June 28 - July 3 - Amboseli, Kenya

June 28 – July 3, 2008 – Amboseli, Kenya

So I've not written for several days as we're staying in a camp just outside the gates of Amboseli National Game Park. Our hosts are Mike and Judy Rainy, Americans who have lived in Kenya for 42 years. Mike is fluent in Kimaa – the language of the Maasai and Samburu – and both he and Judy speak Swahili. I first met them when I studied in Kenya in 1987 when I was 20 years old. They introduced me to both the love of animal behavior and ecology, but also to the pastoral culture of the Samburu.

Several of the Samburu I met when I was a student are here at camp, including Pakuo who was a young man with a new wife when I met him. He now has three wives and 16 children. He and I talked about how that worked. Two wives live together and move with the cattle, sheep, and goats that they tend to as that's what pastoralists do. The third wife does not move around since she has a compound near all of the wives' children's school. In the past, the entire family would have moved as needed with the changes in seasons and rains, but now that the children are attending school, there needs to be at least one place with stability so she becomes the head mama. Pakuo works with the Rainys when they have clients and goes back North to Samburuland regularly. With his income and the income that the wives make, the family affords to put the kids through school (no free educations here, even for primary schools).

But I am getting ahead of myself. First, to describe where we are. Our camp is not the type of camping that most do back home, with small tents in which you sleep on the ground on a thin pad. This is a permanent camp. Our tent has three ornate, metal-framed beds with firm and comfortable mattresses, each covered with thick blankets and quilts with elephants decorating them. There ceilings are at least eight feet tall – no crawling into this tent, but walking in it upright and putting clothing on the closet rack in one corner and the camera equipment on the night stand. Basically, the tent is a wonderful hotel room. That said, there is no electricity – nights are lit by kerosene lanterns – and no running water. Outside the back door of the tent is the choo (toilet in Swahili) which is a regular toilet seat propped up on a wooden box that drops into a deep latrine-like hole. It's in a tent specially designed for this purpose, as is the tent that is next to it, the shower tent. The showers are run by gravity. The camp employees ask you when you want a shower and they bring you a bucket of hot water that's suspended up in the air on the outside of the tent. The person showering is on the inside standing on a wooden platform. There is a showerhead with an on-off valve and you do a ship-board shower, getting wet and turning off the water, sudsing up, then turning the water back on to rinse. It's amazing how little water you really need to get clean and refreshed – one bucket is enough for two of us. I think of the consumption of water we use at home for a shower or bath and am appalled!

When I say we're in a camp outside the park, it's not as if we're in a suburban neighborhood. Well, unless you consider Maasai bomas (family compounds) that are a ten minute drive away a suburb. My front yard in camp is a large stretch of field that's redish-brown Kenyan soil with patches of yellow straw-like grass growing on it. This is dotted with Acacia trees. About 100 yards off is a forest of acacia trees. The horizon is full as the view is of Mt. Kilimanjaro. Often this time of year the mountain is shrouded in clouds, but our entire stay we had clear views of her from bottom to top. There was a cloudy day or two when the mountain was hidden, but by afternoon the skies cleared up and the sun sets made the famous snows of Kilimanjaro pink. Each morning I knew that it was time to get up when I heard the birds singing in the trees outside. I got up and sat in the chair on the front "porch," sipped hot chai, and watch the sun come up, lighting the skies with brilliant oranges and pinks. I photographed, read, or sketched the mountain as the odd wildebeest or Thomson's Gazelle wandered ahead in the distance having some morning grass to eat.

There were a couple of days where we went out to watch wildlife. We saw elephants, hippos, ostriches, lions, bustards, eagles, vultures, jackals, hyena, crowned cranes, cows, sheep, goats, and more. While the park itself is supposed to be off limits to the Maasai cattle, the government never followed through on its promise to build bore holes to get water to the animals outside of the park. As many of the area's watering holes fall in the park's boundaries, the Maasai ignore the rules and take their livestock into the park to drink and eat grass. This competition is not necessarily good for the wild game, but as there is little choice until there is more water available outside the boundaries, it is a coexistence that is tolerated.

Other days we did not search for game, but went to visit Maasai bomas. A boma is a circular compound that houses an extended family. There is a gate that encloses all of the houses meant to keep unwanted predators out and away from the people, but perhaps more importantly, away from the livestock who live in the center of the compound. This fence is constructed of branches cut from thorn trees and would only be painfully penetrated. Inside the boma there are usually about 5-10 houses. The women build the houses and they are arranged in a particular order. The first wife of the head of the boma has her house on the right as you enter the gate. The second wife has her house to the left of the gate. Beyond that, I'm not really sure of the order, but do know that it's proscribed and that they all know who lives where even when visiting another family's boma.

We first visited the neighboring Boma one afternoon, just before sunset. We were welcomed in and shown around. The women were dressed in bright khangas, colored rectangles of fabric sold all over East Africa. The Maasai favor patterns with red, orange, yellow, blue, and black this season. They were all ornately accessorized with beaded collars, earrings, and bracelets. One woman took us into her home. The homes are constructed of sticks and mud and topped with a mixture of mud and dung. Although that sounds smelly, in fact cow dung is mostly just processed grass, and so it's got a pleasant, earthy smell, not a poopy one. The dung also makes the houses waterproof. The houses are rectangular and only about four and a half or five feet tall inside, so you have to stoop as you enter the narrow doorway and hallway that lead into the center of the house. Inside there are two or three rooms. There is a room for the wife, another for the children, and sometimes a third that is a kitchen. Other times, the kitchen is in between the two little rooms. Each room has a platform that is about a foot off of the ground and is covered in cow hides and is quite comfortable. In this home there was also a foam mattress. In Samburuland, the house I stayed in when I was a student also housed the baby goats and sheep so that their mothers would not be able to nurse them in the night, saving the milk for the humans to control. Here, the babies were in a separate pen from their mothers, but outside of the house.

We also toured around the boma, watched the livestock come in from a day out at the watering holes and feeding, and Henry and I tried our hand at milking a cow. I must say I could use some practice! Henry was in love with all of the animals and when one of the men in the compound found out, he invited Henry to go out herding goats the following day.

"Cows!" insisted Henry, and the man agreed. We set a date for 9:00 the next morning for Brad and Henry to spend the morning taking cows to the watering hole. Henry was so excited he could hardly sleep that night and spent all evening practicing ways he would be able to keep the cows in line.

The next day we showed up a bit late – at 9:30 – and lucky thing. We arrived just in time for a wedding! In Maasai tradition, the bride moves to her new husband's compound. She leaves behind her entire family and all of her friends to begin a life with a new clan whom she likely does not know at all, including her new husband, until she shows up on her wedding day. We pulled up to the boma just as she stood at the gate with all of her belongings in a large metal blue suitcase. Several women from her home accompanied her to the entrance. They stood there, and inside the gate were the women of the grooms family. All were wearing their brightest khangas and spectacular beadwork, and to welcome the bride the all lined up to sing a song of blessings (Pakuo translated for me). The bride waited outside while the song went on and then was welcomed slowly inside the compound where she stood surrounded by the women who continued to sing. Eventually she was taken inside her husband's home, accompanied by a woman who I believe was her new mother-in-law.

Now I grew up hearing that a bride's wedding day was the happiest day of her life. In this case, the opposite might be true. Not only is this girl (usually around 17-19 these days) taken far away from anything that's familiar to her, she's put into a situation that is full of people who are equally unfamiliar. Her husband is most often not a known person until this day and, well, think about it. It's all pretty scary. In addition, her entry into her new home was not a quiet one, but everyone was there singing and staring, including on this occasion these three odd wazungu (white foreigners). The groom's family was happy to have us there as guests, not only to join in the festivities, but also to photograph the event for them. Next thing I knew, I was pushed into the center of the commotion and taken into the bride's bedroom to say hello. She was sitting on the bed, legs stretched out in front of her, with two older women there keeping her company. They were not, however, sharing pleasantries or chatting. The bride, still in her beautiful wedding khangas and beads, was sitting there in a state of what looked like shock. She was almost catatonic. Being asked to sit with her and greet her was fine by me, but trying to engage her in conversation was not successful – she was just in a daze.

I was then taken to the room at the other side of the house opposite a narrow hallway. In it I found two young girls, naked but covered by blankets. One was ten and the other was twelve and that morning they had been initiated. I asked why the two events occurred simultaneously and was told it made sense financially since they could throw one party for all three events and since all the same relatives would be attending anyway, it made sense to combine it all. Kind of like knowing that a couple of girls were going to have bat mitzvahs and deciding that your older brother's wedding could also be that same weekend so that the out of town relatives would only have to come to town once. You could also throw one lavish party rather than three smaller ones. Sounds like a good plan to me.

Only, the whole idea of female initiation was something that I am haunted by as it involves a severe form of circumcision in which the girl's clitoris is removed and her vagina is sewn up to be a very small hole.  While I knew this practice went on and talked about it twenty years ago when I was a student, I was assured then that as women were getting better educated, the practice would die out. Faced with two pre-adolescent girls who had just had this surgery performed on them by a Maasai woman in the dusty home, I was trying hard not to be judgmental. I was also confused since when I studied in Kenya I was taught that the circumcision was done to the bride and then her recovery took place at her husband's compound, with the women in the new family nursing the bride back to health following the procedure. I asked the groom about how initiation worked here, and he explained it to me.

He said that there is a caste of Maasai known as morani, or warriors. These are boys who range in age from approximately 11 to 15 who are initiated and then spend several years learning how to be adults in the community. They also spend much of their time dressed up in beautiful red blankets, plait their hair and color it red-orange with ocre, and often dance and sing at night. They're the ones often featured on post cards and in coffee table books about Kenya. Basically, their morani stage in life is like the Maasai version of college and frat parties. The groom explained that they often danced at night and that the unmarried girls danced with them. "Of course," he said, "the morani have sex with the girls. Since it is against our culture to get pregnant if you are not circumcised, it is necessary to circumcise girls when they are younger.  That way, if they get pregnant, at least they are circumcised. They will get married later."

His matter-of-fact explanation shocked me. I knew about the morani having relationships with young girls, but 20 years ago I'd been told that the girls were schooled by their grandmothers how to NOT get pregnant, which I took to mean that they knew how to experiment but not have intercourse. It seems that this is no longer the case. What shocked me was that rather than not have sex with young girls and not get them pregnant, they choose to perform this operation on girls at a much younger age in order that they can then have sex with them at a young age. I must say as much as I try to set aside my own cultural bias, I find this difficult to understand and accept. As I write I wonder if to share this at all since I am basing my opinions on this one encounter as well as conversations with my Samburu friends, and as an outsider I don't have a complete picture of something that is deeply imbedded in a culture that is very different than my own. I am also aware that my writing may influence others' opinions who have not been here and have no other information on which to base their own opinions. But when I think about deleting the last two paragraphs, I fear that my description of the wedding will be one that includes the beauty of the clothing, beads, singing and dancing, and my photos back up this beauty. I did not want to romanticize this experience, nor do I want to make it out to be a horror show. The truth is never that simple to describe and there is often never one truth, particularly about a culture. Culture is not absolute, nor is it static. The truth for me is that the wedding was one of the most significant experiences of the trip and to avoid writing about it would be a shame. That said, it has taken me a long time to sit down and commit it to words and I am doing so knowing that I'm not doing it justice.

The wedding was beautiful to see and it was haunting. I think that the images of the bride's gloomy face and demeanor as well as the vision of the two girls sitting in the dark under a blanket will stick with me longer than the photos I print of the spectacular beauty of all of the people celebrating these three girls' different rights of passages. 

greetings from Amboseli

Hi there! I'm here, writing via generator power via blue tooth cell phone hook up. I'm at a camp at the base of Kilimanjaro where we've spent two nights. The days are spent looking at animals - elephants, giraffe, and BIRDS amongst the most popular so far, except for Henry who loves the cows (just like Grandma Gini). Yesterday afternoon we went to a Maasai Boma (compound of several houses owned by a large family). One of our hosts was a man with three wives and many children. He showed us around and helped Henry milk a cow (I was not a good milker - need more practice without the pressure of 20 pairs of eyes staring at me to see how the mzungu - foreigner - would do). Henry loved it and made a date to walk the cows out to the watering spot this morning. He spent all evening practicing what he might say to the cows if they weren't moving - "Get along cows...Keeeeeep it moving...etc."

Kilimanjaro has cooperated well. Normally it is cloud-shrouded and we're lucky to get a glimpse during the day. We arrived by plane and could see the top of the mountain, but the clouds were thick. But a few hours later the clouds burned off and both yesterday and today the mountain has been wide open for us to see. We hiked through a gully yesterday after driving past a huge herd of giraffe. We tried to count them, most of us using binoculars and large camera lenses, except for Pacuo, a Samburu friend I've known for 21 years. He quickly scanned and said, "42." We not-so-quickly counted with all our tools and agreed with his number. Mike says it's because he hasn't spent years on computers but rather years scanning the landscape.

There is much more to say, but not so much time as I don't want to take advantage of this connection. Just wanted you all to know that we're not only alive, but VERY well. This is an amazing place and I feel very much like I've come home with the environment and old friends who I've literally known half of my life as I met them all when I was a 21 year old student.

Lots of love,

jenn, brad, and henry

June 26th - Last Day in Ethiopia

June 26, 2008 - Last Day in Ethiopia

Our last day in Addis. We spent the entire morning at the Mercato, or outdoor market. It is the largest market in Africa and it is said that in order to see the entire thing you need four full days. I believe it. We spent four hours and were overwhelmed by all of it. There were plastic containers, blankets, used auto parts, crafts, clothes, shoes, wires, donkeys, men carrying huge loads on their heads (we saw one guy with four televisions in boxes stacked up on his noggin), buckets of tar, spices, vegetables, saws, pots, pans, kettles, clay coffee urns, recycled cans that had been made into a multitude of items such as funnels and oil lamps, and the list goes on. The ground was dirt in some areas, paved in others. Some shops had stalls, others were just piles of things on the ground. There were thousands of people everywhere.

We had been warned that pickpockets would be rife, but we had a tour guide with us and about five minutes into our journey we picked up two police officers in their olive green army-like uniforms. They followed along with us for the whole time, keeping Henry out of harm's way and helping us communicate with people as best they could. It was funny – when they first started along with us I was worried since last time I was in Ethiopia, anyone dressed in military garb was not good news. It was a sure bet that they were there to follow you and make sure you weren't causing any trouble. Flash forward 14 years and they were with us to make sure no one was causing us any trouble. At the end I asked what they thought of us firenji, or foreigners, going around putting cameras in everyone's faces and buying an strange assortment of odds and ends (a clay coffee pot, a pair of lion-decorated caps, a spoon made out of an old can, etc.). They said that they were very pleased  that we would be promoting their country. They were even more pleased when we tipped them the equivalent of $10 each.

We returned to the hotel in the afternoon. Henry and Brad went swimming while I sat and spoke to Fikru, an Ethiopian man who is the brother to a woman who lives in Cambridge. He immigrated to the US in 1987 after fleeing Ethiopia to Greece as a political refugee. He spent a few hours telling me about his life as an immigrant to the US, how he worked two jobs and put himself through college. His wife also worked full time, but they split shifts, he worked nights, she worked days. They both took turns taking care of their two young kids. They are the American Dream story – hard work paid off and they afforded an apartment in Medford, MA. But after receiving their American citizenship and Ethiopian political situation was more friendly, they decided that while their children were young, they would return to Addis to live since it was more affordable and their children could discover their heritage. The plan was to have the kids in school in Ethiopia until their eldest was out of 8^th grade, which happened this year. They are going to wait another few years, hoping that Obama in the white house will improve the economy, so now the plan is to go back to the US in a year or two. The kids are in an English speaking school, but they also study Amharic and French as language classes. They are an Ethiopian family turned American turned into expatriates living back in Ethiopia. It was great to speak with him about life in the US, life in Ethiopia, politics of Africa, etc. I look forward to seeing his sister when I'm back in Cambridge and getting to know him better when he resettles again in the US.

We completed our evening eating our last traditional Ethiopian food and watching an Ethiopian band and dancers perform. Henry captured some on video so we'll upload that to youTube one of these days.

Not sure if we'll be able to blog from Kenya as the internet cafes are few and far between in the Amboseli game park. So, for the entries for June 28^th to July 3^rd, just think elephants, ostriches, cows, good chai, good friends, tents at the base of Mt. Kilimanjaro, visiting pre-schools in Masaailand, giving out gifts of beads, drinking red wine to celebrate our hosts' 40^th wedding anniversary, and drinking blood from the neck of a goat to celebrate Brad's 40^th birthday.

June 25, Addis Ababa

June 25, 2008 – Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

We arrived in Addis today after our last flight on the prop-plane that we've been taking all week. It's a Fokker 50 for any of you that know anything about planes. It's got about 25 rows with two seats on each side of the aisle. The flights are short jumps, being about 25 – 45 minutes long each. It is much like taking a bus – you board in one city, fly to the next, and some people get off, new people get on, and if it's not your stop you stay on and wait for the next town. The plane ends up being a bit disheveled, with half-eaten sandwiches left in the pockets with the emergency information cards.  On our last flight from Axum to Addis, we had to stop in a small town that was only 10 minutes away (I wonder why people don't just drive) and the landing strip was just a dirt strip down the center of a field with farms on either side.

Back in Addis, we were met at the airport and went to find an art gallery we'd read about in a guide book. It was up a ways out of the center in a neighborhood that was full of tightly packed, small houses with tin roofs. It was one step above being a shanty town – the houses were more permanent and more well organized than I've seen in slum areas, but the poverty of the neighborhood was striking. We turned off of the road with all of the congested houses and entered a large metal gate that led into a beautiful compound. There were trees and gardens surrounding a lovely old colonial house with porches lining the second floor. The house has been turned into a studio/gallery for fine art students who are studying at the University of Addis Ababa. They also host art symposiums where African artists from around the continent come to share and collaborate on work. The gardens were studded with sculptures of all types. Some were carved from tree trunks, other objects were constructed from found objects, mostly metal, others were paintings strung up to look like a volleyball court. One of the artists was there and he showed us around and showed us his work which included block prints, oil and acrylic paintings, a wooden sculpture, and a paper-mache-like globe strung up to hang from bright yellow nylon ropes between a circle of trees. We have seen an enormous amount of beautiful craft work since we've been here – baskets, pottery, jewelry, and weaving, but it was a treat to see the fine art here.

After we headed out for a bit of NON-Ethiopian food for a change. Taking advantage of the short-lived Italian colonization of Ethiopia, we headed out to a pizzeria. Turns out the place was owned by an Icelandic woman who'd married an Ethiopian and we enjoyed American-style pizza while listening to the Police and the Beatles. A far cry from Lalibela!

We spent the rest of the day playing video games at the pool-side arcade and Henry rode a carousel with motorcycles and race cars rather than the traditional ponies that go up and down.  Definitely a contrast to the previous days of traveling through historic sites!

June 24, 2008 – Axum, Ethiopia

June 24, 2008 – Axum, Ethiopia

The bad thing about stomach bugs is that they make you feel like you've been run over by a large truck, or in my case with my current locale, like I'd been run over a couple of oxen pulling a plow and a tourist van. The good thing about stomach bugs is that with a couple of Cipro antibiotics and 24 hours of rest, I was good to go. And just in time for yet another flight, this time to Axum. Axum is one of the northern most cities in Ethiopia, very near the Eritrean border. This was evident upon arriving at the airport since as we entered, the normal security guard that was standing by the entrance was not an Ethiopian, but a Bolivian who was part of a UN Peacekeeping force. I knew this since he clearly didn't look Ethiopian and conveniently was wearing badges that said "UN Peacekeeping" and "Bolivia." Desperate to try out a language that I can speak, I asked him how he ended up guarding the door for tourists entering the Axum airport. He said he'd been there for six months because of the tensions between Ethiopia and Eritrea at the border. He was potentially going to stay for another six months if the mission is extended. The thing about the tension, fighting, war, or whatever you call it, it's mysterious. There seems to be no actual fighting right now, but that said, there's no peace either.

Last time I was in Ethiopia, 14 years ago, two friends and I hopped on a bus from Axum and traveled all the way across Eritrea to its capital, Asmara, and then got another bus to the Red Sea town of Massawa.  There had been peace for three years by the time we got there and Eritreans were thrilled. They were full of hope, thoughts of independence, and prosperous futures. Many were returning from exile from the US and Europe, well-educated and with savings, ready to start their new Eritrea. Flash forward to today, and I wonder what the climate is like there. I can go as from what I understand it is safe, but it's no longer safe to go across the country. I also cannot really figure out what it's about. The cultures are similar, the food the same, but one country has access to the port, one has the capital in Addis. I have tried to get our guides to explain it to me, but they don't seem to understand it either.

Axum had not changed much in 14 years. It is a small town, a few main streets with shops, restaurants, and bars. UN vehicles dotted the landscape. There are a wide-range of historic sites, some dating back to pre-Christianity, others still in use, including the church with the Ethiopians say, despite Indiana Jones' claim to have brought it to the US, houses the Ark of the Covenant. Legend says that the son of Solomon and the Ethiopian Queen of Sheba returned to Israel to visit his father. When he was asked to return to Ethiopia since his father was paying too much attention to him and making others jealous, he was given a replica of the Ark. According to the story, his attendants broke into the temple and stole the real Ark, but did not reveal this to the son until they were too far away from Israel to do anything about it. So they carried on to Axum and the Ark is in the church there, guarded by a priest. The priest is selected much like the Pope, by a council of elders. Once selected, he does not leave the church and his sole job is to protect the Ark. No one else is allowed to see it, so its existence is a matter of faith. Many westerners do not see that there is enough evidence to back up this story, but ask Ethiopians and they will tell you of the miracles that occur whenever the priest has invoked the power of the Ark, including making it rain after a drought.  

We visited a field of obelisks where I noted a big change. There was an obelisk missing from the field last visit as it had been stolen by the Italians during their brief occupation of Ethiopia. I remembered seeing it in Rome when I studied there. Well, as of 2005, it has been returned to Ethiopia and they are in the process of putting it back up. It is in three pieces and only the bottom third is upright, but slowly it will be replaced. I can only imagine, what if England returned all of the artifacts it has taken from other countries, or any of the great historic museums for that matter… My mind boggles. The obelisks are giant grave markers. There are plain ones, with no decorations, that were erected in the pre-Christian era. When Christianity arose, the obelisks began getting ornate decorations – crosses and circles (referred to as monkey heads). The amazing thing about the obelisks is that the stones were quarried from at least seven kilometers away and moved to town. They were then carved in perfect and precise geometric patterns and stood upright. We're talking 30-60 feet of solid volcanic rock, standing up. This was using equipment including rope, elephants, chisels, and…that's all they know. Really a wonder of the world. One of the other wonders was one of the tombs contains a coffin that has no opening. It is hollow – you can tap on it and hear that there is a chamber inside of it, but somehow the coffin has been sealed closed in a way that's invisible.

We traveled around the city – to hilltops and valleys and saw site after site of ruined tombs, churches, palaces that dated from around 200 BC to 1800 AD. There is a rich history here that has hardly been tapped. There was an Archeological expedition in 1909, another recently, but most only lasted a few months and none fully funded. There seems to be a plethora of opportunity for Archeologists to come explore. Many sites have shards of pottery of many different ages, the boys in town are selling old coins that they find in the fields. The new museum has items that are thousands of years old, but only explained with tags written in green marker.

After spending most of the day looking at old rock structures, a pleasant surprise was a visit to the museum at the base of the church where the Ark is held. Here were artifacts that were not rocks. Over the centuries, the many kings of Ethiopia had donated robes, crowns, golden crosses, silver grails, and other items to the church. Fortunate thing, for as we've seen Ethiopia has spent years fighting wars with the Sudanese Dervish, the Jews from Yeoman, the Christians from many countries, and secular battles with the English and Italians. Each time the country was pillaged and buildings destroyed (believe me, we've seen the rubble!) But the items held by the church managed to keep the items safe and in wonderful condition, even preventing the communist/socialist government that reigned from the fall of the last emperor, Haile Selassie, in 1974 through not too long ago. Seeing the robes, paintings, and thousand year-old books painted with egg yolk-based paints – amazing. The thing that stunned Henry was the crowns. He and his friend Sam pretend to be kings – seeing these enormous jeweled crowns up close and trying to imagine how you'd ever hold your head up – that was the real meaning of power.

The afternoon ended at another tailor's shop in town. Brad notes that it wasn't really a shop. Outside a row of stores on a long cement veranda/sidewalk were about a dozen tailors with foot-pump-powered singers all sewing patches on army pants, dresses from colorful taffeta, and traditional dresses from hand-woven cotton. Henry and I found a fabric store that had a bolt of shiny gold cloth. He thought it was perfect to make an outfit for King Grrr (he'd been inspired by the crowns). We bought the cloth and a guy who adopted us as an unofficial tour guide of town (we'd dumped our official guide who was impatient with us) dragged us to the "famous tailor" who would do the best job. He did. He took Grrr and measured him, held up the fabric, cut, sewed, gave pieces to his fellow tailors who also cut and sewed. A crowd of young men and children gathered to watch the spectacle of the Making of King Grrr. While this was going on we got to see people, watch the action behind us in the town's dusty main square where there was a game of soccer going on with a ball made of taped-up paper and plastic. As we looked at the rag-tag group of kids gathered around us, we couldn't help to think that here we were spending money on making an outfit …an outfit for a stuffed animal. White privilege at its finest. Many of these kids had few clothes and no toys and here we were buying clothes for a toy.  They all seemed to enjoy the oddity of it all and we were thinking that we were happy to give money to the local economy, but we were also unsettled by the vast gap between our worlds that this incident illustrated.

As the tiger was dressed in his pants, vest, and jacket, we wandered through town, bought roasted maize from a woman toasting it on a charcoal stove and then bananas from another shop. Our hotel was atop a large hill and the cameras and journals were weighing us down, so we hopped in two three-wheel taxis that would help the gas crisis in the US and headed up to see the sunset over the obelisks.

June 23, 2008 – Gondar, Ethiopia

June 23, 2008 – Gondar, Ethiopia

When I last wrote, I was going to bed in order to be ready for a day in Gondar visiting a church to see frescos, go to the market, and try to visit a group of Ethiopian Jews trying to get permission to emigrate from Ethiopia to Israel. It didn't quite work out that way for me. To quote my mother, "It was the chicken stomach!" Let's just say that Ethiopian food tastes much better going down than it does coming up. I spent the day in the hotel bed with a fever and a bad stomach. Thus the following is constructed from the notes in Brad's journal as I thought piecing together his day would be much more interesting than reading about me sleeping through "Pride and Prejudice" and "The Importance of Being Ernest," movies I tried to watch on my computer but just managed to sleep through.

The highlight of Gondar was the Selasse Church. The only remaining church from the late 18^th century as the others were destroyed by the Dervish (Sudanese). This one, it is said, was saved because a swarm of bees attacked the soldiers and instead of destroying the church the fled.

The architecture of the church is nothing out of the ordinary, but inside, the prolific painting is a site to behold. Angels cover the ceiling and most o f the stories of the bible are depicted on the walls of the church. There is a large painting of Jesus on the cross as you would expect. There is also a depiction of St. George slaying the dragon, the three wise men, the devil, and even the depths of hell. Every wall and the entire ceiling is covered in paintings which sounds overwhelming, but it is truly remarkable.

For the afternoon, we had hoped to visit the Felasha, an community of Ethiopian Jews. We tried to do this yesterday on our way from the airport to the hotel when we stopped at the Felasha Feeding Centre and Synagogue. We figured here we were, four Jews, coming to visit fellow Jews far away from home. We pulled up to the gate of a tin-roofed building decorated with a Star of David expecting to be welcomed in as unexpected, but happily accepted visitors. Only the man with the very large gun guarding the door had different ideas. He said we had to have official permission from Addis in order to visit. As everyone in Ethiopia now has a cell phone, we tried to call said official in Addis, but he was out. Why we needed permission to say hello to people and see the synagogue was unclear, but getting around the red tape of a formerly-socialist-still-not-so-open-to-foreigners-government was apparently not going to be easy. But in the morning our guides tracked down the man we needed to speak to and gave the number to Brad. Brad called and used his charm and pretty easily got permission to visit.

The Felasha at the centre have to prove Jewish heritage or, as our tour guide put it, produce a family tree that showed Judaic roots. If they could do this, then they could qualify for the feeding centre, which gives food to pregnant women, children under the age of six, and their mothers. In addition to the feeding centre, there are adult and children's Hebrew classes, wine making, a weaving project, and a school for children 6 – 18 with approximately 1000 students. The school consists of about 14 classrooms, where in addition to their normal classes, they study Hebrew, and Judaism. Every month, approximately 300 leave to live in Israel. Whether this will continue indefinitely is unknown as there is political pressure in Israel and in Ethiopia to stop the program.

They didn't get to meet many of the Felasha since none spoke English, but they did meet a female rabbi who is Ethiopian but was schooled in Israel. The official guide of the centre, Mr. Geytu, described her as a "real Jew," which made it clear that he was skeptical about the validity of the other Felashas' claims or at least a bias against Felashas as compared to Israeli Jews.

Greetings from Gondar

Hi all. The blog site does not upload fast enough and when I'm paying by the minute for the connection, I figure email is the way to go.

When I last typed I was in a tin internet cafe in Lalibela. After that, we went to our tour guide's sister's house for a cooking lesson. She lived a few minutes from the main town, down a dirt road. The area was Lalibela's version of a suburb - not urban, but not rural. The whole area is hilly as the town is located in the mountains. Eucalyptus trees line the paths. Her house was in a two-house compound, with a house on each side and a dirt area bout the size of half of a tennis court between. In this area was a laundry line, many chickens (who Henry complained were just too fast to catch), a row of firewood, and a cage made of sticks and leaves for the chickens.

Our hostess's name was Frehiwot, or Fruit Life in English. She used to be an English teacher so we could communicate - a welcome change since most in the town speak little English. Well, excepting the pack of kids that eventually surround us wherever we go who all want to practice speaking English so that they can get into university and become engineers. Anyway, having someone to speak to in English and actually have an exchange rather than just having people at the end of my camera lens was wonderful. She was also a strict teacher (my students would approve of me being made to follow orders) since as soon as we arrived I was given a bucket of cut up chicken to wash and a cutting board full of red onions to slice. It took several hours, but we manages to make a delicious Doro Wot, or spicy chicken stew. We sat around a big platter, eating together using our hands and the local flat bread, injera, as a spoon. Brad and I were told that the husband and wife are to share the chicken's stomach, so we did. Not something I think I'll crave, but at least I managed to swallow my half with a bit of dignity. It was much like chewing on a thumb-joint sized rubber band.

Our exchanges were incredibly thought-provoking. She was wondering why I only had one child and I could only reply that we liked having one and that it is financially difficult to have more than one. As I said this, I was also realizing that I was speaking to a single mother with four children. Frehiwot's husband was a soldier who was killed last year so now she relies on her brother to help her raise her children. Her house had two rooms for the five of them, with dirt walls and a single light bulb. All cooking is done over a charcoal stove. Who was I to talk about expensive?

Frehiwot was curious about the US and wanted to know what it was like. I explained that the chicken came already cleaned in plastic wrap, that there is no one traditional American food since Americans come from all over and we have no one national identity, but many identities tied together loosely somehow. How do you describe the materialistic, privileged life we have in the US to someone who's got no idea what it is like?

One cultural norm she wanted me to follow was dressing like a proper Ethiopian wife. She went into her bedroom (that also doubled for the living room and dining room) and pulled out a suitcase that was her dresser. Out came two long white cotton dresses and white shalls with colorful trim. She put one on me and the other on Jessica Lander (FSS grad) and then we were ready to eat. After many hours, a game of football (soccer) for Henry with the local boys, and FULL stomachs, we headed to our hotel, still in our white dresses.

We awoke this morning at 4:45 so we could get ready for Sunday mass at 5:30. This took place in the churches we'd been touring the past day and a half. The churches during the day have priests who stay in the churches and a few odd tourists, but are for the most part deserted. This morning was a different story. The whole town seems to have turned out, all dressed in white robes (or yellow for nuns). The churches were full of people chanting, and the courtyard was full of people praying. Some had prayerbooks and read, others looked towards the church. The rituals are a mix of Christian, Muslim and Jewish. The people would come to the church and prostrate themselves as Muslims do when praying and kiss the ground. During the praying there is Dovening (sp?) like Orthodox Jews. Many came right up to the wall of the church and kissed it and faced it, rocking, much like Jews at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. We were at least dressed properly, but nevertheless were fish out of water as we were clearly foreign in a sea of Ethiopians. We were tolerated, but not welcomed by most. It was a site that was amazing to behold and I can only imagine what it would be like during their Timkat holiday in January when pilgrims and tourists flood the place.

We then left Lalibela and took a 30 minute flight to Gondar, which is where I am now. It's another mountain town, but much more developed - the third largest city in Ethiopia with about 280,000 residents. There's a university and many businesses. Today we visited the ruins of many castles from the 1600s. Tomorrow we will visit a church with incredible frescos with Ethiopian angels, go to the market, photograph, and prove to our new tour guide that we really know how to make Doro Wot. We plan to go to the market to buy a chicken and cook for him - what DID I get myself in for?

Anyway, dinner awaits, I'm running up a bill. We're having a blast - Henry is an amazing traveler, Brad and I have taken hundreds if not thousands of photos, and we're building a lifetime of memories.

More soon!

cheers,

jenn

Lalibela

Hi all. Am in a tin shack on the side of the road in an "internet cafe." No coffee to be found, but two computers and a sticky keyboard.

We're in the north of Ethiopia in the mountains in a town that's two days drive from the capital - only half of which is paved. We flew in yesterday and I was relieved to see that there is now a runway. Last time I was here, 14 years ago, there was only a dirt track in a farmer's field and the plane had to circle once before landing as there were too many donkeys in the way.

The town is the Jerusalem of Ethiopia - it's their Coptic religion's holiest site. Something like 10,000 monks, priests, and nuns live in the village. There are 12 churches carved out of stone - they're all monoliths, carved straight down, not built up. But they are also intricately designed - difficult to imagine how this was even done in the 12th century!

The place is both beautiful and poor. It is strange that poverty is so beautiful. The handmade white cloth that people wrap themselves in is very photogenic and reminds one of being in a time long ago. But "Donated by USA" food bags are also everywhere. Oil tins marked similarly are also used for drinking water as well as locally brewed beer or honey wine.

The people are both welcoming and distrustful. Part of the problem is the lack of language skills on our part. In East Africa I can speak Swahili and in Mexico, Spanish. Here I know only a few words and people aren't sure what to make of us. We have taken hundreds of photos - Henry of all the animals, Brad and I of people, churches, and the market. I also went to a funeral of a nun today. There were men chanting and ringing a bell-like ceremonial instrument. People surrounded the coffin which was covered with a gold and green cloth. Two priests stood near the coffin under bright umbrellas holding foot-tall crosses on top of walking sticks. It was quite a site. She will be burried later in a grave near the churches. Graves line the roads through town - raised and built of bricks, most have crosses and some the image of the deceased.

Okay, this is a charged-by-the-minute email and with this keyboard, it's not too fast. I couldn't wait for the slow server to post this by blog, but will update that sometime. We're up at 5:30 tomorrow to hear chanting as it's Sunday. Then at 9:30 flying off to Gondar to see Ethiopian castles and hike in the Simian Mountains and hopefully find a community of Ethiopian Jews to visit. Tonight we're going for a cooking lesson to make doro wot (spicy chicken stew).

Love!

jenn, brad, henry!

Until then, we're happy, well fed, and having an amazing experience.

Greetings from the Nairobi Airport

So today we were supposed to be in Addis relaxing at our hotel and touring Africa's largest market. Of course that was assuming we actually made our flight last night from Nairobi to Addis which we did not. Oops. The day today was instead spent changing our flight for tonight and then walking around Nairobi's tiny market. We took our taxi driver to lunch at the Boulevard Hotel since Ian recommended the samosas and they lived up to their reputation. We then spent an hour at the newly renovated National Museum sooking at many stuffed animals that we will hopefully see live in Amboseli later this month.

Nairobi is much how I remember it. Big, smoggy, crowded, but full of life and incredibly helpful people. Some wanted to sell us something, but overall people are genuinely just nice. Thanks to the security guard who let me know my zipper was undone and the airline woman who let me use the phone. There are not as many tourists in town and people are hungry for business, but hoping that tourists are beginning to return after the violence.

We're now at the airport waiting for our flight. Our gate is being called, so I'm off. More about Kenya later and next blog - Ethiopia!