Our original itinerary today had called for a 7-km donkey ride and hike up to the top of a nearby mountain in the morning, followed by a visit to the final group of churches. However, we all felt rather churched out; Laolao wasn't keen on riding a donkey; I'm not supposed to ride horses (or other animals presumably) because of my artificial hip; and the hiking part of the trek would likely have been rough. In short, nobody was terribly keen on a lot of exertion, so it called for a change of plans.
Giggles, on the other hand, WAS keen on riding a donkey, and frankly we'd been hyping it up for her all week as something to look forward to when we were dragging her through churches and monasteries and palace ruins, so we needed to come through on that promise. The revised itinerary our guide suggested looked like this: a one-hour donkey ride for Giggles through the town, instead of up the mountain, with the rest of us walking alongside, followed by a drive to a scenic viewpoint from which we could survey the landscape and take pictures. That would do for the morning. Then we'd have some free time in the afternoon, and at four o'clock he'd take us to a coffee ceremony and then to a place to sample honey mead (aka tej, the local brew). That sounded good, so it was agreed.
I did not, however, sleep very well last night. I awoke at around two o'clock, and when by 3:30 I was still awake, fired up the computer to do some blog writing. At 5:30 I fell back asleep, only to be awakened by a girl jumping on me at 7:15. While I attempted to sleep for a further hour – sending said girl off to jump on Laolao and Laoye – it was in vain, as a new interruption arose at every ten minutes, or so it seemed, making real sleep impossible. Finally I dragged myself out of bed at 8:15, showered, and dressed. Laolao and Laoye had departed, accompanying Giggles on her ponyback ride through the village, so I ate a late breakfast, finishing just when they returned at 10 o'clock.
We all piled into the van, then, and headed off to the lookout point. The road took us higher on a winding road. We were traversing a narrow ridge, where the cliff fell away on both sides of the road, when the van stopped just as the road was about to make a hairpin turn, and we were instructed to disembark – this was it! Disembark we did, and strayed towards the steep cliffside – but not too close. Far down in the valley we could see fields, a few dwellings, some cows, and a threshing circle in operation. Further up the opposite mountain lay terraced fields.
Suddenly, people began to arrive out of thin air. A young woman appeared over the lip of the cliff as if emerging from the earth itself: first her head, then her torso, followed by skirt and feet. She spoke briefly to Kasa, then slipped back down. He said she was his niece and lived down in the valley. Next came some school children. First three, then two more and yet another two. The first three said "Hello"; we spoke to them, asking them questions about what they were doing, their ages, and so on. I took some video of them and showed it to them, which was a source of great amusement. One young fellow was carrying what looked like a thick stick over his shoulder; I asked what it was for and he took it off his shoulder, revealing a metal-bladed digging tool. He proceeded to demonstrate its use in the ground at our feet; I videotaped him, then the other two children had to have a go and I videotaped them in turn, again showing them the resulting shots. One of the three, the one with the digging tool, spoke fairly good English. He said he was ten years old and in Grade 6. Another was 12, in Grade 7. They showed us the textbooks they were carrying – a few scribblers and thin texts; none of the fat heavy texts and exercise books Canadian children lug around as early as Grade 2! And no backpacks or even bookbags either, just a few items tucked under the arm. The Grade 7 chemistry text was in English; the boy it belonged to haltingly read a paragraph to me. I asked him if it was hard; he said it was.
I wonder how much they can absorb when the information is presented in a second language they may not have mastered well. I suppose it is possible to learn to understand a written language without being able to speak or even pronounce it well, but I am certain the information would "stick" much more easily if it were in their own language. This does, however, help to explain why the agencies for which we were collecting donations asked for educational materials in simple language – if the children's higher education (meaning Grade 7 and up) is all presented in English, it is necessary for them to get a good grounding in the language. If texts can be found that will present things in a simple yet informative manner, this will be of great assistance to both ends.
We would have liked to give these seven children a little something. Laolao had a few pieces of bread we had kept from breakfast for a snack; she passed these out, but otherwise we had nothing appropriate to give as we had departed not expecting to find ourselves in such a situation. Not even a pen or pencil.
We said goodbye to our little friends and headed back to the hotel where we enjoyed, once again, a hearty meal, eating all we wanted. I had brought a few of Giggles' homework pages along to lunch, and she and I sat there to finish them off while Laolao and Laoye headed off. When we reached the hotel we started playing with Bunny, then Giggles decided to chase butterflies in the grounds.
As Giggles was totally engrossed in chasing butterfiles, and every time I came near she compained that the noise I made scared them away, I went into our room and did some more blog writing while Laolao and Laoye napped in theirs. Giggles was perfectly safe within the hotel compound and I had no fear she would stray outside it. She managed to capture two small butterflies, then a half hour before our afternoon activities were to begin, she came inside and we played with bunny.
The coffee ceremony took place in a home a short walk down the street.
The woman performing the ceremony was traditionally garbed in the white gown with embroidered neckband and a white headdress. Incense was already wafting through the air, and the barazier upon which the coffee would be roasted was blazing. Lightly sweetened popcorn was ready, along with some pan bread. We seated ourselves at the table and watched and munched as Kasa explained what was happening. First she poured the green coffee beans into a pan and carefully roasted them over the coals, stirring them frequently with a spoon to ensure they didn't burn. This took a good ten or fifteen minutes.
Once they were done to her liking, she poured the roasted beans into a small mortar and ground them with a thin pestle. Then she set the kettle to boil over the brazier, and when the water was ready, added the ground coffee to the water in great quantity. Finally she poured the thick brew into small cups and served us.
Now, I'm not a coffee drinker, and while I like the smell of coffee I never drink the stuff. I have attempted to do so on several occasions and always set the brew aside inn disgust. When I lived in
Following the coffee ceremony, our van arrived to take us up the hill to a local pub for a sample of the other national drink, tej, or honey mead. This establishment was located in a good-sized compound. The owner had a barn where he apparently had a (small) milk operation; the evidence of this was a calf tied up in a small stall across the courtyard from the tej house. Giggles, of course, immediately had to go pet the calf and chase the cat, who was too shy to allow herself to be petted.
The upper barn was piled to the rafters with hay; we also saw three or four doors behind which lay rooms that the owner apparently rented out to local people. Kasa said the house was very nice; to our eyes – from the exterior at least – it appeared rather dingy. Though things are not always what they appear. However, it did appear as though this place, like most others, lacked what we would call basic sanitation, as Giggles and I discovered the toilet facilities behind the barn – a rather smelly squatty potty of the outhouse variety (which thankfully we did not need to use). However, given the variety of occupations and sources of income, it did appear that the owner would probably be considered among the beter off among Lalibela's population. He could, after all, afford electricity, which Kasa said was not something to be found in every dwelling.
The tej house itself was nicely appointed, with many decorations gracing the walls and decent benches around the outside at which the patrons would sit to imbibe.
We, of course, were there rather early, so no other patrons were about. We ordered a sample of both the light and medium tej. The light was very light, rather little more than honey water; the medium on the other hand did have a bit of a kick to it. I drank from the light and rather enjoyed it, though did not drink much; Laolao and Laoye each took more of the medium, with Laoye drinking the most. He was rather indifferent to it, declaring he neither liked not disliked it.
Kasa had said these establishments were also places for dancing. We asked him what kind of dancing and could he demonstrate, but he was not willing to oblige. He did, however, call in a few teenagers who were lounging about along with some small children in the anteroom. They, in contrast, were happy to oblige, putting on some rousing music and demonstrating the hip and shoulder movements typical of the type of dancing they engage in – not altogether different, I would imagine, from the dancing found in Canadian dance halls. (This may have been typical Ethiopian music and dancing, but I would be willing to wager it does not fall under the category anthropologists would classify as traditional.)
As we waited for the van to pick us up following this bit of diversion, a half dozen little boys gathered off the street at the entrance to the compound. They performed the usual "Hello" ritual, watching us wide-eyed. Giggles wondered in particular why they stared at her. "Maybe," Laolao said, "it's because you have a toy." Giggles was carrying Funny Bunny Girl. "They may not have any toys to play with. See the plastic bottle that little fellow is carrying?" He was tossing it towards Laoye, seeming to want him to play catch, or something akin to hacky-sack with it. "That's his toy – just an empty bottle he found somewhere. They may never have seen a real store-bought toy before." Several of the children had runny eyes, possibly a sign of trachoma. Something that can be treated – but only if there are doctors available to treat it, and only if the parents can afford to pay the doctors…
During these two encounters with the children today, Poppet has been on my mind. I think of how he may well have been born in a village such as this, to parents in circumstances among the lesser fortunate of those we have been seeing. Had fate been different, he might yet have been living with one or both his birthparents in his hometown, one of the multitude of relatively ragged children occupying a seat in an overcrowded, ill-equipped school, trying (eventually) to learn his lessons in a language he might not grasp well, making his own toys from the scattered objects he finds along the road. Instead, he will soon embark upon a journey that will totally transform his life, landing in a world where the problems of excess far outnumber those of want, where he will have absolutely everything he needs and many, many of the things he wants, where he will likely never know true physical hunger, where finding medical care is as easy as making a phone call… He will have education, opportunity, love and attention. Is this good? Yes, absolutely. And yet it comes with an inexpressible sadness, that to begin this new life he must lose everything: his birth family, his people, his language, much of his history, culture and identity, his connections to this beautiful land. A sadness that these same opportunities are not available in this, the country of his birth. A sadness that it is not possible right here and now, to provide these same opportunities to all these beautiful children, here in their own land, their own language, their own home.
(Continue to 22 December: Back to Addis)
No comments:
Post a Comment