G
spells visionary capital
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Photo:
©2005 Khaled Diab |
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Gondar became the capital of Ethiopia in 1635, retaining its position for 250 years. It became the permanent capital after the royal court had wondered from one location to the next for a couple of centuries. The location was reputedly chosen by King Fasil based on a tradition that one of his ancestors had had a vision which was interpreted to mean that the name of the capital should begin with a G.
After breakfast at brunchtime on the Circle
hotel’s rooftop terrace, where we sipped on our macchiatos and watching the
hawks and eagles circling high overhead, we decided our first stop should be
the Royal Enclosure. When we got there, we found it was shut for lunch.
We decided to fill the siesta hours by hiking
to a nearby village where a vibrant community of Felasha Jews once lived before
most of them were airlifted to Israel in the 1970s. Just as Ethiopia’s
isolation led to its own peculiar brand of Christianity, it also evolved its
own particular form of Judaism – which does not draw on the Talmud which was
written in the Diaspora – that caused the Felasha difficulties in Israel
because they were not regarded by their more Orthodox co-religionists as ‘real’
Jews.
Although Ethiopia is predominantly Christian
and Muslim, it is proud of its Jewish heritage. Much is made here of the Queen
of Sheba’s legendary visit to King Solomon’s court. Ethiopians strongly believe
that the ancient queen came from Ethiopia, and not the wealthy southern Arabian
kingdom of Sabaa (Sheba), the ruins of which lie – archaeologists believe – in
modern-day Yemen.
Despite Solomon’s ungentlemanly behaviour in
luring the queen into his bed for a bout of extra-marital sex after he’d had
his fill with one of her maidens (and I thought Biblical stories were supposed
to provide us with moral guidance!), Ethiopians are proud of the fact that this
union reputedly resulted in a son, Ibn el-Malik (Son of the King), or Menelik
as he is known in Ethiopia.
To round things off, Solomon’s bastard son apparently
took back to Ethiopia the prized Ark of the Covenant (which is not a boat at
all but a vessel containing the stone tablets on which are written the ten
commandments Moses received from God on Mount Sinai) as some kind of
inheritance or child support.
This happened after Menelik’s brief sojourn in
Jerusalem, during which he decided that he preferred living with his mummy
rather than his daddy. The Ark is reputedly docked in a hidden chamber
somewhere in the St Mary of Tsion Church in Axum. But since only one man alive
is allowed to see it, there has been no independent verification of its
existence.
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Welcome to Zion.
Photo: ©2005 Katleen Maes |
Exodus to Zion
The Felasha village is more than a solid hour’s
walk along a stunning – if dusty – country road in the hills. Unaccustomed to
the increasingly high altitude, we had more trouble than we expected breathing
during our hike.
The sheer number of army trucks that passed us
on this otherwise rustic road drove home to us that we were nearing the
Eritrean border. Whether or not this movement was routine or represented some
sort part of a greater mobilisation effort, we couldn’t tell.
Half way to the village, we met a young boy who
greeted us in very good English and chatted with us about himself. We took a
photo of him and he wanted us to send to him, so we walked back to his family’s
shack to get his address. They had some sort of cafeteria, so we ordered a
couple of soft drinks and sat trying to chat to his older relatives whose
English was not as good as this six-year-old’s. All his mother could do was
small at us politely.
We passed women bearing water, people of both
sexes walking their loaded donkeys, and three young lads racing along each with
a heavy load of wood on his back. The race was to keep their minds of the
weight they were moving under and the distance they still had to cover. Every
few hundreds metres, they put down their load briefly to take a breather.
The only sign that the Felasha village is any
different to other tiny Ethiopian villages is the welcome sign with a
prominently displayed light-blue Star of David on it. A welcoming party of
young children and teenagers was waiting for us at the outskirts of the
village. It appeared we were the only foreigners who had been there in a while
and, consequently, we attracted a lot of attention.
Marta, a souvenir and trinket seller, described
herself as a guide and offered to show us around the village. As she was so
polite and shy, we didn’t have the heart to tell her to go away. In fact, we
didn’t have the heart to tell any of the kids that followed us around for the
whole time we were in the village to go away.
Marta told us that she was half Jewish but,
because it was her father who was a Jew, she did not have the right to move to
Israel. When we asked, another girl claimed that about half the population of
the village was in a similar situation to Marta’s.
When we mentioned that we’d like to see the
village’s former synagogue, our detail of dwarf guards led us to its
gatekeeper. Just as the village looked like a typical Ethiopian settlement, the
synagogue looked like a typical rural building. The only thing that
distinguished the circular hut from all the others was that it was a little
larger and, inside, there was still a Star of David in the centre of the
ceiling.
We also visited the former synagogue library in
the next hut down from the temple. Again, the hut looked no different but Marta
showed us the box where the scriptures were once kept. Apparently, the entire
contents of the synagogue were also airlifted to Israel.
We bought souvenirs from our two main guides
and, before we departed the village, Marta – in her timid way – invited us to
her home with a smile. Inside, the mud brick hut was surprisingly spacious,
cool and clean.
The main guestroom at the front of the hut was
long and narrow with fading posters of film and pop stars on the walls. This is
where Marta’s mother served the beer she brewed to help them get by. Marta’s father
was dead and they made ends meet by tending their small plot of land behind the
hut, guiding tourists, and selling their homemade brew.
Marta showed off proudly her collection of
photos and postcards sent to her by other travellers who had passed through the
village. “Look, Mister, Miss, my friends from Germany. It is very cold there,”
she said, holding up a photo of a couple standing on a snowy street. I took a
photo of her and Katleen together which we would send to her so that she could
add it to her collection.
Unconquered peaks
The nearest we got to Ethiopia’s magnificent
Simien mountains was a DVD video of a four-day hike through there. The film was
owned by Susan, one of the volunteers we’d met in Bahar Dar. We ran into her
again by chance that evening at the travel office where we had earlier inquired
about daytrips to the mountains. We returned to see if they’d managed to find
anyone else to join us and share the costs of the trip, which were too high for
the two of us alone. Unfortunately, they had not.
Susan, austere and outlandish in her dungarees,
had befriended the people running the shop. As a consolation prize, Susan
showed us the DVD to give us a taste of the Simiens and she told us that it was
the kind of place that you could only truly appreciate after several days of
hiking through the beautiful terrain.
We sat around with her, the manager and a young
woman who works in the shop sipping cinnamon tea, discussing Ethiopia, Africa,
and Susan’s experiences in various African lands where she had worked. She
asked us for advice on places to visit in Egypt and Turkey.
When I mentioned that there was a synagogue in
Coptic Cairo, she asked me if she could visit it or any other, and about
Egypt’s Jewish heritage and how much of it was still there. Being Jewish, she
was interested in the subject, she explained. I mentioned the large synagogue
on Adly Street, the small pockets of Jews still in the country, such as in
Haret el-Yahud.
She expressed what a shame it was for Egypt and
for Egyptian Jews that there were so few left in the country. I agreed,
mentioning that the major turning point was not the creation of Israel, but a
bombing campaign against US and British targets in Cairo which was blamed on
Egyptian extremists, until an investigation uncovered that it was Israeli
agents who were behind the attacks (controversially, Israel honoured them with
medals for their deeds earlier this year) in order to discredit the Nasser
regime.
After the discovery of the plot, Egyptian Jews
no longer felt safe in Egypt and many emigrated to Israel or other parts of the
world. Inevitably, we had an amicable discussion of Middle Eastern politics and
the need for a peaceful resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“We’re all related culturally and ethnically,”
Susan maintained. “I can immediately see your Semitic or Middle Eastern
features. You wouldn’t look out of place in Israel.”
“I know,” I told her, “I’m constantly being
mistaken here for a Jew.”
We recounted our trip to the Felasha village and
talked a little about the position of Judaism and Jews in Ethiopia, and the
integration experience of the Felasha in Israel.
Over dinner, we talked Kori into coming with us
to the Simien mountains, but Martien was a little sick and not feeling up to it.
However, by the time we got back to the travel agency, it was shut, and no one
picked up at the mobile number Susan gave us.
Crooning nightmares
Our first night in the Circle Hotel felt like
we’d been plunged into one of the upper circles of hell. When we entered our
room after dinner, there was a faint stink coming from the bathroom, so we shut
the door.
We decided to push the two single beds
together, but found so much rubbish and some cockroaches under one that we hastily
moved it back. Perhaps appropriately, being in the original Rasta land, we
followed Bob Marley’s lyrical suggestion and spent the night together on a
single bed.
Marley’s 60th birthday party was
held in Addis a few weeks before our arrival and his wife wants to rebury him
in his “spiritual resting place”. But his spirit didn’t make sleeping on the
narrow bed any easier. Another crooner, Ethiopia’s favourite, Teddy Afro,
constantly interrupted my unsettled slumber. A nearby bar, or some late-night joint,
was blaring out his latest album.
Teddy is pretty good and we bought his CD
before we left. However, at 3am, when you don’t even have the luxury (or room)
to toss and turn, his tunes are not so welcome, particularly if the album is
replayed endlessly over and over again.
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Photo: ©2005 Katleen Maes |
It soon turned into something akin to
psychological torture, particularly the track on which he sings a pained
refrain in a distorted voice. It wasn’t just the noise that kept me awake, but
also the knowing expectation of what was to come, of the exact form and texture
of the late-night noise pollution. The odd surprise – such as a woman letting
rip a loud and sluttish laugh or a donkey braying in disapproval – would
penetrate my stupor and make me more wakeful.
At some point, I fell asleep and then woke on
Friday morning to a Quranic recital over a mosque’s loudspeaker. Katleen had
slept marginally better than me and, on the hotel’s rooftop terrace, over
another egg-based breakfast and macchiatos, we made a bleary-eyed resolution to
take action – either to move or get a better room. The hotel gave us a much
better room where we could sleep the following night comfortably – and without
Teddy’s company – on a double bed.
Solid passage of time
Gondar’s Royal Enclosure is a magnificent
collection of palaces which was begun by King Fasil when he established his
capital here. After the rough night in our crumbling hotel, we were immediately
struck by the contrast. Four centuries on and the palaces still looked elegant
and solid. Four years on and our hotel was a near ruin!
The Royal palaces are excellent examples of 17th
century Ethiopian architecture at its best. We could also see the Portuguese –
and even Spanish – air the complex had about them, and one could imagine some
wealthy Iberian seafarer living there. Most doorways sported a Moorish arch in
the Cordoba style, if far more modest than those at the Mesquida.
A couple of kilometres from the Royal Enclosure
lies the Royal Pool. Just outside, was a sports field with a small grandstand
on one side and terraced steps with seating on the other. Instead of
spectators, a team of bovine lawnmowers were systematically mowing the grass between
the long stone benches.
The pool was being restored through a joint
Norwegian-Ethiopian effort. Inside, there were no big Vikings to be seen, only
teams of manual workers, mainly women, carrying building materials backwards
and forwards.
While we were there, they stopped for lunch.
They clustered in little groups, some under trees, others by the pool wall and
ate from their traditional leather lunch boxes. One group invited us to join
them and we declined politely, amusing them by saying ‘thank you’ in Ethiopian.
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Photo:
©2005 Khaled Diab |
Guardian angels
Later in the afternoon, we visited the Debre
Berham Selassie Church. Katleen thought that the picturesque church was the
most pleasant we’d seen so far in Ethiopia. When we looked up at the ceiling,
we saw the friendly faces of Ethiopian angels watching over us. The strips of
colourful angels’ faces are one of the most enduring icons associated with
Ethiopia in the outside world.
After the church, as the sun was taking its
final bow for the day, we decided to take a detour on our way home and walk
down to a lake in a nearby valley which we’d seen from a different vantage
point the day before on the road to the Felasha village.
Before reaching the dirt road leading to the
lake, we came across a little girl struggling to carry a jerry-can of water
that looked heavier than her. Much to the joy, entertainment and consternation
of the giggling local children, and some bemused adult passers-by, I carried it
to her house for her. Straining somewhat myself, I was confounded as to how
anyone could allow such a young girl.
On the secluded road down to the lake, almost
every child performed the by-now familiar routine of saying, “Hello!” Then,
after a short pause, adding, “Give me pen/one birre/money/etc.”
By some trick of the light, the lake was
further away than it appeared. It looked like a silver tray in the midst of the
green and brown hills that surrounded it. It being the dry season, we could see
the water was markedly lower than normal.
By the time we’d got back on track, we felt the
hunger pangs setting in. On holiday, one tends to lose track of the days, but
we could clearly see it was Friday night on the Circle’s rooftop restaurant
because it was heaving with local diners, including a couple of Ethiopian women
speaking in English. We referred to this variety of expatriate Ethiopians who
had settled in the USA and who obviously felt and acted somewhat foreign as
‘Americans’.
ã2005 K. Diab. Unless otherwise stated, all the content on this website
is the copyright of Khaled Diab.