Paradise Lost by
Susan Scharfman
Travel to an African country
that borders Sudan, Somalia, Kenya and Eritrea can be dangerous to your
health in more ways than one. But, if you're a skydiving, snowboarding,
tomb raiding Indiana Jones kind 'a trekker, you might find Ethiopia
just your cup of strong coffee.
Since
the murder in 1975 of the emperor, strangled in the basement of his
palace, Ethiopia has seesawed from absolute rule by a God-King, to
Marxist/Military totalitarianism to the present Federal Democratic
Republic of Ethiopia with a Constitution. Though tribal blood feuds do
exist in parts of the country, the U.S. has an embassy in Addis Ababa,
and you can check the State Department's travel alerts.
The Last Emperor
Now that you've packed and
done your homework, you're ready to go. You've read that Ethiopia's
history goes back to the dawn of man. Archaeologists have unearthed
human remains that carbon-date 3.2 million years ago. I worked in the
capital, Addis Ababa during the reign of Ethiopia's last emperor.
A
tiny man with a title larger than himself, "Emperor Haile Selassi
I, Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah, Elect of God, King of Kings
of Ethiopia" proclaimed himself the direct descendant of Menilek
I, son of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba.
Each
Christmas Day, the emperor opened his palace to foreign embassy bigwigs
for tea and sweets while his pet lions strolled around the gardens. I
got to go only because I was taking photos for an official brochure.
Can you imagine tea with Haile Selassi? I lived near the palace and
went to bed each night to the screech of peacocks and the roar of those
noisy cats.
To
experience the geological diversity of the land you only have to fly
into the 8,000-foot high capital. The mountains and plateaus seem to
rise up to meet you. Eucalyptus forests, high canyons, steep gorges,
scrub desert and ice-cold lakes are secret untamed places for hikers,
climbers and happy campers. You'll find yourself eating Injera and Wat
with your fingers. Injera is baked from a sourdough batter and placed
on your tabletop like a gigantic pancake. Wat is the stew that's served
in the middle of the Injera. You tear off a piece of Injera and use it
to scoop up the fiery stew (chicken, meat or vegetables). You don't
want to find yourself on the other end of a meal. At the Sudanese
border, the Baro River teems with crocodiles. Sadly, I lost a friend
there. See
http://www.peacecorpswriters.org/pages/2001/0101/101cllook.html
Hyena Man
Addis Ababa is home to
Ethiopian Orthodox Churches, U.N. Economic Commission For Africa,
museums and some modern hotels that did not exist when I rubbed elbows
with the little king! Back then there were no streetlamps. After dark,
hyenas skulked into the city scavenging for anything they could get
their jaws around, garbage or human. There was a man, a prowler of
shadows himself, who had a way with the nasty predators.
Wandering the back alleys,
he mysteriously lured the beasts to him and then out of town, kind of
like a Pied Piper. We called him "the hyena man," and that is
all we knew about him. Present day "entrepreneurs" have made
the former event into a thriving business performed for tourists.
The Blue Nile Falls
We took off in a single
engine Cessna T-210 from the ancient capital of Gondar heading for
Bahir Dar and Lake Tana, source of the Blue Nile. In Ethiopia,
everything was ancient, including the Cessna. A former Korean War Ace,
Walt had been spraying malaria-infected areas for years. The Blue Nile,
as opposed to the brownish White Nile in Egypt, gets its name from the
waters of Lake Tana, the largest lake in Ethiopia, from whence the
river flows to Khartoum and on into Egypt. Walt didn't fly over the
falls; he practically flew into them.
Swooping
low on the first run, I nearly lost my breakfast, but I asked him to do
it again for a closer shot. Staring up at me through the tree branches
of the surrounding rainforest was the white-fringed face of a silky
black and white long-tailed monkey. Hunted to near extinction for its
beautiful coat, the Colobus Monkey, the only kind of its species
without a thumb, is an endangered acrobatic marvel of grace and
elegance.
Photo by
Jialiang Gao on Wikimedia Commons
Mist
from the thundering waters creates a rainbow bridge to the sun. I was
snapping photos when bullets began tearing through the fuselage,
zapping Walt in his bottom. We couldn't see the shooters but we knew
they wanted the Cessna. Despite terrible pain, the seasoned pilot
wasn't going to let them have it. Shouting obscenities over my prayers,
he managed to hold on to the faltering plane while the floorboards
soaked up his blood. We arrived in Bahir Dar with Walt's pride as
wounded as his anatomy. After medical attention and a few belts of Jack
Daniels, the bush pilot was on cloud nine.
Rock Churches of Lalibela
Ethiopian
Airways' hotshot pilots take off and land on postage stamp plateaus. A
short flight from Addis is the tiny town of Lalibela whose airport
terminal, in my time, was a tin roofed hut. Never mind. Hidden under
ground are eleven monolithic churches carved from rock. Built in the
thirteenth century, the churches are holy places of Ethiopian Christian
pilgrimage. I had to crawl down into the subterranean spaces on my
hands and knees. Once inside, I was in the Middle Ages. A priest with a
torch stood in the darkness guarding an altar and religious wall
paintings. He looked like he'd been standing there for 500 years! Monks
tell you the Ark of the Covenant is similarly hidden in a monastery in
the ancient city of Axum, where Queen Sheba stayed in the 10th century
B.C. Someone should tell Steven Spielberg.
"Simplicity-Courage-Humor-Soul"®
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About
the Author - A
writer/editor, I work with one client at a time, beginner or pro, for a
cost effective solution to your writing and editing needs. Contact me
at <www.susanscharfman.com>
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Ethiopia:
Ancient Churches, Semitic Culture, and the Amharic Language by
Jacob Lumbroso
In the 1980s Ethiopia was
largely known in the international press for two reasons. The first was
the tragic famine that occurred in 1984-1985. The second was the first
exodus of Ethiopian Jews to Israel in 1984 and subsequently followed by
a second exodus in 1991.
Ethiopia
however, is probably known for its historic place in early
Christianity. The town of Lalibela, for example, is among
Ethiopia's holy cities and is renown for a series of beautifully
constructed rock-hewn churches. As a sacred site, Lalibela is second
only to the city of Askum. The most famous of these churches is
Bete Giryorgis.
The
overwhelming majority of the population are members of the Ethiopian
Orthodox Church and of Amhara ethnicity. The layout of Lalibela is
argued to reflect that of buildings in Jerusalem. This is partly
attributable to the residence of Gebre Mesqel Lalibela in Jerusalem in
his youth. Gebre eventually rose to rule Ethiopia in the late
12th and 13th centuries CE.
The
fall of Jerusalem to Muslims in 1187, is the second reason that
Lalibela reflects patterns of Jerusalem. Biblical names are found
throughout the region. The first European to see these churches was the
Portuguese explorer Pêro da Covilhã followed by the explorer
Franscisco Alvares in the 1520s. Roughly three hundred years passed
until Gerhard Rohlfs, another European explorer visited Lalibela
somewhere between 1865 and 1870.
Lalibela
is home to 12 rock-hewn churches. They include Bete Medhane Alem, home
to the Lalibela Cross, Bete Maryam, Bete Golgotha (known for its
arts and said to contain the tomb of King Lalibela), the Selassie
Chapel, the Tomb of Adam, Bete Giyorgis, arguably the best preserved
church, Bete Amanuel, Bete Merkorios, Bete Abba Libanos and Bete Gabriel-Rufael.
The
Ethiopian connections with Jerusalem and Semitic culture are further
highlighted when remembering that Semitic languages, of which Amharic
is one, represent a family of languages spoken by more than 300 million
people across the Middle East, North Africa, and the horn of Africa.
After Arabic, Amharic is the second most spoken Semitic language in the
world.
The
Amharic language is spoken by the Amhara, an ethnic group in the
central highlands of Ethiopia. The Amhara comprise approximately 30
percent of the population, with about 27 million speakers. An
additional 7-15 million people speak it as a second language. It has
been the working language of government institutions, the military, and
of the Ethiopic Orthodox church.
In
addition to Ethiopia, Amharic is also the language of some 2.7 million
emigrants. The largest population of émigrés live in Egypt, Israel, and
Sweden.
Increasing
numbers of Ethiopians and Eritreans have also emigrated to the United
States. The Amharic language is also spoken in Eritrea by some
Eritreans as a vestige of past years when Eritrea was part of the
Ethiopia.
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About
the Author:- Jacob Lumbroso is a world traveler and an enthusiast for
foreign languages, history, and foreign cultures. He writes articles on
history and languages for http://www.thelanguagechronicle.com and has
used Pimsleur courses to learn various languages.
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