Impressions of Ethiopia…

It has taken me a week to organise my impressions of Ethiopia. I, like many I am sure, had the famine picture of an Ethiopian child from the 1980s firmly fixed in my head – the reality of course no longer matches this picture.

We crossed the border at Metema and climbed up a few thousand metres into mountains and green countryside to Gonder, a welcome change after three desert countries in a row. The scenery for us was beautiful but the small villages of thatched huts, donkeys, small children yelling ‘you, you, you…’ fanatically at us and people staring as we drove through brought feelings of awe and intrusion on our part.

Nearly everyone in Ethiopia works in agriculture and if all of the children were to go to school the industry would collapse and the people would starve – bit of a conundrum. The roads are covered in people walking from village to village, farm to farm and sometimes judging by the uniforms, to school; this makes driving incredibly slow. The children are responsible for the family cattle, donkeys or goats as soon as they can walk, tiny four year old shepherds using a stick to control their stock. The women are simply unbelievable and from what I can see incredibly hard done by! They walk with no shoes carrying huge loads of fire wood, water, crop from their farms and of course, their smallest child. The ‘carrying’ is just one task alongside the cooking, washing, cleaning, child bearing and manual labour on the farm. They are often in a group of women, but sometimes a man, their husband I suppose, keeps them company but he does not carry anything – nothing like the sight of the man riding a bicycle whilst his wife carries what is probably 30kg of water on her back on a mountainous road.

Aside from the hardship, their laughter, community spirit and general good humour is striking; the colours of their traditional clothes, hairstyles and tattoos that represent their tribe all adding to the feeling that we have gone back in time. This is a country where you can stay at a hotel on a beautiful lake, drink a cold beer and enjoy the local cuisine, where you can ride through a village and feel that perhaps these people should be left un-touched and alone with their mythical beliefs and not be influenced by the west, a country where many children are born into a life of very little to no chance – but a country full of people that smile, laugh and understand the importance of living each day.

I have found Ethiopia and its societal structure confronting, ignoring small children tugging on your clothes and having to sometimes step around someone lying on the footpath begging are not easy tasks, but remind me that it is my impressions of this world and not theirs that create this feeling. Either way, this nagging feeling that what we are doing is a bit voyeuristic is hard to shake.

We are currently enjoying a few days rest at Wim’s Holland House in Addis Ababa which is home to many other overlanders on bikes and 4WDs, people to bring in the New Year with over a glass of champagne and swap plans and experiences to date. When rested we will head south through the lake region and to the border of Kenya where the next chapter of the adventure will no doubt commence….