Lalibela Day 2

This morning we went to a monastery that is forty five kilometers outside of Lalibela.  The unpaved road was so awful that it took over an hour, but the ride was so interesting that I didn’t mind.  I guess you would call it rolling countryside, but it was more mountainous than rolling.  And it was beautiful countryside.  It reminded me a bit of the mountains in New England, but they were not pine covered.  The vegetation was more like the coastal range in California and since we are at the end of the rainy season, everything was green and lush.

In Ethiopia, the vast majority of the population are still farmers.  I assume it is very fertile land because the fields of crops were endless.  And again, the harvest is next month, so everything is green.  Landscape never looks as good in a photo, especially a snapshot taken from a moving car, as it does with your own eyes, but I tried.

We almost never saw another vehicle, but we had to keep going around small herds of goats, sheep, cows, and donkeys, all in the care of young girls and boys.  I asked Estifanos why they walked on the road.  Duh!  I’m such a city girl.  The animals cannot go onto the fields where people are growing crops, so the shepherds have to walk them to “free land:”  the occasional hills or rough areas where there were no crops.

We also saw men walking along the road carrying tools and women and children carrying water containers.  We crossed a few bridges and saw people doing laundry in the streams; they were hardly rivers.  We drove through a few villages as well as a new “development” on the outskirts of Lalibela.  Unlike the concrete buildings in the city with rows of single rooms, the houses in the outskirts are stand-alone buildings, but the size of only one or two rooms.  I think they had foundations.  Then they build the entire house with tall vertical branches tied together.  Some houses remain in this state with just wood poles on the outside, but for most, they cover the branches with mud or stucco.  There were also some stone houses.

New development

Frame house before putting on plaster

After more than an hour we arrived at the Yemrehanna Cristos Monastery.  We climbed to the top of the mountain where the monastery was built into a large natural cave.  Unlike the rock hewn churches, the monastery was constructed in horizontal stripes using cedar and stone.  It also predates the churches by more than a century.  Some say that the cedar was brought from Lebanon, but Estifanos pointed out that cedar grows nearby in Ethiopia.

I asked Estifanos about the boys who I had met yesterday.  He thought it was a scam.  He said most of the boys don’t go to school and use any money you give them for something else.  He also said that they may not ask for anything now, but will write to you later.  Both boys had asked for my e-mail address and I did give it to them.  We’ll see what happens.  I have my doubts about Solomon and Gabru, but I thought Tohmas and Johanes were two of the nicest young men I have met.  And I meet a lot of nice young men.

We were back in Lalibela at lunchtime and I had a free afternoon, so I decided to go back to the first set of churches.  Solomon and Gabru were waiting outside my hotel for me and had another present for me - a scarf.  Yesterday they gave me a bracelet.  I was beginning to feel stalked.  They walked with me to the churches and then said they would wait outside for me.

I spent a long time looking at the outside and insides of the churches.  I must say, the insides feel peaceful.  But I realized as I was sitting in one that I was wrong yesterday about them being carved down from the top.  Each church is a single rock with an intact roof.  You could rough carve the outside leaving a deep trench between the surrounding rock and the church.  But how do you make a vaulted ceiling over three sections in the interior?  The only openings are the doors and windows.  Did they really cut a door and then use it to slowly carve out the interior and drag away the rock?  I would love to find out from an expert how they (or Lalibela alone) did it.

Solomon and Gabru were waiting outside the churches but I told them I wanted to walk by myself.  That was a different experience.  All of the little children ran up to me to say hello or hold my hand.  Most adults greeted me as well.  A few boys wanted to “practice their English” with me, but I was done with that one.  Then Tohmas and Johanes found me - it is a small town.  They had already e-mailed me yesterday.  They just kept thanking me.  I guess they could have sold the notebooks back to the store with the owner taking a small commission, but I think they are genuine.  Johanes was carrying a torn book that he said a friend had given him that day.  Tohmas said, look, it is American history.  He turned to a page with two columns and read me from Amharic the names of the US presidents.

But when I went out to dinner, Solomon and Gabru were waiting for me and asked me to come to their house because their aunt wanted to ask me something.  Reluctantly, I went, and they translated as she asked me to buy a goat for their New Year’s feast.  Was she in on this from the start?  Is this why she made me the coffee service?

A few other boys asked me for money for books as I walked alone to dinner.  So I guess that answers my question from yesterday:  is there a sign on my head?  Yes, of course.  What made me think I could walk around here and not be noticed?  On the other hand, they have nothing and what they are asking for is so little to me.  Is it really for books or a goat?  Does it matter?  If Tohmas and Johanes got cash for their notebooks, they could pay their rent for two months.  I asked them if they worked today and made money.  They said, yes, they shined shoes in the morning and made enough to get breakfast and lunch today.  That sure is a hard way for fifteen year old boys to have to live.  I think those two I would take back home with me if I could.

There are no easy answers.  Tomorrow I am off to Gondar and I have no idea what I will see.