Back to the story… The Afar Region / Day 3

Leaving Weldiya

We again rose early in the morning so we could get to the Afar region before noon. For several hours, the journey continued much the same as it had the day before except that we left the main road and began to travel into what felt increasingly remote. The spectacular relief of mountains and valleys continued to astonish us. At one point we stopped to view one of the few lakes we would see – but quickly were engaged by a family who lived roadside. There was something uniquely lovely about these folks and our short encounter, trying to communicate, laughing at our mutual clumsiness, taking pictures, sharing names etc, is still one of my favorite memories of the trip.

One of the disappointments of being foreign, and wealthily so, is the inevitable divide or barrier that such a chasm creates. I often felt sad that with most roadside encounters, interest in us was largely material. And who can blame them? These are some of the poorest people in the world. But deep imbalances of wealth make it almost impossible to be genuinely interested in each other as people - and that, perhaps, is the greatest poverty of all.

With this family, however, there seemed to be something genuinely mutual and joyful about just hanging out on the road for the half hour or so we stayed. For those few minutes I was quite conscious of being, well… happy. And I honestly think they felt the same.

We continued to wind our way through the terrain until we finally came to the Afar Desert which is one of the lowest regions in all of Africa.

Roughly 1/7^th the size of Manitoba, the Afar region hosts 1.6 million people (mostly nomadic pastoralists) and some 10 million sheep, goats, cattle and camels. It is an extremely arid region, flat and hot with sparse vegetation. This is the area where Lucy was found, one of the oldest human fossil remains (3.2 million years) ever discovered.

The Afar people live nomadically in villages of dismantable grass huts – basically large upside-down baskets covered in grass. They boast they can pack up a whole village in less than a day to move to a new region. Moves are precipitated by depletion of foraging for livestock, or by outbreaks of malaria. Recently, however, their traditional way of life has been threatened by climate change; already a hostile environment with droughts typically coming every 15-20 years, now the droughts come every 5-8 years making the land incapable of sustaining its inhabitants. For the Afar people to survive, they need to take up the challenge of agriculture, something relatively new to them.

Several years ago, a group of young Ethiopian agronomists and engineers set up an organization (Support for Sustainable Development) and base camp in the Afar and began to help the indigenous people transition from a strictly pastoralist nomadic existence to a more settled agriculturalist way of life. I think it’s pretty hard for us to imagine how profound and difficult this transition might be. But now, in our own context, global warming is forcing us to accept that our way of life is also unsustainable as well. We haven’t quite felt the absolute pinch of this yet, but there is no longer any doubt that our survival is going to depend on a courageous and radical rethinking of the very assumptions that fuel (pardon the pun) our culture and economy.

For the Afar, one of the first structural developments needed was irrigation. As the land has never been farmed, soil fertility is high – just add water, and the place explodes with green. Elizabeth is a young Ethiopian woman from Addis Ababa. She has a degree in agriculture but

her gift has been the ability to mobilize a people to build a water weir and five kilometers of irrigation ditch using a food-for-work program (sponsored by Canadian Foodgrains Bank). Elizabeth organized a massive effort that has resulted, without modern machinery, in a desert becoming a garden effecting the food security needs of thousands of indigenous people. Not only is this a green revolution, but a social one as well. At the onset of the project, the Afar people (read: the men) claimed that the project would never work if led by a woman. Two years later, not only has the desert yielded needed food as a result of her determination, but now women sit at councils with men in a society that has never known such a thing. This is the stuff of miracles.

Elizabeth and I on water weir.
Irrigation ditch leading away from water weir. This was all dug by hand.

Same ditch a few kilometers later.

The actual farming/gardening projects have been led by this man (I can’t remember his name.) He too is an agronomist from Addis who is teaching basic sustainable farming techniques (crop rotation and composting) ensuring soil fertility without resorting to inorganic inputs (fertilizers) which contribute to a whole host of problematic assumptions and practices. This is responsible, organic, sustainable agriculture – food secured in covenant fidelity to the land. I found myself struggling to hold back tears as we walked through the acres and acres of bounty. Showing me hot peppers!

Plowing newly realized farmland.

Later that evening, the community gathered to share with us some of their traditional dance and song. This was extremely moving on so many levels. It was hard to believe that we were so privileged to witness such things. I sang as well – it was the first time any of them had experienced ‘western’ music. I’m not sure how much they liked it, but evidently they found me somewhat interesting. At one point an elder stuffed a small amount of money in my shirt pocket. Apparently this was a symbol of approval. I found out later there was some stress about me being a Christian among Muslims, but although I was unaware of the underlying tension, I fortunately didn’t say anything alienating. In the end, it was a mutual encounter that we all enjoyed immeasurably.

Kids watching me play and sing.

Teenage girls pose for Nanci

After darkness settled, we sat out under the stars on grass mats. One woman roasted and ground coffee for us (a traditional ceremony we would enjoy many times during our trip) as we debriefed the day before turning in for the night.

Our sleeping quarters - affectionately referred to as The Hilton

At about four in the morning, Nanci and I were both awake listening to the animal sounds, both familiar and unfamiliar. We walked out into the night air and stood for some time under the still gaze of heaven’s stars. I felt strangely like a ghost briefly privileged to witness something ancient and deeply good. I half expected to see Abraham standing beside us, unaware of our presence, in humble awe, silently receiving God’s favour. It was a holy moment. We stayed out to greet the dawn.

A Moment of Zen...

“Despair relieves itself at the expense of those in its environs.” How else do we explain the West’s willingness to expend the earth’s resources to such a degree that the rest of the globe is deprived of its share and the earth is endangered? This is a question Marva Dawn asks in her book Unfettered Hope – A Call to Faithful Living in an Affluent Society. It is from this same book that I re-read, earlier this morning, that in order to bring everyone on the planet to the same general level of consumption and well-being as the average Canadian; we would need the resources of four or five more earths - right now.

What is interesting about Marva Dawn’s analysis however is that she doesn’t simply blame callous greed and ambition for the present imbalance. It is more tragic than that. It is the profound loss of systems of meaning that causes a people to “ease its pain by means of production of more commodities (and the consumption of them), while the rest of the world suffers from an opposite kind of hopelessness – the inability to secure what is necessary to live.”

If that is true, who will take this painful thorn out of our paw? She quotes Raimon Panikkar: Human beings cannot live with a conscious, unrelieved sense of the “vanity” of their lives and endeavors. If their gods die, if their optimism is dashed by events, if the habit of hope languishes in them, they will likely construct bogus hopes out of thin air and sheer determination.

Jesus help us. The unfettering of hope, Dawn suggests, is the crucial work that needs doing in our numbing affluence. This is probably worth thinking through – especially for me as I continue to contemplate the nature of my work and calling. What kind of music, which stories, help to restore a practical “habit of hope” to a culture that has lost its sense of place within the wider context? A doctor friend of mine once explained that a cancer cell is simply a cell that has lost its sense of place in relationship to the rest of the body. And the result is catastrophe for the whole body."

Everyone asks us, “Has the trip o Ethiopia changed you?” Well… sadly no. When I came back devastated from what I saw in Calcutta over a decade ago I told a friend that I'd never recover from what I saw there. "It's amazing," he said, "and disappointing, just how quickly you'll recover." But that’s the work now – the work of turning an adventure into a transformation.

The Road to Weldiya

We woke pretty early to get on the road. Sam was concerned to get our traveling done before nightfall as the roads would be fairly rough and he didn't relish navigating them after dark. So we gathered in the lobby at 6:30 am and met the last two additions to our party. Kebede Lule is an independent Ethiopian filmmaker who Sam hired to accompany us as guide, translator and cultural consultant. Kebede has produced numerous informational films for various Christian development/aid organizations like World Vision, Compassion etc. His story is incredible, having been imprisoned and tortured in the 80s for his resistance to the communist party and as a consequence of his faith. His spirit is gentle, almost shy, and he has a heart of a servant - I mean this in the most flattering sense.

Mesfin was hired as a driver for the extra vehicle we would need to make our journey. Mesfin spoke very little English and so we didn't get to know him well. But he seemed like a nice enough fellow with a ready smile.

I don't remember much detail of the first few hours - the highway was initially paved as we wound through the mountains, north-east toward the city of Weldia where we would spend the night. There were people everywhere with goats aplenty as well as cattle. At first I thought the amount of folks on the road was due to our proximity to Addis, but I soon realized that in a country of 70 million people in an area roughly twice the size of Manitoba, it was unlikely we would experience many uninhabited areas. I was surprised at how mountainous it was. Largely due to media coverage of the famine in the 80s, my image of Ethiopia was of barren flat-lands with little or no vegetation. I had no expectation of the numerous spectacular vistas we would encounter over the next week.

We stopped for breakfast in Debre Berhan, one of the oldest towns in Ethiopia - scrambled eggs with peppers and the finest cup of coffee I've ever had. Although Ethiopia is the only African country that has never been colonized, they were briefly occupied by the Italians in the early 20th century. The happy result being that no matter where you are in the country, no matter how remote and cut off from the rest of the world, you can always find a restaurant of sorts with an industrial barista machine with some of the best coffee or Cafe Macchiato you'll get anywhere. The bathrooms however, would be consistently less impressive.

Camels! I wasn't expecting camels! This fellow stopped to talk to us while his camels continued to run down the mountainside. He was hoping we'd help him out with a few bir (Ethiopian dollars) but none of us thought to exchange for modest denominations of money so we convinced him to accept a few cookies instead. Once he accepted the cookies, he suddenly startled to see his camels trotting gingerly a kilometer or two down the road and he bolted off in a panic.

One of the highlights of the whole trip was the thousands of gorgeous children who everywhere waved and smiled eagerly at us. To stop the vehicle even for a few minutes was to get swamped by kids. They all wanted their pictures taken - some would ask for a bir or two but most asked for a pen. "Pen sir? I go to school. I have exams. Pen please." We must have heard that a thousand times.

The kids loved to tell us (in English) their names. Nanci asked some to write their names in her journal - for some reason I find this very moving. My name is Tew! My name is Kasu! My name is Mitu! My name is... I am here! I exist! I am not one of 70 million, I am Deribe! Don't forget me. I can imagine it delights God to hear someone proudly say their name. And I can hear God respond fondly, "Yes indeed. You are Abebe. I remember you well."

The poverty here is astounding. Most of Ethiopia's population are farmers. And most farm families are surviving on the harvest of a meager acre or two of land. Here in the highlands there is not much possibility of irrigation and so survival is dependent on the good will of nature. The last few years here have had good rains and so we didn't get a sense of current destitution, but it is not hard to understand how perennially vulnerable these folks are. With the population density such as it is, and the need for building materials and firewood, the mountains have already been stripped of trees and the resulting problems of erosion are evident everywhere. The population of Ethiopia is expected to double in the next twenty years and I can't help but shudder at the inevitable catastrophe that lies ahead in the not too distant future.

Thatched huts and extended-family hamlets are everywhere (average family size - 6). Most of the country lives with absolutely no modern conveniences in the home or in the field. Cooking is done on open fire, water is hauled or harvested, and fields are cultivated by the simplest, labour intensive means. Ethiopians work very, very hard.

By noon, the paved roads gave way to gravel roads which became our reality for the rest of the trip. Often, their condition slowed us to a walking crawl and our bodies were soon bruised and sore from bouncing around like "dice in a cup." A fine dust filled the air and covered everything. Following close behind evil smelling, black-smoke billowing vehicles kept one in a mile state of nausea. Narrow roads, crumbling away to sharp escarpments and more than one vehicle overturned or over the edge kept one somewhat uneasy about our safety despite the obvious skill of our drivers.

Reminders of past conflicts were plentiful. Wars here have been many - conflict internally as well as with others, especially with Eritrea to the north. Sam opined that if Ethiopia would determine, for one generation, to solve her disputes with dialogue instead of guns, she could overcome her primary difficulties with the money and resources currently sustaining the apparatus of war. I wonder what good could be accomplished if in North America we did the same? What would it take for us to repent of our trust in "horses and chariots" to ensure our covetous self-security?

We eventually arrived in Weldiya at Lal Hotel (a solid 1.5 stars) after driving fourteen and a half hours to cover 450 kilometers. We had a quick supper and crawled under our mosquito nets only to lie awake most of the night as a result of jet-lag and over-tiredness. Tomorrow we will come to the Support for Sustainable Development base camp in the Afar dessert - another long day - 6:30am departure.

January 7 - It's Christmas!

January 7 is Christmas Day in Ethiopia.

Ethiopia was Christianized in the fourth century when a young man named Frumentius found himself shipwrecked on the on Ethiopian shores while on the way to India. Frumentius was taken to the Ethiopian palace of King Ella Amida eventually finding favour with the King as his personal secretary. Frumentius was granted freedom to share his faith and started several informal Christian communities in the northern region of Aksum. Eventually the young man returned to Egypt and requested the Egyptian Orthodox Bishop Athanasius send a bishop to Ethiopia to establish the church there. Athanasius in turn ordained Frumentius and sent him back to Ethiopia where he worked tirelessly as the first Bishop of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. Frumentius is remembered fondly as Abuna Salama or, Bishop of Peace.

But Ethiopia has deeper memory than that. Legend remembers the Queen of Sheba as being an Ethiopian Queen who travelled to Palestine to meet King Solomon. While there, she was impregnated by Solomon and upon return to Ethiopia gave birth to Solomon's son Menelik. At age twenty, Menelik returned to meet his father and according to tradition, Menelik asked his father for a replica of the Ark of the Covenant to take back to Ethiopia. Solomon granted his son his wish, but Menelik had other designs and somehow managed to swap the copy for the original and brought the actual Ark to Ethiopia where it remains under guard to this day. So, Ethiopia has deep Jewish roots as well. Emperors since eagerly boasted Solomonic lineage including Hailee Selassie who claimed to be the 225^th direct decedent of King Solomon, son of David. There are still remote Ethiopian-Jewish communities of people called Falishas whose practice, through centuries of isolation, is almost unrecognizably Jewish. For those interested there is a great book about all this called: The Sign and the Seal by Graham Hancock. I'm about halfway into the book now and it is terribly interesting.

ANYWAY...back to our trip. We woke Sunday morning and had a leisurely breakfast in the hotel before walking the gorgeous grounds for a couple of hours. These were originally the grounds of Hailee Selassie's palace. There were several wedding celebrations with exuberant dancing and singing spread out over the compound among the exotic trees, grasses and flowers. According to the doorman, there can be as many as sixty weddings a day here.

We went for lunch at Sam's
house passing through the city witnessing the thousands of goats brought to the city to be bought and slaughtered (on the spot) for the Christmas festivities. We saw mounds of fresh bloody goat skins recently relieved of their inhabitants. Mmmm-mmm.

At Sam's we had an orientation to the country and the week's plans. It was also a good time to relax and get acquainted with each other. Heather read from Isaiah 58 which I've heard hundreds of times I'm sure but here, in the poorest country of the world, there was an weighty press to the words: “Why does your worship seem vacant? Why do I seem to not be listening? This is the fast (worship) I'm interested in – that you share your food with the hungry, invite the homeless poor into your homes, put clothes on the shivering ill-clad Do this and your lives will glow in the darkness, your shadowed lives will be bathed in sunlight. You'll be a well-watered garden, a gurgling spring that never runs dry.” (my paraphrase)

Later in the week, Jim would mention a recently discovered stat that if everyone in the world were to live at North American standards, we would need the resources of three earths. Another stat that shocked me was that if your personal net worth exceeds $60,000 you are in the top 1% of the wealthiest people in the world. I don't know many middle-aged Canadians who are not in this category. By contrast, in Ethiopia, the average person's net worth is $60. It's amazing how comfortable we are with these realities. And I know that no matter how disturbing this reality is for me here in Ethiopia, I know I'll easily make my peace with it within a short time of being home.

We returned to the hotel for supper. This would be our first traditional Ethiopian meal - various vegetable and lentil dishes (some hot, some mild) served on a communal bed of greyish flat bread called Injera. Injera is a sourdough pancake made from a tiny grain called Tef which is pretty much unique to Ethiopia I believe. There are no utensils, one simply rips off a piece of bread and uses the bread to grab the various offerings in the center of the dish. If you run out, they bring a plate full of rolled Injera that resembles a tray of hot face cloths. This was all washed down with a honey mead called Tej – a fermented sweet drink which tasted like yeast and sugar – not great, but interesting. It was all pretty good, the ambiance was fantastic and the company fine. We may have been less enthusiastic had we realized that every meal thereafter would be a variation of the same theme. As Larry T would later say, “Injera! Injera! Injera! ...spam and Injera!” (-Monte Python reference.... you had to be there.)

We were in bed by 10pm – heads somewhat fuzzy from the combination of jet-lag and Tej. Sleep came quick but didn't last long. Both Nanci and I woke up numerous times, eventually abandoning the attempt to sleep altogether spending a good bit of the night reading.

Jan 5- 6 We're Off!!

Nanci and I left Winnipeg at noon on January 5^th and flew to Toronto where we met up with Larry Thiessen and Jim and Sharon vanDijk. Larry is a producer from Edmonton who came along to oversee the filming of our trip. He is an old friend of mine who produced my two concert videos and the recent music video for my song This is Love (using footage from the film Jesus of Nazareth). When Canadian Food Grains Bank (hereafter CFGB) asked if I'd be willing to film this trip for a documentary, I pretty much insisted Larry be the producer - I trust him.

Larry and I at the Support for Sustainable Development base-camp / Afar Region

And when Larry was asked to produce the film, he pretty much insisted that Jim vanDijk be the camera man - Larry trusts Jim. Larry thought it unlikely Jim would be free to come as he is in much demand from Hollywood as one of the better camera men available (recent films include X-Men III and The Fabulous Four).

Jim and Sharon in Weldia

But, as God willed, both Jim and his wife Sharon had a brief window of time which corresponded exactly with our trip and we were thrilled to have them bring their wonderful selves and gifts on the trip.

Our flight to Addis Abbaba (Ethiopia's capital) included lay-overs in Frankfurt, Germany and Khartoum,Sudan. There's not much to report here except at one point looking out the window and seeing below me what looked like enormous white waves “frozen in motion”. It took a few minutes to realize we were over the Sahara! The feeling of awe was rather overwhelming - to see something that loomed so large in the legends of my childhood memory - and there is was - in all it's barren glory! Very cool.

We finally arrived in Addis at 10pm, dizzy and slightly nauseous from 24 hours in transit. Immediately we were greeted by Sam VanderEnde. Sam lives in Addis Abbaba with his wife Cathy and two children Maisha (life) and Gelila ( Gallilee). Sam is the International Field Representative for CFGB. His job is to assist and oversee the local partners with the various relief and development projects supported by CFGB (I'll describe how CFGB works in another post). Cathy was once the country representative for Oxfam but has recently started a business manufacturing silk and various by-products of silk industry. Ethiopia is a land of 60 million subsistence farmers and desperately needs to develop other income streams. Cathy and Sam believe silk is a viable, sustainable industry that could significantly help diversify the economy.

Sam would be accompanying us for the next week's travels but his first task was to guide us to the visa office threading us through the belaboured and chaotic process of obtaining a simple visa before emerging at baggage only to discover that my guitar, and three of Jim's bags (all his clothes and two bags of camera gear) had not arrived with us. Apparently some dear soul in Frankfurt had decided we wouldn't need them until the next day – unfortunately, we would be leaving Addis before they arrived and would have to continue our trip without them. Between Larry, Sam and I we figured we could keep Jim in clean clothes. Sam knew a local film producer who might lend us some camera gear and Sam's wife had a guitar she would lend me for the week. We emerged from baggage claims over an hour later to find Heather Plett waiting patiently outside the security area. Heather had already been in Addis a few days making arrangements and securing permission from the Ethiopian Government for us to film in their country.

Heather is Resource Director for the Canadian Fo0d Grains Bank

It was dark as we bumped along the streets of Addis to our hotel. I was too tired to really take notice of much. The hotel was modest but clean with lovely gardens. The rooms had a distinct odour of “old” mixed with mothballs. Two single beds (which would be the norm for the rest of the trip) and a bathroom that lifelessly dribbled water if you opened a tap. Design and decor felt like we had gone back in time to the forties – but it was clean and comfortable enough for weary travelers. We all met in the lounge for a late supper (sandwiches were all they were serving at that hour) before collapsing into the only good sleep we would have for the many days.

Antecedents

This blogging thing didn't turn out like I thought it would. I thought I would spend an hour so each night of the Ethiopia trip blogging and leaving pictures for you all to see as our journey progressed. What I didn't count on was the long arduous travel days, the lack of any processing time, inaccessibility to the internet and a general inability (partly due to jet lag) to focus the soul after so many images and experiences came rushing at us like headlights in a snowstorm.

There is an African story of some western travelers who followed native guides on a particularly dramatic journey. At one point the guides sat down and refused to move on. Upon questioning, the guides explained the reason they had stopped was that they had to give time for their souls to catch up to their bodies. A good bit of our trip felt like our bodies were dragging our reluctant souls along at a pace that seemed unfortunate - much like a hurried mother drags a crying child down a sidewalk who just wanted to stop to pet a puppy. We had a job to do and a lot of ground to cover. But I think our souls are still back in the highands of Ethiopia somewhere gasping in awe at a stunning view, or teasing some kids, or marveling while some five-year-old herder coerces 50 or so dog-skinny goats up a mountain side. And it just may take some time for our souls to even want to return to these bodies now recouping from the second shock of jet lag in a few short weeks.

Over the next few days, I'll recall the trip as best as I can remember it. I have Nanci's penciled notes to help. But let me start from before the beginning:

As our kids have grown and become increasingly independent, Nanci and I have been longing to share more of our life together. For years now, my work as a musician has kept me travelling far and wide while Nanci's work as a teacher and homemaker has kept her closer to home. For the most part, this has been okay. We've experienced the loneliness of so much of our lives being separate but it's a life we've felt called to and sustained in. Recently, however this has started to stretch thin, and as our boys don't need the intense care they once did, we've been watching for ways to live and experience life together more fully. So a few months ago I decided to go on a fast requesting that God would grant us this wish. And I decided I would fast from coffee as I drink so much of the stuff that a coffee fast would remind me many times a day to pray our request. It was less than a month into the fast that I got a call from Heather Plett at the Canadian Food Grains Bank asking if I would consider going to Ethiopia, and the request extended to Nanci as well as myself. What I didn't know at the time, but has since become a source of amusement to me, is that Ethiopia is famous for many things, not the least of which is that Ethiopia turns out to be the geographic origin of the coffee tree :-)

Another significant antecedent to our trip was a conversation I had with a friend just two days before we left home. Cathy Campbell is an Anglican priest here in Winnipeg who wrote a deeply insightful book on food justice issues as they relate to “kingdom etiquette.” The book is called Stations of the Banquet (Liturgical Press) and think will become my main text as I reflect back on our trip over the next months. Anyway, Cathy encouraged me to recall as I travel that immediately after his birth, we first encounter Jesus, the bread of life, lying all swaddling and gorgeous... in a feeding trough. There is something profoundly sacramental about food. And if we would have eyes to see and ears to hear, what we learn might be far more than a flat, linear understanding of food security, but rather of gift, gospel and the dignified communion that springs from encountering together and sharing God's goodness. Food is life and Christ is food – family is celebrated, nourished and sustained around the table. “Come to the table” has been an almost audible pulse of the last few weeks – perhaps it always has been so, but like the pulse of crickets in the night, it sometimes takes a particular circumstance to notice what has never ceased to sound.