the mountain village from below
The Sheraton. Ahh the Kelelela Sheraton. A place I won’t easily forget. The atmosphere, the mud outside. The ground in the mountain areas is often a red clay. With the sudden hard rains it became a sticky messy thick crumbling paste. Small room with bed and rickety table. The sleep was pretty good, actually. The bed was not too bad at all, with only a slight right-angled slope. I had one adventure seeking out the urinal, rather the top of my head did as it hit a low hanging beam. The next day the cut on the top of my head was the source of much concern though ok. Silly tall ferengi.
We were to meet at 7 as usual but the three of us were all up at 6 because though the beds weren’t horrible they were not fantastic. So we helped the coffee shop, tibs place, get her lights on. Bekele was full of appropriate insults and conjoling which had the young woman proprietor laughing. Conjo with a hard j is ‘beautiful,’ not the Spanish swear word. They sound very similar. Bekele explained that if you say it rudely, sort of gruffly with a smile, it gets a laugh and good service. We do get good service, but I think it has more to do with Bekele’s charm, not a universal thing.
One of the boys from the day before was also up early. He enjoyed watching us. I had eggs, scrambled, on injeera. Not tibs. That was nice. The coffee was wonderful. The light in the place was dim, and since it was so early, it felt very mystical, with the crisp air and the sun pushing its way over the mountain.
We met TT&T and were off for a whirl-wind tour of sites. We stopped along a road to look at a hill side where TT&T had planted trees. The soil is so degraded because of deforestation that this fairly large amount of acreage was only a drop in the bucket. At once I felt awe at their work and at the amount still to be done.
We then went to a small village where they had been working for the last two years. This was a walk down from the road into a small valley that overlooked an immense drop and a larger valley. Impossible to describe how this nestled bunch of huts evoked the images of fantastical mountain villages, my pictures just don’t capture it.
And although the beauty remained, the spell was quickly broken as we stepped from grass onto a muddy path that vined its way through the huts and trees. They had been busy. The area was like an oasis sitting smack at the low point between two steep hills, almost triangular, with the huts going up either side. In the center was the water point, a cattle trough, and a community garden. They had also planted many trees to provide shelter from wind and to stop erosion. It was stunningly beautiful, simple, muddy, and an example of the arduous life. Its all relative. What they had done was again a huge accomplishment, but their existence is from a time more than 200 years ago, minus the water point, and the odd cell phone, and us time travelers.
The community garden was fertilized by two ArborLoos (eco sanitation latrines that convert the human waste into fertile soil by combining ash and topsoil over its relatively short life span). They had moved the ArborLoos a few times and were so proud of the results. We went to other houses to see their progress. In the couple of years that TT&T had been working with the village they had managed to get the entire village to adopt the ArborLoo as a latrine, prior to this they had no toilets, just the fields.
From this village we went to two more and saw similar examples of the hard work and the simultaneously huge and small steps forward they had made.
We then visited future project sites, or only just begun projects. These were more difficult to view for a couple of reasons. The terrain was rough, so much of the time we had to walk. The challenges to the people were immense. And, just viewing the situation itself fell in the arena of I could have lived fine without seeing this.
We watched as women who had been walking for quite some time arrived at a spring, a stagnate malarial parasite filled hole, and filled their jerry cans. We saw the signs of severe trachoma – blinding and eventually fatal disease if not treated, distended stomachs and such. And so the need for the work was hammered home. TT&T with the help of CRS would build proper spring driven wells at the sights that would also be pumped to local schools. Eco-sanitation toilets would be built at the schools, separate housing for boys and girls.
We stood at each of the several new project sites discussing how to best locate structures, Bekele making rough sketches. Nor Hussien and Shalise taking notes, me pictures, and adding my two cents or questions. We became aware at the last spring of the rain headed our way. We were in the middle of a great flat plain. Lightening became the subject. So we hurried. There was promise in the springs and the wells to be established. Promise for the kids and the schools in water and toilets. Simple things. There was promise of us making the Land Cruisers before the lightening. We even picked up an older man along our fast walk run to the vehicles. We made it, and boy did it come down. Its been a long time since I have seen rain and hail hit the air with such force. We couldn’t see more than two feet in front of the car. It was 1p.m. and night suddenly.
We said our hurried good byes and then we drove to Dessie. The first part was back tracking the way we had come on the gravel highway, accept now down. I spent most of my time sleeping, or trying to as the Land Cruiser hurled down the road slowing just in time for curves, livestock, or people. With my eyes open I was sure we were destined for a long fall, besides I had seen it all on the way up.
Dessie is a town of the Kings. A mountain city known for its beautiful girls, in reality, and for the former services it provided. The mountain women are a bit taller than elsewhere, and they are striking. And the mythology about them is pervasive. Everyone talks about them, similar to the California girls idea. In any case this was a place they were proud to take me as sort of an alternative place to stay. It was only 30 minutes from Kolmbucha where we would stay the next few nights. In any case it was a city. I am not sure what I was supposed to take in. It was in the side of the mountain rolling up part and rolling down another, strip mall type buildings, some fancier than others, nothing that special. Glory days of past I guess.
It was at one time famous for Tej the honey wine of Ethiopia. Bekele and Tom had gotten he name of the best Tej house, so we sought it out. This became a process of going down one winding road only to back up and take a different one, get directions and return back to a prior street, back up, etc. Eventually we found ourselves, not exactly out of town, but on one of these road one finds in Ethiopian cities that is suddenly dirt, and rural in feel. There was a large on developed hill on our right and rural styled houses below in a ravine of sorts on our left. Tom started laughing. Bekele was laughing too. The last directions had been very specific and we were stopped right outside of a derlict looking house and courtyard. A child stuck her head out of the building below. Bekele asked her if this was the place. She said yes of course. That got us laughing.
We decided to go in. We sat on a bench outside, and you could see that at one point it probably was a very fun place, but it had been forgotten for sure. The young girl poured us 1 ½ Tejs. They are served in a sort of vase like jar. 1 ½ is all they had left today she explained. We looked at each other in disbelief and wonder at the scene. The courtyard worked its way up the ravine toward the hill. It had a clothesline, but some plastic café chairs and tables, not used for a long time. The house/establishment was really quite cool although falling apart. Ranch style almost. Again multi colored but all fading. An indoor seating area. No sign of life other than the maybe 10 year old girl.
We finished and decided it was time for dinner anyway. We ended up in an out of the way almost Greek looking place. I am continually flummoxed by the ability of my companions to know the most non-descript out of the way places for food or drinks no matter where the hell we are – not to mention the drivers being able to always take the correct turn in the middle of nowhere. Dinner was fine, nothing special.
We then went in search of an outdoor place to sit and have a beer. That didn’t turn out so good. It’s a very Muslim area so all the outside stuff was non-alcoholic, which would have been fine but Bekele wanted a beer. “After work we must misbehave” Thank fully that is more words than action. We found a place that was not bad, had a beer, and returned to the hotel to read or whatever. I was exhausted.
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