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.