Axum to Tigrai Pictures (Scott's)

 The stellae (don't call them obelisks!) in Axum mark the graves of past emporers of the region.  As I can see, there were lots of feelings of inadequacy on the part of these rulers judging by the size and shape of these things.

 Inside one of the tombs underneath the stellae.

 A popular dish in the northern region of Ethiopia we were visiting is called Tholo (pronounced something like tehelo).  Doughy barley balls are dipped into a spicy sauce and a yogurt sauce with a wooden fork and eaten in one bite.  The grey blob I'm getting into on the right is the barley, and is traditionally separated into smaller balls by the waitress for the patron.  I wasn't sure where her hands had been so I insisted on rolling the balls myself.

 One of the community lodges we stayed at while trekking in the Tigrai region which is known for its rock-hewn churches in the face of cliffs.

 The morning view from our first community lodge.

 The inside of a rock-hewn church built around the 10th century.  Imagine all the open space you see once being completely filled with solid rock.  We were honored to be there in time for a rare afternoon service and experienced part of a mass in Ge'ez, the traditional language of the ethiopian orthodox church.

 Gina poses on cliff that is a waterfall in the rainy season.

 It was wheat and barley harvest season while we trekked through this part of Tigrai.  The people harvest the grains by hand, pile them as shown here, then find time later to bring their cows to thresh the grain from the hay.  No machinery required- just have your cows walk circles around the grain pile for about 5 hours and you're done!

The sunset view on our third community lodge.  I'm at the right looking down into the valley 500 meters below while other tourists watch from the "crows nest" on the second level of the lodge.

Time Discombobulated (Scott's)

By no means am I a globetrotter, but I’ve traveled to a variety of countries in my life encompassing a few different cultures: Tanzania, Malawi, Botswana, Zambia, Iceland, Bolivia, Canada, Switzerland, England, and Ethiopia.  But Ethiopia was the first country in which I found a different way to read a clock and I was totally unprepared for this bit of culture shock.  Zambia had a different spin on time in that when something was supposed to happen at a particular time it usually happened one to two hours later, but the clock was still read in the familiar 'western' style of time keeping, where noon and midnight are indicated by the number ‘12’, and sunrise and sunset occur somewhere around the number ‘6’ depending on what time of year it is. 

My first indication of a different way to read a clock as I traveled Ethiopia was when I saw a clock in a restaurant read 3 o’clock when it was 9 pm.  I figured someone had not set it correctly and simply had the clock displayed as decoration.  A second indication was when we were talking to a local Ethiopian about the timing of the call to prayer for the orthodox Christians in the town of Axum, with the idea that we might go to the local church and experience that part of the culture here since Ethiopia is considered the birthplace of orthodox Christianity, and Axum was considered the resting place of the Ark of the Covenant.  The earliest time for prayer according to our hotel manager was 11 o’clock.  “Great!” we thought, we’d be able to sleep in.  But when we thought about how we had heard a call to prayer much earlier, such as before sunrise, we inquired further.  It turns out that the 11 o’clock that he was talking about was indeed before sunrise, at what we would call 5 o’clock in the morning.  After more interrogation we learned that 6 o’clock in the way I am used to reading a clock is actually 12 o’clock in the day in the way Ethiopians read a clock.  And 3 o’clock Ethiopian time could be either 9 at night or 9 in the morning 'western' time.  And a typical breakfast or late dinner (Ethiopian time) would be 2 o’clock in the morning or 2 o’clock in the night, respectively.  As best I could figure Ethiopians start their hours with the sunrise or sunset.  After Gina and I wrapped our heads around this concept we decided that this made a lot of sense.  But I still was not convinced that this different time culture was regularly practiced.  It was just too weird.  It was like a prank Ethiopians might pull on western tourists.  However, over the next week or more I took notice of any clock I happened to see and any wristwatch or phone I might glance at while on the bus or sitting down for food.   Sure enough, I saw bell-tower clocks, smart phones, wrist watches, and business hour postings confirming that, yes, Ethiopians in general do keep time to a clock that starts the counting of hours based on the sunrise and sunset.  1 hour after sunrise is 1 o’clock in the morning.  11 hours after sunrise is 11 o’clock in the day.  3 hours after sunset is 3 o’clock at night.  10 hours after sunset is 10 o’clock at night.   A business hour posting for a pharmacy posts its hours as 2 to 6 and 8 to 12.  That is, in 'western' time they are open from 8 am to 12 noon, closed 2 hours for lunch, and open again from 2 pm to 6 pm.  A hotel posts the hours of its laundry service as 1 in the morning to 2 in the evening.  In 'western' time that is 7 am to 8 pm.   A few exceptions I found seem to be in places where the service provider worked with Europeans or tourists in general on a regular basis.  For example, the smart phone for our guide on our trek in the Tigrai region and the clock in the Ethiopian Airlines office both indicated time in the way I or any other European would expect. 

Ethiopian time didn’t stop being different from 'western' time with just the reading of the clock face.  The monthly calendar in Ethiopia has 13 months, 12 of which are without exception 30 days, and the thirteenth month is 5 or 6 days depending on whether it is a leap year or not.  Their new year starts on what we know as September 11 (or Sept 12 in a leap year), so that what they consider the first month of the year is actually our mid-September to mid-October.   Their final month (albeit short) is from early September to September 10 (or Sept 11 in a leap year).  To finish off the discombobulation, their yearly calendar is 7 or 8 years behind the Gregorian calendar, depending on what time of year you are comparing the Ethiopian calendar to the Gregorian.  Thus, 2013 is actually 2006 on the Ethiopian calendar (if you were in Ethiopia on September 10, 2013 western time you would be celebrating New Year's Eve 2005).  This difference in years is apparently due to a difference in calculations for the Annunciation of Jesus.  Summed up, the date October 30, 2013 at 4 pm as Europeans know it would be, in Ethiopia, the 19^th day of the 2^nd month of 2006 at 10 o’clock in the day.  Some say this difference in reading the clock and the calendar in Ethiopia is shared with adjacent Eritrea, though I haven't actually talked to any Eritrean's to confirm.  Fortunately, Ethiopians familiar with American or European interactions take pity on us and, if they caught themselves giving Ethiopian time to us when we inquired about when something was supposed to happen or what time it was at the moment, they quickly corrected themselves to say it in 'western' time.

Gina's Ethiopia Impressions, Part 1

 Why Ethiopia? Most Americans think of this country as a wasteland of emaciated children, but this colorful country is anything but.  If you count the hordes of European, Israeli, Canadian and Australian tourists who come here for a holiday each year, you soon realize that this is an up-and-coming (or maybe it’s already arrived) destination for good food, unique culture, breathtaking scenery, and historical treasures.  Oh, and it’s the home of coffee, too.

Scott and I certainly didn’t have Ethiopia on our bucket list of places to visit when we knew we’d be in Africa for over two years, but between internet research and hearing a few stories of other volunteers who went there, it seemed like a logical jumping point for our close-of-service (COS) trip.  We were thinking of doing a bicycle tour here, but met a group of cross-continent cyclists who said the country was their favorite to visit, but least favorite to cycle due to hills and harassment by children.  So . . . after hearing more about it’s mountains and missing the mountains in Zambia, we figured we’d center our time in Ethiopia around two different mountain treks: the popular Simien mountains and the far less popular stone churches of the Northern Tigrai region.  We thought we’d cap our trip by visiting Lalibela, a UNESCO World Heritage site.

The first ten days of our trip, a Peace Corps volunteer name Gordon currently serving in the eastern province of Zambia who decided to use some of his vacation time visiting Ethiopia.  He also wanted to do some trekking, so the three of us decided to fly directly to Gondor after one night in Addis Ababa.  Upon arrival in Gondor, we were in a different country indeed.  There we randomly met Morgan, an Ethiopian Peace Corps volunteer who was meeting up with a friend from America who came to visit her.  After swapping stories, we spent the day leisurely watching the city from a rooftop café and walking around the mostly intact sidewalks, a treat from the dirt footpaths that tend to line urban Zambian streets.

The next day, we had the hotel hire us a guide named Philemon (Ethiopian form of Philip), and he showed us ancient wall paintings on a church up on the hill, a castle, and a pool built by the first emperor in the 4^th century.  Apparently, Gondor was one of the ancient capitals of Ethiopia long before Addis Ababa.  The three of us booked a trek to the Simien mountains using a local tour operator in a tiny office off one of the cobblestone streets.  We wanted to experience some local nightlife, and that we did by jumping into a bar where a trio of local musicians went around the room with their stringed instrument and sang songs (in Ahmaric) about those of us sitting on the edges . . . all the locals were laughing when the trio came to us, so whatever they were singing must have been funny.

The Simiens trek was for four days, four nights, and began with an image of the call to prayer and veiled women and men wrapped in robes kissing priests who had crosses outside the church walls for St. Michael’s day.  St. Michael’s day happens once an Ethiopian month (there are 13 of them!), and so does St. Mary’s Day, St. George’s day, St. Gabriel’s day and a handful of other saints days celebrated by the Ethiopian orthodox church.  It was interesting to see the devout going to the churches in the early morning and then doing their daily business.  The five of us tourists including the three of us Zambian volunteers, Martin from Holland and Carleen from England all piled in an SUV going to the town of Debark, which reminded me of a dusty Zambian town except with more donkeys than cars running around!  There we picked up our guide Getenet and a mandatory armed scout (“just in case there are wild animals”).  We climbed and climbed a dusty road with breathtaking overlooks and finally stopped at a place where Getenet said, “here we will start walking.” 

We walked no more than half a kilometer when we came across hundreds of gelada baboons.  From our Zambian experience of baboons, we thought of them as either very timid and scared of poachers or semi-aggressive and wanting to steal food.  But these baboons were neither.  Indifferent to human spectators just yards away, they went on their merry way eating handfuls of grass and roots, grooming each other, and making mating noises.  We walked through the masses of hundreds of baboons until we finally came to some cliffs where they perched and stayed.  We walked to tents set up for us by the group cook and met our luggage, which was carried by donkeys.

The next three days were similar except more breathtaking views and fewer monkeys.  Most of us in the group literally had their breaths taken away as most of the paths were between 10,000-12,000 feet!  The meals consisted of lots of vegetarian fare and we even splurged on some honey wine after an afternoon rain-shower soaked us to the bone.  The trails were definitely not empty—we were accompanied by groups of other tourists, mules, horses, sheep, goats, cows, and local villagers bringing grain and other goods from one mountain town to the next, but it was all part of the scenery.  We were lucky enough to see three of the rare Ethiopian wolves on the third day, and also several mountain-sheep looking ibex on the last day, and abundant wildflowers since it was the end of the rainy season.  Despite the freezing weather at night, the trip itself was a success.

On the last morning, we said goodbye to our guide and scout and the three of us Zambian volunteers hired a car to drive us by road to Axum.  The guidebook said it was “one of the most beautiful” in all of Ethiopia, although also one of the most treacherous (this is in the country that has the highest road traffic fatalities in the world).  So . . . rather than risking public transportation, we had a 4WD minibus to ourselves, which lent itself to plenty of time taking pictures of the scenery and continual bulldozers and workers with pick axes slowly etching a harrowing road into the cliff.  At one point, we had to back up so the oncoming car could come through.  As darkness approached, I saw huge pack animals come within one foot to the right side of the vehicle.  Doing a double-take, I realized they were not horses but lines of 2-3 camels, carrying grains on the paved road!

We finally got to Axum late in the evening and had a good night’s rest on something other than a tent before taking the quick tour of this other capital city that’s even more ancient than Gondor.  In the morning, Scott, Gordon and I woke to a pleasant Sunday with people enjoying breakfast and coffee on the sidewalk café’s of Axum.  We saw a road blocked off and then a bicycle whizzed by and then we realized we were in the middle of a race!  The spectators cheered as Ethiopians (mostly without helmets and some on mountain bikes ) circled around in endless laps.  We found a juice bar and drank a mixture of guava, banana, avacado, mango, and lime fruit smoothies before seeing the ancient sites.

First we toured the church compound, which houses the alleged Ark of the Covenant, but only one person in all of Ethiopia is allowed to go into the actual room to see it.  Then a monk showed us crazy old artifacts in a room that looked like a parish hall rather than a building that houses kings’ robes from the 4^th century, books painted on goatskin, and crowns of ancient emperors finished in rubies and gold.  The monk then took us to the modern church where we took off our shoes and heard our voices resonate from one side to the other.  We found a guide who showed us the archaeological sites up the road, including huge pillars that the ancient kings used as tombstones, and lots of underground caves and houses.  There was also an ancient “pool” that is now like a muddy reservoir filed with little naked boys bathing, girls fetching water, and cows drinking.

Gordon went back to Zambia, and Scott and I spend another leisurely day in Axum catching up on laundry and e-mails before taking the public bus to Adrigrat to start another 3-night trekking—this time more leisurely where we would be staying in community lodges.  We had an entire afternoon to kill in Adigrat and found it a drastic change from Gondor and Axum in that we were absolutely the only tourists in the entire city.  Instead of people coming up to us and hounding us for tours, they said a genuine “salaam” as they smiled and waved, and we did our best to learn a few key words in Tigrinia, the local language.  The locals in our $5/night hotel (down from $60 and $20 in Gondor and Axum, respectively) invited us to watch an Italian version of pool they played with their hands that night, and treated us to a coffee ceremony complete with incense and popcorn in the morning before we met our guide for the trek.

 I found the organization TEFSA tours in a guidebook, which touts as a community-based trekking project.  The tour itself was impressive, albeit a bit more pricey than the Simiens, but we didn’t see another tourist the entire time except on the way in and out.  The villagers prepared us lovely meals of injera with all sorts of vegetarian toppings, and we had the official coffee ceremony and even had the time to drink the traditional 3 cups of coffee with the locals while watching breathtaking sunsets from stone lodges each night.  We also had the rare honor of watching an Orthodox Mass performed in a rock-hewn church called Jesu Gorghot for the festival of Saint Mary.  It was only us, our guides, and five priests and a deacon and included lots of chanting, incense, and walking from the back alter room (which we were forbidden to enter) to the main church area.  They read Ge’ez scripts from ancient goatskin books and even invited us to eat very thick injera after we left.  Overall, very surreal, and I couldn’t help but imagine the same exact ceremony happening in the cave-church when it was built in the 4^th century.

Ethiopia 1: Gondor and Simiens Trek

Scott takes a rest in the modern Addis Ababa airport before an early flight to Gondor.

Bird's eye view of Addis.

Kids playing soccer in the streets of Gondor.

Our Gondor hotel courtyard.  Notice castle ruins in the background.

A little more developed than Zambia, but not much!  Scott and our Peace Corps friend Gordon pose in front of the pothole with the Gondor castle in the background.  At least they TRY to have sidewalks here!

Great view from our restaurant-top cafe.

Injera is a flatbread made from a fermented wheat-like grain called tef.  It is cooked and placed on large metal pan.

From the rooftop balcony of our hotel in Gondor, you could see a panoramic view of the city and surrounding mountains.

Gina getting lively while a man plays a vocale at a local bar.  We were definitely the only tourists, and the musicians went to all of the bar patrons singing songs about them in Ahmeric.

Drum player at the same bar.

A traditional Ethiopian coffee ceremony involves roasting the fresh beans over hot coals while incense burns.  Then the beans are hand-pounded with a mortor and pestle, and the guest gets 3 cups of coffee!

Gina and Gordon relax at King Fasilades pool.  It's not full anymore but gets filled once a year for baptisms and religious ceremonies.

When in Rome, do as the Romans, and when in Gondor, ride a donkey cart!

We got up close and personal with the gelada baboons on our first day trekking the Simien mountains.

We hiked the Simiens just after the rainy season, which made for wonderful wildflowers!

Why is everybody looking at me?

We also saw this type of flower while hiking in Tanzania and Malawi.

Our group of 5 trekkers a guide, and an armed scout ("for the animals") reaching a rural village before our second camp.

Giant lobelia plants.

We were lucky enough to see three walia ibex.

View of Simiens on one of the world's most-switchbacked roads from Debark to Axum.

A monk shows us colorful paintings and Ahmeric text on a goatskin book several hundred years old.  It is still used in frequent services for the Ethiopian orthodox church.  This is the new St. Maryium church in Axum.  The old one was destroyed in attacks several hundered years ago.

No Longer Peace Corps Volunteers.

We had our official "ringing out" ceremony in Lusaka, which was bittersweet and surreal.  So we're off to new adventures but will hopefully keep this blog open to upload pictures of Ethiopia and Thailand.  Plan is to get back to the U.S. in mid-December.  Thank you family and friends for all of your correspondence and and good while we've been away.  It's been quite the experience.

Sol Town

Solwezi is one of those places that unlike our village, we got to know little by little as we traveled 4-10 hours (depending on transport) from our village to get there once a month.  It houses the provincial Peace Corps office, so was a welcome source of hot showers (when the power worked), internet (when the router worked), and a "real" grocery store (when it wasn't stocked out).

You have to look very carefully to find the only "welcome to Solwezi" sign around.  My friend Julie caught this in a good day as usually it's obstructed by women's underwear or other clothing for sale in the street.

Wikipedia claims that Solwezi has 65,000 inhabitants, but my guess is twice that if you include the Zambian, Congolese and other squatters who stick around hoping to get a job at one of the mines but aren't actually employed or living in any type of formal housing.  Because of two very well established copper and uranium mines in the area (Kansanshi and Lumwana) and the initial exploration and development of several more, Solwezi has been claimed to be the fastest-growing city in Africa . . . but not in a good way.  Unfortunately this uncontained growth has not been followed by any sort of urban planning or conservation efforts, so what you get is a sprawled-out conglomeration of urban slums with a few pockets of enormous wealth sprinkled in the outskirts.  A very interesting (but not usually pleasant) mix!

The town of Solwezi sprawled out along the horizon from a bluff that was once covered in trees.

Villagers cut/burn trees at a rapid pace to fuel the city's food and fuel needs.  It's typical to see bicycles stacked with 4-5 huge bags of hardwood charcoal coming down from the hills.  A majority of the population is not connected to the power grid, which experiences blackouts almost daily anyway, so they cook using charcoal.

A typical "neighborhood" with mud brick houses with corrugated roofs and trash littering the dusty road.

Even though Solwezi is urban, much of the population still utilizes the rivers and streams for bathing and washing.

There are only about 3 paved roads in the entire city.  Most are rivited with mosquito-breeding potholes in the rainy season and lines of dust in the dry season.

Gina meets up with a village counterpart who moved to Solwezi with her husband and daughters to seek a better life through employment at the mines.

Note trash pile to the right as there are no municipal waste collection services.  Most locals can't afford for a private waste collection service, so the trash either sits or gets burned.

Running water is hard to come by in these urban slums, so people either use the river or buy it by the bucketful at a kiosk like this one.  Problem is, it's not always open.

The backyard of the Peace Corps provincial office is a little oasis in the midst of it all.  Inside the walled yard is green grass, a small garden, and a backup water tower (left).  The grill in front is a fuel-efficient charcoal/wood burning stove that volunteers use to cook their meals during frequent blackouts.

Solwezi has a few extremely nice hotels to cater to the international mining personnel who come primarily from South Africa, Australia and Zimbabwe.  Apparently there is also a country club complete with zebras running around the golf course, but we never had the privilege of seeing because we're not exclusive members!

So, there are just a few redeeming qualities so one doesn't go crazy in Solwezi, but can't say I'm gonna miss it!

Ode to Nshima

Ode to Nshima (Gina's Post):

Oh nshima yamakamba how you stick in my stomach like a bomba. 
I don't even bite because you are like bubble gum.
And if I don't eat you it's insulting to the mum.
In Zambia I've definitely had my fill . . .
Let's just hope someday it doesn't kill . . . me.

That's right, folks.  Scott and I had our last nshima meal yesterday, and I can't say I'm gonna miss it too much.  When I told the villagers we didn't eat cassava nshima at ALL in America, all I got was shocked expressions, and at least 20 people recommended I bring the smelly white cassava flour home to show how people really eat over here (I heard secondhand that it's been intercepted at customs because it's a white powder, so I didn't even try).  Well, yes, they eat sleep and breathe the stuff, but most westerners can't handle more than a small handful before getting a very heavy feeling in the gut if they're lucky, and excruciating stomach pain if they're not.  It DOES have the benefit of making one full, which is a plus in a culture that just a few generations ago was just hunting and gathering their food.  So, Zambians in general are ecstatic about eating nshima, which has been replaced by maize in most parts.  Unfortunately, cassava nshima is still the staple food in our area, and because it's such an integral part of daily life, I decided to give a step-by-step in the its life--from transplant to a meal.  There is a Lunda word for each and every step, and most of the words relate ONLY to cassava nshima, no other food . . . which is telling to the importance of this crazy food in everyday life.  It's eaten 2-3 times per day with various relishes such as greens, beans or dried fish:


1) kudima niyahanga- making mounds

Cassava is probably so popular here because it doesn't require seeds; just take a cutting, plant it diagonally, and viola, you have a staple food (after a few more steps).

2) kuketehula mu yinkunku- cutting off stem to transplant
 3) kutumba- planting stems in mounds

These young plants have at least a year to go before the root can be harvested for food.

 4) kusela- weeding (cassava root takes 1-2 years to mature)
5) kwanda sombe- pulling leaves off after 3 months to boil and eat

The tender leaves are ready to harvest and eat much earlier than the root.

 6) kwimba niykamba- pulling out the root
7) kuzambika- soaking 4-6 days, depending on the climate, until it is soft and fermented

In our area, they soak in hand-dug ponds/puddles in the flood plain.

In Malawi, they soak in clay pots filled with lake water.  Note the bubbles on the left indicate fermentation.

 8) kuzambula- removing from soaking water
9) kusohola- pounding with a large stick to remove the peels
10) kufumisha mafu- removing the peels
11) kwanyika- drying in the sun for 1-4 days (over fire in rainy season)

The white bowl in the front is dried cassava, while the leaves on the upper right are cassava leaves ready to be boiled and eaten as a relish for the nshima.

 12) kutchwa- pounding

This young lady uses a mortar carved from a tree trunk and pestle to crush the dried fermented cassava into a fine powder.

 13) kusefwa- sifting

Once it is sifted, it is finer than cake flour, but much more dense.

 14) kuhonda- cooking in boiling water to make a thick porridge

This is a relatively small pot meant for 2-4 people.  Sometimes families will cook enough for 20 or more people at a time!

 15) kuketula na makasa- taking a handful to form a lump
16) kukama- rolling into hand like silly putty
17) kupanga masa- making balls
18) kabwimbwa- making a little bowl with one's fingers

The center is like a spoon and can pick up juice from the vegetables or meat.

 19) kutanta- dipping the nshima bowl into sauce

The relish is eaten from a communal bowl.

 20) kuminya- swallowing!

The purplish colored mounds are made from pure cassava meal, while the whiter ones are a mix of maize and cassave meal.  One bowl will feed 6-10 people seated together.  This was cooked by some lovely village ladies for our going away party.

Normally the men and women eat separately.