Culture shock

I guess what I was feeling was culture shock.
Someone described culture shock as the disorienting feeling you get when you expect one thing to happen because that is what has always happened and you get the opposite.
It was Christmas day and the owner of a downtown Konso restaurant invited us for lunch.
As soon as we sat down to eat, there was commotion outside. People were running down the street from all directions toward the traffic circle. They were shouting and waving to each other to follow.
I thought it was a terrible car accident.
I thought it was a parade or some kind of cultural display. Whatever it was, people were excited.
Everyone in the restaurant ran to the door to watch whatever it was.
I asked.
"There's a man with a monkey face," he said.
The American with me - sure we misunderstood - laughed and said, "OK. I guess I would go see that."
We laughed at the ridiculousness of the idea.
I've never had my laughter shut off so quickly.
My heart sank and I felt sick.
A man walked by the restaurant followed by people. He had Downs Syndrome. He was mute, someone said. His attention was focused on an old cassette Walkman he was carrying. He seemed oblivious to the pointing, to the crowd. He was dressed in nothing but a long, torn tank top.
A man in the restaurant asked if I would take a photo.
I hated Ethiopia in that moment. Their reaction was so naked and childish and cruel and unembarrassed.
I had to get away from them, to be alone. I barely touched my Christmas lunch.

*****
Fortunately, I could not hide from Ethiopia forever because I had plans to eat Christmas dinner with a neighbor.
Even though the neighbor is Muslim and even though it isn't a holiday in Ethiopia, he wanted us to have something special.
The neighbor is a farmer and the owner of shops in town. Unlike the mud and straw homes of so many others, his home was made of concrete with many rooms, electricity, a TV and cushioned chairs to receive guests.
The people he invited to dinner were a veritable Konso Rotary Club, the town's movers and shakers - a doctor, a teacher, business owners.
They spoke perfect English and wanted to talk about politics, health care and the state of the world. And it was a chance to ask about all the cultural things we had witnessed but not understood.
They served a soup made of sesame harvested from the farm and local honey. Delicious.

We learned:
* The Konso people have elaborate rituals surrounding death. When someone dies - someone important to the tribe or the family - a statue is carved out of wood in their likeness and erected on their grave or inside the family compound.
Great care and ritual is taken to pass life and power from one generation to the next.
Within a family compound, you can tell how many generations have lived there by the tall stone markers encircling the home.

We learned:
* That in the Konso culture, the women do most of the farm work.
Many time during my stay here, Konso man pointed to the women and said, "See how hard they work. See how much they carry." They seemed proud of it.
And I would see the old women stooped and walking slowly up the hill with loads of firewood or bags of potatoes on their backs.
* Until recently girls were not allowed to go to school.
"The family sees that the girl will grow up and marry and join her husband's tribe. So there is no reason to invest in her."

The sun went down and the electricity went out and we sat in the dark by candlelight.
The teacher decided to tell us a folk tale from the Konso culture - a story parents tell their children.
The moral of the story was that everything has a purpose, even if it isn't obvious at the time - waste nothing, be grateful for everything.
The story was long and detailed and the telling of it lasted almost an hour.
And my mind wandered in and out of the story as I watched the shape of the man's shadow on the empty wall behind him - moving and flickering with the candlelight.

Christmas in Ethiopia

Christmas morning. Woke up early and used my pocket knife to chop down four banana leaves to make four Christmas packages for the other Western farm workers.
In Ethiopia - where the calendar is 13 months and they just celebrated the millennium - Christmas isn't until Jan. 7.
I walked to town the day before Christmas and bought the things I could find for presents - candles, a box of matches, a bracelet made of melted bullet casings and a package of biscuits. Wrapped it all in banana leaves and set it under the mango tree.
Waiting for me under the tree: A mango, a tea bag, a pen, a photo of an old car taken in Hungary by one of the other farm workers, and a half full bottle of Nepalese brandy. No wrapping paper to throw away.

Another day on the farm

I woke up this morning, my first full day on the farm to the sound of the muezzin call to prayer and the sound of a hundred roosters echoing across the valley in answer.
And the sound of a rooster right outside my door.
Through the window, the leaves of a banana tree.

*****
... Is this what I imagined when I pictured myself in Ethiopia?
There I was standing at the top of a mountain of cow dung holding open a burlap bag while Bahrdin shoveled in manure.
That morning, we climbed into the back of a pickup truck and drove to the home of a nearby farmer.
As we filled bag after bag with manure for the garden, a crowd slowly gathered to watch me work.
I could only laugh.
As I walked onto the street with a huge bag of manure on my back, a man asked as casually as if I was sitting in a cafe, "What do you think of Ethiopian culture?"
"It's great," I said. "The best."
What else could I say?

*****
Another first today - used my first machete.
Even though my mind kept picturing myself accidentally chopping off my foot, it was fun to wield that much blade over my head, crashing down onto a fallen papaya tree.

*****
Learned: to burn cow and goat bones in the fire, then crush them while still hot into bone meal for the garden.
Learned: to grind corn and wheat with a mortar and pestle for the chickens. The Ethiopians use a hollowed out log and a yard-long stick to crush the corn - the same way they crush the roasted coffee before they brew it.
I watched one woman pounding corn into a fine meal and the other women stood around her clapping the rhythm as she pounded.

*****
Since I've just been traveling from place to place, I haven't gotten into the day-to-day rhythm of the Ethiopian life. But here at the farm, I am working six days a week like everyone else. Sundays off.
So Saturday night, I felt the excitement - like everyone else.
We finished work and everyone gathered outside the kitchen.
They passed around a plastic bottle of homemade "chugga" - a fermented sorghum drink.
It tasted familiar but I couldn't place it - like a thick, bubbly yeast and bath water smoothie. I pretended to like it.
Then someone shouted and everyone started clapping in a rhythm and the dancing began.
No instruments. Just voices repeating the same phrases over and over.
Unlike the dancing in the north - which is all shoulder movements - the Konso dancers use their whole body.
The neck moves forward and back. Stomping the feet and shaking from the mid-section.
They run toward each other and stomp in the center, then run back to their places.
The kitchen staff pulled me into the dance and a woman smiled, "This is Konso!"
Then the best part ... an old man - a man who goes out of his way to greet me in the morning and who sits quietly next to me in the shade during breaks - danced into the circle. He was holding a machete in one hand. He held it in the air as he danced, stomping and shaking the machete and smiling a smile so huge that I couldn't help but laugh out loud and smile back.

*****
Village life. All day as I work in the garden, I can hear people singing or spontaneously break into a rhythm - clapping their hands and one woman shouting. When I stopped to listen, someone said, "The farmers in Konso do everything together."

They all say, "I want to come to America." But I wonder if they would like it. I think they would be lonely.

Once a week, they have village work days and if you are a member of the tribe you are required to participate. If you don't show up, there is a fine. If you don't pay the fine, you are ostracized.
Being cast out - it's the worst thing that can happen. If you are caught stealing, one man said, you are sent away from the village, forever. You can go to another village, but they will know that you are an outcast and life will never be the same for you.

*****
Spent hours pulling cotton seeds from freshly picked cotton.
Sat with two Konso women who were doing the same task.
They taught me some Konso words and we would sing the words to each other so I could remember them.
Since those were the only words we had in common, when the silence dragged on for too long - we would smile and sing each other's names.

Arriving on the farm

At 5:30 a.m., the bus station in Arba Minch was pitch black except for a few sets of minibus headlights.
I said, "Konso, Konso" to no one in particular and two men pointed toward a blue minibus in the corner of the lot.
30 birr (about $2.50) and a three-hour drive.
As the sun came up, I saw a landscape completely different from the rest of Ethiopia.
This place is lush, green, tropical.
A huge lake in the foreground - the water is red. And towering mountains in the background.
Even the mountains are different. Instead of the granite fists of the north, these are walls of mountains - ranges, linked peak to peak.
A protective wall of mountains on the horizon is a comforting feeling to someone from the Rockies.
I arrived in Konso and vaguely knew that the place I was headed - an organic farm / permaculture training center - is about two miles out of town in the direction of Arba Minch.
Everyone stared but, as always, with an Amharic phrase or two the ice is broken and everyone smiles and tries to help.
Students were walking to school - children in maroon uniforms and high school students in blue.
About a mile out of town, I saw three old men.
"Abet," I said, and reached out my hand. They were excited to shake my hand, making sure each took his turn. I asked if I was headed in the right direction and they pointed just to keep walking. And shook my hand again.
*****

I got a tour of Strawberry Fields from an American guy from Fort Collins who gave off an Alexander Supertramp kind of vibe. He had given himself completely over to his experience at the farm - barefoot, his shoulder-length hair was matted into something like dreadlocks, his uneven beard, the tent he lived in at the top of the hill. Only his wire-rim glasses hinted that he was a recent a fresh college grad from Colorado. When I met him, he was eating a breakfast of lettuce leaves, papaya and beans he harvested from the garden.

The place is a permaculture training center. I got lucky with my timing - a dairy farmer with land near Addis and a farmer from Colombia were there and had a lot to teach.
Permaculture - which is new to me - is based on everything in the garden or on the farm working together as a system. Vegetables are planted in "guilds" or families instead of planting one variety per bed or row. One plant will feed nitrogen to the soil, one will be a ground cover to retain moisture, one will fight pests.
At first, the garden looked like chaos to me. Beds filled with different plants, one on top of the other, mulched with straw. It took an entire day of working in the garden before the light went on and I started to see the order of it.
They build their raised beds with a layer of cardboard on the bottom, then a layer of green material, a layer of compost and a layer of straw. Repeated like a lasagna. The green and the straw decompose to feed the plants and retain water.
Beyond the garden is a seed saving shed. The seeds are saved from everything that is harvested if possible.

Chickens. Rabbits. A "food forest" of papaya, banana, guava and mango trees.
Cotton, beans, coffee planted on the ridge above it all.

A show of unity

Fireworks. Parades. Traditional music late into the night.
Any Ethiopian who could be in Mekele this week is here. Ethiopia is one nation made up of nine states and more than 80 tribes. And for this week, representatives from every corner of Ethiopia are here in a show of unity.
I heard about it late and every hotel in Mekele was booked. After six weeks in Ethiopia, I've made a few friends and started calling them for help. Does anyone know anyone in Mekele?
After a few tries, yes, someone knew someone who knew everyone in Mekele and she found me a room, a pass to the festival (which it turned out I didn't need) and a ride to Addis if I wanted it after the closing ceremony.
That turn of events made me feel at home.

Early morning, I stopped at a nearby restaurant for a coffee and spiced injera before heading to the stadium.
An Ethiopian man at the next table asked where I was from.
Turns out - he lives in Denver and is in his hometown visiting family. He owns a liquor store in Denver and said the city has a huge Ethiopian community. He said there are 70 Ethiopian-owned liquor stores in Denver. (As an aside, Charlie and I went to an Ethiopian restaurant in Denver on our first date.)
The man gave me a ride to the stadium and along the way showed me how his hometown had changed in the 20 years since he moved to the U.S. It has grown from 20,000 people to 300,000, he said.
A river used to flow here, he said.
And this two story hotel in the center of these glass buildings used to be the highest thing in town.

I thanked him for the ride.
"It's not a big deal," he said. "Well, in Ethiopia it's not a big deal. In Denver, you can't just give someone a ride."

The stadium was packed with people standing in the wooden scaffolding that surrounded the bleachers.
I  met an Italian friend who was in town for the celebration and we enjoyed the strange celebrity that comes with being the only white people in a crowd of thousands. People wanted to take our photos, to pose with us. Teenagers snapped pictures with camera phones.
In the center of the field, there was a marching band. They were dressed exactly like an American high school band - tubas, trumpets, batons.
In the stands were children holding up painted cards and as a group, the cards spelled messages in Amharic. Someone would give a signal and the cards would change - different colors to represent the different regions.
Then the cards changed again to form a field of green and in the center was the face of Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi who spoke that morning.

On stage, dignitaries were making speeches, the crowd was cheering and my phone kept ringing. My Ethiopian friends were so excited I was there. They were watching it on TV.
I held my my phone so they could hear.

The mountains of Tigray

Come for the churches, stay for the views.
The Tigray region of Ethiopia - north of Lalibela and just west of the desert - is the home of churches carved out of rock inside caves. What makes them even more special is the journey to get there.
The best churches are hidden at the top of mountains and the only way to reach them is to scramble over boulders, climb sandstone and walk under wind-carved arches.
The red stone pinnacles look so much like the Superstition Mountains in Arizona that I could have fooled myself into believing I was just on a dayhike outside Phoenix. The illusion was broken by a yellow robed nun sitting on the top of the mountain.
An old woman with a shaved head, she lives up there with her elderly brother - a priest - in a home that is half cave, half stacked stone walls. Together they care for the small cave church. They have a cow up there - for milk and they dry the dung and use it for fuel for the fire - and some goats and chickens.

I was traveling with my favorite travel partner so far - a 66-year-old woman from Berlin, a retired architect who was also traveling through Ethiopia on her own. She and I hiked for days in these mountains enjoying the scenery, the people, the quiet and each others' company.
We rented a car and hired a driver in Axum to reach the more remote areas. It took four hours of beer drinking and friendly arguing with the car owner to get a good price, but that was part of the fun.

I saw:
* Farmers threshing grains by driving two oxen in circles over it.
* In Axum, I saw cyclists in spandex and bike helmets training for a race. The sport is catching on slowly but surely here.
* In Axum, I tried to see the church that the Ethiopians believe houses the Ark of the Covenant but as a woman I couldn't get very close. Children gathered rocks and piled them so I could see over the wall.
* Pilgrims in white were still camped on the grounds of the church after a festival celebrating the Ark.
* After days of hiking in the mountains, my travel companion took the rented car back to Axum and I headed for the bus station to catch a ride to a cultural festival in Mekele.
As I waited for the minibus to fill up so we could go, an old woman climbed in. I patted the seat next to me for her to sit down. She sat and handed me two branches heavy with beans.
We sat in silence and ate the beans and waited.

The issue of begging

If your heart doesn't break every day in Ethiopia, you are traveling with your eyes closed.
There is the natural beauty. There is the deep cultural heritage and history. But under it all is this constant buzz of need.

There is an entire generation of Ethiopians in the rural areas, it seems to me - those who grew up in the '80s during the famine - a segment of 20 or 30 somethings who were the recipients of those "for the price of a cup of coffee a day" efforts.
They grew up having sponsors from America and Europe, people who sent money every month.
This boost helped many to get through school and start businesses or move to Addis.
Not everyone was so lucky.
 
This is one of the poorest countries in the world.
And in every place - from the smallest village to the biggest city - there are beggars.
All day long - walking down the sidewalk, looking out the window of the stopped bus - there is someone with their hand out.
Almost every cafe with outdoor seating hires a guard with a big stick to threaten people who beg from customers. 
It's part of the reality here - morning to night - that doesn't weave itself nicely into a travel story but plays constantly in the background.
It was part of the culture shock when I first arrived.
Then, in order to stay sane, I had to shut a part of myself off.
I watch the way the Ethiopians treat the beggars. If they have coins, they give them.
A blind man comes to the open door of the bus, people give what they can. Then they help the man away from the bus before it leaves.
A friend in Addis taught me that when you cannot give, just press your hands together in a kind of blessing.

As I sat for a cup of coffee in Axum, a steady stream of people came up to me, hand out. I acknowledged every one of them as a kind of reflex with a nod and they would move on and it barely interrupted my thoughts.
When I realized it, I marveled at how the mind can adjust to anything. It integrates and accepts the unacceptable. All it takes is a little time. 

One last look at Lalibela

On my last day in Lalibela, I set my alarm for 5:30 a.m.
The priest at St. George told me to arrive early that morning for the service.
As I crested the hill above the church, the sun was coming up.
That fresh, clean, morning light hit the white roves of more than 100 pilgrims standing around the edge of the church. It was only the reflection of the sun, but they seemed to be giving off their own light.
A deacon came over to me and adjusted my head scarf to the "Ethiopian style" and smiled. Then pointed up the hill instead of down toward the church.
These days, when someone point, I go.
At the top of the hill was the sound of running water, the sounds of splashing and a woman screaming. The water poured from a pipe coming out of the side of the mountain. It poured into a cinderblock stall with a metal door that looked like a shower at the public pool.
But behind the door was priest. It was holy water, healing water.
And the woman screaming was possessed by demons someone said. And the priest was pouring water over her and yelling, "Get out! Get out!"
And she yelled, "It's gone!"
And all the people sitting quietly in line for their turn seemed completely unfazed by this. They sat holding babies to be blessed or with empty plastic bottles to take some water home.
Next to me, I could hear the clack, clack, clack of an old woman and her wooden prayer beads.

On the walk home, I found myself in the middle of a funeral for an elderly woman.
Her coffin sat at the base of a giant Sycamore tree in the center of town. Three priests stood over it, shaking rattles and chanting.
Everyone was dressed in white.

Lalibela - this Old Testament town

This is it. Lalibela. The reason people come to Ethiopia.
It's a surreal experience to see something in real life that you've seen so many time in photos. Your expectations remove you from it somehow as you compare the way you thought you would feel with the way you actually feel.
Fortunately, I decided to stay in Lalibela for four days - long enough for that feeling to wear away and to start to appreciate this Old Testament town, this holy city.
Lalibela - home of the monolithic churches carved out of stone. About 20,000 tourists come here each year, most of them on tour buses.
Because it is so "touristy", people kept telling me I would hate it here. But this has been my favorite stop so far.

Yesterday was a festival in celebration of Mary riding a donkey into Bethlehem as she searched for a place to give birth.
Before the sun rose, the streets filled with people walking downhill to Betyam Miriam - the church dedicated to Mary. The women were dressed head to toe in white - their heads and shoulders wrapped in cotton cloth and white dresses falling to their ankles. They carried handmade candles - foot-long sticks wrapped in waxy string to burn at the church.
Chanting came over a megaphone from the church and bounces off the nearby hills and down the dusty streets.

That afternoon, I walked back down to the churches - sat for a moment with the women, still dressed in white, still sitting from the morning waiting for a blessing from the priest.
The priest brought a cross, which the women kissed.

The most famous of the churches is Betyam Giorgis - dedicated to St. George, dragon slayer.
The church is shaped like a Greek cross, carved three stories down in volcanic rock.
The path to the church is a carved valley that spirals from the top to the bottom.
I was the only person there except for the priest - a stroke of luck. He sat in the doorway reading a small Bible aloud. He watched me for awhile, then finally walked over.
"Where is your book? Where is your guide? Where is your camera?"
When he saw I had none of these things, he showed me the church and then sat with me on the steps.
The language barrier was deep but we both tried hard.
Here's what I learned:
Christianity came to Ethiopia early and from what I can tell, it hasn't changed much since then.
Inside each church is a room called the Holy of Holies, separated by a curtain that hangs from the top of the ceiling to the floor. Only the priest can go inside. Behind the curtain is a small replica of the Ark of the Covenant that the priests bring out once a year.
The priests are considered true holy men - the people's connection to God.
At the Sunday service, people stand for three hours - the older people have prayer canes for this purpose.
The priests hit the drum and read the scripture on Ge'ez, the ancient language of Ethiopia.

*****
In the town - a village that grew from 12,000 to 30,000 in the past few years thanks to tourism - the people have welcoming. It took hours to cross town because I kept getting invited in for coffee. The tradition is to drink three cups of coffee. Any more hospitality and I'll have a heart attack from all the caffeine.

*****
I traveled for a day with a woman who was adopted from Ethiopia as a baby (during the famine of the '80s) by an Australian family. At 24, she came back to meet her biological family and to see Ethiopia.
People approached her everywhere we went and were surprised to realize this Ethiopian woman didn't speak Amharic. They pushed her to learn some words.
They asked, "What is your family name?"
"Murphy," she said. This frustrated them.
I can't count how many times this happened in the short time I was with her. She kept a good sense of humor about it, but I could see the identity struggle in her face. We were traveling together but we were experiencing much different countries.

Thanksgiving at the camel market

I would regret it later, but for that moment the camel milk tasted so good.
I was sitting in a dark tent with about 50 camel brokers who were enjoying the shade. The woman who offered me the milk, dipped a ceramic mug into a steaming pot of spiced tea, sweetened with lots of sugar and camel milk. She handed it to me, smiled and said something about my eyes.
I drank the tea and gladly accepted more. It was Thanksgiving after all.
I was in Bebille, in the middle of the largest camel market in Africa.
People come in from Saudi Arabia, Yemen, from the deserts of East Africa to buy and sell camels.
It happens every Thursday. I heard about it at a cafe in Harar and knew I couldn't miss it.
When I stepped off the bus in Bebille, a man said - "The borders are not always what they seem. You're in Somalia now."
And I saw what he meant. The women wore bright, colorful scarfs that fell from the tops of their heads to their ankles. I didn't hear any Amharic spoken, just Somali.
Most of the men had their heads wrapped in scarves against the heat and they all carried sticks to steer and hit the camels until they stood up straight with their necks long for the buyers to see.
The market was really just a dry, dusty field full of camels and people arguing about money.
On occasion, the arguing would end with a handshake, each kissing their own hand as a kind of promise, and then money was exchanged.
I saw a small camel sell for 5000 birr and the largest for 17000 birr (17 birr = $1).
A man with a white beard died red with henna led me through the market and had me take a photo of each of his camels.
Among the crowds, I recognized people from the Afar region where I saw the salt caravan weeks ago. Someone told me that when Afar people meet, the first thing they ask is, "How are your camels?" Before family, before anything else.
I sat in the shade at the market for hours, soaking in the sea of animals and scarves and all the noise. I knew as soon as I walked away, it would disappear into just another memory and I would never see anything like it again.
The thing I've noticed about myself - about the difference between traveling in my 20s and now in my 30s - is that I appreciate it so much more. I understand that it is a gift. A window that will close in a couple months and I will be back in an office worried about my inbox and deadlines and whether we have good art for the front page.
But for now, I'm grateful for every bit of this adventure.

I walked from the camel market back to the center of Bebille and sat in the concrete courtyard of a cafe, in the shade, and ordered a plate of goat meat and injera - a perfect Thanksgiving dinner.

Autumn feeds the hyenas

I remember months ago, from the comfort of our living room, I read aloud to Charlie and account of one person's visit to the city of Harar, Ethiopia. The author said there is a man outside the gates of the city who feeds the hyenas every night and if you ask, the man will let you feed them.
"You won't do that, of course," Charlie said.
"Of course not, honey. That would be crazy."
And yet, I found myself standing there last night - in the dark, holding a strip of camel meat, surrounded by a pack of hyenas.
"This is crazy."
I'd been sitting there for almost an hour at the base of a giant fig tree. The roots of the tree rolled over the exposed stone coffin of an ancient holy man - an Islamic scholar. A shrine.
And my mind went back and forth between admiration for the incredible tree, for the clear night sky and the flash of hyena eyes as they jumped for another piece of meat from the mouth of the hyena man.
Finally, the man came over to me and said, "It is nothing to watch. You should feed them."
When I politely declined, he picked up his bucket of camel meat and sat right next to me.
The hyenas gathered around us.
He said - each hyena has a name.
He said - his father before him was a hyena man and he has known the hyenas since he was a child.
He said the people of Harar have a spiritual connection to the hyenas. That they carved holes into their walled city so the animals could come through. And after he finished feeding them, they would go into the city and eat whatever they could find. The hyenas would eat whatever trash the herds of goats, stray dogs and circling hawks didn't eat during the day.
He said - Harar has a festival once a year when residents each put a bowl of porridge by their door for the hyenas. And if the hyenas eat your porridge, it means good luck for the rest of the year.
And somehow, the talking lulled me and the hyenas being so close made me brave enough to feed them myself.
Up close, they seem like oversized, malformed dogs. Soft spotted fur. Thick necks. Hunched shoulders and eager eyes.
He wrapped a strip of camel meat on a stick about as long as a pencil.
I held it high in the air and a hyena jumped. I felt his teeth clamp down on the stick, inches from my fingers, and I felt the teeth slide the meat off the stick.
Then, another and another.
And when I was done, I felt the now-familiar, warm rush of catharsis after another fear faced.

*****
Harar is a traveler's dream. A walled city with 82 mosques and more than 300 winding cobblestone alleys. It feels like something out of storybook Arabia.
For centuries, it has been a crossroads - a huge market for goods from the Arab world, India and East Africa.
All those influences are still here. On one street, you'll hear people speaking Somali, Harari, Oromo, Amharic, Arabic and English.
I saw:
* A street of tailors. Men working heavy steel sewing machines powered manually with two feet by a large pedal.
* Spices, incense, tea in open burlap sacks on every corner.
* A man sitting next to a camel head, carving camel meat off the bone.

*****
I couldn't find anyone to come to Harar with me - so I got on a bus and came by myself.
But the thing about Ethiopia is that you are never alone.
It's the thing that makes traveling here so fun but exhausting on the days when you need some good old-fashioned American privacy.
Examples:
* The bus stopped in a village on the way to Harar and I sat by the side of the road next to a woman selling bananas. A boy in a skull cap with a dusty face stood in front of me and stared. When I would look at him and smile, he would beam for a second and then look away. And soon there were children all around me, standing quietly, and two women who brought stools to sit nearby. And no one really looking at me - just encircling me quietly.
* And only minutes after my arrival in Hara, I stopped at a stall to buy some toothpaste and one of the other customers heard my Amharic (attempts) and invited me to sit for an avocado juice and samosas. We sat at a sidewalk cafe and he introduced me to everyone who walked by.

So - alone in Ethiopia, but never alone.

The hottest place on earth

I have never been so scared.
A rush of the purest, primal fear I have ever felt washed over me as I stared into the mouth of a live volcano.
The lava was close to the surface, boiling about two stories down.
The lava lake is called Erta Ale - spitting distance from the Eritrean border.
It sounded like the sea as the lava splashed against the sides of the crater. Something burst and a fountain of lava sprayed into the air.
I looked into the volcano, the heat burning my face and the sulphur fumes choking me.
The lava was a black moving mass with cracks or orange shining through.
The light was all the more vivid because we hiked there in the middle of the night.
It was midnight and the moon almost full - waning only a sliver. No clouds. Jupiter shining bright and the rest of the stars drowned out by the glow of the moon.
When I couldn't take the fumes and the heat and the fear anymore, I walked away from the edge of the lava lake and sat cross-legged for a moment to take in my surroundings.
With the ocean sound behind me, my eyes focused on the moonlit landscape and I saw that I was inside of a second, much larger crater. And there were layers of hardened lava filling the floor of the place - light grey and hard as stone at the far edge of the crater and dark black and chalky where I was sitting. Fresh lava.
The sitting and pondering and visual exploration was supposed to calm my fears, but the power of the place overwhelmed me and I felt a mixture of awe and panic.
It was one of the most incredible experiences of my life and I could only stand if for about 15 minutes.
As I climbed out of there, I thought about how - in the United States - there would be boardwalks over the hardened lava, railings and stairs to get you in and out of the crater instead of scrambling up the rocks and a fence keeping you from getting to close to the edge of the lava lake.
I've always resented those fences, but I found myself longing for that false feeling of security. Maybe an informational sign or a guard to yell at me for getting so dangerously close.

Here's a YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySnI4RYirKw

*****'
There's a small village - more of a camp really - at the edge of the crater. Small round huts made of stacked stone. Some with no roof - just walls to protect you from the constant warm wind.
Since we did not live in the village, we did not have walls to hide behind. We just laid down on the ground between the huts and tried to sleep.
I woke up at dawn to the sound of a snorting camel kneeling not too far from my head.

*****
We were in a place called the Danakil Depression - the second lowest place on earth and the hottest place on earth.
We camped for five days - sleeping outside with no tents. I watched the moon move across the sky every night. Watched every sunrise and every sunset.
The place is barren - only salt and lava.
In some spots, it reminded me of Yellowstone National Park (without the boardwalks and roads and rangers). Colorful sulphur springs and geysers. A landscape so young, it's still being torn apart by it's own birth.

The Afar people who live there scrape out a living by mining salt from what was once the sea floor. It's white as far as you can see - just salt.
They break the salt into blocks, load in on camels and lead it out in caravans. It takes 10 days to walk from the salt flats to the village where they sell the salt and buy supplies for the 10 day journey back.

We slept outside an Afar camp for two nights and for the most part kept to ourselves - a couple from India, two Belgians, two Israelis, a band of Polish people and an American (me).
On our second day, a flash flood made the "road" impassable and we waited for the extreme heat to dry the ground.
The Indian woman and I decided to venture into the Afar camp, unsure if we would be welcome.
As we walked between the huts, people came to their doors and stared.
I smiled and tried my best "Selamneush!" And that's all it took.
Before we knew it, some women had taken us by the hand and led us into one of their homes and made us coffee. The room and doorway filled with people - all smiling.
Then and old woman took my hand and led me through the camp to see the salt caravan walking through.
I watched the sunset with her as the camels went by.

******

After days in the desert, we drove 12 hours back to the main road over sand, lava, salt and rocks. When we reached the asphalt, we were in shock.
"It's so soft!"
"We're flying!"
"It's like a magic carpet ride!"
The shock stayed with us the rest of the night as we checked into a hotel. Washed off the thick layer of grime and met in the bar for some food and a beer.
CNN was blaring from a flat screen television. Pundits shouting opinions about Joe Paterno.
My mind couldn't take it. I stood up, walked across the bar and turned it off.
We all breathed a huge sigh of relief that the assault of the sense from the television was over and raised our glasses.
"I'll never forget that as long as I live."

A fresh cup of coffee

I had the best cup of coffee of my life today - probably the best cup of coffee I will ever have.

Picture this:
The only light in the room came through the open door.
There were no windows. And the light was filtered through the smoke coming from a wood fire she started in the corner of the room. She pushed three rocks together and lit some wood and leaves in the center of them.
She cleaned the coffee beans with water and then spread them on a metal plate over the fire. With a stick she moved the beans over the fire so they would roast evenly, turning from green to dark brown.
I noticed the floor was dirt and the goatskin I was sitting on was covering a seat molded out of mud, ash and straw.
When the beans were roasted, she took them off the fire and put on a kettle to boil.
She poured the still hot beans into a deep bowl and pounded them with a stick - mortar and pestle - until they were finely ground.
She poured the coffee into the boiling water and let it brew.
Then she poured me a cup.
Outside the dirt road leading to her village is being paved by the Chinese.
Heavy equipment lines the road and Chinese foreman stand watch. Once it's done, the trip from Gonder to Axum will be on two-lane asphalt instead of the rocky backroad it is today.
As I sipped my coffee, I thought about how the place was about to change. This woman and her neighbors will realize what they have - an incredible cultural experience with a view of the Simien Mountains - the roof of Africa.
The views from their home made me want to pull my heart out of my chest. I actually got choked up as I sat on the edge of a cliff earlier in the morning looking out on the mountains.
The air smelled like the thyme that was growing on the ground like a carpet.

Today in the mountains, I also saw:
* A huge beehive hanging from a tree.
* Baboons walking through a grove of trees - maybe 20 in all.
* And a man walking behind a one-bladed plow pulled by two oxen.


******

Mom, Dad, et al,
I am heading to the Danakil Depression. Will be out of reach for about a week. Will blog, write, call as soon as I return.
Autumn

I can't dance, but I did anyway

There are times in the United States when tourism is just a reproduction, an after-image.
The scheduled shoot out in the streets of a Western town, the sepia photos you can take wearing Wild West costumes, butter churning in a colonial village.
Honestly, when I saw the Ethiopian dancing at the touristy restaurant in Addis, I thought it was an approximation of something that once was.
I was wrong.
At 11 p.m., the streets of Gonder were empty and quiet. The only sound came from a small square building with a sign in Amharic.
Along with the sounds of drumming and singing, a warm light poured out of the front door. The music was lively, that it took a moment to adjust to the reality of the place once we walked in.
One room. Linoleum floor. The warm light was coming from one bare bulb. Chairs lined the walls leaving the floor open.
In the center of the room was one woman wearing a white, hand-woven dress singing loudly.
Two women pounded on the drums and an old man stood behind her pulling music out of a one string fiddle.
I'm not sure what it's called - this style of singing.
The woman went from person to person and sang to them.
It was free form and spontaneous. She made it up as she went along. Friends would shout out things for her to sing - something flattering, something funny. Then they would dance - the singer and the subject.
It was the same dance I saw in Addis - shoulders lifting, head moving, the rest of the body still.
When she came to me, she asked my name and pulled me to my feet and belted out a song about me in Amharic. Who knows what it said (I'm probably glad I don't know). I heard my name a few times in the song.
She took off my scarf and tied it aruond my waist and showed me how it is used in the dance.
I mirrored her movements, which got smaller and smaller as our knees bent and we moved closer and closer to the ground. Then up again - spinning around each other leading the spin with one jerking shoulder.
The Ethiopians were hooting and clapping and the fiddle and drums were getting louder and louder.
And for a moment I completely lost myself.

A visit to Awramba

The leader of Awramba - a village of about 400 - sat with us in a tiny room built for just such a thing, meeting with visitors and telling them the story of the place.
All his clothes were handmade from cloth woven in the village. And as I looked around at all the women sitting with us, I saw that their plaid button up shirts were made of the same thick cloth.
Awramba is about two very painful, rocky miles off the highway between Bahir Dar and Gonder. It's an intentional community - very different from other Ethiopian towns.
Begging is not allowed. No children mob you; no hands stick out from the side of the road.
The founder of the place believes that education is the way out of poverty - not begging.
In the center of town, there is a huge library full of books in Amharic and English. If visitors want to give something, they are encouraged to donate a book.
Ethiopians - who are a deeply religious people - are skeptical of the place because they have no church or mosque. The founder said, because of the conflict religion can cause, if you live in Awramba, you are not allowed to say if you are Christian or Muslim - only that you believe in the one Creator.
In 2001, Awramba got its first media attention and people started making the trip to see it.
I can't imagine they get that many visitors because the road was hell and as we got about a half mile out, children started running out of the hills and the fields, throwing both hands up int he air to wave. They ran next to the minibus the entire way into the village (we couldn't go very fast on that road).
After we toured the village, we sat and ate injera with lentils and said goodbye with lots of hugging and smiling.
Some boys chased our van down the road and tossed a peanut branch into the window. It was heavy with peanuts still hanging from the roots, covered in dirt. I've never seen a peanut straight out of the ground before. They grow underground like little shelled potatoes.
We divided the peanuts and tore open the soft dirty shells and ate them. Fresh like that they had a red skin and had the taste and texture of peas eaten straight from the garden.

Just another tourist

In every country - even in Ethiopia - there is a tourist trail. And I am on it. They call it the historic route and the checklist includes a stop at the Blue Nile Falls near Bahir Dar, a visit to the ruins of a castle in Gonder, a trek through the Simien Mountains, a visit to the ancient city of Axum where the Ethiopians believe they have the Ark of the Covenant (most churches have a chamber in the center with a replica Ark of the Covenant that can only be seen by the priest. Man said, "Without the Ark, it's not a church."), and Lalibela to see the rock hewn churches.

Blue Nile Falls - check.

After meeting in various places, a group of nine has formed, moving from place to place in a swarm of white faces. This has proven helpful for getting discounts on hotels and renting entire minibuses to ourselves.
It also creates something of a spectacle everywhere we go, which backfires sometimes.
Case in point - this morning.
In years past, the Blue Nile Falls was this incredible wall of water, one of the most impressive waterfalls in Africa. Today, the falls are still impressive but tamed somewhat by the construction of a new dam to feed electricity to Ethiopia and Sudan.
Our swarm of white faces arrived at the bus station looking for transportation to the falls. The bus station is just a parking lot full of buses with the names of the buses written in Amharic script.
Touts love the confusion and we were mobbed. After telling them we didn't believe their story that we missed the bus and wouldn't find another one and that the only way was by their personal car for a small fortune, we climbed onto the bus.
The bus windows were covered by thick, dusty curtains. It was dark and stuffy. We found seats and waited.

In Ethiopia, as a "ferengi", it's important to know that 90 percent of the time you are paying a different price than the locals. You can try to fight it or you can accept it. And there are times for both.
Someone in our group decided to fight to price of the bus ticket. (Locals were paying about 70 cents. We were charged twice that.)
He argued and refused to pay and soon there was yelling and fist shaking and then someone came on board with a stick. And then all the foreigners were kicked off the bus.
Imagine the screaming match that continued outside the bus and the growing amused crowd. There was no winning this one.
I saw an old woman sitting on a log at the edge of the lot. I walked over to her, put my hand on my heart and gave her a quick head nod. She patted the log beside her and I sat down. She had a shaved head and a small blue cross tattooed on her forehead between her eyes.
We watched.

Once both sides had calmed down, our swarm walked out of the bus park to a nearby cafe. There were five of us that morning and I just learned the word for "five." I was able to order for us in Amharic. Not sure why something so simple makes me so happy, but it does.
The more words I use each day, the more I learn.

We did finally end up at the falls.
The guy at the ticket office said we had two choices - take a right and take a boat across the river to the falls or take a left and walk about 25 minutes (when an Ethiopian tells you walking time - triple it).
He said, "Take your first gra," laughing because I know the word for "left."
We took a gra.

One of the guys - an Irishman - seemed to collect children as he walked. He was surrounded on all sides with barely enough room to put one foot in front of the other.

On the walk, we saw:
* Huge old fig trees, kumquat, lots and lots of coffee trees and bushes of chat - some (mostly the very poor) eat the leaves as a stimulant and appetite suppressant.
* One guy bought a Pepsi from a woman on the side of the trail. He drank half and handed the other half to a child. Her mother grabbed it out of her hand and poured it into a new bottle and capped it.
* Children were selling little lunch boxes made of goat skin, selling white hand-woven scarves and small silver crosses.
* Saw one woman spooling newly spun wool onto a skein made of sticks.
* And, of course, the Blue Nile Falls!! It was hot and I was covered in sweat. I walked over the muddy rocks as close as I could handle to the base of the falls. There are no fences or guard rails or signs separating you from the crashing Nile. I was soaked in seconds from the spray. Probably a dozen or so Ethiopians were doing the same - the men stripped to their underwear, the women - like me - taking a shower fully clothed. And everyone was laughing. It felt great.

Came home dirty and exhausted, always a sign of a good day.

A long, long bus ride

4:30 a.m. Addis Ababa
There's on taxi sitting outside the hotel gate and it's full - two Dutch guys and their gigantic backpacks. I get them to roll down the window. I'm going to Meskel Square and they say they're going the opposite direction. And then the street is completely empty and quiet and dark.
No choice but to start walking. I walked down the hill and took a right, following directions I got the day before.
Across the street, as far as I could see were people sleeping on the sidewalk - each wrapped tight in white tarps about a foot apart.
I thought, "Oh, s***."
Another left and more downhill walking and a man ranting on the street corner.
I whispered, "Please keep me safe."
And no sooner had I said it than a taxi turned onto the street, pulled over and pushed the passenger door open.
He took me to Meskel Square - a huge parking lot full of buses and boys with baby stroller they converted to push carts, selling snacks.
The driver jumped out and asked around until he found my bus.
"How much?" I said.
"Free," he said. "It's safe in Ethiopia."
*****

The nine hour bus trip to Bahir Dar was uneventful except for stopping every so often so people could puke. The Ethiopian roads will do that to you.
I saw:
* As the sun rose, runners stretching, doing pushups on the sidewalk, old men coaches running behind young men.
* School children walking in their maroon uniforms.
* Herders with long sticks pushing goats and cattle.
* Mules carrying jerry cans of water along the road, pushed along by one small child with a stick.
* Rusting Russian tank in a field of sunflowers.
* Fields and fields of tef - the grain used to make injera bread.
* And the scenery! As we got closer to Bahir Dar - the mountains rose up like rounded granite fists; green and dark blue foothills; and the patchwork fields, interrupted on occasion by an Acacia tree.
*****

The big splurge on my trip was going to be a white water rafting trip on the Takezze or the Blue Nile.
It used to be legendary rafting - right about now after the end of the rainy season. Powerful rivers.
But the need for electricity in the Horn has dammed the rivers, one by one.
"Rafting is dead in Ethiopia."

Sherpa leaves

One nice thing about the guys at the Baro Hotel picking up local women of varied morals is that those women know their way around the city at night.
Monday was Sherpa's last night in Addis before heading south to Kenya. He wanted to eat a traditional meal and see some traditional dancing. One of the women negotiated a minibus for all 10 of us for 100 birr (about 60 cents a piece) to the Habesha near the Burkina Fasso embassy.
We ordered enough food to share and a couple bottles of honey wine.
If you haven't tried Ethiopian food before - try it. I know there's a good place in Austin and in Denver.
They lay down a sheet of Injera -a spongy, slightly sour bread and on top of the bread, they lay piles of food. No silverware; just peel a piece of injera (with your right hand only) and scoop up some food - goat, beef, lentils, cabbage, local cheese that's the texture of feta without the bite, green beans, carrots, potatoes and one hard-boiled egg. Everyone eats from the same plate.
Since this was a touristy place, they gave us napkins and washed our hands first with a pitcher of water and a bowl. Usually - no napkin and you get in line at a sink at the end of your meal to wash your right hand.
Then there was the dancing.
The highlight for me was watching two little Ethiopian girls who were at the restaurant with their families - probably 7 years old. They knew the dances perfectly, move for move - legs and torso perfectly still, just the shoulders shaking and jerking with a few head movements.
At the end of the night, when the dancers were gone and it was just the band, I danced with the prostitutes (sorry, mom) and the two little girls.
*****

On Tuesday, we said goodbye to Sherpa. He drank some bad water while cycling in Sudan and hasn't been feeling well - so we took him to the bus station (really just a field full of minibuses) to catch a ride south to a doctor in Nairobi. They strapped his bike to the top of the minivan and he was off.
In four short days with Sherpa, I learned so much. I've never met such a kind, compassionate person.
He has a video from his ride through northern Ethiopia where he was being mobbed by children. Twenty or 30 children were chasing him on his bicycle. He strapped a camera to his back so you could see them reaching for him and yelling, "you, you" or "money, money". He said it was like that the whole ride for days.
Instead of getting angry or frustrated, he said he reminded himself that he was once one of those kids on the streets of Kathmandu chasing tourists and the memory filled him with compassion for them.
And as we walked down the streets of Addis - people yelled at us: "you, you", "hey, lady", "miss, miss" and to Sherpa "hey, amigo" (because they thought he was Mexican) and "money, money". He said instead of getting angry, just slow down, take a deep breath and smile. And that's what he did - and laughed and shouted back. And it made the people laugh and the atmosphere completely changed everywhere he went.
*****

I bought a bus ticket leaving at 5:30 a.m. tomorrow for Bahir Dar. Haven't found a travel companion yet. Most of the guys at the Baro are staying there - talking about going somewhere, but not going.
In Nairobi, we called it "being porched." You find a comfy spot on a porch where you sip coffee all day and talk about life with other travelers from around the world. And it's hard to get up from that comfy spot and step back out into the unknown.
*****

Note to mom and dad: I checked in at the American embassy. The taxi driver said, "America? We call it Obamaland."
There were 16 windows in the embassy and at each one was an Ethiopian trying to get a visa. I heard one man just guessing at jobs he could do in the states.
"Do you need translators? I could be a translator."
"No. We already have translators."
And so on.
I walked past them all; I flashed my passport and the guards held the doors open for me.
*****

Luggage never arrived.
Here's what I have in my daypack:
* Eight weeks worth of Chloroquine (malaria prevention meds I bought at a nearby pharmacy)
* A warm jacket Sherpa gave me (I have to return it to some friends of his at the Yellow Bike Project in Austin when I get back.)
* Two handkerchiefs
* A yellowed copy of "The Brothers K" by David James Duncan that I found at the hotel. The cover is ripped off and it's missing all the pages after 642, but I'll enjoy it until then.
* Cheap Nokia cell phone with local number - 923798996.
* Toiletries (toothpaste and toothbrush, shampoo, small canister of Nivea moisturizer, hairbrush)
* Pocket Amharic phrasebook
* Two shirts, pants, hiking boots, scarf
* Watch and wedding ring.

A new day

I woke up Sunday morning and decided to change my attitude. Instead of fretting about travelers checks (which I haven't been able to cash), I went to an ATM. Instead of being frustrated that my luggage is not here (Charlie tracked it from Chicago to London to India and back to Chicago), I decided to buy some new clothes and continue my trip without my meticulously packed bag. A change in attitude makes all the difference in the world. ...

Early morning, we met a guy who is traveling across Ethiopia after leaving his job at the U.N. / Congo. He's been here about a week, but somehow known every nook and cranny of the place. He took us to a one room shop with no sign - just a door and an open window full of hanging bananas. Apparently, the bananas are the sign that it's a juice shop. He said any time I see fruit in a window, go in. And he's right.
We ordered a guava banana juice and they handed us spoon for the thick beverage. Delicious. Sherpa had two.
I went to the ATM afterward and my heart raced as I wondered if it would work or if I'd have to stretch the little cash I had over three months. It worked. One less thing to worry about. Feeling light, I asked an Ethiopian if he would take me to the Merkato to buy some clothes (I was starting to smell like I'd been wearing the same shirt since Tuesday).
The Merkato is a sprawling market - miles of corrugated steel stalls and people sitting on the sidewalk next to piles of clothes, shoes and food for sale. I don't know my way around yet and I don't know the prices - best to go with a local.
The Merkato is famous as the place you don't want to go. Hundreds of people in the streets. It's a maze of pickpockets. But on a Sunday, most of the shops were closed and the streets were nearly empty. I bought a purple button up shirt and a scarf. My friend argued down the "ferengi" prices as much as he could. I got a nice scarf for 25 birr ($1.40).
As we headed home, I asked about the mountains all around us. Addis Ababa's 8 million people live at the bottom of this vast, high altitude basin surrounded in every direction by mountains. It's really a beautiful city.
We changed course and headed first to Entoto Mountain - kind of a tourist spot, but still incredible. It's in the city limits but feels like the countryside.
We stopped and asked a boy if he knew of a place where we could stop for coffee. He said there wasn't a place but his mother would make us some. Then he was gone.
We got to the top and hiked into the Eucalyptus forest - about a quarter mile to a cliff that overlooks the city. Within minutes, the boy from the road was running after us with two small cups, a bag of sugar and a clay pot full of hot Ethiopian coffee his mother made.
He offered to take us to a place he knew inside the nearby Entoto National Park where I could see hyenas in the wild. (I've never seen a hyena before.)
It was probably a two or three mile hike after miles of horrible roads. As we walked, I thought how much it looked like Colorado - lichen covered boulders strewn up a steep green hillside and pine trees. And then I saw the monkeys in the pine trees and the Oromo herdsman with his goats and I remembered we were were walking all this way so I could see hyenas.
A boy about 6 or 7 with a walking staff joined us - he knew the spot. He led us through the Eucalyptus to a cliff that looked down on a collection of hyena dens and lots of filthy, huge jawed hyenas.
Not Colorado.

Settling in

Whoever said it's the journey, not the destination never flew United.
I arrived at the San Antonio airport at 3 p.m. Tuesday and didn't arrive in Addis Ababa until 2 a.m. Friday thanks to a series of mechanical issues, missed connections and other humiliations.
I landed in Addis exhausted, dirty - and, it turns out, without my luggage. It's in Chicago or London.
Enough of that - I'm here and settling in nicely.
In any journey, the first step is always the scariest. For the days leading up to my trip, I was most worried about stepping off the plane into the unknown - but after four days living in airports, it was like walked across my living room.
I caught a taxi to the Baro Hotel - "many white people there" the driver said. He taught me some words in Amharic and corrected the pronunciation of the ones I already knew.
Funny - every time I've tried to speak Amharic, people just smile and say "very good." Which means the opposite.
The taxi driver said - there are a lot of Americans from Washington D.C. in Ethiopia and lots of Chinese. I read an article that said the Chinese just invested $10 billion in a railroad from Addis to Djbouti toward the coast. They are investing roads and rail all over Africa.
I paid for a room through Monday night - about $6 a night.
My biggest fear about this trip was that I wouild be shy and would spend most of my trip alone. Instead, I ordered a coffee and approached a group of travelers sitting in the shade. I asked if anyone would be willing to show me around and soon I was walking the streets with a Nepali Sherpa who is riding his bicycle around the world in a 17 years trip and a Macedonian-Australian who kept the conversation going with a steady stream of political opinion.
Highlight of the day was dropping in on a film festival of documentaries about communal living in India.
As we walked around the city stopping for coffee - which is amazing - I met people about my age who were educated in the states, had careers in places like L.A., San Francisco, New York and recently moved back home to Addis.
A combination of the poor economy in the U.S., improving opportunities in Ethiopia and aging parents brought them here - a growing professional "creative class."
I heard of one man - a jazz musician from New York, educated at the Berklee School of Music - who moved back and helped start a music program for jazz musicians and opened a jazz club not far from where I'm staying. Going there tonight.

P.S. As I wait for my luggage to arrive, I've learned that the bare necessities are:
- A handkerchief (the best thing I packed)
- Toothbrush and toothpaste
- Deodarant
- Shampoo from a Chicago hotel
- The clothes on my back
- Sunglasses
- Pen and paper
- A copy of The Atlantic Monthly

Now you know.

Trying to think of everything

Ten years ago, everything I owned fit in a backpack.

Trying to squeeze my life back in there is a great visual reminder of how it’s changed.

As I packed, it slowly came back to me.

In the end, my pack weighs 30 pounds. Of course, much of that weight is “Finnegan’s Wake” by James Joyce and a copy of Joseph Campbell’s “Skeleton Key to Finnegan’s Wake.” It took me ten years to get through the first 50 pages of that book. This trip seems like the perfect place and time to finish it.

Over the next three months, those 30 pounds of possessions will be whittled down to the bare necessities as I remember what those are.

Here’s what I packed (complete with unpaid product placement):

• Cat’s Meow sleeping bag (with newly repaired zipper)

• DownMat sleeping pad. The stuff sack is designed to inflate into a pillow.

• Two pairs of pants, two shirts, one long-sleeved dress made of stretch material. Sports bra.

• Pair of flip flops.

• First Aid Kit in a plastic bag— rehydration salts, Advil, melatonin, Amoxicillin, Malarone, bandages.

• One set of silverware in a plastic bag. Light Gerber pocket knife.

• Duct tape. Carabiner. Safety pins. Silicone earplugs.

• Petzl headlamp.

• Amharic phrasebook. Lonely Planet guidebook to Ethiopia and Eritrea.

• Asolo hiking boots. Two pairs of SmartWool socks.

• Baseball cap.

• In plastic bag — waterproof matches and firestarters.

• Daypack.

• Scarf — to be used as towel, wear, etc.

• Point and shoot digital camera with six memory cards. Two USB drives.

• Toiletries — half a roll of toilet paper in plastic bag, one package of wet wipes, soap, toothbrush, toothpaste, lady stuff — in a stuff sack.

• Pair of binoculars.

• One set of playing cards.

• Journal and pen.

• Three photos of home and my wedding ring.