crowd, there was a vague sense of hostile anxiety. Unbeknownst to Lindsay, six men had gathered behind her. They did not have the smiling faces of the youngsters, and I thought that we might be in for a bit of trouble. If someone made a grab for Lindsay’s wallet, the skirmish was going to be lopsided. I probably looked like a fossil with grey hair, thirty-two years older than the median age of Ethiopians and five years beyond the country’s life expectancy. With an air of confidence that I didn’t really feel, I stepped between Lindsay and the six men. As soon as she had collected her fruit, in the evening’s rapidly vanishing light, I told her that it was time to get back to our hotel. We walked briskly, and the words directed at us became a bit louder and a bit more hostile. Just before we got to the hotel compound, someone threw a wrench and it caught me in the calf. If I remember my Sunday school lessons properly, Sodo is where Noah’s wife was turned into a pillar of salt.

I
HAVE BEEN TO MANY
of the great art museums of Europe. I have seen many, many depictions of Eden rendered by the world’s greatest oil painters. These all seem to feature landscapes that look surprisingly like Cornwall. Each of these painters might have had a much better go at depicting Eden if they had visited Ethiopia. After all, as far as we know, this region is the birthplace of humankind. Many important fossils of our pre-human ancestors were found in Ethiopia, including “Lucy,” a 3-million-year-old, one-metre-tall
Australopithecus afarensis,
discovered in 1974. Vegetation in the southwest of Ethiopia featured shades of green that had never
before struck my eyes; not blue-green, yellow-green, or Danube Canal–green, just really, really green. Eden-green, I suppose.

In places, eucalyptus trees added greatly to the greenness. There are over 900 species of plant in the genus
Eucalyptus,
and almost all are native to Australia, where they dominate many landscapes. In fact, the only places where eucalypts are not found in Australia are the interior shrublands and the highest sites in the southern alpine zone. Variation within the group is substantial, with some maturing as low shrubs and others as giant trees. The leaves of many eucalypts have oil glands, making them aromatic. The flowers of most species are white or creamy, but some have red, pink, or purple flowers. Eucalypts really are a clever group of plants. If a stem dies as a result of grazing, fire, or being cut down, then buds develop from woody growths at the plant’s base. These are known as lignotubers and grow into new stems, allowing the individual to soldier on.

Horticulturalists are an ambitious lot, and almost 200 species of eucalypt have been tried as exotic imports somewhere or another. Not surprisingly, most of these have failed, but about two dozen have been spectacular successes. By far the most widely planted eucalyptus has been the Tasmanian blue gum. Of the twenty or so eucalypt species in Ethiopia, this is easily the most common. Growing to a height of fifty-five metres, it is characterized by a straight trunk and a large crown of foliage. It performs well because the leaves are unpalatable to cows and sheep. It is joined in Ethiopia by the red river gum, the sugar gum, the Sydney blue gum, the flooded gum, and the yellow box.

The rainy season was overdue, making everyone nervous about the possibility of food shortages, but as we rose to start the day, the skies opened. Our breakfast at a covered café consisted of coffee, banana juice, toast, and scrambled eggs. We watched the locals watching us and peering out at the cool, life-giving rain.

Driving carefully on the rain-slicked roads, Hassen piloted us out of Sodo. Unfortunately for the anxious farmers of Ethiopia, the rains didn’t last long, and the thirsty soil looked parched again almost immediately. It was the last heavy rain we were to see.

Because we were driving along a goat track, our progress was glacial, and we often had to slow down even more for creek crossings or sharp turns. At every spot where we had to slow down, one or more children had set up shop. Most of them would simply scream, “You, you, you!” and stick out their hands for money or candy. Those who had wandered away from the road for a moment came streaking across the fields when they heard our vehicle approach.

Great mountains one moment and deep valleys the next, this was a big and glorious land. The ground was parched and dazzling because of it. As we moved further south, eucalyptus trees were replaced by acacias and scrub. Here and there rose great termitaria, like giant, proud, sandy penises.

I
HAD SET MY ALARM
for 6:00 the next morning so that I could work on my notes, but I found the skies completely dark and the power out. I tried again at 6:30, and then at 7:00, and finally gave up. After a very, very cold shower, I went for a walk along the main road of Jinka, giving Lindsay a chance to ready herself for the day.

Jinka is a small community that serves as the administrative centre for the South Omo region, and at that hour the road was mainly occupied by uniformed students walking to school. I joined the procession. I received a lot of greetings, but no one engaged me in serious conversation until Phillip got off his bicycle and fell in with me.

“Hello,” he began.

“Hello. How are you?”

“I am fine. I am going to school.” Phillip’s vocabulary was better than most.

“That is very good. I think that your school uniform is handsome.”

“Thank you. Where are you from?”

“I am from Canada.”

“Is that in Europe? No, it is in North America, correct?”

“That is correct. My name is Glen.”

“My name is Phillip. When I finish school, I will go to university. I will probably go to Oxford in England.”

“That is good, Phillip. I am a university professor.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“You?”

“Yes.”

“Really?”

All right, Phillip; I get the idea. “Yes, me. I teach biology.”

“I love biology.”

“Well, I am going to turn around here, so goodbye.”

“Maybe I will see you tomorrow,” said Phillip, and I got the impression that I would be seeing him tomorrow no matter where or at what time I went for a walk.

After a hearty breakfast of tea, banana juice, and French toast, we were on our way. Unlike the previous day’s roads, which were all under construction, the roads Hassen drove us over now were as complete as they ever would be but terribly rough, rolling, and weather-worn. As we climbed, Legese pointed out that while northern Ethiopia had long been strongly influenced by the Arabian Peninsula, the south had always had closer links with the rest of Africa. I think I saw what he meant; as we approached the mountain peaks and looked down on the savanna, the view looked, somehow, quintessentially African, as though a deeply buried part of my mind was speaking to me of humankind’s origins. The region was dominated by acacia with a sprinkling of juniper, eucalyptus, and other broad-leaved shrubs and trees.

When we got to the limits of Mago National Park, a sign written in English gave us a list of dos and don’ts. Among the prohibited activities were the use of machine guns and the disruption of park staff. Beautiful beyond words, Mago was completely uncontaminated by tourists, save for us. At a river crossing deep, deep in the park, we came to a rope across the road, which separated us from what lay beyond. After paying a fee, the rope was dropped, and Legese jumped into the back with Lindsay and me to make room for our park-mandated guide. I had to wonder what officials at the Chelsea Football Club would think if they knew that one of their
scarves was being used as a sling for our guide’s rifle. The guide’s position was probably a make-work project, but the rifle’s official function was to protect us from lions and other dangerous wildlife.

We arrived at the village of the pastoralist Mursi people, probably best known for their beehive-shaped huts and the large clay disks that women wear in their lower lips. At the age of about twenty, a cut is made in the woman’s lower lip to insert a small disk. Larger and larger disks are inserted over time to stretch the lip more and more. Apparently the ideal situation is to have a woman’s lip so distended that she can pull it over her head. Lindsay asked Legese why these women subjected themselves to the mutilation required to fit disks in their lips. He said that the original function was lost to the mists of time but may be related to disfigurement that made one less desirable as a potential slave. The tradition continues as a thing of beauty and desire.

Twenty-two men, women, and children rushed the vehicle on our approach. I would have dearly loved a long chat with some of them, utilizing a two-stage translation through Legese and our park guide. But this was not the way things worked here. We were led from the vehicle to one part of the beehive village and invited to take photographs. Bare-breasted, droop-lipped, and willing to stand wherever we wanted them to. Lindsay wanted pictures but didn’t want to be behind the camera, so she handed it over to me. If I said, “All right, how about you and you and you over there?” the park guide would cut those people from the pack and line them up. The visitor then snaps a photograph and pays each person in the photo 2 birr, about 20 cents. Others would try to sneak into the picture so that they could claim their 2 birr, but the guide would promptly cut them back out.