Trip north- blog

Day 2- Wokoro
I have spent the past two days driving north with pere phillipe, a French spiritan, and his parents. It was quite an amazing drive. On day 1 we ascended by car up to 3000 meters. There we stopped to have a look at the view. First we were approached by a man who wanted to sell us wool caps with baboon hair pointing out the top.
Hold out and let me explain that last part.
We walked on and all the sudden I noticed some monkeys climbing the ledge. They appeared quite small. Then, at the ledge, we were overtaken by quite an amazing site. It was a baboon with flong volumiounous hair that was about 4 inches long. He would be the Fabio of baboons. As he hurtled up the cliff face, the hair bounced gracefully up and down. The beauty of his hair and the ferocity of his stature were quite striking comparisons.

I later bought one of these hats for 30 bir. I thougjt I was finished, but then the man offered to trade me a hat for one of my t shirts. I happly obliged.

The Italians occupied Ethiopia for about six years during mussoloni’s reign. While they did not have the same cultural effect as colonizers in other countries, they certainly had their own influence on the transport infrastructure. Across the country the transport still heavily relies on the bridges that were built by the Italians. Leaving the baboons, we quickly crossed through the Mussolini tunnel, which still bears his name at the north end of it.

Crossing the mountains, I felt as if I was transported into a different world. All the sudden we were surrounded by green. It seems that moisture rises from the red sea and these clouds are halted by the mountains. It is truly stunning. Across the landscape I saw green fields spotting the terrain.

As we headed north, the thatch huts were slowly replaced by stone houses. We are now in Wukoro, staying at the white fathers residence. They are running an agriculture school as well as a secondary and primary school. Fr. Angelo, a basque Spanish priest, was explaining to me how they also care for over 1000 orphans. Most of these children lost their parents during the Eritrean/Ethiopian war during the 90’s.

The landscape here is quite barren. Stones seem to scatter the land. Amongst the mountains in this region are very many rock hewn churches, some of which that date back to the 10th century. The three that we have seen so far have truly been spectacular.

Day 7 Gonder
I have certainly been less faithful to the blog than I intended. Waking up early, spending a whole day on my feet hiking in the sun to reach ancient churches and having large spicy meals leaves one a little tired at the end of the day. Even if I stay up reading, I have a tough time sitting down to write.

Here are some random observations I have had over the past week.
It seems whenever we reach the highland countries, it all the sudden becomes cool to have a cane. Young men with large blankets wrapped around their chests and otherwise normal, if somewhat dirty clothes, sport the cane like some people in the US sport cell phones. Really more

I have added one more skill to my skills list, which is I have learned how to shave with a pocket knife. I didn’t bring a razor of any sort with me on this trip, as I now have a beard and can usually go a few days on the neck without a problem. Traveling with a car full of French people, encouraged me, however, to give shaving a go to look just a hair more presentable. In the absence of an actual razor, I pulled out my mini leatherman and shaved my neck.

While I can entertain children for a short time with hand play antics, animal faces and animal sounds, they will still get ask me for money or pens and still get angry when I refuse. They sometimes even throw rocks.


I do not want to generalize any group of people, but I really am curious what has made Ethiopia so different in terms of begging than every other country I have gone to. It seems everywhere we go, we are asked for a pen or money. Even as we drive along, people stick out their hands asking for money. At least for the personal encounters, perhaps I am merely more senisitive to it because of the language barrier. In other countries, I can easily break the “tension” of such moments because of my facility with the language. Traveling to the north, we traveled out of amharinga speaking land and into tigrinia speaking land. I couldn’t even use the few Amharic words I had learned to defer the regular seeker of bills and coins. Also, it was pointed out to me by a Zambian white father priest, that the life is indeed much harsher here than many other areas in east Africa. The land is rugged and dry. The fields are only harvested for wheat in the north at least, once a year. In Uganda there seemed to be such an abundance of food that it was hard to believe that people had problems



Anyways, here is an account of the trip thus far.


Churches

On Thursday we visited three churches. The first was mikael imba, which means Michael on the hill. It was located on the top of a little hill, with steep walls. A mushroom of sorts. We were told earlier by a young boy that the priest was not there and no one had the keys. Sensing better, we drove on. We were met by an old nun. No priest was there, but she had the keys. Walking around as she tried to reach the priest, we walked to a place where the ancient church used to be. It was circular and freestanding. Having completed mikael imba, they tore this structure down. We also saw the cistern where the water was collected.
Deny tried to take a phote of some flowers, but phillip called him back, telling him it was forbidden to go behind the eastern corner of the church.

We entered the church after finally negotiating the price down to 20 bir. Everisto, a white father priest from zambia did the negotioationg for us. The exterior of the church itself is quite impressive. It is a 3/4ths church, meaning that 3/4ths of the church is exposed. The other part is carved into, but not out of the mountain.
The exterior door had been recently repainted and an arch from an interior chancellory that had fallen was added to the exterior door. All the same, the wood carving on the door was very finely carved. It formed intricate geometric crosses.
The narthex immediately displayed the lined sandstone that makes up this mountain.
Inside, it was hard to believe that the entire immense structure had been hewn out of the rock.
There were no paintings on the interior walls.
Phillip pointed out to us the structure of the church. This church in particular had 3 tabots, so both the sacrestums had altars and a holy of holies. Wherever there is a tabot there is a holy of holies. The tabot is a replica of the ark of the covenant.

I was quite impressed right from the start with this rock hewn church. It was hard to imagine that all of this had been carved directly out of the rock



Mikael debra salam
The second church we visited was mikael debra salam. It took us a good amount of time to get to the location, and upon nearing the mountain, we found the peasants in the area had blocked the road. Apparently they were unhappy that the government cut through their fields. We were quickly surrounded by 8 children who wanted to accompany us up the mountain. This is a ploy for them to get money. If they carry your bag, hold your hand or even just walk quietly beside you, they will later ask for money for the service rendered. We also heard from the priest at the top of the mountain that they sometimes steal things from visiting tourists. More on the urchins later….
Finally arriving at the upper side of the mountain, we entered the church grounds. I could still see the vestiges of ancient hermit structures carved into the mountain above the church.
We negotiated the price to 20 bir on the condition that we could actually enter the church. There had been a cement structure built around the church to protect it from the elements. The church is located next to a holy spring of some sorts.
After fully examining the exterior paintings, we made our way to enter the church. At this point, we, and the accompanying priest, were impeded by one of the young monks (14 yrs old). He was a terribly suspicious fellow, and was afraid to even allow us to put our feet into the church. There was a curtain covering the main part of the church, and he was even unwilling to part that for us. We finally were able to get the curtain open, but we had to view everything from the footstep of the church.

There are a few ways that an Ethiopian church is set up. They can be rectangular, cross shaped and round churches. The round churches are a development of the 16th century and the rectangular and cross shape date back to axumite times (6th century). There are often two entrances for each gender. The churches are always set up east to west, with the sanctuary always being in the east. This is to signify Christ as the coming son. This is a model that used to be followed in the latin west and is often exhibited in pre-reformation churches. Ethiopian church services often start at 6am on Sundays. Why? Once again, they are practicing a symbolism that has long been in the church, Christ as the sun. there Eucharistic celebrations are thus done in parallel with the sunrise.
Within the most eastern part of the church is the sacristy and the holy of holies. The holy of holies is where the most important consecrations are done, where the altar is located and on this altar, where the tabot is at. The tabot is a representation of the ark of the covenant, or more specifically, the tablets of the ark of the covenant. This is a very revered item, unique to the Ethiopian tradition. The ark and the entire history behind it plays a strong role in the identity of semitic speaking Ethiopians. The belief is that the queen of sheba, who was from the region of axum, visited king Solomon and bore him a son named menelik. When menelik was old enough, he went to visit his farther in Jerusalem. The elders in Jerusalem had asked Solomon to send menelik away, for they feared the favor he bestowed on him, so he agreed, but on the condition that they sent their eldest sons with him. The son of the chief priest had a dream that he should take with him the ark, and so he did, unbeknownst to menelik or Solomon. When menelik found out, he said that it must be god’s will if they were able to take it away as such. Ethiopians still claim today to have the ark of the covenant in axum, but only one monk is allowed to see it. There has been a long standing tradition of the solomonic dynasty and even Emperor haile selassie claimed that solomonic blood ran through his own.
Regardless of the verity of the story, it plays a prominent role in ttraditional Ethiopian identity and liturgy. The tabot is venerated much like the tabernacle is within the latin catholic church. When the tabot is in a church, there is no possibility for an unordained to approach and enter the holy of holies. This in part put fear into the young monk who would not allow us to enter.

On our route down, Phillips mother, christain, twisted her ankle.

All the way down, surrounded by young children, I taught them the English equivalents to the natural world around us.
When we returned to the car, now surrounded with 20 children, they all started asking for money. Even the young monk who refused us entry into the church expected 2 bir for himself. I had joked with them telling them that I was the school teacher here, so they should be giving me bir for school feees. The joke was not well received. While Christian did give a pen and a bir to the young man who helped her up and down the mountain, we were not about to pay the demanding lot for merley the grace of their presence. As we drove away, some of the kids started throwing stones. We nearly had a riot on our hands, if you can believe it. It was not pretty, and certainly not the best way to visit churches.

Our third church that day was unfortunately locked. We had climbed in the rain up a mountain to get there. With the help of a local farmer, we opened some of the windows to view in the church. I was not about to break into a church, but the thought did cross my mind. This church would have been one of the earliest rock hewns, dating to the 10th century BC.

More to come…