Ethiopia? What am I thinking!

“What am I thinking?!” I thought waking today from a night of bad dreams. I was in Athens again being surrounded by Muslim young men screaming “infidel!”. They surrounded me like hounds and a bear, shoving me, trying to trip me, ripping the gold cross from inside my shirt. I broke from the circle before they could knocked me down and pile on me. Then I ran, faster than the speed of sound.  I was back as fly in doctor in Churchill when the gang of dock workers began punching me, surrounding me, knocking me down, putting their steel toed boots to my kidneys. Again I escaped.  Youth, athleticism.

Before going to bed I finished reading , North to Lalibela: Searching for Ethiopia by Duncan Lanser.  He and his friend traveled the Northerrn Historic Route I’m planning on following.  That was in 2015. It’s a sad account of a third world country with poverty, out of work teenagers and aggressive begging. Immediately they were mobbed and Duncan’s buddy Mike had his cell phone stolen.  Duncan had his flashlight stolen. Everyday throngs harrassed them at first friendly then with hostility demanding they buy this, give this or take this guid. It’s a really sad tale with little talk of the obvious incredible history and beauty of the place and land. There are obviously reprieves and nice people they meet but the police are unhelpful and there’s a general anti western atmosphere even in the tourist centres. As well there’s bed bugs, malaria mosquitos, parasites in the water, and just generally each day seems like they have to go through a war zone of demanding hustlers to get to a church or museum. There’s also the altitude which affects respiration and heart rates.  No wonder I have bad dreams.

Last week I was at the Travel Clinic -Vancouver Coastal Health -on Broadway - delighted to have Dr.Angela Ernst give me all the vaccines I need, including meningitis, and provide me with the Malarone protection against the Falciparum Malaria , Blackwater fever.  I even had my Yellow Fever certificate from years back updated and already had Hep B and C but needed my Tetanus renewed.  Apparently traveller’s diarrhea is fairly ubiquitous so I’ve antibiotics for Ethiopia’s Montezuma’s revenge, something I first encountered in Mexico. I was actually feeling rather elated and confident as insects were my principle fear.  I still must be concerned about rabies, a problem in Ethiopia, especially as I’m interested in meeting the famed Galada baboons. 

Asked why I was going to Ethiopia I explained that I wanted to visit the Coptic Churches but Muslim Brotherhood linked terrorists were blowing up Coptic Churches in Egypt. I’d been near  IRA bombings seen the effects, been repeatedly evacuated when I lived in London as a young man. I saw the after effects but wasn’t actually bombed so won’t tell a Hillary Clinton war story about that. My intrepid gorgeous partner Baiba at the time did come home from work one day with face scratches from flying broken glass, the building across from her office blown up.  So I joked and said I’d chosen Christian Ethiopia over Muslim Egypt because “I’d rather face “mosquitos than Muslims” The Sunni terrorist seem to be always Wahabism .There show no respect for other religions   A fellow recently in Cairo said he was robbed consecutively the first three days he left his hotel and mugged the fourth day. He caught a plane home having foregone seeing any of the tourist sites of Egypt. When I wanted to go there and went to Turkey instead the travel advisories were against any Canadian travelling in Egypt without being in a guided group. 

The Canadian and American consulates have a warning against going to parts of Ethiopia especially the border of Somalia and Sudan,and  Eritrea and Djibouti even has cautions.  There are border clashes between the Ethiopian military which sounds like a very impressive group and tribal and terrorist neighbours. Al Shabam the ISIS and al Quada related  Muslim terrorists bombed the main city of Addis Ababa more than a decade back but have had multiple terrorits attacks thwarted by Ethiopia’s fine  anti terrorism unit. This year there have been terrorist attacks in other parts of Ethiopia. Right now there’s tribal conflict in Oma to the south where there are so many colourful ancient tribes. Also there are troubles in the Danekil Depression, tectonic action, volcanoes, hot springs not only is the landscape prohibitive there’s been advisory of risks to tourist.

I read In Ethiopia with a Mule by Devia Murphy, a young Irish woman trekking alone along this northern route in 1968.  The bugs were terrible and she too was mugged and robbed, seriously once by a known criminal and murderer and a couple of times by opportunistic thieves. The police and authorities were extremely helpful. As Amharic is the official language and few spoke English , language was a problem in difficulties as it was for in 2015 Duncan Lanser. 

Ethiopia’s attractions are  associated with it’s history of conflict.  

Axum or Aksum is the northern city that was the site of a great empire. King Exana influenced by his childhood tutor, Frumentius, introduced Christianity to Ethiopia in circa .300   The Queen of Sheba of Biblical times, Queen of the South, Ethiopian,. visited King Solomon of Jerusalem circa 550.  Judaism was present from early days  .  Abyssinia is the  name historically for the Ethiopian Empire. Because Christians couldn’t pilgrim to Jerusalem because of the Muslim attacks the idea was to create Lalibela as a “New Jerusalem”. Hence the apparently unforgettable incredible rock churches.  The Aksum empire which became Christian had been pushed south by Muslim invasion. Lalibela became the new capital fo the Zagwe Dynasty. With Ottoman assistance the Abyssinian (Ethiopian) empire was overtaken in 1529. The Muslim onslaught was only stopped with the assistance of Christian Portuguese. 

1632 the new capital was at Gondar.  (What surprised me was that Yemen where Aden is, across the Red Sea, was once part of the Ethiopian Empires. Canada is presently selling war materials to  Saudi Arabia in the Yemen War against the Hthoui Rebels - small world). 

In 1896 Ethiopia defeated an Italian invasion. Menelik II and Hailie Selassie increased modernization. Hailie Selassie

I read Evelyn Waugh’s quite funny eye witness account of Haille Selassie’s coronation in his book Remote People (Evelyn Waugh, 1930)). The Rastafarians saw Hailie Selasie as as the new Messiah.

Between 1935 and 1947 Ethiopia was occupied in WWII by Italy only to be freed by British and Ethiopian rebels restoring Haile Selassie to the throne.  Ted Allbeury’s fast paced novel, The Girl from Addis is an novel about a British Agent in this era that read’s like an African Version of Smiley’s People. 

Haile Selassie was overthrown in 1974 by the murderous communist DERG Regime. The Red Terror with the murder of hundreds of thousands of Ethiopians followed by a famine that killed millions. That famine was reminiscent of the  USSR central socialist agricultural policy that murdered millions of Ukrainians.

In 1991 the Derg fell and Federal Democratic Republic under Meles Zenawi followed. The Ethiopian Military began to train with the US army and a counter terrorism task force with military advisors was established Ethiopia.  In 2006 Al Quada linked Somalian forces fought with Ethiopia, the Ethiopian Army winning and then withdrawing after the Battle of Mogadishu. Somalia remained in the hands of a small African Union force and the Somalia Transitional Government. Pirates operated out of Somalia for years after stealing ships and giving rise to the great Tom Hanks Captain Phillips movie about the US container ship Alabama pirated in 2009.   The Federal Government of Somalia, first central government since war, was only ushered in in 2012. 2017 Mohammed Abdullahi Mohamed was elected President and appointed Hasan Khaire as his prime minister.  There continue to be clashes along the Ethiopian and Somalian border.  

The Ethiopia Prime Minister is Ably Ahmed. He is Ethiopia’s first Muslim Prime Minister,  President Sahle-Work Swede is the first female president. Ethnic strife persists in Ethiopia. The colourful history of Ethiopia in ancient times and continuing to today has given rise to a variety of influences on the country’s architecture and people.  

(I read Wings over Ogaden by Tom Cooper an amazing account of the of the Ethiopian - Somalian war 1978-79 showing the extraordinary sales to Ethiopia of multimillion dollar weapons from the US, Europe and Russia.  Similar sales were made to Somalia. The gripping  movie Black Hawk Down with unforgettable war footage as engaging as the beach scenes of Saving Private Ryan, letting audiences catch a teeniest grip of what has forever been called the ‘fog of war’ was about 1993 . US troops withdrew in 1994.)

Canada’s Minister of Immigration, Ahmed Hussen,under Liberal Globalist PM Justin Trudeau, was  born in Mogadishu, left Somalia as a teen in 1994 and  became a lawyer in 2012 in Ontario Canada. It has been his policy to bring millions of migrants into Canada. 

I enjoyed reading a question in North to Lalibela which was a boy was asking Duncan, “do you think all of us Ethiopians are beggars’.  No , he responded,  but as a tourist he said, he was exposed disproportionately to beggars. 

The Lonely Planet guide series did make a point in one article comparing the relative risk of terrorist attack, or deaths or dismemberment or disease in Ethiopia  versus the chance of death or disease in North America. I’m more likely to die in a traffic accident than a terrorist attack.  Certainly if I take the precautions I am likely to have a very good time but now that I’ve learned of the teen boy assaults and thefts I’m going to take more precautions about that.

 I talked to Brilliant Guide Services and really think that going with them I’d have had a safe grand time without any risk at all. They were very helpful.  The trouble is I’m still able to be independent and I want to go slow at churches and avoid markets or crowds.  

So as with every expedition or adventure I’ve been on ,I have had moments of loss of faith. What am I thinking? I believe that it’s going to be increasingly difficult to travel in future with increasing divisive leftist politics and religious extremism.   We have a lot to learn from the Swiss and others.

I love that the Israelis air lifted some 30,000 Ethiopian Jews to Israel when the DERG aetheist communists threatened them.  I used to feel towards my country the way the Israelis I know have felt towards there’s.  Part of the experience of travel has always been that it makes me appreciate Canada more. Canada for me is like my mother, I can criticize her but I don’t take kindly to anyone else criticizing her. 

What I love to see travelling is that planes fly, businesses run, people have babies.  All the lies of over population and war and politics are constantly exposed by the faith and endeavour of ordinary people. The principle problems in the world today are still greed and avarice, politics and envy.   It’s the problems I hear at the university, in the church and in my own workplace. 

Personally like everyone else today I can be a great’ critic’ but the fact is I’m thoroughly impressed that the human race crawled out of the water onto the land. I have trouble getting off my couch. Travelling I see the profound evidence of the greatness of men and women. I look forward to seeing the Lalibela Churches just as I looked forward to seeing the NASA launch pad. or 

Life is dangerous. There’s only one way out.  I dont want to be diseased or maimed but I’d rather see life as a journey where we help each other than something I really believe I could hide from.  The latter were described as leading  ‘lives of quiet desperation’.  What am I thinking? I’m thinking I’m going to Ethiopia.  I expect God will as always care for me and I will learn most likely a little more what I don’t know and what a pompous fool I can be in my ignorance. 

I also look forward  to seeing LUCY, our 3.2 million year old ancestor. The world’s not going to end any time soon. We’re still muddling along though the names have change,  gossip probably remains the same. 

Two Coptic Christian Ethiopian nurses cared for my mother in her last year. They were so loving and caring. I vowed then to go to Ethiopia one day to learn about the people, their home and this religion that made them so caring of a stranger.