Ethiopia — Best Western Plus Hotel - Addis Ababa

Best Western Plus Hotel Addis Ababa Ethiopia was a great hotel.  Just like the best Best Western Hotels I’ve stayed in the US and in other cities around the world

First it’s new and clean and well cared for.  I had hot water. I had a lovely view of the city.  I had very good high speed internet and used the phone to phone Canada.  The shower and toilet facilities were clean and worked well. Lots of light. Extra mirror mounted for shaving.  Lots of clean fresh white towels.  Soap, gel, shampoo.  Each day the staff replaced whatever I’d used and made the bed.  

There was coffee and tea in the room. I didn’t use this but did drink the water bottles there.  

They had an in room safe.  The manager told me everything was safe in the hotel. I left one bag and carried the other but even left cameras and computer in the safe and returned without concern.  I did this when I went out one evening and weighed the risk of theft with me or in the safe.  The safe was safe. Nothing went missing.  They had a metal detector and people were frisked entering the hotel relatively ensuring no dangerous characters.  The entrance drive way had barrier fences. A very safe place. 

I was there three nights

The breakfast smorgasbord was the best I’ve had.  Eggs, meat, stews, potatoes,  fresh fruits, porridge, cold cuts, cheese, just about anything you might think of with local dishes as well. Delicious and filling.

They have a restaurant and out door cafe on site. I ate several meals here and the food was superb. I tended to choose the simple fair, soups, lamb, fish and chips.  There was a wide variety.  I loved the injerah I had with the delicious chicken soup.   Great presentation, lots of choice, wonderful local dishes and lots of standards.  I sat out in the outdoor cafe and wrote a bit on my iPad so drank a few cups of coffee which is truly the best here. Ethiopian Coffee is the best. The waiters and waitresses were observant but not intrusive and incredibly friendly. They were also extremely helpful when I asked for advice about getting about.  The concierge and hotel staff were also very helpful.

I loved my stay at Best Western and would recommend it to anyone. I had a queen bed , a desk, and small table and a colour tv with channel changer. There’s several English language stations.

It was close to the airport which is really in the city so a good place to be.  I had no difficulty getting around with taxi and could have walked to  many of the major sites.  

The service was incredible. I thought the cost was reasonable and in keeping what I’ve come to know as the norm for international travel.  I’ve stayed in all manner of hotel, as well as camping and hiking. It’s been my prividge through work to stay in the finest most luxury accommodation. I’m here on vacation myself. What I want most is security, cleanliness, clean washroom and hot water and shower, internet and communication. I don’t spend a lot of time in my room when I’m travelling.  It’s was a nice room with comfortable bed.  They have 24 hour room service though surprisingly I didn’t avail myself of this liking the outdoor cafe.  It’s definitely 3 - 4 star by my understanding of the categorization. I’m usually choosing this range for travel.  What Lonely Planet and other guides describe as mid to high range. 

Thank you Best Western for making my first arrival and first stay in Addis Ababa Ethiopia really welcoming.  

Ethiopia - Dream

I’ve woken at 3 am, again but this time I fell asleep exhausted at 9 so feel I’ve had some seriously good sleep . I’ve dreamed too.  The dream woke me.  I am thankful.  It’s part of a recurring dream I have which Dr. Carl Jung called deeply spiritual.  

I’m in this good harbour by a peninsula where I have often been in my dream  with my sailboat.  It could be any number of safe harbours I’ve sailed into. There are sailboarts anchored out from land but I’m fishing on a peer. I’ve seemed to have caught a large fish and let it go, though I’m never one for catch and release but like normally to eat whatever I catch or shoot.  But here there is a beautiful woman who could be any of a number of goddesses but most resembles Venus.  She’s now caught a very large catfish. I’m touched mentally by a number of images I’ve seen on uTube and several of my friends catching big fish, the joy they know. Now this joy is here. It’s comforting. What’s happening in the dream is clearly symbolic.  This 6 foot fish is brought up to the peer but is too heavy to lift in.  Together we have the fish half way out of the water about to be landed when a chunk of the fishes mouth comes away with the hook.  This huge fish swims back into the sea .  The girl isn’t disappointed any more than I am though I don’t know what to do with the chunk of fish in my hand.  It seems the sea is abundant with fish and that we can catch the huge fish another day but that maybe it’s easier to catch smaller fish for eating.  She is laughing. I’m laughing.  I have in the past been disappointed by the ‘one that got away’. But I’m not.  I’m comfortable inside myself.  

Of course the fish to me is Christianity, spiritual awakening, the soul,  the big fish, Jesus, but I don’t know what this being left with a piece of cheek means.  The body of Jesus.  Now the beauty of women is such a theme in Ethiopia.  Weddings and children are such a powerful theme. I think of my poetry , “love between the sacred and profane.’  We’ve been talking about women of love while I know I’ve had thoughts of lust.  The dichotomy of powerful male image of Madonna and whore.  Conversations about the Madonna and Child. The celebration of the mother in Christianity and all the Christian women here with that gay laughter so appealing in the feminine bubbling close to the surface way.  Lightness of being.  Such a dance of community compared to the sordid. The lightness and darkness. 

In the conversation with the professor I was touched by his description of the double message in orthordox or perhaps more specifically Coptic Orthodox teaching.  The scripture and that teachings that are easily spoken and sounds that are said but below the surface there’s a deeper meaning.  I had a thought of Gnosticism but then thought no that all the gospel has this riddle.  The teachings of Jesus always having a superficial meaning and a deeper meaning.

It’s all coupled to my eating Pan Fried Nile Fish before going to bed.  The piece of fish I held in my hand being almost too small to fry and eat but like the fish that Jesus multiplied and the piece a bit like the bread I had in communion, that fragment that is the body and risen bread.

It’s all left me with this auspiciousness.  I loved that the priest said that one must always come to church with the knowledge that this day one would find God. He was a mystical man, deeply spiritual, and we chanted together. From Isaiah 6. He said how St. John had said much the same in Revelations.

Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord  Almighty, the whole earth is full of his Glory

Holy Holy, Holy is the Lord  Almighty

Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord  Almighty

The whole earth is full of his glory

The whole earth is full of his glory.

We talked of translation and I so admired the professor’s  knowledge of Hebrew , Greek and Amharic, languages he said are from a similiar root, I see today in my search for Isaiah 6.3 that there are dozens of Biblical translations, Standard, King James.  I was comforted to see the NIV bibles in the church today as that was the translation I’d studied so deeply. My own copy from theological college days and home study is covered in ink, passages circled here and underlined there, writing in the margins. Nights of reading with such excitement.  Remembering how they took my Bible in the asylum and I was like a man in prison trying always to remember the bits of a song. The feelings. The intuition.  Jonathan Living Seagul. The images here in the ecstatic paintings of the dove descending to Jesus and the Lord saying “this is my  beloved son of whom I’m so pleased” \

And I miss my Dad and feel such sorrow for all the men who are fatherless today. Like all the babies being aborted and then I see Phillip and my thinking his anguish is over the top as he cries out like a lost prophet of old begging the nations to return to righteousness and stop what is described today as the ‘Holocaust of our time” This murder of innoscents by the millions.  Lust. And I’m fatherless now.  I shared the depth of my despair and the sense of castration as I could not convince her not to abort our baby and there was nothing I could say or do. Never had I felt so powerless. And I’m always reminded of the history of the great slaughter of wars and the chivalry that has this feminine I’d raised to altar to worship now the murderer.  I am so ashamed. I am so deeply caught in what all could be lies, the illusions of life. This world of what easterners called Mokshaw.  The superficial and shallow.  I am the unforgiving and unforgiven of imagination.  Locked in my own limitations. 

All around there are soldiers with guns.  The women too dressed in the blue and black uniforms hold AK’s and automatics here, with the large military clips, like the Israeli girls, not hot house plants easily offended, calling for lawyers and bullies to do their bidding well claiming innoscence and weakness borderline defences, projection and naracisism, rage and hate, and the Jezebels and the Long Necked Women of Isaiah and the Cleopatras’.  

In my dream she is a beautiful friend, the woman as sister, like the women around the disciples in the day. Jesus doesn’t talk of lust except to say if you think it .it is as if you have done it, the call for clarity of mind, St. Paul’s teaching to ‘pray unceasingly’.  The aetheist communist and the desire for possession and lack of code , the need to achieve power and wealth, the image of Lenin and Xi Ling, the ever attacking ever stealing. I’m always fearing the thieves who teach my own love of things.  The choice of the young rich man, like the psychological pictures that show you can’t see the old lady and the young woman at the same time for your mind is switching. The message of ‘holding on to the God Channel’ and stop switching . Settle the mind. Meditation. Mindfulness. Practicing the present. Brother Lawrence. And I’m here so much aware of the jumble of my mind and the laughter I also feel, the holy dancer.  

We spoke of time. I thought of Science and the Scientific American cover of time and the importance of time.  The reference saying that science said as much or as little about time as St. Augustine had.  The concept of time is different in each culture. He’d been studying the tribal sense of time.  I was jealous.  I so often felt like I was constantly feeding feeding feeding and as a lifeguard and life saver threatened to be pulled under, the child eating the mother when the milk is done, feeling devoured. Talking about the flying dreams and remembering being chased. Falling when you stop believe. All around are the Vorgons and that great creation of literature the ‘Borg”. Here they were called the Derg. The name is always local.  The church had older names. 

My thoughts are like CS Lewis described ‘creatures’, what the yogi’s call ‘monkey mind’.  Spiritual Consumerism.   I would have faith and walk in Joy and Love yet fall back into fear and forget the Hound of Heaven.  The dance of lovers. The message in the sexual.  The hide and seek. The Cistine Chapel of God reaching down and Adam reaching up.  Grace.

It’s all there and I’m here.  I’ve come along way and it seems I’m becoming more comfortable with catch and release. The image of the original disciples, fisherman who are not catching till Jesus shows where to cast the net and then the net overflows. There is abundance. Comox the native word. 

I’ve been praying for guidance.  

My hand has been shaking like my fathers. I spill my coffee like he did..  I judged him so often as a young man. The greatest man I knew who had given his life to his family and children, who loved to fish in old age.  He’d put away his gun and waited with a hook for the gift of life. We talked about Baboo of India  today. The Holy Beggar, sitting hungry with his feeding bowl learning in his very depth that God will come. But if he is impatient and wants to take food or demand food he leaves the monastic path, failing the test of truth and faith.  Only the man who goes a year without food dependent only on the love of his fellow man’s and woman is welcome in this monastery.  

I’m so untrusting. I don’t believe my fellow man can care for me. It’s such a gift of trust I share with colleague when I ask for their help. In my training they made me call Bernie every day and trust that Bernie, abrupt, impatient, laughing, self centred, human, fallen, Bernie, would pick up the phone and want to hear me ‘checking in’ trusting the buddy system when the buddy’s I’d known had used me and hurt me. I preferred to be alone.  My fellow man put me at risk and I always had to rescue them because I couldnn’t surrender.  I couldn’t trust that anyone else would be there to feed me.

Yet I was touched by this young Coptic Christian man who held his hand out ready to catch me as I walked behind him down the mountain. My legs have become uncertain; My balance is going. My back is sore, My knee is in pain. I remember my brother and I talking about our legs and knees and grieving, he the soccer player, me the ‘billy goat’.  I’m so much aware and ashamed and unforgiving of the failing of this body, the signs of loss. Deaf now. I’m asking the young girl at the airport to repeat herself again and again and how often I’ve lost patience with others but she doesn’t and the transaction goes through with the help of the musician with the Biblical name.

Every day I like Doubting Thomas am reassured. There has always been food.  I am saved. I’m born again. I know this life as passing and that I should wear it as a loose robe. But my grief is so unbearable that it turns to despair.  I’m so anxious I can hardly move. At times I’m near catatonic.  I am cocooned in my despair. I cry out for Jesus. 

There was a fly in my room and I brushed it away, aware of it’s life and autonomy.  I’m sometimes aware of the sanctity of a leaf so a fly is more aware.  I sometimes even feel the Sufi dance in a rock. But this fly I brushed aside.  Respecting his life in the morning. Being Buddhist in that sense but worrying later that it was a Ttse fly, wondering if it had already bitten me in my sleep.  I am already in dementia. The ever knowing psychosis. The hangover from the psychedelic of youth.  The constant immunological healing and repair daily of the ever present cancer of body and mind.  Leonard Cohen’s I want a new face. Lover lover lover, come back to me. 

This night I came and there was another fly. I didn’t think it was the enlightened fly of this morning, didn’t think that it had already bitten me and like the vampire returned but rather that it might bite me tonight so I killed it.  It was like Findhorn. I was ready to co exist but I didn’t want it living right out in my face each day testing my trust in the sacred. Don’t feed the raccoons.  I think often of Livingston before he went to Africa, his understanding of life and death and biology, his not wanting to kill or be killed, thinking of the wild and saveragery of Africa then his epiphany that stepp;ing on leaves walking to the outhouse was the death of millions of life. Who would choose which life live. Today in this time of great shallow sentimentality the cuddly and furry and held while the scaly and hairless, the ugly are discarded.  The Appearance. Keeping up the Appearances. The fascination I had with the microscope as a child and the scientific awareness of the infinite worlds, co existence.  Quantum physics and string theory.  Thought to be mocking when i challenged the professors conception of ‘vacuum’ asking the very same questions Einstein had asked.  Empty. Really? I don’t think so. Enclosed, Really. I don’t think so.  Something. There is always something Now black matter.  The lies and lawyers and dreams within dreams.

I am here.  I came without a schedule. I got myself here.  This hotel has been a wonderful Inn. I’ve felt safe and protected, I’ve not even seen a mosquito and my body is full of the latest antibiotic and my DEET is like a cologne I wear. My obsession was falciparum malaria and schistosocimiasis and the horror I knew in medical school studying tropical disease , my talisman of “iodine’ when I hiked in India that first time. I’d not even considered any of this in Morocco when my ‘talisman’ was hashish.  Then I’d trusted the alcohol. I’d had had the motorcycle too and the dog, and the friend and the family. On the sailboat I carried the gun.  There were always the knives.  What do you put your faith in.  The psychological questions long before the Japanese woman asked what brings you joy. The question of what 5 things or 10 things would you take with you if that was all you could carry. Packing for this trip.  The woman telling me of choosing when she escaped the Communist iron Curtain  with her husband and son.

I have put trust in this body even and all are failing me as I age.  I’ve failed all in this circle of seasons.  I mourn more each day. Family and friends passing from the visible to the invisible.  My depth of loneliness challenged by each new day. I’m not alone. I’m never alone.  

I called Bernie that one day when all I could do was pick up the phone. “Come over, ‘ he said. And he’d played his banjo and sung a Christian song till I laughed and cried and could move again. I’d been frozen. Trapped in uncertainty.

How Great Thou Art.

I thought it was a test when Bernie asked me to hide him but I couldn’t. My masters have come to me, the mothers sucking on the children’s tits. I’ve struggled long with neutrality, sins of omission and sins of commission. The transactions.  I turn down the freely given fearing I have nothing to give. It’s the catch. I want the price up front. I have been tricked so often, they came to me almost daily to use my reputation to get out of jail to get money, wanting me to be their warrior and advocate.  Forgetting immediately. I fought so many battles and now I’m weary and have so many enemies of those whose causes I knightly joined.  The defeated are the most resentful. . Like the days of AIDS Patients and the sickness, how unsafe. The accountant I knew who shied away from sickness. Those who wear masks now fearful of the stranger. The superstition roaming the land again or always. I’ve wallowed into the mess and glue and swamps but now fear age and mosquitoes. Little things. I like the burro that way, so strong and tough before the big things but frightened by a spider.

“We learned to whisper,” my friend said of his time living under the rule of the Muslim invader.

“When two or us were together and a third joined us, we knew one of us had to be an informer’ the doctor told me of their life under the communist rulers.

The image of Jesus on the cross, my Irish Catholic psychiatrist colleague,said one night, sitting with  George Vaillant, “I knew as a child if that’s what he did to his own son who had no fault, I who was a very bad boy in the eyes of my mother and father and all my teachers wasn’t likely to fair well.’

“I’m a better doctor than a Christian,” i once wrote.

“I”m afraid to be too good as a Christian because look what the world has done to the very good. The disciples and saints don’t fair well. Everything in moderation, an apple a day keeps the doctor away and all that , I’m a moderate Christian.....I seek to be good enough as Winniocot said of the ‘good enough mother’. I fear it’s not enough.  .

He said he lost power in his dreams of flying when he doubted.  If you have faith you can move a mountain.

It’s all there, if you have eyes to see, ears to hear.

Holy Holy Holy Lord God Almighty

The whole earth is full of his glory.

I counted coup on the fish in my dreams.  I will bring out my begging bowl again tomorrow.  I have an amazing schedule of flights to holy places booked for the week. Perhaps I can find a place in the Inn tomorrow.  I have asked for more phone connection and will face the mosquito tomorrow.  As kids only in shorts my friend Kirk and I carried canoes in the north paddling away from land to get away from the clouds of mosquitos. We played in the toxic fumes they sprayed to kill the mosquitoes int he city. We were always picking off ticks. I hated leeches wading through swamps among swarms of bugs carrying canoes on portage. The ticks carry lime disease. We didn’t care. We were kids. I loved to fish and he loved to explore. Boys in the Canadian north. We were so tanned with summer so dark we  once stood naked waving at the passing Transcontinental train knowing no one would recognize us, children playing ‘black like me’ , believing the passengers would tell their fiends of the two naked native boys who’d waved at them in the northern wildness. And we laughed. We laughed as only boys could laugh. Unless you can be like children again you can not enter the gates of heaven.  

I am a child of God.  God doesn’t make junk.

Come Holy Spirit Come. 

Bernie sang, How Great Thou Art that day.  Playing the banjo, in his home.  How great thou art.

I thought I was less than then it dawned on me that I am right sized and in the prescence of God I saw in awe but with my fellow man I’m am equal though we play these one up one down games and men carry guns and the reincarnationist say they play the game of serial murderer till even they grow bored and  move on.  Another stage in a glorious game. 

I don’t know the Crestor, if this is a Matrix or Tron. That part of me that set up the treasure hunt and laid out the bits of bread is not something I’m easily aware of but it could be.

I think of the Vorgon and the mice, and hitchhiking rides on space ships.  I cling to my towel and Mark Twain’s vision of heaven. Jesus is my friend and saviour. 

Amazing Grace.

Holy Holy Holy Lord God Almighty

The whole earth is full of your glory

Holy Holy Holy Lord God Almighty

The whole earth is full of your glory.

Ethiopia - Addis Ababa - Sunday

I’m back at the Best Western Addis Ababa in their outdoor cafe waiting for Pan Fried Nile Fish.  It’s been another miraculous day in Addis Ababa.  Hot.

I decided to go to St. Matthew’s Anglican Church.  One of the joys of being Anglican is going to churches in other countries.  Attending the Anglican Church in Hong Kong and Istanbul remain fondly memorable as this experience shall remain.

The taxi driver insisted he knew the way to St. Matthew’s Anglican Church. It’s on Queen Elizabeth II street, a main thorough fare near the Prime Minister’s Palace.  I actually remembered to ascertain the fare before travelling. 300 Brr when a local might pay $150.  The 15 minute drive turned into an hour tour of the city.  

First my taxi driver stopped by another taxi driver who spoke a little English and confirmed I wanted to go to the Anglican Church.  “English Catholic?” He said . “Yes,” I replied. Technically true.  Anglican is called  “Catholic Light”  because it lacks the political burden of the Pope.

The driver took me to Holy ? Catholic Church, the Roman Catholic Church.  

“This isn’t the Anglican Church.”  

“It’s catholic.” He said affronted. 

“Yes, Roman Catholic. not English Catholic.” I said with the frustration of language barriers. 

He seemed to think they were all the same and I sensed that he wanted me to go to the Catholic Church so he could have his task completed and he could move on to his next passenger. Fortunately there was an old Catholic Ethiopian who came over and spoke to him laughing saying that this was “Roman Catholic “Italian Catholic” He said. I heard the word “English church’ in the muddle of foreign.
  “My driver is lost.” I said smiling.  The old man laughed and  proceeded to give him new instructions.

Now another drive around the city till we arrived at the International Protestant Church.

“This isn’t St. Mathew’s Anglican Church.’  I said again..

“It’s a Christian church.”  

“But it’s not an Anglican Church.’  I’d already found out that my driver was an ex military Coptic Orthodox. I was feeling my tone change as the time passed and I knew I’d be late for church frustrated.   Another delightful older man came over to the taxi and told me this was an Evangelical Church, then gave directions to the driver who then hit his head saying. “I live by there. Never knew the name.” I was resisting anger, believing this was all God’s plan. 

The Catholics had sent me to the Evangelicals who knew the Way and sent me to St. Mathew’s.  I thought Willie, My Pentecostal friend,  would like this big evangelical campus with lots of families and children around. They knew the Way.

I was thankful to arrive only a few minutes late to St. Mathew’s. That would make all the difference as I’d never find the right service and be even more confused than I often am.  It’s comforting though to be in a home away from home picking up the Bible and the day’s service. The only difficulty I had is that the fixed service bulletin had communion services for four diocese in Africa. I think I was following the Sudanese service while the congregation was doing very well on the Egyptian.  The next problem was my increasing deafness.  This big space with children playing and wind in the windows coupled with the accent of the ministers and readers made it difficult for me to understand a thing being said. It was momentous too for a Bishop who I understood to be from Mozambique now was visiting and sat on the Elder’s council who advised the government of spiritual matters.  I felt his spirit later when he shook my hand and looked into my heart.  Spiritual telepathy. I’d met the Dalai Lama and Bishop Tutu in a similiar way, liking what they said but only feeling what they said when I touched them like the woman who touched the robe and Jesus turned. I felt the spark.  This Bishop was holy. 

 I can often miss a 10th or even 25% of a service getting lost in distraction and thought.  I often feel the moment when I click into the present. Today I got at best a verse or two of one hymn.  I did the “Peace” superbly though, , a bit exuberantly for those about me.   They’d obviously participated in the rest of the service and didn’t know this was so far my only moment to shine. I vigorously shook hands with everyone. I did contribute too at the offering, feeling I’d get that right,  knowing the church appreciates gifts as much as the next person. 

 The sermon was superb. I believe the priests name was Rev. Charles Sherlock.   Definitely English with some deep spirituality.  Worth getting out of bed if only to join him chanting Isaiah. There’s always at least one thing that can be found in a church service.  For me today there was so much more but this was the moment when I awoke to the moment.  He began by saying that when you come into church for the service it is good to expect that today you would be meeting God.  He was definitely like one of the priests in the lawyer writer Susan Howatch’s Starbridge series. Perhaps the old man who hid the stigmata out of humility. 

Isaiah 6.

In the year that King Uzziah died. I saw the Lord seated on a throne , high and exalted, and the train of his robes filled the temple. Above him were seraphs, each with 6 wings  With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet and with two they were flying . And they were calling to one another “Holy, Holy, holy is the Lord Almighty, the whole earth is full of his glory’. 

Isaiah goes on  “Woe to me” I cried. “I am ruined!  For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty”

One of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hands , which had taken with tongs from the altar.  With it he touched my mouth and said “See, this has touched your lips, your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.” 

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying. “Whom shall I send? And who wilt go for us.” 

And I said, “Here I am. Send me.” Be ever hearing, but never understanding: be ever seeing but never perceiving.’

Make the heart of this people calloused, make their ears dull and close their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.” 

The priest said the time of Uzziah was hundreds of years before Jesus and God was still speaking forgiveness.  

After I enjoyed having coffee outside with the congregation.  In AA of the Oxford Groups , they say that the best meeting is often the meeting after the meeting. That’s true for church with the coffee meeting after being a traditional delight. .

Here I met a jazz musician whose name escapes me. I actually asked him twice, it was so important to me. He said it was a Biblical name. I believe it was Elijah  I had told him where I was going.

 He told me that there was civil strife in Gondar where I’d planned to travel in a couple of days after visiting the monasteries at Lake Tana tomorrow. The normal thing to do is catch a 3 hour ride in a mini bus up to Gondar. Now they’re blockading roads much like the natives in Canada. The fear here is that they might take hostages for financial or political reasons.  The delightful priest, very knowledgeable of local affairs and the actual leaders of the factions, joined us.  An interesting discussion followed. Elijah had heard the news of the forces being called up this last week.  He seemed most aware of the most recent developments but the priest has greater faith in the individual men who were involved in this struggle and that they’d find a solution without more blood shed.  The conclusion though confirmed later by a local theologian with ties to the area for me at least was that travel between towns by road might be risky but plane flight into these towns was not yet a concern.  I felt I might still go to Gondar but that the road tripe from Lake Tana there was no longer on schedule. I shared that the night before I ‘d thought I probagly shouldn’t go to Gondar for no reason I could conclude. I’d thought I’d seen palaces and had no need of seeing more rocks but would later be reminded of the ancient and holy church that was there.

The wonderful gentleman then joined me for the afternoon saying it was his day off and when I said I had thought to go to St. George, accompany to St. George where I’d wanted to go. 

Emperor Meneleck II had declared a holy war against the Italian invasion in the late 1800’s with their miraculous defeat being attributed to St. George.  Unfortunately the church was closed. A traditional wedding had begun outside and presumably continued on inside.  Asking him what he recommended for lunch he suggested we go to the Piazza nearby. 

“This was where the  first Cinema was created along with the first Hotel built in Addis.” I thought it apropos that a Jazz Musician would be introducing me to the more contemporary cinematic history of the city.  The piazza was associated with the Italian occupation in WWII. 

We walked out to the first hotel which was know today for it’s fine cuisine and the preserved interior. The wood floor was rough parkay. There were photo and art on the wall of earlier days.   We sat outside under grape vines and  had wonderful Ethiopian coffee,  shared our mutual tales of broken hearted youth.  

I told him I’d had the privilege of hearing Margolis playing with his composition “Jungle” wthe the New York Philharmonic Symphony at the Lincoln Centre. He me about a Canadian jazz musician who had left Toronto, I believe, and was a great African sensation now. We discused music and culture.

He told me he had a professor friend, he’d love me to meet and called him on his cellular. He  invited a friend, Professor Joachim to join us. He arrived a little while later. 

Professor Yoachim was an amazing man. He’d done his PHD on the  Coptic monastics after studying Hebrew linguistics in Israel. He shared he travelled a lot with his father whose business interests were around the world but that they’d decided he needed an English education finally. He speaks at least 3 languages and reads several more.   He told me he’d just presented at an All African Conference where he loved meeting colleagues from around the world with similar interests.  A truly brilliant unique gentleman whose students are so fortunate to be in the midst of genius. 

Elijah told me that his home was totally done in traditional Ethiopian. He’d begun coming here more than 20 years before he moved here permanently a dozen years before.  He showed me a discrete little Coptic cross he’d had tattooed on his wrist. I naturally showed him the Chomorran navigator  tattoo of three dolphins I’d had   He wore a homespun vest and had two Coptic crosses, one with the Star of David,  on beads about his neck.  I’d asked him about those and he’d showed me the more traditional one on the inside of his wrist.  It was a thorough delight to experience him.  Experience him is a good description of the meeting. He’d told me in answer to my questions about him and Coptic spirituality he’d himself considered becoming a monk.  

He’d had a lunch to go to so Elijah helped me order a local lamb dish called ‘Tibs’ . It can also be beef.  Cubes of meat in spicy sauce served with Injerah bread and eaten with fingers.  When I was about to pitch in without washing my hands Elijah offered me a fork and knife while Yoachim said he was going to wash his hands and I took the hint.  A lovely meal coupled with learned conversation of spiritual depth, historical relevance and leading research. He’d shared a little of Elijah’s spicy food at his insistence which reminded him he had his own lunch to go to.  We bid Yoachim well when he departed I having been invited graciously to visit if I was back in Addis.  We’d discussed my vague plans and uncertain itinerary.

I was really appreciative of Elijah’s extraordinary help as he asked a friend in hospitality for me about booking air flights on a Sunday.   His friend  told him that Ethiopian Air had of the only ticket office open Sunday in the American sector.  We Taxi’s there.  Security was high with lots of AK 103 and several short machine guns blocking traffic by the front enterace because an important African dignitary was visitting. “Imagine that this is happening here today what level of security must be happening in Gondar.” Elijah said. 

 The whole Gondar question became mute because while I was able to get a flight to Lake Tana there was no connection by air to Gondar from there. I booked a flight to Lallebela and Auxm and return to Addis for next Monday. I could fly the next day to Gondar if the disruption had settled .by then. The ticket agent was so petite and incredibly beautiful as so many EThiopian women are. She spoke so softly and I felt old repeating myself.

I told Elijah that old men going deaf lose the treble before the bass. “God in his wisdom has made it such that in our old age we can’t hear women but still can hear men. It’s both a blessing and a curse.”  Elijah laughed and was so helpful bringing the gap of hearing, meaning, language and culture. I thought these two young people in their loving and caring way had helped me feeling old to avoid despair.  

Back here I had Pan Friend Nile Fish and fries for dinner. Now I’m ready to fall into bed and sleep, my feet and legs hurting from all the walking.  It was a beautiful day in Addis.  

The administrative buildings of Addis

First Cinema in Ethiopia, in the Piazza 

Ethiopia - Addis Ababa - out and about and musings

I fell asleep at 7 and am now wide awake at midnight. I did a day of a three day city tour with Lesan Gold Hailu, tour operator ,whose now friends on Facebook. He shared pictures of us.  It’s always a surprise seeing oneself in a picture. I loved most Holy Trinity Cathedral but then I’d really loved seeing the bones of Lucy and all the art and learning in the National Ethiopian Museum.

I loved the donkey’s but I’ve been a burrofan forever, since seeing the burro races while living in Mexico.  They’re such characters, real personality, tough attitude, but timid about little strange things.  Their personality reminded me of my Scotty Terrier, Stuart.  The mules are character too. Floppy mutt ears.  Quite the competition for the road with mules, donkeys, women carrying great burdens on their heads and shoulders, regular pedestrians,  and all manner and age of cars as well as motorcycles.  The infrastructure for traffic is congested the same as Italy and Greece.  What sidewalks existed have become parking spaces.  Unlike Vancouver they don’t have politicians with bicycle lane fetishes. The road constructions going on are for vehicles and pedestrians without political favouritism. 

Most of the motorcycles I’ve seen here so far were being used for pizza delivery.  The guys have hot boxes they carry on the back.   Pizza delivery is as popular and evidence of modern era as anything.   There are so many restaurants here and all I’ve read speaks of  the exciting night life and vibrant music scene. Naomi, from Langley Canada presently spear heading a campaign to stop smoking (cigarettes and legal weed) in condos, texted me to say her friends who live here were performing a gig several nights a week.  What a small world.  I’m flying onto Gondar in the next day or two though would have loved to meet one of Naomi’s ball room dance friends.

I had a delicious chicken noodle soup and a couple of cafe au lait at the Best Western outdoor cafe.  I asked for injera, on the side. It was delicious.  It’s made from a local plant, a kind of rice tasting bread like creation.  The Best Western Hotel I’m staying in has this outdoor cafe off from the street so unbothered by passing beggars. They’re here but not nearly as intrusive as elsewhere. 

I ate, drank coffee and wrote on my iPad Pro “air dropping” pictures I’d taken from my iPhone. It’s really one of my joys in life.  When I was in Gr 3 or 4, Mrs. Glover gave our class the assignment in  geography of reading about a place, imagining we were travelling there, then  writing letters home to our family telling them what we were seeing and doing.  I got so into the assignment that Mrs. Glover told my mother she’d had no other student so enthusiastic. I wrote reams.  

Ruth Kozak, our resident  travel writer in Vancouver, author of Shadow of the Lion, who I met at a Canadian Authors Association dinner, is still going strong at 85.  She loves Greece and wrote a travel guide of Athens at one time.  By comparison I’m a ‘travel blogger’.  I love photography.  My father helped me set up a dark room when I was a teen. We used his plywood ice fishing shack, tar papering out the light and covering over the hole in the floor..  He loved photography too. My older brother  got awards for his pictures of birds, his predator photos in a museum in Italy. . Now my nephew Graeme following in the family tradition is a cinematographer with a engineers approach to the whole subject. I admire his stills and films. I recently told him about visiting Scotland in my youth and meeting my uncle then who was a professional  Seagull photographer.  

I like that a “picture says a thousand words” and enjoy the combination of writing with photography. It’s what I like myself and am not alone as the multimedia production is a going concern with the technical advances in the medium. .  Apple has done a fine job of interfacing their tools and formats.  I can’t say I enjoy the technical aspects as much as my nephews but I do enjoy finding solutions. “Air drop” and “blue tooth” are great tools. I’m also using a Panasonic Lumix, a sweet little pocket smart camera with Leica lens I picked up in New York a few years back when I dropped the little Nikon pocket camper and needed a replacement on that trip. Mostly I’m satisfied with the iPhone camera, my brother telling me us ‘iPhone camera folk had their own society and competitions.”   Right now I’m transferring Lumix pictures with a little chip card, not nearly as much fun as “blue tooth and air drop.”

Lesan took me to the University of Addis Ababa.  They have a beautiful Kennedy Library from when JFK visited and left an endowment.  If I’d had time I would have loved to have  met  Abraham Tejera, MD PHD. He’s with the Department of Psychiatry at the Addis Ababa University. I first read about his incredible research when I came across of a paper of his on Khat addiction in the Horn of Africa. Reading Verghese’s , another great doctor’s, novel of Ethiopia, Cutting the Stone I noted that one of the characters, a doctor,  regularly used Khat, a mild stimulant.  I’ve had a couple of patients now in my addiction practice who have told me about using Khat so it’s making it’s way to Canada.  One day I’d love to hear Dr. Tejera present at the International Society of Addiction Medicine conferences as his work is both clinical and academic. He’s obviously a world authority and known by my former mentor Dr. Nady El Guebaly who recently got the Order of Canada for his work in addictions.  Dr. Tejera has had broad reaching interests and does really impressive scientific research. His most recent project is Neuropsychiatric Genetics of African Populations - Psychosis.  Ethiopia  produces great scientific researchers.

On my own, I took a walk from my Best Western Hotel and found I’m located on a major hotel ,restaurant and night club strip. Also all around are these vertical malls I first encountered in Hong Kong. They have a main entrance where there’s a guard who checks each person for weapons.  Maybe it’s not every person but me, because in my Tilly kkaki coloured jacket and poor imitation of  Steven Segall, one of my all time favourite martial arts movie stars, I get checked. One poor guard was shocked to feel my hard leather camera pouch, thinking I was packing. .  After that quick frisk part is over the Malls open into these  central atrium with the shops all around the 5 to 6 floors above.  In Hong Kong the buildings tended to focus on electronics or fashion but here the shops are everything, jeweller, next to high end fashion, next to computer store, then restaurant, and next a tattoo shop and a stationary store beside a liquor store. The organization is disturbing to Hudson Bay ordered Canadian mind.   

My brother, Ron,  who’d lived in Hong Kong and loved the Chinese culture and I, would talk about the different thinking that would put a bathroom supplies beside toys.  He’d noticed the same but loved the adventure of the search for things which made him think an afternoon at second hand stores or garage sale was fun.   I like a different types of mental organization.  I  see  this ‘messy’ treasure hunt experience as common too in Saipan.  

There really is such a variety in the stores here and the fashion reaches right to high end.   I had an Americano coffee  in one of these vertical malls watching the shoppers as well as the people below entering from the street.  Evening was coming on and the girls really were beginning to sparkle. It’s such a youth culture with so many in their 20’s. Lesan, my very bright guide, had studied hospitality and had his guide license and developed a tour business. I was surprised to learn he was only 22.  

There’s such an entrepreneurial atmosphere here with the evidence in the markets, business and trade everywhere. Reading the history of Ethiopia, it’s always been an agricultural power house.  The emperor saw Addis Ababa as a major trade centre. The Emperors in the past moved their residence around the country rather than having everyone come to a central location.  Lesan told me agriculture is still central to the economy of Ethiopia. Landowning and farming are so important. Ethiopian Coffee, sought after the world over, and one of my all time favourites, is a major export from Eastern Ethiopia. 

Ethiopia is also resource rich in minerals but  is vastly under developed if only because of the wars, Muslim Invasion and two Italian Invasions , Somalia invasions and the 20 year horror and disaster of the Communist take over by the DERG , followed by the civil war Liberation to ouste the  “Red Terror”. Aethest communist socialist have always  killed millions whenever they gain power. Now with a little space of peace these Christian Ethiopians are back to being a powerhouse of production. St. Paul was a tent maker and sales man and the Jews have always been admired for their business sense.  Ethiopia has always been on the trade route for Eastern spices and western guns. It once was along the Arab slave trade until Christians the world over began the move to outlaw slaves.  Ethiopians and the Coptic Church were early against it but the slave trade continued for sometime flowing north to the Arab nations out of sight. 

People talk of St. Paul 2000 years ago writing about slaves minding their places but everyone had slaves of all colours and races the world over especially aboriginals and pagans back then.  The great works of modern civilizations were often built with the aid of slave labour.   The movement against slavery began in 1823 with the first Anti Slavery Society in England followed by Royal Assent for the Abolition Act 10 years later. King Louis X of France had abolitioned slavery in France first in the 14th century.  America fought a Civil War over slavery, it’s abolitionist movement being inspired by enlightened Christians. Amazing Grace, that wondrous song was written by a former slave trader who converted . The American marines fought the slave trading Muslim pirates of North Africa to put a stop to their attacking American ships and selling off all the mostly whitecrews and passengers to slavery. .By contrast the Muslims and Arabs were a centre of slavery until very recently. It was only in 1948 that slavery was declared illegal under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Islamic Republic of Mauritania in Northwest Africa was the last country to abolish slavery in 1981.  Ironically the Democrats in the US forget their party was for slavery while the Republicans were the principal abolitionists through history. Today’s it’s ironically portrayed to often as a ‘racist’ when slavery was never solely racial but always economic.  The white European Christians were the first to outlaw it and the Arabs Muslims last. Mostly it had more to do with economics and politics.   Despite the outlawing of ‘chattel slavery’ much slavery persists today in African countries and countries around the world. The aetheist communist countries have been particularly central in the sex slavery industry.  

Being here I don’t think of myself as ‘white’ because I’m mostly among Christians.  I suspect others see me as such since when I pass a window I see my minority status but I think as Christians we  consider higher considerations of relationship. I think the Ethiopians think more of themselves as their land and geographical location like my aboriginal priest colleague Rev. Vivian Seegers who began the Urban Aboriginal Ministry in Canada.

I asked a Catholic Colleague how his mother had responded when he married his lovely but “different” wife.  He put me on the spot for a minute funning me as only the Irish would asking me seriously straight faced ‘what do you mean by different.” Fearing I’d made a major faux pas I was stammering for a while  before  saying “I mean your marriage is  ‘inter racial’, nothing wrong with it, just less common.” 

  “My mother didn’t see it as such,” he responded,”She’s catholic. That’s all that matters.’  

Reading Traditional Society by the famed anthropologist Diamond it’s important to see how any difference was a threat to people.  The stranger is as likely to be an enemy as a friend so caution has always been considered ‘healthy’.  Marx  divided the multi variate world into us and them fearing any differences.  Islam still a religion state not having experienced the Magna Carta of England or the Jeffersonian Principle of separation of religion and state promised a ‘religion of peace’ only when that had conquered or assimilated everyone to Islam.  The Ethiopian Coptic Christian Church by contrast has this interest inclusive nature of the New Testament of Jesus coupled with the Israeli exclusive old temperament nature.  

Ethiopians, reading their history don’t seem to care about colour or race having fought off blacks and white, muslims and aetheists.  Some of that has to do with their highland identity which after the fall of the Axum empire had them separate and apart in the highlands and often without a seaport to join them more forcefully with the rest of the world.  This has contributed to their distinct identity which they obviously hold highly.  Also they have a strong sense of morality.. 

Seeing the beautiful young Ethiopian women dressed up to kill heading out to the night clubs I was confident for the future of the country. All day long I’d seen pretty and sometimes stunningly beautiful women  in the attractive blue and grey cammo uniforms casually holding Ak 103, the favoured assault rifles of the Ethiopian defence forces.  Older even more beautiful and stylish women walked with their husbands and well dressed and well behaved children as proud family units.  Such strength,  resilience and obvious love of men, women , children and family. 

 Knowing I’m trying to look like Steven Segal to ward off pick pockets and con artists I’m still surprised to see looks of female appreciation of my being a man as catch a glance in a crowd.  By contrast I’m not even shocked  by the ladies strutting their stuff in the latest fashion, short skirts and high heels,  wearing war paint,  obviously intent on taking no prisoners.The young men, like young men the world over seem ready and willing to sacrifice and take a fall for their country. Marriage with family and all the ritual is a tremendous orthodox affair here.    

I feel  I’m relaxing again after the experince of Canada where so many are  “offended”  by sex and family.  The war on men is such that Hoff Summers, wrote the  seminal  book called War on Boys white a whole political party in the US, the Democrats,  celebrate the murder of unborn babies in their last trimester. Here Ethiopian and the Church celebrate life whereas in the US while the President speaks out against third trimester abortion a Democrat politician already  promoting euthanasia for Children.  The Trudeau family have always been pro abortion and euthanasia except of course for themselves, as the  privileged elite so often are. As always the dead don’t get a vote.

I love the Chinese respect and so often loving care of the elderly. On the plane I watched the hilarious comedy, Crazy Rich Asians emphasing family and relationships.  Here I’ve seen the young caring for the elderly and couldn’t help noticing how Lesan the guide was pacing himself and caring about me as  we climbed a little hill.  As only a man can have I had mixed feelings about his solicitiousness, regarding my age.  He offered  to carry my pack as we climbed stairs in the museums, I believe that’s the care for young and old is connected and leads to a multidimensional respect so different from the narcissists. Narcissists focus solely on power and believe like paranoids that others think like and feel like they do but are disguising it to gain advantage.  I’m thankful for the choice that has allowed me to travel whereas my friend prefers their house though it’s left them like farmers whose properties are worth so much, land rich,  money poor,  It also ties them to  their work. I’m more of a sailor.  

Travelling  we really see ourselves as much as that which is foreign.  Transference and Countertransference become more apparent at the group levels.  Lesan showed me a peculiar board game favoured through history by the herders and traders. “Once you start playing it it takes hours to finish” It was perfect for people watching their herds or waiting for deals. Having nothing to do for long periods they played it to pass the time.   

Enough musings. I’m actually feeling like a nap before breakfast and church. This hotel has 24 hour room service but I think I can wait for the great spread again I encountered this morning which comes with the room. 

Board game of herders that takes hours to place one round and bong.

Best Western Addis Ababa outdoor cafe with view of the street

Injerah , Ethiopian Rice like bread, and delicious chicken soup

Great leather stores




Atrium of Vertical Malls

Nearby Coptic Church I walked to the had a coffee on the second floor 

outdoor cafe of the vertical mall

I am wearing long sleeves for mosquitos (I saw one fly all day, no other bugs,

 and definitely no mosquitoes)..I’m also wearing a jacket for pockets. 

Asked about weather I saw it as warm but see here the locals in short sleeves

 and the children in shorts.  Warm.

I think this is the only motorcyclist I saw wearing a helmet.

Nun

Ethiopia - Holy Trinity Cathedral, Addis Ababa

My guide, Lesan (Facebook - Lesan Gold Hailu) told me the Holy Trinity Cathedral was a unique European design for a Coptic Church being rectangular whereas most others are not.  It’s a beautiful holy place where the peace is so present.  The men enter and sit on right side of the church, the women on the left. In the space restricted for those participating in the service there are two carved wood seats where Emperor Selassie and the Empress sat.  I sat in a pew looking up at the painted dome ceiling.  Then I prayed and meditated feeling the sacred sense of this space where so many holy men had prayed and meditated.  I found it moving.  Lesan, himself a Coptic Christian showed me how the stained glass told a story from the Old Testament on one side to the New Testament on the other.  He also showed me the tombs of Emperor Selassie and his Empress.

Eden and the fall

Baptism







Toms of,Emperor and Empress






The,ark

Ethiopia - mountain view of Addis Ababa

We drove through the market where traditional clothes are sold.  I was impressed as always by the use of corrugated metal roofs and sides of poor peoples homes. I’ve seen this all over the world. Given the value of a house that doesn’t leak, the fellow who first created it or used corrugated metal  for roofing is one of the world’s unsung heros.

I loved seeing the donkey’s and mules coming down the mountain carrying wood to be sold in the city. The women were carrying huge stacks of branches for sale as well.  

Addis Ababa was once estimated as 52 miles across but it’s now has expanded even more. The populations of the city is 3 and a half million.  Demographically the city has about 5000 per square mile with 82% of the population Orthodox Christian and 12 % Muslim. Adult literacy is highest with 93% of males and 80% of females, and infant mortality is lower in the city than nationally.98% of homes have access to clean drinking water.

The eucalyptus trees, because of their fast growing were  brought from Australia.  They were all over the mountainside.  

Market





Addis Ababa



I bought a bracelet

Women work the world over

 Eucalyptus