Gondar to Bahir Dar

This morning my excellent guide, Belete, took me to the 17th centruy Debre Berhan Selassie Church in Gondar.  Since today was Sunday, there was a mass going on, so he asked me if I had a scarf to wear.  Yes, I had the one that Solomon gave me and when I put it on, Belete said I looked like an Ethiopian.  Not exactly.  But that damn goat.  I feel guilty that I didn’t buy it and if I had bought it, I would be kicking myself for being taken.

Back to the church … we got there just after mass when they were doing a reading.  No one eats before mass, and after the reading, they pass around holy bread for everyone.

 

Then they all left and we went into the church.  It is painted on all the walls and the ceiling with scenes from the Bible and the martyrs.  When the Moslems destroyed hundreds of churches in the 19th century, a swarm of honey bees attacked them and drove them off, saving this one treasure.

It turns out that the Ethiopian Orthodox Bible - old and new testaments - has eighty one books, and there are several apocryphal books as well.  This is far more than the Protestants with sixty six books and the Catholics with seventy three.  The Ethiopian Bible includes the Miracles of Saint Mary, the Deeds of Saint Mary, and the Miracles of Jesus.  They have some stories I have never heard before including  a completely different version of the birth of Jesus (but not his death).  I was fascinated as Belete explained this to me as well as the symbolism of Ethiopian art.  For example, the good guys are always looking straight ahead so you can see both eyes, making them somewhat distorted and nonrealistic.  The bad guys are always in profile so you can only see one eye.  In each picture, you immediately know who is good and who is bad.

The angels on the ceiling look in every direction

Balete left us after the church and my driver, Abboush, took me to Bahir Dar - a three hour drive.  The road was new and paved so we could go fast, but be still had to slow down constantly to avoid people and animals.  And again, the countryside is beautiful with well-tended fields and rolling hills.  After a while it struck me that one of the reasons I found the countryside so beautiful was that there was no garbage on the sides of the road.  The houses are shacks, but the land around them is well tended.  In most poor countries that I go to, there is litter all over the place as no one picks it up.  Clearly there is no garbage service out in the sticks.  I wondered if Ethiopia is so poor that there is no garbage.  Everything is retained and used or sold?  Finally I asked Abboush.  Duh!  I am such a city girl.  They burn garbage in the countryside.  In the villages there were a few plastic bags by the roadside, but he said that the people here have the mentality of not littering.  Unlike, he said, in the eastern part of the country and those Somalis.

In Bahir Dar is Lake Tana - the largest lake in Ethiopia and the ninth largest in Africa.  There are islands in the lake with monasteries on them, and I was going to visit the most famous one.   Abboush dropped me at the dock where a boatman told me we had an hour ride to the monastery.  Three hours in the car and an hour each way in a boat to see a monastery?  This better be good. It was.  The monastery was built in the 14th Century and the walls were painted in the 16th Century.  Like the church this morning, the walls were completely painted in Ethiopian style with scenes from the Bible and the martyrs.

My guide, Gaitun,  was as good as Belete and spoke even better English.  So I asked him about some of the differences in the Jesus birth story.  He tried to answer me but said he didn’t want to say anything wrong, so we would ask the monk outside.  After we went through the monastery, he called to the monk who was lying on the grass looking at his smart phone.  Gaitun then proceeded to translate my questions, converse with the monk for five minutes, and then explain his answer to me.  It still didn’t quite make sense, so we discussed the Bible for a good half hour.  Then I let slip that I didn’t believe in Jesus and Saint Mary and Saint Joseph, and the monk seemed to lose interest.  Gaitun assured me that the monk has read a lot of books and understood different theologies, but he said some pretty odd things.

Monks in Ethiopia wear round hats.  I had no idea who the old guy with a rifle was or the young guy looking at his phone and smiling at everything.  My guide, Gaitun, is on the left.  Later I asked him about the old guy when I saw another like him at the second monastery.  He said they are there to guard the church treasures.  Really?

After a stop at the other monastery on the island, we got back in the boat. Fishermen in Lake Tana fish from small kayak-like boats made of papyrus.

 Lake Tana is the source of the Blue Nile, so we went a short distance into the Nile.  There I saw my first hippos in Africa - sorta.  They stay underwater and just pop their heads briefly out every minute or two to breath.  It was underwhelming.

Finally, after a long day, I went to check into my hotel.  The bellboy taking me to my room began the familiar conversation.  Where are you from?  What work do you do in your country?  I told him and asked what he did.  He told me he was a student studying electrical engineering but it was very hard (I thought he meant the studies but he meant life) and he was going to have to stop studying and just work.  He said:  Maybe you would like to sponsor me or you know someone who would.  You know tomorrow is New Year’s and I’m not going home because I have nothing to bring to my mother.  Everything is so expensive and I can’t afford to live.  I know I can’t succeed without education but I need to eat.  Do you have any sons?  I have three sons, I said.  He said, consider me your fourth son, and maybe you can sponsor me or know someone who will.

That was all in the few minutes that he walked me to my room and opened the door for me.  By the time he finished, he was brushing away tears from his eyes.  What can you say?  What can you do?  I should have bought that damned goat.