Beggars

There are few things more striking that you’ll find when spending any time in Ethiopia than the sheer amount of people living rough on the streets. Back home we have more than any so-called ‘developed’ society should have, but in Ethiopia beggars are notable not only by their numbers but also by their variety. I have almost certainly seen female or elderly homeless people back in the UK, but I can’t remember where or when – at home they are nearly always men. I think and hope that the reason I don’t see elderly homeless people in the UK is because at a certain stage, social care takes over, and, for the time being, there are refuges for women.

People living on the streets here are male and female, from the cradle to the grave – often literally - there are homeless at every stage of life. Many, mostly boys, live their entire lives on the street. By adolescence many show signs of developing mental illness. I have seen no grown men living on the street here who aren’t severely mentally ill or drug dependent. Most are both.

Skeletally thin, these men seem all but lost. They refuse offers of food. When not chewing chat many wander the streets, their clothes hanging off in raged strips of assorted fabric, not faintly aware of being fully exposed.

A man with grotesquely swollen lips indiscriminately eating rubbish from the gutter, laughing. Another sitting stark naked for hours on end in a skip being picked through by dogs and goats. A skeleton wrapped in dark brown skin and rags lying in the gutter at the bus station as commuters jostle past one another, drifting through their morning routine. These things don’t shock me anymore but they’ll never leave me.

People

The label ‘beggars’ reflects in some measure how they are perceived and treated here in Ethiopia and in the UK. I was once admonished by a friend with words to the effect of “he’s just going to spend it on drink” for giving 50p to a man sitting wrapped in a sleeping bag next to an ATM in Belfast. We were just about to go into a club to spend the money on drink ourselves. The man was right there, well within earshot. I doubt my friend knew - in saying this, I doubt he cared.

We use words in this way when we, consciously or not, want to replace or qualify someone’s personhood – their humanity – into a special or different category. Something deviant, other, or entirely alien, and it’s always pejorative.  Loosely, you can do this by turning the adjective describing the person into the noun representing the human – encompassing the whole of their identity. Think:

A gay man           -              A gay.

Of course, like anything in language, like most things really, no rule holds for all cases. Think:

A Pakistani          -              A Paki*.

To call someone ‘a Pakistani’ is to frame them primarily in terms of their nationality, but it isn’t necessarily pejorative. My friend’s attitude wasn’t an aberration. It’s entirely normal and almost everybody does it. It’s an attitude that reflects this ‘othering’ of a marginalised population of people. You’ll never hear this construction of the identity of someone powerful or successful other than in a light-hearted way,  not even when they are being criticised. I can’t even think of a nickname with the slightest chance of sticking to rich people. There probably are some for powerful women.

My point is that in language and in action they are treated like something other or less than human. The logic would seem to be that ‘they are suffering, therefore they deserve to be marginalised’.

Beggars and choosers

Everybody chooses. It just happens that often the choice is between difficult to distinguish bad options. A homeless person might ‘choose’ this life, in that their choice might be between homelessness and, for example; physical or mental abuse, crime, or any of a long list of awful things 

that they find less preferable to homelessness.

Many of East Africa’s homeless people find themselves in this position because their lives have been ruined by clumsy forms of ‘development’. Enclosing common land and creating enormous arable farms benefits those who come to own the land, which is almost always a very small number of people who become incredibly wealthy. When those people who once lived there try to bring their animals onto land that was once free for them to use, cowherds are beaten, imprisoned, given ludicrous fines they couldn’t possibly pay. In desperation, people come to towns where they might find a job. They rarely can. Landing a job as a security guard in an expat compound is about the best many can hope to achieve. In Ethiopia this usually pays about £30 a month, but very few can land regular work. Most hang around car park areas to blag 20 birr (60p) for an hour’s work watching cars.

Maybe some people end up on the streets because their families rejected them for being drunk, addicted, violent. Maybe a lot of them do. Are you going to assess a human being on the basis of a set of media-filtered assumptions?

*I’ve had people say to me, with a completely straight face, that it’s ok to say ‘Paki’ because you can say an ‘Afghan’ or a ‘Tajik’.

A different kind of recycling

Fantastic though The British Museum is, I think there's a reasonable argument for re-naming it "The (Partly) British Museum", given that a fair amount of it is the loot of imperialism. 

Making a bee-line straight for the Africa section, I was slightly shocked, if in no way surprised, to find that the 'Africa' section lumps the entire continent together, as though every cultural meme in the world's second-largest continent was just a variation of an easy to digest African whole. In short, it reproduces the stereotypical way in which Africa has been so often depicted for decades. The approach that leads even well-educated people to talk about this place, containing minimum 1,250 languages, as though it was just one country. I should point out that there are several wings devoted to Egypt.

This leads to a feeling that there's no real narrative holding the exhibits together. The swords are together, the clothes, the hats, the sculptures, all together. They're all grouped aesthetically rather than by culture, so if you want to learn much about history, you aren't going to get a great deal out of it. Judging by the number of cameras everywhere, I'd say the layout works well for those wanting to get as many interesting shots as possible.

Regardless, the exhibit does have a power of it's own. For better or for worse, one of the most eye-catching exhibits draws on one of the strongest African stereotypes, war. The AK-47 in particular. I've been aware of artists and craftsmen melting down old guns to either re-purpose or to send an artistic message - see this excellent blog post from Nico on a project in Liberia.

The body made from sight leaves, beak from bayonets, feathers from recoil springs.

The message, I suppose is one of defiance. That of a form of beauty being born from a machine designed specifically for killing and asserting power over others. It is a brutal kind of beauty, the bird looking rather skeletal. Or maybe it isn't beauty at all, maybe it's a mockery. Whatever it might be, the fact that men and children have likely looked down one of those sight leaves before firing on someone is rather haunting. A dark joke if nothing else but in the west most humour involving Africa is quite dark.

Right at the front, though, is a more stark and surely a more powerful message. The 'Throne of Weapons' is a stand-in for the message delivered by the entire exhibit. Everything played up to simplified stereotypes. It would be disingenuous of me to argue too strongly against these, though. In many cases, African presidents are held up by that massive threat of force, and are de facto presidents for life. 

I suspect that, in a hopeful gesture, they've deliberately made the throne uncomfortable looking, and perhaps slightly unstable. The sad reality is that from north to south, it has for a long time paid well in Africa to rule your people at the barrel of a gun, being in no way specific about any countries.

As an aside, I often wonder whether there is a significant relationship between countries having the word 'Democratic' in their name and being ruled by dictators. Democratic Republic of the Congo, Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Etcetera.

Simplified though it may be, to some extent the museum has to manage people's expectations, and most come to this place to look at mummies, sarcophaguses and that kind of thing. I just wish they strove more to challenge people's perceptions rather than to reinforce the simplified way of thinking that leads many to fear or mistrust Africa. Promoting a drastically simplified notion of African-ness encourages this ignorance.
A subtle appreciation of African cultures isn't going to do a whole lot to solve poverty, other perhaps than to bring more tourists to the place, but it will broaden minds. And Ethiopia has a lot of exceptional things for tourists. A big glass of fresh mango & avocado juice for $1 being a good starting point.

Some more photos from the Africa exhibit. I can't remember what they're of.

Food, culture and other stuff

Six months and I've scarcely learned any Amharic beyond simple pleasantries. Fair, it's a tough language and I work almost entirely with English speakers, so if I can order food and a couple of beers then I'm getting along alright ("hulet biya afellegalu"). Surprisingly, in between occasional games of Petanque and some cheap classes, I've improved my French a great deal more. At least they speak it in more than one country, he said, trying not to sound disdainful. 

Typical of a lapsed fat kid, I have learned quite a lot about food and some of the most enjoyable food you can find in Dire Dawa is on the street. It's a mix of traditional Ethiopian, middle-eastern, and one dish which seems to be cobbled together simply to get the best taste from the cheapest ingredients. My phrasing belies the fact that this - enkulal ba dinich/አንኩላል ባ  ድኒች  - tastes incredible. 

Enkulal ba dinich

Literally 'eggs with potato', this slightly odd combination of eggs, potato, lentils, kidney beans, chillies, onions, a little oil and lime juice is really delicious. Served with crusty bread and sweet spiced tea, you'll damn well have your carbs on board for 10 birr/$0.50 for a big plate of it.

It's pretty humble stuff, but these little street-stalls provide a nice place for locals to catch up and relax as they come back to life in the evenings, having sweltered through another 37-degree afternoon. Something about eating the way locals do adds to the self-congratulatory sense of authenticity. You may be able to get a really nice steak with vegetables for $3.50, but sitting in an air-conditioned hotel does sometimes feel a little hollow. The air conditioning helps, obviously, but on the street you'll quickly forget about the heat which in the evenings is generally quite pleasant. It's hard to reconcile the weirdly artificial feeling of sitting in an air-conditioned lobby eating steak when just outside the gates are children barefoot in rags living on the street, where often the closest thing they have to parents is the older girls who maintain some kind of order. 

The street stalls in Legahare, part of the Muslim district, are compelling and a great place to people watch. It's not only in the architecture that you realise that Islam is one of the main cultural bridges that brings such a vast diversity to east Africa. The architecture is a mix of French, Turkish, standard East African and Yemeni Arab. With just a short while here you'll be able to pick out several distinct languages spoken simultaneously, often within the same conversation - Amharic with it's distinct ejectives, Somali and Arabic with the deep glottals, the lively rhythm of Oromifa* and the solitary French phrase often yelled at white folks; "Bonjour! Ca-va?".

Part of it could be down to the nearby city of Harar. Supposedly the fourth holiest city in Islam, it once formed the centre of a powerful regional kingdom in it's own right, and still draws Muslim pilgrims and tourists of all kinds into the region. It's basically the only thing worth seeing for miles around, but very much worth seeing. 

Baklava/Baqlawa.

The middle-eastern influence abounds in the excellent Baklava they serve here. It's like a dessert lasagne of sorts - layers upon layers of filo pastry stuffed with crumbled peanuts and pistachios, soaked in syrup or honey. All down the Muslim district, shops like al-Hashimi sweets ply Baklava, plum cakes and excellent dates, much to the delight of the city's few dentists. I brush at least twice a day, I've heard what the dentists are like.

Fuul

A really tasty breakfast for $0.50 has to be fuul, a spicy bean stew cooked over charcoal. Again, you can find this almost anywhere and they serve it with surprisingly good soft white bread. They fry boiled fava bean mush in oil with a lot of berbere, a mix of different hot spices. When it's done, they top it with chopped chillies and red onion. See it off with some ludicrously sweet tea and you're well set until lunch. Locals are often a little taken aback on seeing a westerner eating at such a modest place. They look as though to ask why you would eat there and not have your cook make it for you at home, or to eat in the 'fancy' hotel. Well, I don't have a cook and the hotels leave that hollow feeling whilst charging three times as much, so that's that. 

Not so widely available in Dire Dawa is breakfast fetira. Fried unleavened bread that crumbles slightly. The fetira guy cooks it up over a vigorous fire in an old oil drum while you wait. Mix it up with honey and fresh yoghurt and you aren't going to miss cornflakes too much. Especially since a box costs nearly $10. Dinner fetira is all over the place though. At dinnertime they cook it with egg, onions, tomato and pepper, chopped to bits with a cleaver and in an unexpected move, usually topped with banana and ketchup. I take the banana separately, thanks. 

Suitably enough, considering that Ethiopia is perhaps most famous across the world for famine and much less so for it's food, is the fact that all of this is as nothing compared to that which Ethiopia is almost as famous for. That's the coffee. Buna seems to be what makes Ethiopians tick and in my six months here so far, I don't think I've once been more than five minutes from a cup. Again, you can go to the cafes if you want, and be served a sour, brutally strong attempt at an espresso that leaves black marks on your lips and fingers, or you can drop by one of the little stalls lining most streets and be served the smooth coffee typical of Ethiopia. The beans are roasted fresh throughout the day over charcoal, onto which the buna ladies sprinkle incense. It's served in a tiny china cup, normally filled half with sugar before you get it, so if you're not into incredibly sweet coffee, make sure you say so. The locals around you will be bemused when you ask for "tinnish sekwar/sekwar yelleu" (a little sugar/no sugar), but the coffee still tastes great. Again the spirit of authenticity, set and setting, probably propels this along a bit - often you'll be perched on a little stool of goat skin stretched across a wooden frame, whilst the air fills with the warm smell of roasting coffee and the sweet pungency of incense. The fact that the coffee you're drinking was probably grown not an hour's drive away helps too. 

The beans are roasted fresh throughout the day over charcoal, onto which the buna ladies sprinkle incense. It's served in a tiny china cup, normally filed half with sugar before you get it, so if you're not into incredibly sweet coffee, make sure you say so. The locals around you will be bemused, when you ask for "tinnish sekwar/sekwar yelleu" (a little sugar/no sugar), but the coffee still tastes great. Again the spirit of authenticity, set and setting, probably propels this along a bit - often you'll be perched on a little stool of goat skin stretched across a wooden frame. The fact that the coffee you're drinking was probably grown not an hour's drive away helps too. 

An honourable mention must go to the samosas. For 1 birr/5 cents, it's a tasty snack between lunch and dinner, usually filled with lentils or potato and a fair bit of chilli. You carry them in re-purposed old newspaper, which considering that I've eaten from Turkish, Georgian, American and British newspapers, might indicate the regard most Ethiopians have for their press. This could be down to the government's questionable policies to the media, or that mere fact that literacy is around 43%. Bombalino, ubiquitous deep-friend pastry doughnuts are also served for breakfast. They're ok, though not even a patch on fuul.

The street stalls do, of course, serve injera, dishes based on the divisive Ethiopian sour pancake. I'll skirt over this because unless you're here on a very tight budget, you're much better trying injera in a proper restaurant. It's a weird enough taste and texture for westerners without skimping and going for the cheap stuff which normally uses lots of wheat in place of the more expensive teff flour which usually leaves it drier. I'll cover injera in more depth some other time.

*Oromifa can often be quite easy to read. The phrase "Rift Valley University" written in Oromifa is "Yooniiversitii Riiftii Vaali"

Community action day.

One of my underlings is blogging the team's experiences, and it's well worth a look. No point in me re-writing this stuff after all.

Here it is.

Andy.

Minus two degrees Celsius.

Most of my experience of Africa comes from the mass media – until recently my image was pretty uniform – Muslims in the north with some Christians, Christians in the south with some Muslims. Everywhere was a potential warzone just waiting to erupt, probably because everyone was starving and living in huts built from sticks and stones. My assumption was that people’s attitude to westerners – Mzungu, Faranji – would be ambivalent at best. Bloody occupiers, eh?

Whether deliberate or not, the media and often some charities constantly reproduce this image of a continent of people living in isolation, ignorance and want. We often forget that ‘Africa’ consists of sixty-three countries (only 54 legally recognised), hundreds of languages and ethnicities, many of whom are extremely outward looking. Most of Africa is out of sight to westerners, and therefore out of mind. Cool animals on documentaries notwithstanding.

Not once during my time in Tanzania did anyone other than I broach the subject of colonialism, likewise Ethiopia.

Ethiopia is unique amongst all the countries of Africa in that not once has it been successfully colonised. For most of the first half of the twentieth century, the Italians gave it a shot, but never really managed it. Towards the end of the Second World War, the British booted them out.

This has shaped the national psyche in a way unlike any of sub-Saharan Africa. Most nation states south of the Sahara were formed along fairly arbitrary colonial lines, throwing disparate tribes together to varying degrees of success – compare the majoritarian tradition of government in Kenya to the almost contrived pluralism of neighbouring Tanzania. A river here, a mountain ridge there and you’ve got a border. Ethiopia, on the other hand, has existed in some form, centred around the Entoto mountains, since at least the first century AD. The Empire that Ethiopia became was a major world power – they traded and had diplomatic relations with Europe, Persia, Arabia, India etc etc. They were, in essence the first and for a long time, the only unitary state in the whole region.

Food and drink.

Because of all this, Ethiopians have strong and distinctive food – another source of pride, socialising and symbolism. Injera is what it’s all about for these guys. It’s a thoroughly odd kind of bread made from Teff flour (coeliacs take note), it seems to be fermented like sourdough, cooked on a hot plate with a lot of water until it resembles a big flat (2-4mm thick) greyish-brown sponge. This is selling it short. It’s a little bit sour, but as is usually the case with bread, it’s supposed to carry other flavours – texture first. Bayaynet is a typical vegetarian Injera dish (below. If in doubt, say ‘Bayonet’). 

Clockwise from bottom right, cabbage, spiced split peas, chilli and rice, salad, beetroot, more cabbage, sauteed potato, spicy sauce and in the centre, spiced lentils.

It’s probably an acquired taste but heck, I like most everything. Some westerners can’t seem to get into it that much. I reckon most of you would like Injera Tibs. This time, you get a charcoal burner brought to your table, on top, charred strips of beef tossed in spices with chopped onion and chillies.

To come back to the Italians – pizza is ubiquitous – they aren’t much fussed on Italian people, but Ethiopians show a certain flexibility in acknowledging the brilliance of Italian cuisine versus the brutality visited on them by Mussolini’s armies. I haven’t yet eaten somewhere that didn’t serve decent pizza and pasta is almost a traditional food.

Perhaps it’s something to do with a mutual love of coffee that you can get a Macchiato (or Makayato) anywhere. It’s normally served with a spoon of sugar settled at the bottom. Ethiopians usually add two or three more. They’d probably add sugar to their coke if I suggested it.

Rolled up Irish Flag.

Probably my favourite thing to eat/drink is their juice. I do mean eat/drink, because juice (JOOSE!) here is really pulp, you can use a straw if you want* but I use a spoon. The best is Spriss, mango, papaya and avocado pulp layered with a little fresh lime juice on the top. An honourable mention to Ergo. It’s cold yoghurt that, again, you can eat or drink as you like. It’s quite creamy and a little sour, always super fresh and better than any ice cream. For those who’ve been to Turkey, it’s a lot like Ayran. It’s also a little like Tajik Chakka, but actually tastes nice with none of the pungency.

 

Ethiopians reckon they like spicy food, and warn me all the time about that. They don’t know what spicy means. 

*If you want to look like a girl or a child. I had a sudden urge to find out what the lowest temperature ever recorded at the Equator was. Minus two degrees Celsius on Cayembe Volcano in Ecuador. I don’t really want to confront what the highest temperature recorded at the poles. 

A bunch of photos of things.

Just before I came out here, I was generously given a rather nice camera, one that far outstrips my ability. With the help of some local friends I'm starting to understand about 5% of the features of a digital SLR. Here's what I've got.

Weaver birds build their nests in less than a day using bits of grass, string, and most things that are longer than they are wide. This is a female.

Bright gold with purple and red faces, Male  of this species of Weaver birds are much more visible. Various species are found all over Africa and Asia.

Weaver Bird nests.

A view from the hill of the Muslim Quarter of Dire Dawa. Low down, the architecture is very Arabic and Turkic influenced. Minarets everywhere.

And looking up into the poor neighbourhoods, built on an improbable gradient.

Brother and sister. Show the slightest hint of a camera and you've got a plague of kids.

Another sister.

Leading to another sub-village on the outskirts, every resident walks this slab every day, hence it is incredibly polished. I dread to think what it's like when it rains. Unsurprisingly the locals had no trouble at all

The Muslim quarter. That's the mosque you see on the Wikipedia article for Dire Dawa.

A plague. These kids walk  unshod over rough, sharp stones and don't even notice.

Wind blows in dust from the surrounding savannah, so the sunset looks pretty dramatic.

The village on the hill.

The street.

More of the Turkish-Arabic style architecture which has almost everywhere fallen into disrepair. This is the door into someone's house.

Dr Dire

Hi to everyone (anyone) out there. Sorry it’s taken so long to get this going. I’ve been in Dire Dawa for a week now. To give you some context, it’s the second largest city in Ethiopia, a paltry 330,000 people and it’s strange, as African towns go. It was built by the French as a stopover from the port city of Djibouti. Hence, in addition to the odd colonial building, the streets are about 50% cobbled, a nice break from the dust, pitted tarmac, dust and dust of most African streets. They still throw rubbish on the ground without a care.

This is a welcome break from Addis though where we stayed for a week. There is tons to do in Addis, it’s colourful, not too hot (think nice British Summer every day, including rain), but your lungs are in stiff competition for oxygen with the cars and trucks covering the roads, maybe something to do with the altitude – 2,200m – leaving stairs a bit of a challenge, but I’m too stubborn to use a lift. I’ll say more about Addis when I go back.

As for Dire Dawa, in contrast to that constant ‘Capital City’ effect of people being relatively unfriendly*, you can’t go for a walk without folk bombarding you with “HEY FARANJI”, “Hello, how ah yoo!”, “What is yu-a name!”. They aren’t messing about or taking the mick, most people want to meet you and have a halting inter-lingual chat. Little handshake, some pleasantries and you’ve made a friend of sorts. This may have something to do with the fact that it really isn’t much of a tourist town and foreigners are more of a novelty. The Bradt guide pretty much writes it off. As a tourist, there’s not much to keep you going for more than a day or two, but it seems pretty decent to work in. Get a camera out and the friendly effect doubles.

Again, compared to Addis, there are virtually no cars. Plenty of trucks on their way through, but Dire Dawans get about almost exclusively with Bajaj (aka Tuktuk) – picture above. It’s like a Vespa scooter mixed with a car and there are hundreds of them. At any moment, five of them are usually competing for two Bajaj worth of road space. Hauling goods – Bajaj won’t manage that, no for that you need a horse and cart, or a camel.

I’m quietly impressed at the lack of crap on the roads.

Nice way to sign off my first post.

Peace.

*This is not to say that Addis is unfriendly, more that DD is hyper-friendly.