I wrote this for a girl. She cried for me. I hope I impress her.
A couple of days ago, I headed into the Afar region to visit Wondi, my close friend in the Afar desert. A magnificent place in the world, well, rather a magnificent world. Its a barren world, unmarred by today’s modernity’s like, a shit, is a spade and a roll of tissue in the desert. And if something crawls up your rear, you my friend are boned. This is what happened on my trip to this magnificent world.
1. Do not travel at night.
Night in this region is anytime the sun does not appear. It could be midday and there is an eclipse, that is also considered night. Night time means roles change and employment benefits and allegiances change. The region is partly lawless and anyone can buy, own, posses or whatever term you want to use a gun, knife or weapon than you can then use to manage your domestics or socials. Socials in this case is termed as some good old fashion brawl in the bar at the best and at the worst, some good old fashioned, point shoot, loot kill action. Shiftas or bandits or whatever, know best how to get to you. Common waylay strategies include rolling stones on the highway, waiting for a hapless driver (that is you) to crash into them and then quickly shooting and killing anyone that refuses to oblige. Girma our driver did not share in there enthusiasm. His story will come in a bit. So if u don’t want to be at the pointy end of the gun, don’t travel at night. Its more than certain that you will get waylaid, though they say such incidents are isolated. They are wrong.
2. Don’t travel with faranjis
I met Bridgette from Antwerp (that’s in Belgium) and Rahel and others from America (really from Dire Dawa but they swore they were American). So at an unplanned road stop, we were having our drinks, I came to realise that most of us in the drinking/shisha hole had a lot of external influences, translated means we had $$$$$ so we were obvious targets for everyone. No surprises when we all kinda ended up in the same convoy of taxis. No surprises when the hollow harrowing distinct sound of AK 47s and the loud blast of post colonial shooters came sounding in the night. A whole wall of AK 47s and next to nil injuries is kinda a surprise. That story is coming too.
3. Drink bottled water and don’t eat tibs
Drink lots of water and coffee. Sodas, beers and everything else means that you pee a lot and you dehydrate real quick. Eating on the road means that you get a running stomach real easy and that being the case, you don’t want to shit your way to the border. It sucks. Take it from experience. Don’t eat for the whole day. However, in the Afar region, there is a mandatory stop run by a Somali/Ethiopian guy who makes the best tibs (fried dead cow in soup) in the entire East Africa (sic). You can’t miss him. If you really must eat, avoid spices and stay away from eating anything in between a woman’s legs, your woman or someone else’s in irrelevant at this point, but, don’t put it in your mouth, you will get sick.
4. You will get ripped off
As is natural in any African country you are foreign. Prices are dilute and hence vary. Haggling is an art that we all fail at. Even the best of us. Expect to pay more and you are more likely to pay double for anything, even though u have negotiated the best rates available. They are not. A local dude will get the prices much better than you can. So if you go talking faranji and on your iPhone screaming and waving green notes, your ass is grass.
The journey
The beginning was very easy, Stadium in Addis at 6.00am hooked up with Bini and we headed to Nazret which is actually going backwards. but this is Ethiopia, thats the way it works so accept it, shut up and go with the flow. At Nazret (the machiatto smile city) we hooked up with the main taxi that heads to Loggia, the border town with Djibouti. The journey is straight forward, characterised by chat, khat, veve or miraa or whatever you want to call it and a lot of coffee and water. And injera and tibs. The tibs looked and smelt nice, but we don’t eat that, right? Metehara region is beautiful, you drive between water, which is distinctly quintessential in ways, this world is paradise, hot and beautiful. You see the mountains whose name I could not guess and you will notice the handsome strapping lads who arm themselves with AK 47s and other firearms and daggers, and will shoot at the whim of an itchy asshole. The roads are superb, you can hate Zenawi for some ills, but Ethiopia has some of the best roads in Africa. Its Grade A or B highways from one end to the other and there is piped water wherever you go. Simple as that.
Mille
Is a beautiful place, not much happens, the dust bowls echo the true African scenery. You can see poverty here, but you also see happiness. They might be broke but they are always smiling. At the customs camp where we stayed, they had a VSAT setup that gives them quite some real internet speeds, but the mobile network as Wondi said is a freak. The tower is within LOS but its solar powered, so no sun, means no coverage, no coverage means you are on your own. We ate tibs (dead cow), dabo (bread), injera (which i loathe) and had a ball of a time watching DSTV and Euroline Arabsat Sat which is Arab censored content, but it works, simplified and accessible. Spent the rest of the night talking as I made out with a saint.
The Return
The journey heading back was with Negasi (refused to be photographed), Tigrinya driver who is pretty content with driving for 20 years and buying charcoal and bulk sugar. That’s his life and you don’t mess with it. He has very little opinion about anything except driving. His Sinotrack which we rode in, is Turbo charged and I had to accept the role of turnboy for the road. He bought everything, coffee, coke and food. And water. He has one thing he loves which is a bit shocking. Everything he takes, coffee, tea, water or tibs must be flavoured with Coke. Not the sniffing type, the black drinking type. So he dropped me off in Awash (halfway) after almost 10 hours of trucking with the distinct, “sleep here, go tomorrow” which I blatantly ignored. I needed to be in Addis, for dinner, and a meeting, but his world, his truck, his coke, that’s his life. Nothing more. So we parted ways.
46 drinks in the lake
So after I took a taxi to Nazret which sucked water up near Metehara (the same beautiful region) on the way back cause of the rain, we were stuck in Metehara. From 6.30 pm to 1.00 am. A couple of phone calls from 2 girls and everyone was cool though they were worried. Here, I met a nervous Bridgette, who I now know has met Somali boys with guns under not so much pleasurable circumstances. I fed her some crap about being all of us which was cool, but she bought it cause of Girma. So we sat in a definite infinite mess in Metehara smoking shisha and drinking beer, waiting for some hope. Here I met Ermias, who was kind enough to tell us about how safe the region was, and no problem, Addis bad city, here, good region. I want to stomp on his face right now, I could not see through his mendacity. It was arguably garish, hungering for some green notes and feeding us wonderful lies, of how good life here was. It was not.
The betrayal
So here we are drinking, making new friends, a text here and there, a call from her who was worried, but the world was cool. Ermias told us it was cool right? Ermias basically boxed us in, waited for the taxis from Harar to help us get this journey done. Our impatience was what sold us. We were excited that they were here. 3 brand new Nissan Hiace 2500 turbo vans. Very very very fast. Ours driven by Girma, who was about 24 - 25 and who cared about little in the world. Anarchy has met technology, we hit the road but they, our new found friends, called ahead to the shiftas to tell them we are coming, so the stones were laid and we sat excited at the prospects of being in Addis before the sun. The 2500 is respectable, very fast, quiet and I later learnt very versatile. But we were sold, Judas would have been proud.
The Shiftas
In the lull of the night, climbing the hills, Girma spotted the stones on the road, all blocked and swerved out the way, an action followed by the other drives. The shiftas figuring we were not freaked out decided to start shooting. At God knows what because they did not do much damage, but you know the AK 47. It sends chills down any spine, and a warfaring red/yellow/green vested shuka wearing gentleman would not really care. If it was a video game, they would have unlimited ammo, unlimited life or superlife and they shoot, and they don’t miss. But they did. See the shiftas have a simple code. Take whatever however from whoever. For those who don’t know, a shifta is anyone who is 1 to 100 years and meets the basic fundamental job requirements which are simple. You can shoot and chew chat and shout in horrid native, you are qualified. The AK 47 works anywhere in the world, no matter the weather. With those simplified situations, our waylayers were armed and good to go, but we escaped. We were failry close to Nazret cause we stopped at the Nazret police post to report it. Girma was the only one unshaken.
Girma’s story.
Girma does not know who Kennedy is and who shot him. Or who blew up the World Trade Centre. He does not know why they drive of the wrong side of the road, and he does not need to. He does not understand World Economies, or Balances or anything like that. And he does not care. See, Girma is a basic man, 24 - 25, here has been shot 4 times, but hijacked 0 times. Never lost a dime to shiftas, and does not plan to. He has run over 2 shiftas, one left his AK 47 in the windscreen which Girma dumped at the police post and drive himself to a clinic at Nazret. Girma’s concerns are basic. His girl/wife must have the best 16 inch TV, running water in her kitchen and his son must go to school. He spends one day a week with his family. A day spent by shagging his wife and disciplining his son. He talks to her every 30 minutes he is behind the wheel and coos at her with sweet nothings, even when he knows the world is about to come to an end. Girma never swears. If he swears, Dawit, (2nd in command or the makanga or turnboy or that guy who collects money) says a prayer. Dawit has yet to say a prayer. Girma does not understand road signs, and he does not need to. Girma knows, that he can drive anywhere on the road, and follows the Italian style of driving. Elicited by a simple code, whatever is behind is not important. Girma did tell us that if the shiftas got us, they would have shot us and fed us to the hyenas, so, there was nobody to bury. Dog eat dog world, huh? Girma is from Nazaret so his concerns there are that his dad gets the freshest chat everyday. Simple man saved our lives. He buys himself a new pair of black jeans 5 shirts and a new payer of Adibas sneakers every month, they are comfortable for driving, cheap and Chinese. And running, an experience he has not yet had. Girma is charming, tells everyone to pray and pretty much drives like a mad man, personal best time between Addis and Nazret, a little under 40 minutes, speeds you only experience with the latest German devices. Girma does not cheat on his wife, the Aids is bad, and the money is not enough and besides, the Machiatto smiling bitch, plump and pretty knows Girma is coming home for tibs and injera and maybe an hour of nocturnal pleasures, so she does not question much else.
The Result
Ethiopia is the place to travel if you ask me. I keep saying everyone there is crazy with simplicity, but think about it, they are. And so am I. Which is why I love the place. Thanks to Wondi, Hiwot, Bini, Wondi’s desert friends, T, Girma, Negasi, and the rest of everyone else.
