Jijiga

We are getting further and further east. Jijiga is the capital of the ethnic-Somali Ogaden region in Eastern Ethiopia. The town features prominently in a book written by Nega Mezlekia, who was born here, and spent his childhood here. Nega was born in 1958, same as me, and in many ways his childhood was not too different from mine: a middle-class family, relatively protected, a schoolboy being naughty, pulling off all sorts of pranks, frequently being expelled from the class room: I recognize that. Yet, there are obviously a lot of things I don’t recognize, my teacher didn’t beat me senseless, I wasn’t subjected to witchcraft to drive out the devil, but mostly, I didn’t live in an Ethiopia.

In the early and mid seventies, I was in my confident, bragging teens, chasing girls and growing up carefree, for all intents and purposes. Ethiopia saw violent regime change, the emperor Haile Selassie was overthrown and subsequently killed, and a military junta, the Derg, took over. As so often, internal conflict weakened the junta, opening up opportunities for separatist movements, amongst them the Western Somali Liberation Front inside Ethiopia. Any Liberation Front worth its salt is supported by another, preferably bordering nation, in this case, surprise, surprise, Somalia, who then saw its chance and invaded Ethiopia. In true Cold War fashion Somalia had initially been supported by the Soviets, who helped them built up their military strength, but when the Ethiopian emperor fell - traditionally supported by the US -, the Soviets decided to link up with the Ethiopians, who thus closed the door to the Americans – are you still following? Not wanting to support two sides of the same war, the Soviets then withdrew from Somalia, whereupon the Americans decided to support the Somalis against the Ethiopians, who were by now helped by 8000 Soviet advisers as well as 15,000 Cuban troops.

Nega was in Jijiga during the war, he must have been 18 or 19. Initially Ethiopian government troops firmly defended the town, in part through rounding up all ethnic Somalis they could find and slaughtering them, executing then  – effectively genocide, of course, although it is not called that in the book. Afterwards the Somali army was winning, forcing an exodus of over 20,000 people from Jijiga first across the strategically important Marda Pass, and then on to nearby Harar. Despite the distance of less than 100 km the trip nevertheless took some two weeks, and came complete with snipers, land mines, mortar attacks, black market traders – who, for good measure, were also executed - and famine. I didn’t have any of that in my youth.

To cut a long story short, the 1977 Somali invasion was ultimately rebuffed by the Ethiopian army, and the Somalis withdrew to their own territory again in March 1978, end of the Ogaden war. Also beginning of the weakening of the Somali regime, of course, of which we see the fall-out today.

It took us a little over an hour to get from Harar to Jijiga.

Harar

The first Westerner to lay eyes on Harar was Richard Burton, he of Burton & Speke fame (from a later expedition to the heart of Africa to explore the source of the Nile). On early travels, in 1854, Burton reached Harar - which he compared to ‘ill-famed Timbuctoo’ as being equally ‘bigoted and barbarous’ (from hearsay, no doubt, as I don’t think he ever went to Timbuktu). He stayed for ten days, as guest, others say hostage, of the local sultan, before being allowed to leave again.

Paul Theroux also went to Harar, some 10 years ago. He describes the town in similar terms as Burton did, commenting on the narrow streets where two pedestrians can hardly pass each other, and on the open sewerage and the heaps of rubbish everywhere.

Theroux also witnessed the feeding of the hyenas, by what is called the ‘hyena man’, somebody who collects scraps of meat and bones during the day to feed to the hyenas at night, forcing the animals to take it from their hands, even from their mouth.  A rather disturbing way of feeding, I would say, but undoubtedly true (I also read about this elsewhere, perhaps in Nega’s book).

 I decided to have a look for myself one evening, and set out to the spot, outside town, where the feeding takes place, but unfortunately, too many able young men decided, at precisely the same moment, to go and have a look as well. The further away from the town centre I got, and the darker it became – feeding hyenas is an after-dark activity –, the more I had the feeling that I was surrounded by human hyenas. Not to tempt faith once more – having money stolen from me, well, I still can continue traveling, just lower the budget somewhat, but having my camera stolen, that would be a trip-ending experience – I turned around and went back to the hotel. You know, this type of experiences doesn’t do much for the general appreciation of Ethiopia.

But in daylight, Harar is a delight. A walled city with five gates – some more impressive than others, and some parts of the wall decidedly less impressive – inside is a labyrinth of narrow alleys and streets (as Theroux observed correctly), curving and climbing, up- and down-hill.  There are no less than 84 small mosques inside, in green and white, or blue and white. Many of the houses have been painted in similarly bright colours as we saw in Dire Dawa, pink, or orange. But even more colourful are the people, many of Somali ethnic origin, I think, with long dresses and wrapped in cloths. And did I mention market before? There are no less than three, here, one at the eastern gate, apparently for the Oromo people, one Christian market just outside the walled city (and right below our hotel room), and one in the city centre, the Muslim market. The latter is the only one with a proper market building, in which the butchers have their shops: outside, the kites have congregated to pick up any scrap of meat that falls, or indeed any piece of meat that is not well covered when taken from the shop. Frightening, really, and they do swoop low across any hapless tourist walking here, as well. (I remember kites from 25 years ago in Tanzania, where they circled above the lunch places in safari parks, and were not beyond diving down to try to grab the sandwiches from the hands of safari goers, with occasionally very painful results.)

(1) one of the original gates of the city, with the chaos of a market in front of it

(2) one of the many narrow alleys in Harar, and (3) one of the 84 mosques

 

(4) two women walking the street

(5) the so-called Muslim market, with the butcher stalls along the covered gallery, (6) the kites in strategic position, in case any meat falls (or is poorly covered), and (7) another side of the market, taken over by Coca Cola advertisements

(8) one of the few two-storey buildings in Harar, along the main road, and (9) a window of one of the older buildings

(10) woman tending a wood-carrying donkey at the so-called Oromo market

We have this eternal debate whether to employ a guide or not. Generally we don’t, because we like to wander around without pressure to move on to the next site, and we reckon that the little additional information the guide provides does not weight up against the amount of superfluous nonsense that we also have to listen to. In Harar we found the solution; we employed Abdullah, no, Abdullah somehow attached himself to us, and we didn’t mind. He was deaf and dumb – which solved the superfluous information part -, but showed us every corner of town, pointing out good photos, interesting views, funny scenes. We managed to communicate, somehow, and saw everything we had on our list, plus a whole lot more. The most interesting part of the experience was that Abdullah knew everybody, and was obviously well respected despite his handicap. In every way he operated as a professional tour guide. And we had fun, for sure!

I didn’t see anything of the bigotry, anything barbarous, during daytime Harar. On the contrary, the Muslim dominance seems to make this a much more friendly place than many other obvious tourist sites in Ethiopia. But at night? I am not so sure.

(11, 12) just outside Harar is an enormous Muslim cemetry, with many of the grave stones carefully painted; a very peaceful place, somehow

Dire Dawa

We have left the so-called Historical Circuit - the north of Ethiopia, the historical heartland - behind us, and we are heading north and east now, to the less explored Somali part – Somali as in the eastern most province of Ethiopia, as well as a short entry into Somaliland, a semi-autonomous part of the country Somalia (in fact Somaliland is an independent country, for all intents and purposes, except that it has not been recognized as such by anybody).

Heading north-east means two things, one is that we have now come down from the highlands, and it is a lot hotter here. And two, because of his, conditions become even dryer, it seems, that what we have seen so far.

(1) country side on the way to Dire Dawa: dry, but fields are being prepared for the rains

(2) we are driving parallel to the Addis Ababa - Djibouti railway, the one unused, at the moment, and (3) the railway station in Dira dawa, just as unused as the tracks themselves.

First stop is Dire Dawa, the town built at the beginning of the 20^th Century to accommodate a stop halfway the Addis Ababa - Djibouti railway. In those hundred years or so the town has grown to the second largest in Ethiopia, although you wouldn’t say. Dire Dawa has a very relaxed atmosphere, with tree lined streets providing the necessary shade, with brightly painted adobe-type houses in the back streets, and with the ever-present market sprawling on the left bank of a wadi that cuts the town in two halves. Pleasant enough for a little walk.

(4, 5, 6) small, shaded streets in Dire Dawa, with hole-in-the-wall shops, and laundry drying outside

(7, 8) oh, no, not again markets! and what is this obsession with chillies?

But we had come to Dire Dawa to see rock paintings. Not very well advertised in guide books (who concentrate much more on the Historical Circuit), there are in fact at least four caves in and around town that contain reputedly interesting rock paintings of humans, and domestic and wild animals. Determining the age of these is always problematic, but from artefacts found in the caves somebody has estimated that they could be perhaps up to 70,000 years old – which I find hard to believe, 5000 years is another estimate I read, and more reasonable.

Unfortunately you need a permit to visit these paintings. Unfortunately it was a public holiday, so government office was closed. In any case, because it was a public holiday, the tour operators were also not working. Well, we managed to contact several, but none could even arrange a car: the car rental agencies were also not working. By 2 pm we gave up, accepted our loss, admitted failure, and moved on to Harar.

(9) donkeys marching through the dry wadi that runs through Dire Dawa; note the rubbish, everywhere

(10) and the last one: many women do object to being photographed, but this one actually liked it

Senbete & Bati

The market marathon. We like markets, you know that, so even though we had just done the one in Kombolcha, this didn’t diminish the enthusiasm for, first, on Sunday, the Senbete market two hours south, and second, the huge market in Bati, an hour or so east.

Describing markets is very boring, I think. Suffice to say that the markets were markedly different. Senbete was rather small, compared to even Kombolcha, but was very colourful, thanks to Oromo women with plentiful silver jewelry and bright dresses, brilliant headscarves. And Bati, well, what can I say? We have been to Kashgar, in Western China, we have seen the souk in Istanbul. Bati competes with these, it is huge, it is – once again – colourful, with Oromo and Afar people, and probably a whole lot more we didn’t manage to identify, it is varied, from a chat section (not chat as in talking, but chat as in chewing, a local stimulant) to what we christened pepper street, 100s of meters of chillies in all forms, uncut, in small pieces, grounded. A woman was chopping them up as we passed, and not only we, everybody was coughing, from the smell of spice. Coffee in all forms, from raw beans to roasted; salt, in coarse grains; herbs and spices. On another hill people are trading mobile phones, sim cards, and there is an electronics stall. On the other side of the village is the cattle market, not much different from Kombolcha and Senbete, just bigger. And including camels. Anyhow, as I said, boring stuff, except for the photos – a very small selection only!

(because I couldn't make up my mind about the photos, the "small selection" actually amounts to some 40 market pics, which - in order to save time - I uploaded them in a Picassa webalbum. See:   https://picasaweb.google.com/bruno.oudmayer/HornOfAfricaSenbeteBatiMarkets?authkey=Gv1sRgCKnesvOXgoyexQE )

Kombolcha

We had come to base ourselves in Kolbolcha, strategically positioned to visit several famous markets back-to-back, the Sunday market in Senbete and the Monday market in Bati, presumably the biggest market in the country after the Merkato, but definitely more colourful, with people from various ethnic origins coming together.

the road to Kombolcha

(once more, two entries a day, but that's what you get with unreliable internet - I have to catch up)

Just when you have, for the umpteenth time, established firmly that although there are plenty interesting things to see in this country, the actual traveling is somewhat of a hardship experience – all the begging, all the opportunism, all the lying and cheating -, you have a day as today.

Mekele

Mekele, the capital of the Tigray region, is just 45 minutes drive south of Wukro. The road is fairly new, which allows for quite high speeds, yet the non-motorized creatures who also make use of the road – not only the people walking along, also the donkeys, the camels, the cows and the sheep crossing, the children playing –, they are clearly not used to this. I don’t know how many accidents happen every day in this country, but it must be very many, and no doubt with fatal result for men as well as animals – as well as cars, hitting one of those long-horn bulls means total-loss.

(1, 2) regular road users, not necessarily fully aware of the motorized traffic that also uses the road

Mekele is three times nothing. Unattractive, dusty, nobody smiles, nobody says anything else but “give me”. Large numbers of able young men hanging around, no jobs. Two fairly well-dressed guys, obviously out shopping, bags in their hands, walk up to me and  say “ferenji, I am hungry”. We are also back again to this disturbing coincidence of unsavoury looking young men who keep exactly the same pace as I, some two meters behind me – and stop when I stop, continue when I continue; with an equally disturbing interest in my backpack (not in my pockets anymore, those have already been emptied).

 (3) one of the few people with a job in Mekele, it seems: the knife sharpener and his side-kick

(4) and the pride of Mekele, a real round-about!!

However, Mekele has the Aksum Hotel, a comfortable place with fast internet, satellite TV, BBC Worldnews, hot showers, a balcony and a real restaurant. No fasting here. They even had salad; so after the first lunch, I didn’t enjoy much of that restaurant anymore, but I appreciated the comfortable toilet seat!