I know, I know, I haven't told you anything yet about the week or more I have already spent in Ethiopia and here I am sending you a contemporaneous report about what happened to me last night and this morning. I will fill in the gap when I can - there is some extraordinary stuff to report.
Meanwhile: yesterday I arrived in Aksum. It's in Tigray on the border of Eritrea. Sounds scary, no? Well, the war is long over and this is just another scruffy little African town with its best days centuries behind it. I say that as though everybody knows what a scruffy little African town is. Maybe you do and maybe you don't, but I do now and if you want me to fill in the details you'll probably have to wait until I get back. Meanwhile please accept that this is one of them. As well as half-finished buildings - partly occupied and already in need of considerable maintenance - dirt roads, tin roofs, tuc-tucs, Hi Luxes, camels and donkeys carting firewood, this particular one has old churches, ruins, antiquities etc. etc. Groan. Am I a philistine, or is there a limit to the quantity of dead stones that a normal human being can work up any enthusiasm for? I really didn't come here to tick off the "must-dos" listed by Lonely Planet. I want to know how people live.
After a not-at-all-bad Ethiopian dinner with some of our companions, Marek and I went out in search of a cosy bar for another beer or two, or three. It was a long job uncovering any wheat anongst the considerable chaff, but at last we found one. I went to pay for the drinks - and my camera was gone.
Wait for it . . .
Wait for it . . .
GONE.
Stuff the camera. There were four hundred photos I had taken over the previous five weeks, some of them pretty damned good, stored on the memory card. It was no consolation that it had little value without the cables and charger - it was gone. I ran up and down the street hustling hustlers and yelling at wide-eyed boys selling (or more correctly failing miserably to sell) chewing gum and cigarettes. Soon everybody within five blocks knew the story, and my proffered reward increased from two weeks' average wage to a figure which had a growing crowd forming around me. Everybody seemed to be genuinely empathising with my distress (by the way, there is no happy ending) and questioning each other animatedly about what they had seen, or knew, or thought, or thought somebody else thought. Lots of reassuring hands reached out to console me and a barrage of helpful suggestions threatened to stifle me.
I shuffled back to Marek with my brain windmilling and found him chatting to a couple of local students. They already knew my story and reassured me with the news that they had been instrumental in a Dutch tourist recovering his camera in a similar situation. There was nothing more to be done that night, but they promised to come to my hotel at 6.30 the following morning to do something or other. The rest of the evening is a blur.
At 6.30 I stepped out of the front door just as they slouched up in their hoodies, on time to the second. These are students remember, and it was 6.30 a.m. They went straight into action, first quizzing the hotel receptionist then every vagrant, street kid, tuc-tuc driver, cleaner, delivery man and shopkeeper on the streets as we headed for the police station. Everyone they spoke to was evidently shocked, bursting with sympathy, and begging me not to worry. Again, a small crowd formed wherever we stopped and many of the people held their hands to their mouths in sympathy and distress.
The community police station was indistinguishable from a farmyard, complete with livestock. The official on duty was bare-legged and dressed in a blanket, but he brought out a dusty exercise book and, with intense concentration and the tip of his tongue protruding, slowly wrote down everything my attendants said. Occasionally he paused, looked up at me and shook his head.
We returned to the hotel, repeating our interrogations of anybody and everybody - with the now familiar response. A street kid who had sold me a packet of tissues the night before seemed close to tears. Back at base, a heated conversation took place with the anxious receptionist and soon all the hotel staff were pressed around her, all talking at once in Amharic. The hubbub ended when a proud-looking young man in the smart uniform of the Tigray police entered the room. One of my new friends (Shmondi Grmay believe it or not) whispered to me that this guy was good, really good.
Off we all went again pouncing on every passer-by with increased vigour. This seemed to be the crime of the decade, in a place where not so long ago young men were slaughtering each other with AK47s and worse. It seemed strange to think that a generation earlier these fresh-faced and straightforward boys would themselves have been engaged in the carnage. Inevitably it emerged during the day that Shmondi's own father had died in the war. His mother died later in a medical accident. Jesus Christ - and I was feeling sorry for myself.
Eventually the constable felt he was sufficiently briefed to go away and ruminate over his findings in the equivalent of an upstairs flat in Baker St, pausing briefly to exchange mobile phone numbers with me.
Shmondi and his partner were not satisfied, and we continued to scour the whole town talking to everyone we met. He assured me that he knew every chancer and low-life in Aksum and that my offered reward would far exceed the street value of a stolen camera.
When we ran out of people to talk to, they led me to their college on the edge of town. It looked more like an industrial complex, but it was fairly modern and by African standards well-maintained. Our route took us through grain fields, past new community housing complexes and a part-finished ring road being funded by (you guessed it) the Chinese, and up to the principal's office. He wore a neatly-pressed dark blue suit with an open-necked white shirt and a magnificent white straw hat. His dignified but affectionate demeanour towards the boys seemed to confirm what they had told me: that they were the top-scoring students in their respective faculties of tourism management and construction engineering.
He expressed deep and genuine regret that such an occurence should have taken place in his community, and we agreed that there are a few bad people everywhere. I didn't give voice to a fleeting thought that it didn't seem to apply in Sudan, or that there might after all be something to be said for Sharia law.
He invited me to address all his students, assuring me that between them they knew everybody in town and by the end of the day the whole of Aksum would know what had happened. So I went from classroom to workshop, to lecture theatre addressing students of construction, IT, design, engineering, tourism, textiles and a host of other disciplines I have forgotten. Although all the courses were conducted in English, Shmondi had to repeat everything I said in a mixture of Amharic and the heavily-accented English which the students seemed to understand better than mine. Perhaps they regard my English as heavily-accented. All those bright looking and eager kids gave me their rapt open-mouthed attention and more than once a round of applause - presumably indicating sympathy rather than gratitude for an entertaining diversion from their studies.
Five hours had passed since we started our enterprise, so I invited the boys to have breakfast with me. Pausing only for some serious face to face stuff with a youth whose appearance lived up to Shmondi's description of him as the town's most notorious receiver of stolen goods, we went to a cafe where I was the only westerner - possibly the first ever to judge by its appearance and clientele. I told the boys to order whatever they liked, and they did with gusto. As we ate and the other customers received their food, they called across to us a greeting which translates as: "Let us now eat together". The bill for all three of us came to less than two quid.
It was only the imminence of their own lectures that persuaded the boys to leave me to my own devices, and I am certain that their efforts on my behalf will not cease soon. When I offered them the equivalent of ten pounds for a good ten man-hours' work, their jaws literally dropped and they were evidently embarrassed to take it. I felt ashamed.
Right. I've lost my camera. I've had an experience a tourist couldn't buy. I've had a VIP tour of a fascinating educational establishment. I've met two really good kids whose happy confidence in their futures I hope to Christ is not going to be disappointed. I've eaten real local food in a real workman's cafe. I am briefly the most famous man in town. I've missed out on seeing some old stuff I really couldn't give a toss about. I've spoken more to Africans in the last few hours than in the previous five weeks. I've at last begun to realise my ambition to see how the people live (see above). On balance I would call that a result.
Chin up, the sun is shining here.
Chris
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