【Adventures in Ethiopia and Djibouti】-中集 楊達倫

5.  Cold Beer

Imported wine and spirits were very expensive, and the selection was very limited. The most popular alcoholic drink was beer. There are two major Ethiopian brands, Meta and Pilsner. All domestic beers were bottled in the same reusable glass bottles. Since different brands use the same reused bottle, there was no label on the bottle; the only identification of the brand was on the bottle cap. After the bottle is opened and the cap was thrown away, you could not tell which brand of beer you were drinking.

We followed the warning that tap water was not safe to drink, but beer was safer than water. Ken and I bought some beer to keep in the hotel room for use. For safety, drinking beer all day for thirsty instead of water was understandable; brushing your teeth with beer in the morning was something else. With toothpaste, it really foamed a lot—a rather unique and unpleasant experience.

Living here, difficulty seemed endless for us every step of the way. This time was how to buy beer. We found that every grocery store required you to trade in your case of empty beer bottles to buy a new case of beer. No empty bottles, no beer. To get the buying process started, Ken and I had to go to the back of a restaurant to steal a case of empty beer bottles. Fortunately, there were plenty of them stacked on racks, and we were not caught.

When several of us sat in the lobby to chat after a day’s work, each of us ordered a beer of choice. When the waiter brought the opened bottles to the table, they all looked identical, the caps showing the brand had been removed. Beers often came at room temperature. Ron was the one who would always ask and insist on getting a cold beer. One day, Ron finally got a beer. He raised the bottle to take a sip; no beer came out—the whole bottle was frozen. Several waiters were watching, and they all jumped up and down laughing and yelling, “Batang, batang, kaskasa!” which we were told means “Very, very cold!

6.  Chat (Khat)

In Addis, we frequently saw people sitting by the roadsides, relaxing, chatting, and chewing on leaves picked from branches tied in a bundle. We asked our Ethiopian friends and were told that they were enjoying “khat,” young leaves from a tree branch that have a mild narcotic effect. Khat was sold in bundles in markets. It was illegal in some other African countries, but it was legal in Ethiopia. Ethiopia was supposed to have some of the best quality khat due to the climate conditions; it was a major export to neighboring countries. Khat trees grew around freshwater lakes in Ethiopia. On the trains we ride, the Ethiopian train drivers were chewing khat and spitting the leftover fibers out the window. In the passenger cars and airplanes, we flew in, passengers carried bundles of fresh khat branches to sell in other cities for a good profit.

Figure 11: A Bundle of Khat

We asked Alex about getting some khat to sample; he said that we must go to the khat market early in the morning to get the quality stuff. Many of our team members are interested in learning more about this local custom. So, one morning, he took a group of us from the hotel to a local khat market. Sellers were auctioning off bundles of freshly picked bundles.  Each bundle was tied together and wrapped in banana leaves to retain the moisture. Buyers sample leaves out of a bundle before making an offer. We were just watching, having no idea what was going on. Alex dealt with a few sellers and recommended that we bought from one of them. We ended up buying a bundle of about 20 branches, paying in Ethiopian birr that equaled to roughly US$10.

About 10 of us Americans, Canadians, and Europeans went back to our hotel and sat around on the floor. I inserted my newly recorded Simon and Garfunkel Central Park Concert tape in the boombox, and we started to pass the bundle of khat around. Each picked a few leaves from the branch and chewed on them. They were tasteless and tough; we drank Ethiopian beer at the same time. Nobody seemed to feel any intoxicating effect, at least knowingly. except for maybe feeling a little hot.

We were told the next day by locals that we did it all wrong; the natural chemical in the leaves was supposed to be absorbed through the wall of the mouth while being chewed and held in the mouth. Drinking beer washes the chemical into the stomach and eliminates the absorption process. So much for the adventure.

7.  Potable Water – more important than food

On one of the track inspection train rides on the railway, we were stuck at a rural train station for a long time. The single-line railway only had double tracks at stations to allow crossing trains to travel in opposite direction. If a train was delayed, the train running in the opposite direction must wait at a station for the opposite train to come through.

While waiting in the station with almost nothing around us, we ran out of bottled water that we brought. We were   advised not to drink tap water prior to the trip and we all brought “water purification” tablets that were supposed to remove most sediments and bacteria in any water. We found a barrel of water stored in the railway office in the train station. The water appeared to be relatively clear, we put some of the water in a container and dropped the purification tablets into the water, the water became murky and looked worse. We abandoned the “purified water” and just drank beer which we still had plenty.

We noticed that many young and old females were walking towards a direction in the desert near the station, each carrying a plastic container (like a gallon milk jug but wrapped with nicely hand-woven nets). Out of curiosity, three of us followed them along the trail in the desert. It turned out that there was a “watering hole” in the desert. A dug-out pit has water seeping out slowly at the bottom. These women were sitting around the edge of the pit, taking turns to scoop the water with a cup into her jug. The process was slow; it took hours for each one to get a full jug of water. It seemed that they knew that the water was safer than what comes out of the tap in the train station. We were not able to communicate with them since nobody knew the local language, most likely Amharic. 

8.  Blue Nile Trip

Several of us, foreigners working in Addis not all from our project, were interested in arranging a trip to the Blue Nile.  As we explored the options, we found that all foreign-owned rental car companies (such as Hertz, Avis etc.) had been suspended from doing business in the country.  However, people were still in the closed Hertz office. They offered to find a Volkswagen bus with a driver to take us on the trip. We gladly took the deal.

There were roughly ten people including the driver.  I didn’t know the VW van can hold that many people. Alex, who helped us organize the deal, went with us. We bought snacks and cases of local beer and stuffed them in the remaining space.  We left quite early to make the long journey.

 Figure 12: Waiting to Get Petro for the Rented VW Bus

Figure 13: Petro Pump Operated by Hand Crank

It was quite an exciting trip, since everyone was eager to split away from the routine work during the week.  The first interesting stop was at a gas station.  How could a gas station be interesting?  The attendant pumped the gas by operating a crank lever – the first and only one I have ever seen.

It seemed to have taken forever to get there.  The Blue Nile was almost anticlimactic.  The river at this point was like a creek flowing in a deep valley. We were only able to get to the edge of the wooded valley and catch a glimpse of the river that lies far below. Some of the events that happened along the way to, and back were extraordinary, funny and even frightening.

Figure 14 - Ta-Lun on Top of Car

Figure 15 - Ta-Lun with Locals

8.1 Chilling Experience at the Spanish Bridge

The “Spanish Bridge” was a major historical site along the way.  We parked the bus by the highway and started to walk towards the bridge.  Many kids were in the area, as usual waiting for tourists.  The kids broke up our large group into many smaller and separated groups.  Each group was surrounded by a bunch of kids trying to earn some tips.  I saw the old stone bridge, baboon families living near the cliff, and hunters clustered around a campfire.  Nothing was spectacular.  A couple of shepherds were sitting by the roadside with rifles on their backs and watching sheep roaming in the area.

Figure 16 - Baboons near the Spanish Bridge

Then we walked back slowly, stretched out in ones and twos to the bus. By the time I entered the bus, Ken was the only one still missing which was strange. I thought he was right behind me.  As we sat in the bus and waited, we saw Ken running toward the bus, puffing.  His face was a bit blue, and he was not his usual self. We all wondered what happened.  Ken, after catching his breath, told of his life-threatening experience.  As he was the last one to head back to the bus, the shepherds by the roadside pointed rifles at him and demanded money.  Ken did not have any.  He pulled both of his slack pockets inside out to show that they were empty.  The shepherds then pointed to the watch on his wrist, a Timex with a cracked crystal.  Out of instinct without thinking, Ken did not want to part with his precious Timex.  He yelled out “Ta-Lun!!, Ta-Lun ….”.  The shepherds were stunted for a moment and did not know what to do.  Seeing the unexpected reaction, Ken continued to yell out all the Spanish word he could remember and started to run toward the bus.  He survived with his cracked Timex.  What a sensational and horrifying experience!

8.2 The marketplace

Villages in Ethiopia held market days once a week.  People brought their farms or other products to the marketplace to trade for money or barter for other merchandise.  We happened to be driving by such a major event.  The VW bus was parked by the roadside, and we started to venture into the marketplace, each with a beer in hand.  Within seconds, the entire marketplace came to a stop.  Everyone stopped what he or she was doing and started to converge toward the bus, where all of us were.  Maybe it was just curiosity, but having hundreds of eyes focused on you and hundreds of people converging towards you was not a comfortable feeling.  You could be welcomed into a palace or captured and placed on an altar.

We all returned to the bus quickly and closed the door.  Nobody wanted to find out what their real intentions were.  The bus moved on.

Figure 17: Market Day for Produce Bartering

Figure 18: Market Day Goat Trading