Was “Ethiopia First”

Addis is a mountainous city.  Africa cannot but conjure images of heat and merciless sun.  But Addis is chilly.  We drive around the city that one begins to understand is really no older than San Francisco, or Hong Kong, despite the fact that it is the capital of another “civilisation masquerading as a nation state.”  We won’t have time to see Axum on this trip, nor Harar.  This the church were Haile Selassie was coronated, this is the church where he was buried.  And in all of them there is an odd mixture of traditional orthodoxy and state propaganda, testifying to the life of Selassie as if here were a saint and not an emperor, responsible for building roads and getting staff paid. 

The city seems a construction site.  Everywhere we drive beside dirty roadside guard walls painted green and yellow that block the traffic views from old fields that are now construction sites.  The people I spy are a mix of Bantu and Somali and Abyssinian and it all somehow immediately typifies the adjective I conjure up as “Ethiopian.”  I have learned how to say “thank you”, “step by step”, “not easy” and “beautiful” as well as a few other pleasantries that I must dig up out of my phone to utter every time I choose.  “Don’t worry, this is going to be worth it.  I have just the word. Let me get my phone out . . . ”

The Museum to the Martyrs of the Red Terror is difficult to take on.  But like Tol Slung and Auschwitz one tells oneself it is important to proceed.  I thought to but didn’t say that China might one day have such a museum were the CCP to be overthrown.  But then, were the Cherokee to ride back into the American south east victoriously, so too might there be just such an accusatory museum illustrating American war crimes in Chattanooga.

I usually tell the guides that their kind services are not needed, but the gentleman who accompanied me around was so sincere and well informed that I couldn’t help but encourage his company.  “You see that helmet there, the slogan of the DERG, the revolutionary committee, was “Ethiopia First.”  “I see.  How appropriate.”  As this poor gentleman showed me the mannequin they had strung up, suspended from a broom handle, he explained that he too had had his fingernails pulled out while suspended in that unfortunate position.  I tried briefly to consider that.  Like Tol Slung in Phnom Penh they have the photos of the faces of the many thousands who died, a fraction of course, displayed on the wall, so that people would never forget all the lives lost.  There was a glass case showing bones and skulls as well.

Outside I noticed my older daughter was crying.  I went to comfort her.  “Hey.  That sure was heavy, huh?  “No.  No."  "What?"  "We just got a video of our cat from the cat hotel.  I miss her.”   Right. 

That night we dined with a local family.  There is a service we found online, Traveling Spoon, which we can recommend heartily.  It allows people interested in learning how to cook and shop with local families to do so on their travels.  We went to Daniel and his family’s house. He picked us up at our hotel and took us to his local market, where my wife pressed him to name all the different spices that were there to be had.  And my younger one and I felt winded and terrible about it until we remembered that we were at approximately eight thousand feet sea-level.  

That night we learned to properly roast coffee and properly eat a large plate of injera with a dozen lovely dishes.  And most importantly we learned how to make injera from teff flour.  It struck us all as not particularly different from how you make a jianbing back home.  My wife is considering how best to transfer this knowledge to all the mothers she works with back in Beijing.  We'll need one of these injera cookers.  

Friday, 06/23/17