I am pestilence

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  Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Thursday, May 29, 2003

Hi everyone,
I apologise if this post is a bit disjointed and confused. I've taken my malaria medicine today and am consequently feeling a bit spaced out.

I'm back in Addis Ababa after my 2 week jaunt to Western Ethiopia. Back to the city of time warp days where you leave the hotel at 9am with nothing to do and get back at 10pm accidently drunk and wondering where the hell the day went.

I left early on the 15th of May to Nekemte, a city in the heart of Oromo country.

The Oromo people make up the largest ethnic group in Ethiopia but have little political power.

Western Ethiopia is so incongruous with the usual Western image of this country. Its an incredibly green and fertile area, providing much of Ethiopia's exports such as coffee.

The bus ride was pleasant but uneventful. We did hit a horse though which was pretty freaky. The driver had slammed on the anchors so we ended up giving it a solid nudge in the nearest paddock.

It pranced off seemingly unhurt and the old Italian bus only sustained a little dent in front so it ended well.

Nekemte is a pleasant little town. There's nothing to do there except visit the local museum (which was shut) and hang out. The people were incredibly friendly, possibly the most friendly I've met in Ethiopia.

Also watched the FA Cup final why I was there. Ethiopians are fanatical Arsenal and Man Utd supporters so I thought the cafe was going to collapse when the full house went beserk at Pires' goal.

The nicest thing about Nekemte was on my last night. I came back to my hotel after a long day walking around the markets. The owner of the hotel, Wasihun, was so happy to have a faranji staying in his establishment he bought me a bag of mangoes and 2 bottles of beer as a present. Fantastic.

From Nekemte its was a 10.5 hour haul along mud and gravel roads to the town of Dembidolo, as far as public transport can take you in this direction.

The bus guys were brilliant. They took me under their wing, helped me find a hotel and bought me lunch and dinner. It was the start of a real trend in the west - amazing hospitality.

By the way, my vegetarianism has bitten the dust. After holding out for a month I was foiled by the Ethiopian's unwillingness to cook anything besides meat.

If you go into a restraunt in the country the menu usually consists of enjera with boiled cow, boiled sheep, raw mince or cooked mince. If you're lucky you can get spaghetti (with meat sauce of course). In the west there was absolutely no vegetarian food avaliable except for fruit and biscuits.

When I asked an Ethiopian why they eat so much meat and so few vegetables (its so incredibly unhealthy), they replied that because vegetables are cheap only poor people eat them. Therefore not to seem poor everyone eats meat.

I still haven't made sense of it.

Anyways, with that said, the best part of eating meat again has been being able to eat with Ethiopians. Eating here is a communal thing. Its not unusual for 3-4 people to dig into the same big plate of food. I've been invited to so many meals its fantastic.

The worst thing is seeing a goat, cow or sheep eating rubbish from the open sewers on the streets and knowing that that's your lunch tomorrow.

From Dembidolo I wanted to go to Gambela, a small town in the lowlands near the Sudan border. It used to be a British trading post until they gave it back to Ethiopia when Sudan gained its independance in the 60s.

I walked down the main square early and began the wait for a truck heading west.

I was in luck, well it seemed that way at the time.

An old WWII-era Italian truck was heading to Gambela with a steam roller on top. The driver was keen on taking me but his helper didn't want anything to do with a farangi.

While about 5 young Ethiopian men pleaded my case for me (hoping to get money afterwards) I just sat scowling at the old man.

Eventually he broke and I jumped aboard. Unfortunately for my transport attornies I had 1 birr more than the fare for the truck in my pocket which I gave to the first kid who helped me. They weren't happy but tough shit.

From Dembidolo its 121kms on very bad roads, especially as you descend to the lowlands. A decent 4WD could do it in 4 hours.

The truck took 10 hours including an hour stop while torrential rain washed out most of the road before us.

As we crawled down the hill, the big military-style truck lurching with its couple of ton load, the cab began to whine and buckle several times. I decided that this may have not been the best idea.

Soon after one of the guys riding on top appeared beside the drivers window. They conversed briefly in Amharic and I caught only 1 part.

"Something, something, something, shiftas."

"Shiftas!!" said the driver.

"Shiftas." confirmed the guy from up top.

I don't know much Amharic but I do know what "Shifta" means: Bandit.

Everyone was pretty tense. We were a sitting target crawling along at less than 10km/ph but I gave a big sigh of release when we finally entered the lowlands and were able to power along the relatively intact roads.

I had several plans for Gambella. I wanted to get a boat down the Baro river and also get a bus to the small town of Gog in order to drive through Gambella National Park.

Like Harar things kind of went horribly, horribly wrong.

Gambella is hot, real hot. It averages around 35c and the humidity must be about 95% all the time. There was also no power and no running water in town when I arrived due to the low level of the Baro river.

On my first morning I went for a walk along the river. While the highlands nearby are thickly forested, almost in jungle at some parts, the lowlands are scrubby desert, sustained only by the river.

It was pleasant, not too hot yet and columns of the local Nuer tribesmen were walking into town with their wares to sell at the markets.

The Nuer are very tall, very dark skinned people. They have a tradition of scarification on the face of the male. Scars are made in lines around the forehead of a young man and look fantastic.

Them and the other major ethnic group in the area, the Anuak, are incredibly friendly people and much more restrained than most Ethiopians. I got very few "You, you, you" and "Faranj, faranj" while I was there. It was refreshing.

As the day warmed up I headed back to the hotel.

My stomach wasn't feeling right so I popped into the disgusting shack with a hole in the concrete which passes for a toilet in most of Ethiopia. To my chagrin things weren't working properly.

I sat down and got chatting to an Ethiopian guy staying at the hotel.

In between me running off to the toilet every 5 minutes I learned he was a vetenarian visiting Gambella. He and his technician were waiting for his colleagues to bring a camping fridge to keep their serum samples in since there was no power in town to keep normal fridges going.

He told me his name but, like everyone else at the hotel, I just called him Doctor.

I did what is best when you're sick, rested and drunk lots of water. I was also sweating like a hole in a Dutch dyke so it took a lot of Ambo (Ethiopian mineral water) to keep me hydrated.

That night things got worse. A fever started and then in the early hours, violent vomitting.

I was having nightmare scenarios of a Typhoid relapse and early in the morning I dragged myself out of my stinking, pestilential room and knocked on the Doctor's door.

"I'm very sick. I think I need to go to the hospital."

Gambella is one of the most neglected regions of the country by the government.

Suddenly I learned what this meant in concrete terms.

Gambella hospital is horrible. A couple of dozen delapidated concrete rooms fought with wrecked, rusting cars and thick scrub for dominance over the hosital grounds.

Bodies of sick and dying people were spread everywhere. There were no seats and no shade from the blistering African sun. Friends shaded their friends and other lay tight against walls, trying to steal a bit of respite.

It was a Madame Tussards of horror diseases: AIDS, leprosy, malaria, tuberculosis, guinea worm.

One woman was helped past me by her friend. She was emaciated, barefoot and wrapped in a ragged green blanket. From the weeping lesions on her legs I guessed she had AIDS.

I wondered what the point of bringing her to a hospital was. She couldn't afford a pair of cheap rubber shoes - how was she expected to get HIV anti-virals?

She's probably dead by now.

Its the first time in Ethiopia that I've felt collective pity for a community of people. I've seen plenty of individual, messed up people on the street who I've felt really bad for but never for a group.

If anyone who reads this is thinking of giving some money to a charity for Ethiopia: DON'T give money for food aid. Ethiopia is addicted to aid. Find a charity that can funnel money to Gambella hospital. They need it and the government sure doesn't give a shit about them.

Compared to most of the people there I felt well enough to play a World Cup Final.

All my tests came back clear but I was sceptical of the whole procedure. The doctor who saw me couldn't work out what it was so prescribed a small mobile pharmacy worth of drugs: anti-biotics, anti-malarials, painkillers, anti-giardia, you name it - I had it.

I took my first dose of 12 pills and proceeded to puke them up an hour later.

The medicine broke my fever but the diahorrea and occasional vomitting was still crippling me.

The Doctor taught me a great trick for sleeping in a hot climate like that. You place a mattress (in this care my little camping mat) on the floor and sleep on that. The air down there is cooler and the concrete walls also help to suck away heat in the early hours as they cool down.

I was too delirious to mind about the cockroaches and rats crawling around me. At least it was cool enough to sleep.

A group of guys staying at the hotel were leaving for the highland town of Metu the next day. The Doctor convinced them to give me a lift as it would be more comfortable than catching a bus.

The driver to Metu was through beautiful countryside and returning to the cool highlands was a welcome relief.

The climate of Gambella had affected not just me. One of the guys in the truck, Asefa, was suffering from malaria AND amoebic dysentary and the Driver and Other Guy (names were too difficult to rememeber!) both had the shits.

Metu is your standard crappy, middle of nowhere town. But it did have a brand new hospital built and maintained by the German government.

Compared to Gambella it was fantastic (and clean!!).

I saw another doctor and had a full range of tests redone. This time they came back showing bacterial dysentary. I got given another small pharmacy's worth of drugs and shown the door.

There was nothing to do in Metu but rest. Plus the crazy cocktail of medicine and fatigue from sickness was really effecting my emotions. I was feeling tired, aggressive and negative.

On the first night before Asefa, Driver and Other Guy returned to their coffee plantation, they tried to find another truck to take me to Jimma, my next destination.

A Gambella Water Authority truck (donated by UNICEF) was at the hotel.

We found the guy in charge, a short Nuer man with great scars on his forehead and good English.

"Are you American?"

"No, New Zealand."

"Ahhh, Netherlands."

"Yeah, close enough." (Usual mistake - I'd had this conversation so many times by this stage that I didn't bother correcting him).

"Why are you by yourself?"

"Its the best way to travel. This way you meet people."

"But you are so young, just a child. You really should be with someone else."

Cheers, mate! He wasn't keen on giving me a lift.

The Driver wasn't satisfied. He's a demon haggler and followed the group from Gambella back up to the bar and tried again to convince them.

Asefa came to me later and explained what happened.

"They don't trust you. They want to know what you are doing by yourself in such a remote region." He didn't add '...so near Sudan.'

"I'm a tourist. It should be obvious."

"There are some politicians with them. They are very suspicious. I don't think it would be safe to go with them. They think you are here for 'another' reason."

In simple terms they thought I was CIA.

I was flattered but I would have rather avoided having to catch the bus the next day than had an ego boost.

Well, I missed the bus the next morning, spent an incredibly boring day in Metu and then the next day finally got to Jimma after a 8 hour haul through the most fertile landscape I have seen in the whole of Ethiopia.

The highlight was groups of monkeys (I don't know what they are called) which are black and white coloured and have long, fluffy white tails.

They have wise and ancient faces and watch the traffic pass with an air of immortality.

Jimma is a big town and important coffee area. Some of the city was designed by the Italians during the fascist occupation and has many run down but wacky art deco buildings.

Asthetically Jimma is a nice town by Ethiopian standards. You still have raw sewage in the streets but the roads are paved and there's power most of the time.

The people were abrasive, mainly because I'd got used to the relaxed Oromo and Gambella attitude during the last week. Combined with my barmy emotions I went to bed that night feeling pretty dejected. I was considering leaving the next day and flagging seeing Jimma's sights.

The next day I was determined to have a good day. I visited the museum which was interesting enough. Its the only museum I've ever been to where the custodians let you take the swords off the walls and play with them. Pretty cool.

I also walked out to the Palace of Abba Jiffar, an important Oromo king who ruled 100 years ago.

It was a pleasant stroll in the sun through the countryside. The palace was extremely rickety but had plenty of old, unpretentious charm. I think it may fall down if the wind picks up too much.

I got a lift back to town with an Ethiopian Red Cross truck which was nice and met a local guy who helped me find a hotel (a quiet, little brothel which didn't try and charge me farangi price for a room) the day before for dinner.

Haider, the local guy, is Muslim so we had to go to a Halal restaraunt so he could eat the meat.

As we were walking along the street I asked him a question. I guess some of the West's hate propaganda against Muslims had rubbed off on me.

"Will they mind having a faranji in their restaraunt."

"No problem!"

And it was no problem, they were lovely. The owner even came out to be introduced to me. He was fascinated by my hair. I guess they don't get many scraggly, pale faranjis in that part of town.

I slept that night with a smile. A successful, positive day was just what I had needed and my spirit was revived.

I arrived back in Addis 2 days ago but haven't been able to post anything until now due to public holidays and power cuts (every city in Ethiopia has 1 day of no power. Since last week it has been raised to 2 days).

The next few days are to be spent eating good food and losing time in the time warp here while I wait for a visa to be processed. I've found a great, local hotel which is only 12birr ($1.50US) which is saving me loads of cash.

I will make a short post before I head north sometime soon.

Take care,
Nik

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