New flower in Ethiopia

The pretty Ethiopian waitress had a flower in her hair. I said, "It's very nice." She smiled at me and said, "Addis Ababa!"  I was on my way back to India after travelling through northern Ethiopia.

The middle-aged woman seated next to me on the bus from Addis Ababa to Bahir Dar gestured to me to have some more coffee. The bus was scheduled to start from Addis Ababa at 5 a.m. and it had started before time at 4:45 a.m. It was a non-air-conditioned bus. The bus had a driver and a hostess, a young woman. She handed me a ham sandwich, a small carton of juice for breakfast and some paper napkins. There was a middle-aged woman seated next to me and she had brought a large flask of coffee along with paper cups. She did not know English. She kept offering me cups of coffee. The bus stopped for lunch in Debra Markos. The hostess told me, "Debra means 'church' in Amharic. Debra Markos is 'Church of St. Mark.' " Everyone got down and washed their hands with soap. Everyone ate the Ethiopian national dish, injera (sour, fermented and spongy flatbread) with their hands.

In Bahir Dar, I wanted to see Lake Tana, the source of the Nile River and the ancient Christian monasteries on its banks. Ethiopia is the second oldest Christian nation in the world, after Armenia. In the hotel, I met a German couple, a young man and a young woman and we decided to share a taxi to Lake Tana. In the boat jetty, we met an old couple from Wales. The five of us rented a boat to visit the monasteries. From Bahir Dar, the Germans were planning to go to Gondar, do a hike in the Simien mountains, travel to Axum and Lalibela and then get back to Addis Ababa for their trip back to Germany. But there were problems between the two of them. They were talking to me but not talking to each other. The woman sat on one end of the boat and the man sat on the other end. 

The old Welsh lady asked me, "What do you find interesting? Europe or Africa?" I said, "Anything culturally different from India is interesting to me." "You must find Europe more interesting, because Europe is rich. Africa is like India, full of poverty," she said. "But it's culturally very different," I said. "We went to Mumbai and went on a slum tour. We went inside the huts. We found it culturally enlightening," she said. I wanted to ask her, but did not, "Can I tour your rich house in Wales? It may be culturally enlightening for me."

From Bahir Dar, I was travelling to Gondar. I had bought a seat in a minivan. They said that they would pick me up from my hotel. The minivan turned up on time at my hotel. I was the only passenger in the vehicle. The driver drove half a kilometre and stopped at an intersection. He was trying to pick-up passengers and fill up the minivan. A young woman got up and sat next to me. She knew English and somehow, we started talking about politics. "Every politician is corrupt. All of them," she said. "Was Gandhi corrupt?" she asked. She was talking about Mahatma Gandhi. "I don't think so," I said. "We will never know, do we? Maybe Mandela was corrupt too," she said. "In Ethiopia, everyone is corrupt. Right from the top," she said. "I don't think Manmohan Singh is corrupt. Everyone else maybe," I said. It was 2012 and Manmohan Singh was the Prime Minister of India. "You just don't know," she postulated.

I was buying the entry ticket to Fasiladas' Palace in Gondar, when a young woman came up to me and said, "Do you need a guide?" I couldn't decide and she said, "I will show you the Indian connection." I agreed to hire her. "The palace was built by an Indian architect," she said. "How did he reach Ethiopia and why?" I asked. "King Fasiladas sent a gift to Aurangzeb to congratulate him on his accession to the throne of the Mughal Empire. He sent an architect to Ethiopia," she said. The arrival of the gift in Aurangzeb's court is described by the French traveller, Francois Bernier who was present in Aurangzeb's court. She showed me the Indian influences in the architecture of the palace. She also showed me inscriptions in Hindi and Sanskrit on the stone walls inside the palace. There was a man taking pictures with an iPad. She asked me, "How much does an iPad cost?" I said, "20,000 Birr." Her jaw dropped.

She took me to a cafe and had a coffee, brewed with a traditional clay filter. The coffee was Ethiopian. Ethiopia is one of the world's largest producers of coffee. I had a coffee and a Dashen beer! I had seen huge signboards while entering Gondar, announcing that Dashen was the beer of Gondar. It is brewed locally in Gondar. She asked me, "Are you a vegetarian?" I said, "No." "If you want, you can get vegetarian food in Ethiopia," she said. "Are a lot of Ethiopians vegetarian?" I asked. She said, "No. Ethiopians are very religious Orthodox Christians. We fast a lot. When we fast, we eat only vegetarian food." "Vegetarian food is called 'fasting food'. If you want vegetarian food, just ask for 'fasting food'," she said.

In 2012, it was a two-day journey by bus from Gondar to Lalibela. So, I decided to take a flight. I was waiting in Gondar airport, when I saw an Indian woman wearing a saree, travelling on the same flight. I walked across to her and smiled at her. She completely ignored me. She didn't even acknowledge me. I had met the first unfriendly person in Ethiopia. There are very few flights that I have taken, where I have not seen another Indian on the flight. A flight that I remember is from Lomé, Togo to Abidjan,
Côte d'Ivoire. I was the only Indian on that flight. But why do most Indians ignore each other in foreign lands? They don't have to talk, but they can at least acknowledge each other.

I was visiting the fabulous, rock-hewn, monolithic churches of Lalibela. There was a European tour group with an Ethiopian guide. A woman asked the guide, "Who built these churches?" "Ethiopians," the guide said. "I don't believe it. It must have been the Egyptians," she said. "Why will the Egyptians build churches?" the guide asked. "Then it must have been the Greeks," the woman said. "The Greeks never came to Ethiopia," the guide said. "Maybe it was the Romans," the woman said. "The Roman empire collapsed before these churches were built," said the guide. "I don't believe that the Ethiopians built it," the woman concluded. The guide angrily reiterated, "It was built by Ethiopians. Ethiopia is the only country in Africa which was not colonised by Europeans. We are a very proud nation."

Back in my hotel, I was having Tej (Ethiopian honey wine) in the courtyard, when I saw the German woman in Lake Tana sitting alone. I walked across to her and asked, "Did you go to Gondar?" She said, "No." "Did you hike the Simien mountains?" I asked. She said, "No." "What happened?" I said. She said, "I am going back to Germany." She had broken up with her partner. Late that night, I got a message that my friend, Priya in India, had had a baby. I replied, "Boy or girl?" But I did not get a reply until the next morning. She had a boy, named Rayan.

The young woman seated next to me on the flight to Addis Ababa from Lalibela, was a Korean. She was travelling from Seoul - Addis Ababa - Bahir Dar - Gondar - Lalibela - Addis Ababa - Seoul. In six days! "I am doing the trip in six days," she said proudly. "Are you on track?" I asked. She said, "Yes. In a few hours, from Addis Ababa, I catch the flight back to Seoul." "You should apply for the 'Asian Flying Carpet' award," I said. She took me seriously, bowed her head and said, "Yes, I will! Thank you." I have never before met anyone doing 7 cities in 2 continents in 6 days.

I was back in Addis Ababa and I wrote and mailed postcards to my friends and family. I walked into an Indian restaurant, since I hadn't had any Indian food for quite some time. There were two Indian men sitting at the table next to mine. I asked them, "Do you people live in Ethiopia?" They said, "Yes. We are school teachers here." One of them said, "I miss Indian TV channels. How much does a Tata Sky subscription cost in India?" Tata Sky is a satellite television service in India. I told him. He said, "Wow. They charge ten times more here." The other man said, "I bought a Tata Sky connection in India. I threw out the satellite dish. I brought the set-top box here. Here I bought a dish and got it connected to the set-top box, by a local technician." "I pay the monthly bill online," he added. In India, it is known as jugaad! (a flexible approach to problem-solving that uses limited resources in an innovative way)

On my way back to India, I walked into a cafe in Addis Ababa airport and decided to have a traditionally brewed Ethiopian coffee for one last time. The pretty Ethiopian waitress had a flower in her hair. I said, "It's very nice." She smiled at me and said, "Addis Ababa." 'Addis Ababa' means 'new flower'!

What is the most hectic trip that you have done? How many days was it?

Comments please! Thou shalt get a reply!

Update

November 2020: A civil war has broken out in northern Ethiopia. The airports in Bahir Dar and Gondar got bombed.

Check out my previous blog on Ethiopia, "It's not blackmail! It's Ethiopia!": http://kodavarthi.blogspot.com/2020/12/its-not-blackmail-its-ethiopia.html?m=1

Copyright © 2020 by Shyam Kodavarthi. All rights reserved.