Another Grandish Tour of Ethiopia
With Lions, Leopards, Dozy Goats and Chat Rooms
Hello Blogees, I hope all is well with you all. Is the snow starting to melt yet? I think days are getting a little hotter here in Ethiopia. I am sitting in a town called Harar without a cloud in the sky, the sun is shinning and I am watching the Australian Open in the hotel's lounge. It is a real treat for me to be watching any telly, never mind the Aussie Open. I think I'll have a local Harari beer while I watch the tennis and write my blog. What is also strange is that one of the adverts on the sports channel is for the next Celtic and Rangers game. Pretty bizarre! Maureen and I are on tour for the Ministry. It was supposed to be Maureen and David but David had to return to England as their house was flooded pretty badly from a burst pipe. From his phone calls to Maureen things sound pretty bad. David will be away for two months, so I am taking his place, much to the chagrin of the Ministry Driver who huffed and puffed his way throughout the journey. I think he is not pleased at having to drive two ferengi women.
Our first visit was to Haramaya University. It is one of the oldest universities in Ethiopia and is a complete and walled campus. It is a lovely campus and safe and full of students and staff, all of which live on campus. It even has its own farm with produce; fresh milk, eggs and pork – the only pork I have had since being here and delicious. But strangely no cheese. Ethiopia does not make cheese, despite the abundance of cows and goats. The uni also has its own 'pets' corner', but a little bit different to Linn Park's pets corner. We saw two lionesses, one of which is pregnant, a lion, a spotted hyena, a leopard, really large tortoises with babies and an assortment of monkeys one of which tried to grab my shirt as I passed. It only cost 1 birr, which is 5 pence, not bad to see my first ever lions and leopard!! Pity the cages are so small. We do get to drive through the Elephant sanctuary tomorrow – so who knows? Maybe we'll ask our driver kindly to stop and wait for the elephants!!!
We are currently staying in Harar, but to get here we had to pass through what Wynne calls 'Chat Town'. Chat is a plant that grows here – looks like a common garden hedge – and people chew chat to make them high. Apparently they have to chew it for 8 hours to get a 'high'. But the fields around here are covered in it. Pity they don't grow crops on such fertile land. Also in this chat town they have chat rooms – not the scary online type but the scary chewing chat rooms. They are reminiscent of Victorian opium dens. These are simply large rooms with mattresses where people buy chat and sit around for hours simply chewing chat and getting high. It is really sad and the whole town has a really sad feel to it. It reminded me of a phrase by Richard Adams in 'Watership Down' that 'they look like trees in November'. All those people whose hopes and dreams and chances of a solid job gone in the pursuit of chat. There are chat leaves strewn everywhere – even the goats chew them and stagger around the place or stubbornly refuse to get off the road. We even had to do an emergency stop at one point as a goat was clearly fixated on getting its chat leaves!! When we met a colleague for a 9am meeting he was clearly high on chat. His eyes were sparkling and his speech slurred. It was very strange. Also we were told not to expect to conduct any business in the afternoon as everyone will be on chat. And sure enough as we walked round the town people were clearly doped up on chat and talking in a version of English only heard in Harar. A few VSO pals have tried it and said it tastes like hedge – or I what I imagine a hedge tastes like!
But Harar is a really interesting place – now a protected World Heritage Site with a fascinating past. Next time on Joanne's blog: Christians banned from the walled town, feeding hyenas, brightly coloured scarves and a poet called Rimbauld.
Be well everyone. I hope spring is springing into action.
Lots of Love Joanne x
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