Life in the North

To say that life in the north is hard, does not even begin to describe it. Americans, myself included, define hardships as losing hundreds, or thousands of dollars in the stock market, paying too much for medical care, going without our favorite drink to make our grocery budget, and making ends meet so we can repair our car. Yet, we forget that it is only our wealth that causes those 'hardships.' Have we ever been thankful that we had hundreds or thousands to lose? Do we consider ourselves privileged to even have a hospital in our town? How about the fact that we have aisles of beverages at each and every one of the millions of grocery stores in our country? Vehicles - all I'll say is that to own an imported car in Ethiopia, you have to pay 150% sales tax.

In northern Ethiopia, people walk for days to sell one log at the market, so that maybe they can buy some food. As soon as a child can walk, they carry something. Soon, they begin carrying loads of firewood home and to the market. We were in Lalibela and a surrounding village for market day. We saw people walk the long, long road up the mountain.

The market in Lalibela had cloth, tailors ready to make dresses, vegetables, grain, wood, and kitchen pots.

Everyone was rather perplexed by this roaring machine and most chose to go well around.

In the northern climate, they get 3 months of rain, in a good year. While we were there we saw huge, dry, river beds. We were told that people farm here, yet we cannot even begin to imagine how they grow anything for the 9 months they don't get rain. Most of the soil is depleted due to centuries of erosion on the steep mountain sides.

Famine hits the northern area first. In the south, there is abundant and fertile farmland. We traveled on mostly paved roads, and saw NGO's all over the place. The north did not seem to receive nearly the amount of aid that the south gets.

The mountainous landscape was absolutely beautiful. It is difficult to reconcile the beauty and pain it causes.

The traditional housing in the north is a Tukul . . . a two-story stone hut. However, in the countryside, people live in smaller huts.

We drove past this oasis of a well on the way to Yemrehane Christos. Everyone was cleaning up before entering the market.

Emotionally, the trip to Yemrehane Christos was the hardest of my life. I've never seen poverty on such a level as this. It was clear that there were few travelers in this area, as the roads were all gravel, the cattle VERY skittish, and the dogs crazy about a car passing. It felt wrong that we, young, rich Americans, were able to just drive on through this area just to visit a pretty church. Thankfully, we learned and saw a lot more than a pretty church and hopefully, someday we will be able to give back. In the meantime, it has definitely shaped how we view life.

Think for a moment of your typical trip to church on a Sunday morning. Surely it involves a car ride, rushing to be on time, getting dressed nicely (or at least making sure you don't stink), and a paved parking lot filled with nice cars and (mostly) good looking people. As I compare ours with our walk up to this church, I'm humbled and thankful for all that we have. As we hiked up the steep path to the church, we passed a mentally retarded boy sitting at a bridge with his hand out. As Joseph put the equivalent of 50 cents in his open palm, the boy grabbed his hand and kissed it while shouting for joy. He tried to run after us, but couldn't. Then we met a blind woman tapping her way down the steps. Close behind her was a woman, crippled in the legs, crawling down on her hands. Then, another blind woman, eyes completely white, sitting in a corner along the path. Each of these women cried when Joseph handed them a few cents or a dollar. Suddenly all kinds of stories in the Bible took on a whole new meaning.

Peoples' needs were evident and public. In America people still have needs, they are just hidden behind a perfect facade and oftentimes difficult to find. Here they were staring us in the face. We walked passed one house that simply had "FOOD" painted on the side of it - it wasn't a restaurant. We stopped in this woman's store and bought some candleholders and a necklace.

In this area it is common for girls to be married off at the age of 8, just for necessity. One of the best things for boys to do is work for the church. Beginning at age 5, they are sent to priests' school to study the holy books, learn the ancient language and prayers. They receive food and shelter and when they become old enough to be deacons, they earn a small amount of money. We met a number of these boys outside of Yemrehane Christos. Our guide, Yosef, was talking with them and knew many of them. The tallest boy below was the best student in his class at a 'local' (by that we mean over the mountain) school. He had to drop out because he could not afford any supplies - things like pens and paper. The others were very excited to talk with Yosef and very happy to see us. They ran circles around us all the way down the mountain and sheepishly asked for the water bottle I was carrying. I gave it to the smallest of them and he was quite happy to have won the prize.

After this intense trip, we drove back to our hotel. The contrast between the countryside and our hotel is intense, but we were happy to have a sanctuary from all that we had just witnessed. How could we be so blessed - to have seen and met these people and yet return to this?

Today

I'm taking a wee break from blogging about our trip just to post these very cute pictures from our first hike together today. We went out to Green's Bluff just outside of Bloomington. It was a bit muddy, but Tate had fun making squishy sounds while I sludged through it. He clearly had fun and I am SO happy for a boy who loves being outside and is particularly fond of leaves.

He's been getting better and better. His nasty cough is gone, and last night he slept through the night! YIPPPEEEE!!!!! Thus, the energy to hike today, despite the hot, humid weather. I gave him this HUGE leaf and it just put him right to sleep :-)

Yemrehane Christos

The next day we took a one and half hour drive to visit what is arguably the most amazing of the churches in the area. Yemrehane Christos is a cave church, built in the 10th century by King Yemrehane Christos. The church compound is built in the mouth of a large cave, on top of water. They first built a platform as a base for the cave and today you cannot tell that there is water underneath, except for places where there are holes in the floor. The church itself is built of black basalt chips covered with wood and rock, with a layer of marble near the top.

This church is particularly famous for its vivid wall paintings. It was hard to see in the dark church, but they showed up nicely with a flash :-)

We had hoped to make it to the church in time to see some of their service, but alas, we were too late. Each church holds special services one day a week and this was Yemrehane's day. There were still some people milling about.

Most graves in Ethiopia are above ground and Orthodox graves always face east. Ethiopians aren't squeemish about the dead, since death is actually something they see. At a church in town we saw bones, skin included, of former pilgrims just laying in the wall.

At Yemrehane we also saw human bones scattered in the back, including one of a small child. We had to watch where we stepped because there were skulls sticking up through the dirt on the floor. It was quite surreal to be in a church where people have worshipped, lived, and died since the 10th century. People continue to live and die here and it was a sober reminder of the fate of us all. Below are the graves of King Yemrehane and his wife. They were simply covered with cloth and we could have, if we had wanted to, just walked right up to them.

These two people were sorting gain in the churchyard. They were very, very grateful for the small amount of money we gave them for this picture.

This boy is studying to be a deacon in the church. We spent the walk down the mountain with him and his friends, but more on them in the next post.

Rock Churches of Lalibela

I've been a bit overwhelmed thinking about how to share the northern part of our trip with you. We saw SO much, learned so much, and encountered so much poverty that it seems impossible to process it all. But, here it goes.

The most amazing historical site to see in Ethiopia is Lalibela. It is a town of 20,000 people situated on top of a mountain. What is so spectacular about it? This is where King Lalibela commissioned a bunch of Orthodox churches to be built. About 10 were built in the town of Lalibela by carving from the ground, straight down through rock. So, the roofs of the churches are at ground level. Legend has it that angels helped carve them because it took only 23 years to make these 8th wonders of the world. We know the carvers used hammers and nails and paint and ended up making these incredible churches. They were all made between the 12th and 14th centuries and are, with the exception of a few places, still the same.

We spent a morning and afternoon exploring the churches just within the town of Lalibela. (There are hundreds, if not thousands, more in the countryside). These places were INCREDIBLE and have such a rich history, you can just be swept away. We were usually the only visitors at each church, so we spent much time crawling in tunnels, up walls, taking pictures, exploring each compound, and sitting in the churches listening to the birds and the wind and the intense peacefulness. Part of what makes this place so amazing is that it is not at all a tourist attraction . . . yet. All the churches are still used, still have priests and deacons and a congregation. During festival times, people walk for weeks to visit Lalibela as spiritual pilgrimage. They show up by the thousands and stay in the countryside or town or with families.

We were free to dangle our feet off a 40 foot cliff for example. However, the churches of Lalibela are beginning to be 'preserved' by a tourist board from the EU. This is both good and bad. The tourist board wants to keep the churches is good shape and protect the structures from rain and deterioration, so they've made some enormous canopies over a couple of them. Good, good. But, they also want to do traditional things for preserving a place - things like closing off sections. All of this is very difficult to do when the locals see these incredible buildings as THEIR churches that still need to be used. The priest still needs to be the only one to enter the holy of holies. The churches still need to be accessible to the thousands of people who journey to them and they still need to hold services on an almost daily basis. So, it will be interesting to see what happens, but we were continually thankful that we went before the tide turned.

Each church has its own processional cross and each one was unique. Below is one of the priests with their cross and King Lalibela's prayer stick. King Lalibela was a very, very, very, very tall man, as the 'T' in the prayer stick is meant to be leaned on during the long services and comes up to your armpit.

The crosses were made of gold, silver, bronze, wood and I can't even remember what else. Many also had etchings on them.

Our guide in the north was Yosef (more about him later) and he grew up in Lalibela. He shared stories with us and told us how some things have or have not changed. Below is the entrance to his church. The bridge is over a 30 foot drop-off and was only built 4 years ago. Yosef remembers being a very small boy holding his mother's hand as they walked over a log to get into the church! The first floor of this church is rather mysterious and is usually flooded with water. As a boy, Yosef and his friends would crawl down and swim in the pitch black. The rock pool made great echos.

Before leaving on Sunday morning, we attended part of the service of one church. The Orthodox church is very similar to the Catholic church. The service was, quite literally, smells and bells. The smell of frankincense pervades the town on Sunday. First the Bible is read in the ancient language of Ge'ez, which no one but the church officers understand. Then a bell is rung and chants echo from throughout the rock compound. This continues for hours and then the priest comes outside, and from under an umbrella translates some scripture from Ge'ez to the modern Amharic language.

The priest of the church is responsible for caring for his parishioners. He also acts as a judge in matters of the law. Much like all priests, I'm sure some are more faithful than others in this area. I would be curious to find out more about the role of the church in people's lives; What Orthodoxy requires of them to be forgiven and what faith people have in God.

Beautiful people and a midnight scare

If our trip had a low point, Bahir Dahr was it. However, it did provide us with some good laughs and a look at a very different part of the country. Located in the northwest corner of Ethoipia, Bahir Dahr is as close to dessert that we got. Winds from the Sahara Dessert blow through and create dust thick enough to prohibit planes from landing for weeks at a time. This was also the hottest place we were.

The town is quite large and rather European, although the first thing we saw when we stepped off the plane was a huge advertisement for the Obama Restaurant. We checked into our government-run hotel, clearly built in the 60's and found we had another gorgeous view. This is overlooking a small, small bay on Lake Tana - the largest lake in Ethiopia.

These flowers were beautiful and smelled tremendous! Since the weather is so mild here even annual flowers thrive for years. We saw geraniums the size of bushes.
People, including us, come to Bahir Darh mainly for two reasons: 1. to see the MAJESTIC Blue Nile Falls and 2. to visit the island monasteries on Lake Tana. We first headed out on Lake Tana to visit one of the monasteries. We were both extremely tired by this point in our travels and took a nap on the boat. I probably should be able to write a lot more about this day, but it is all a bit of a blur.
We got off the boat and walked up to a very old monastery with some beautiful paintings in it.
You see papyrus boats all over the place on Lake Tana.
In the afternoon we took our drive out to Blue Nile Falls. As we were on our way we found out that 75% of the waterflow has been diverted to a hydro-electric dam that powers a huge portion of Ethiopia. So, with only 25% of the water flowing over the falls, and it being rather dry, the majestic falls were a bit less majestic; still pretty though.

That night we took a brief walk along the lakeshore, admiring all the beautiful people. It is generally agreed that Ethiopians are the best looking people on the planet and I think the people in this region are the most beautiful of the beautiful.

We also had intentions of climbing a tree in Joseph's friend, Doc's, honor. However, the tree we wanted to climb was covered in ants.

We returned for dinner at our hotel, which ended up being leftovers from lunch, which we also ate at the hotel. We watched as they prepared for a wedding reception and realized that the chef was otherwise engaged.

At 8:30 we went to bed, because we were tired. We fell asleep to traditional Ethiopian music (much more soothing than the club music), but bolted awake at an explosion of fireworks at 10:00 p.m. We closed the window (which made our room more hot) and I put in my earplugs. I slept soundly until around 1 a.m., when I woke up to a strange smell and felt something misting over me. I glanced over at Joseph's bed and it appeared that he was sleeping soundly through this.

I sat up a bit and to my horror saw a half-naked man spraying my bed with something. About a million thoughts ran through my mind. Things like: maybe the hotel send people around to spray guests with bugspray in the night because they don't have mosquito nets - followed, by AAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!! - followed by, he looks vaguely familiar - followed by, AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH! - followed by gasps as he suddenly came closer to me. I saw his lips moving but couldn't hear anything, as I had my earplugs in. He really was getting TOO close. Every time he moved I pulled into a tighter ball and gasped terrified gasps (I was much to scared to scream). Suddenly he leaned down and I punched him in the chest with both hands and was about to kick him with both legs (which I had drawn up to my chest) when I realized that this man was my own dear husband. He had opened the window and was simply trying to prevent his wife from getting malaria. I took my earplugs out and laughed and cried and felt rather proud that I had hit him (just in case). For the next week any mention of this event sent us both into hysterics :-)

The next morning we were off to Lalibela. As we waited at the airport we saw a tractor pull a fighter jet by the window. hmmm.

We saw our plane land. Then promptly saw a fire engine pull up to it. hmmmm.

I guess they fixed whatever was wrong because the plane got us safely to Lalibela.