A better weekend

Martha is out of hospital, her leg is in plaster (again) and its still very sore, but at least shes home. My dad is feeling a bit better, Douglas is slowly improving (got sound in that ear for the first time, fleetingly this afternoon) and my cold is on its way out.

Phew!!

On Saturday Douglas and I got the tram to the Childrens Hospital, and I sat with Martha for about an hour showing her how to do some Quilling, whilst Douglas went into town in search of a new wallet. Martha did quite well with her first attempt.. it wasnt until later I looked on my box (quilling kit) and it said suitable for 14 years +.. Martha is 10 :-)

I had an afternoon nap, in preparation for visiting our best man and his wife, Stu and Janet who live in Leeds. I offered to drive as I drink very little, and Douglas hasnt been too well. We had a lovely evening with them, and a really super BBQ. We were all stuffed after the meal, for which Douglas had made bombay potatoes. YUM!!

On Sunday, I got up about 7am and went into the garden. I really wanted to do some things to it before it got too hot. I find the heat quite difficult to cope with, and also I burn very easily.

I trimmed some plants back from the side of the path making access up and down the garden possible, then was doing some weeding as my parents arrived. They brought some nice large tomato plants for our tiny lean-to green house, some little purple sprouting broc plants, three butternut squash plants and some leeks. We spent about 3 hours weeding and planting, and it all looks very nice. See photos below!

This is the first poppy so far this year. I love these but would love one that is much darker red if I could get hold of one.

Everything apart from House maids knee

A week of illnesses...

Its been a lovely week weather-wise.. sunny and warm, not much rain.. garden is looking verdant, rhubarb tastes great, but sadly our family hasnt been doing quite as well!

Firstly I hear that my dad, whilst out running with his club, tripped over a hidden metal object in the path and landed (at some speed) flat on his face. He has cut the bridge of his nose and damaged his shin, and also cracked or at least bruised his ribs quite badly!

My parents went back along the path, and have found the object that tripped him up so badly - I hope the council will take action and remove this metal bar before anyone else gets damaged! Poor dad.

Next on the list is Douglas. He has got an ear infection in his left ear that has been incredibly painful. The GP gave him a spray, but as the pain got much worse, we went to the out of hours Dr service on Tuesday evening. The Dr we saw there gave him some oral antibiotics and lots of sympathy, both of which have helped. The Dr had had this type of ear infection herself, so knew how painful it was.

I'm glad to say that today, Friday, Douglas is feeling much better, and although he gets painful twinges now and then, hes going back to work today :-)

Sorry but the list keeps growing..

I have got a head cold (where else would you expect to have a cold?) its the stuffy sort not the type that requires half a tree worth of tissues, so there is very little to show for it. As a result of not being able to breathe properly, for the last three nights Ive woken up with a very dry mouth and a sore throat. Tuesday and Wednesday night were the worst.. I slept very badly and nearly fell asleep in a team meeting at work. I felt really grotty yesterday, but survived until about 2pm, when after an hour of being on the phones I felt ghastly.. I had a headache, felt too hot, very bunged up and very tired, so I went home (my team leader didnt look very impressed) and slept like a log for a few hours. I didnt even hear the phone when my mum rang!!!

I slept a lot better last night, and feel more human than I have for a day or so. Back to work again today, as I love my job, and really dont want to be off sick... I just couldnt cope yesterday afternoon. Poor me!!

Ok.. last bit of this tale of woe is my neice, Martha. She and her family are down in London visiting my Sister in laws mum for a few days. Marth has a poorly leg that she broke in December, and ended up in a plaster cast for about 6 weeks. Yep.. you guessed it.. she was monkeying around as usual, but fell awkwardly on some steps and twisted this very same leg. According to the hospital she is currently in, its not broken again (phew) but they are not sure why its so painful for her. She will be transported, along with her dad, to her local hospital in the next day or so when there is a space for her.

I had a chat to Martha on the phone yesterday.. shes reading Harry Potter for the umpteenth time, partly as its the only book she took with her. She is a little bookworm, like Douglas, so I have ordered two books from the internet for her that have had very good reviews. I hope she and Leo will enjoy them!!

The quote at the top, by the way, refers to a book called Three Men in a Boat, where one of them looks through an encyclopedia of ailments, and decides he has everything, apart from House maids knee :-)

I will end on a more cheerful note.. when we were up in Scotland, d's step mum took me to a craft group she attends, and she took all her quilling stuff with her for me to have a play with. Quilling is the art of turning thin strips of coloured paper round a small tool to make tight round circles or looser ones with the paper spiralling in towards the middle. Ive now got some of my own, and Im having fun making a card for my youngest nephew Carlo (I think he will be 5 on the 2nd June!!)

Bank Holiday Weekend

Having got back from Scotland, I worked Friday, Douglas had a peaceful day at home, then it was the weekend and we had 3 days together before work started again :-)

We didnt do anything very exciting.. we went shopping on Saturday, and had lunch with my parents which was nice. Later, Ds friend Dangerous came round, so whilst the boys played Crib and chatted, I left them to it, and played Runescape.

Over the weekend, I went up an agility level, a hitpoints level and as a result went up two combat levels!!! I have also made about 3 million gold which I wish were real. Ok.. enough geek speak.. onto Sunday :-)

Sunday I spent a few hours making our bedroom look tidy, putting clothes away and sorting Ds tablets, then Douglas went up with the vacuum and removed the layer of black fur from the carpet that has been gathering for far too long ........cant THINK how it got there lol... Billy and Lilly have CATegorically denied leaving any fur anywhere in the house ;-) Not sure I believe them lol.

We also went to see the new Star Trek Film, and apart from a from a few inconsistencies, it was a jolly good film, and quite exciting in parts!!

I made a lovely stir fry with Coconut Rundown Sauce from a local company, and Douglas did himself a roast chicken, which the cats eyed up. I'm glad to say they don't like my veggie food (unless cream or yogurt is available) and they have not yet learned to open the fridge!

Simon wending his way South

Well, it had to finally happen. Yes, evil has entered Eden. I heard Bob Marley in Mekele. I thought I was in a paradise where the Red, Green & Gold had no Trustifarian conotations, merely national pride, and any Reggae I'd heard was Ethiopian. But Mekele, keen to display
its sophistication, felt it necessary to drop some Marley in the mix along with (of course) Celine Deone.

Needless to say, I moved swiftly on. Next stop was Maychew (pronounced Macho), after a startlingly beautiful journey where the Tigrain plains were left behind. Rain, greenery, wattle & daub, round tukuls & churches instead of rectangular ones, very uppy & downy geographically - it was a different world. I'm running out of hyperbole to describe the Ethiopian landscape, and I sense that it could quickly become boring to continuously remind you that this is, yes, the most beautiful country on the planet. However, the jagged ridges around Maychew, as they tumbled spastically from the huge mountain peaks and gathered in soft bowls, showed an organic chaos
like some vorticist's nightmare, and the area deserves special mention.

Perhaps most amazing of all, I went on a 4 hour walk and not one person asked me for money. In fact, some kids ran away screaming when they saw me, and another woman grabbed herself in fright. It's some indication of what rural Tigrai can be like that this came as a great relief rather than a worrying sign. And the scenary was spectacular too, like a romantic version of Scotland mixed with Pakistan. Truly magnificent.

The next day it was on to Koreme, itself rather rubbish but within walking distance of a wonderful saphire coloured lake, next to a great green alpine plateau filled with more oxen than have ever actually existed. It's like Switzerland on Steroids, especially the oxen; those fuckers are BIG. When they grunt (impossible to call it a moo) it's like turbo wookie flatulence crossed with an earthquake - the first time I heard it close quarters I started to run away before I
realised what it was. Unfortunately, this arcadia was spoiled somewhat by two giggling, stumbling teenagers who followed me for an hour and a half, occasionally chucking stones and constantly asking for money. Or my glasses. Or money & my glasses. When I asked what
possible reason there was for me to give them money when all they'd done was annoy me, they mumbled "But we've followed you for so far!"

I then descended to another hot and dusty plain; the home of the Afar. The Afar used to be greatly feared for their habits of filing their teeth down to points and lopping the testicles off any strangers who visited their territory, so it was with some trepidation that I crossed their terrain. Nowadays, however, the only real difference between them and most mainstream Ethiopians is that the men wear sarong-like skirts, like that other feared warrior race I am more intimately aware of.

Safely across, I ascended to Woldia. Everyone hates Woldia; I did too at first. A dusty, loud mess of a place, a kind of frontier atmosphere. Yet that evening, when I climbed the sheer surrounding slopes and made it above the poo line (the line which is as far up the mountain someone is willing to climb to take a shit), I realised just how superlatively it was set, all interlocking valleys and chains of imposing mountains. It started to seem a bit Deadwood - there is a real Wild West feel to a lot of Ethiopia.

It turned out that people were all so vocally idiotic because they were mostly chewing Chat. It doesn't make you an idiot, but it does make you loud and vivacious, and it also takes up all your time, so only people who don't have jobs chew it, and most of them are idiots. Hence, loud, but friendly, idiocy.

And there was another reason to like it. Being firmly back in Amhara land, they did good cake. Unfortunately I had yet to realise the impossibility of ordering two things at the same time in Ethiopia. If you order some food and a drink, they'll just bring you the drink, thinking you've cancelled the food. This led to some long, fruitless waits, and given I hadn't had good cake in weeks I was practically pleading with the guy who came over to demonstrate his (awesome)
English language skills:

"How do I order cake?"
"Eh?"
"I want cake."
"When do you want cake?"
"Now."
"Okay."
"So how do I ask for it?"
"What?"
"I asked for cake, but I'm not getting cake. How do I get cake?"
"When do you want the cake?"
"That doesn't matter, I just need to be able to say 'Can I have some
cake?' in Amharigna."
"I don't understand."
"'Cake, please'?"
"You want cake?"
"Yes!"
"When do you want the cake?"

Eventually someone else intervened, I got the cake and it was good. But for some reason I had built up cake in my mind - I'm just not that into it. And Amharas don't make good bread like the Tigrains do. If Bread & Cake fought, bread would totally win (at least they would if they were fighting in my head, which they frequently do), so the victory of being in a land of good cake seems rather Phyrric.

The odd atmosphere of Woldia rolled over into the bars in the evenings, when truckers would gather. Some of these middle-aged stout denim wearers would dance themselves into a frenzy, one guy galloping on the spot whilst jerking his shoulders spasmodically and gazing at himself longingly in a mirrored pillar. With his buddies thrusting body parts in a circle behind him, the whole scene resembled some kind of Dads' Secret Gay Away Day.

I stayed an extra day, and went for a relaxing smoke up one of the sides of the mountains. As I set off, some friendly youths spotted me and told me it wasn't a good path:

"Why not?"
[A pause, some conferring] "There are bad dogs & Hyenas!"

This being the usual excuse when they want you to come with them to their house for a 'coffee ceremony' or whatever I told them I had no worries on this regard, and set off. The path narrowed to a tight gorge, and then I realised what I'd stumbled into. First some shit,
then more, then a big pile of crap. I should have turned back when I realised I was in the local toilet valley, but I kept thinking it couldn't go much further, and I couldn't face what I'd narrowly
avoided stepping in so far, surely, dear God, It Must End Soon! Eventually it did end, I got, once more, safely above the poo line, relaxed, and thigns didn't seem too bad. I was left with a healthy fear of bad dogs & Hyenas, though.

In a way it was good though, as it set me up for Lalibella. Everyone who visits Ethiopia visits Lalibella. Indeed, it is perhaps one of the most incredible places on the planet, like visiting Petra and finding out that it was still in use. However, the locals don't really like the idea of using indoor toilets. NGOs have built all kinds of public toilets, there's big signs up saying "Please poo in the toilet and not just wherever you fancy.", but it's taking a while for the message to get through. I was wandering down through a cemetary which had an amazing view from it, when I saw someone beside a grave and decided to give them a respectful distance. Then I noticed they were SHITTING ON THAT PERSON'S GRAVE. Surely in ALL cultures that's a bit of a faux pas. That's not just my Western sensibilities. I think if a Maori/Pygmy/Amazonian Indian came and found someone crapping on grandma they'd be a bit upset, and I'd be inclined to back them up on that.

Whenever you're not walking on the road (mercifully pretty shite free) the odor of feces is never far from your nose, and you have to watch your feet more than the astounding views. Hopefully the rainy season should wash it away before I next have to return.

Perhaps not entirely unconnected to the above is the abundance of flies. Mostly Ethiopia isn't bad with insects but in Lalibella the flys are getting their revenge. It can be pretty disconcerting when you're chatting to a local and OH GOD IT'S CRAWLING ON YOUR FUCKING EYEBALL! Never have I been so glad for my glasses.

I am, however, concerned that I have used up my ration of capitalisation for this e-mail on the bad things about Lalibella and therefore have none left for the good. Suffice to say they have
carved vast Cathedrals out of the pink rock, not by going in, but by going down. So you're walking up to what looks like a trench in the ground and gaze down at a huge, cross shaped buiding they've dug into the ground, immaculately sculpted. You follow the twisting trenches
round, through tunnels and across bridges, whilst priests nap in doorways and people come for blessings on their way back from market. On Sunday, at too early o'clock, you can hear the trumpets blowing from within and priestly chanting. It's beautiful, ancient, and alive.

Apparently it took 40,000 people to dig them out - I'm sure this is a highly accurate number. Coming across the desolate plains to this hilltop site you wonder how it could ever have supported that many people, especially 9 centuries ago when apparently a lot of the work
was done.

But you do see the mass appeal of religion even now, when I was visiting a monastery nearby and came across a funeral. Hundreds of white toga'd people trickled down the mountain steps, whilst great
groups of them sat round under umbrellas, and some colourful horse-riders bore the Ethiopian flag. I'm guessing it must have been some village headman who died for so many to turn out. People were pleased to welcome me, and scattered some holy water on me as well - result.

And amazingly, I received almost zero hassle in Lalibella. Everyone was friendly but no-one tried to scam me or guide me. The kids were calm, with only occasional hellos! It would seem that greater exposure to Faranjis makes Ethiopians more tolerant.

Still, I finally moved on, knowing well that when anyone came out to visit we'd inevitably be back - this is somewhere that no-one should miss in their lives.

I had to get the 5 o'clock bus, something I'd been avoiding by taking short hops. Unfortunately, the day I picked to leave was market day and all the buses were crowded out the windows. There's a law that no-one's allowed to stand on Ethiopian buses but it only applies on those routes which have police checks, naturally. Generally the buses aren't too bad for short amounts of time, bedecked as they are like 70s boudoirs, all tassles, beige swirls & paisely, but with the
obligatory Jesus posters (or occasionally cute babies). However, I raidcally misjudged this journey, as it took 11 hours on an unsurfaced road. For the last 9 hours of this the person behind me was a Protestant Jesus freak, who kept passing me notes saying 'God loves you', and telling me every 5 or 10 minutes to relax. After about 3 hours this started to get me quite tense.

For some reason its the Protestants in Ethiopia who are well mental - perhaps because they've got so few like minded people to talk to. One guy grabbed me and wouldn't let go whilst he raved things like "God of servants, happiness of apples - understand?" The guy on this journey was chewing Chat, and eventually I had to pretend through his 'social phase' until he hit the 'dreamy phase'. Even then, he'd lean forward every quarter of an hour:

"Judah, Judah [he decided I looked like Judah from the Bible], you
need to relax."

Still, I did finally reach Bahir Dar and can, indeed, relax. It's on the shores of a lake and is like the capital of a tiny caribbean island, all stout palm trees and balmy, tropical goodness. It's
almost a shock to meet rural Ethiopians wandering around barefoot with their togas and sticks. The internet is relatively fast and cheap (though I found to my chagrin that the big sign for Broadband Internet was only the name of the decidedly dial-up Cafe), there's a great market and a well stocked public library. And a cinema! I watched Slumdog Millionaire yesterday and it was very surreal to walk out of the film and onto the streets of Bahir Dar. I might even come back and live here if Addis isn't up to it.

Having said that, I met a guy who lives in Addis in Lalibella and he's put me on an e-mail list for all the young people who live there - I've already had some offers for beers when I arrive. It's all
looking good. I'm just working out whether to sail round the lake first or head down, but I should be there in a week or two at the most.

All very exciting.

But I must leave you now. Please, please, please keep sending me your updates, no matter how prosaic you may consider them to be. I do so love reading them.

Ciao for now,

Simon

More from Simon! (sent to us 11th May)

Heaven and Hell

Still revelling in Tigrai, the northernmost province of Ethiopia. It's the one that sometimes features on the news, as every ten years or so the rains fail and they have a (whisper it) famine. It's fairly dry and dusty compared to the rest of the country which is pretty lush, but then it is the end of the dry season. Everyone's just waiting for the rain, when the great plains will gush forth in fertile abundance.

Yet it has a great majesty, with soaring peaks and sandstone bluffs dominating the plains dotted with giant Euphorbia Candelabra cacti/trees. The Gheralta plain, which I spent a few days wandering round, looks suitably Death Valley - I even saw tumbleweed. I've been thinking of making an Ethiopian Western - "Tigrai Cowboy: Nothing's just black or white." The difference is that in each of the sandstone fingers bursting through the parched earth some enterprising little
blighter has carved out a church and decorated it with startling paintings. No, not at the bottom. In one case I was climbing up toeholds and fingergrips in the wake of a 60-odd year old priest,
before edging along a long but narrow ledge 200 metres above nothing at all. It certainly tested my newfound contempt of vertigo, especially when I found that the same metre wide ledge was now a perch for several of the hangers on I'd generated, whom I had to squeze past on the outside track.

That is one of the problems with Tigrai. It being a little off the tourist circuit, there are less professional 'friends' who want to sort things out for you at a vastly ridiculous mark-up ("You could get the bus there for 25 Birr return, or I could ddrive you for 1,000 Birr"), but the children & youths can be a bit overwhelming,
especially as you get further into the countryside. Ethiopia has a huge number of children, and should they ever rise up against the adults will surely triumph through sheer weight of numbers.

They also have little to do (the only two toys I've seen are hoop & sticks and the occasional inner-tube), can even be totally uneducated if you're really far out, and have been taught to see Faranjis at the very least as sources of amusement, but more often as infinite funds of money or pens. City kids will rush to shake your hand and may drop in a cheeky "Give me?" Unfortunately as you penetrate further into the hinterland the wave almost always moves in a fluid motion into the begging motion, despite the fact almost all the kids I've seen are well-fed and healthy looking.

Country kids can often be seen running for about a kilometre to get close to the Faranji they've spied. Sometimes this is benign, but still a bit much, as when 50 children surround you and follow your every move, occasionally chucking out an English question and giggling in response. They can watch you sit for half an hour with deep fascination. This has occasionally made me stay in my hotel rather than face being the focus of all the tiny consciousnesses, which can
get very wearying.

Sometimes it's not so nice though. On two separate occasions children have thrown rocks at me when I've refused to give them money. I explain I don't want a guide, that I like walking on my own, and that I have no money to give them. They still decide to follow me, until we reach a significant uphill where they decide enough is enough and start demanding money. When I've told local men about the rock throwing, they've gone and thrown soem rocks back, then appointed themselves as my guides, and demanded money.

There really is no need for guides out here; the paths are always worn by centuries of passage, and guides just babble nonsense in your ear instead of letting you enjoy the peace and extreme beauty of the area. The days I've avoided attracting hangers on have been some of my best
ever, reaching lonely peaks and gazing down at the birds of prey tussling. Still, anyone I come across follows up their puzzled "Where's your car?" with a "Where's your guide?", and an attempt to introduce themselves as a suitable candidate. There's very little for youths to do whilst they're waiting for the rains, and everyone knows that Faranjis have unlimited funds of money.

This assumption has been quite comical sometimes. At one hotel without water I was offered a room with private shower for twice the price of a room using the common ones: "But given that there's no water, why would I take the en-suite room?" "Because you're rich!"

It is interesting becuase we have such different concepts of greed. A lot of westerners come away from Ethiopia feeling that the locals are greedy and love money, because they always seem to be trying to wheedle some out of you for ridiculous reasons. But conversely, a lot
of Ethiopians think that Faranjis are greedy and love money because they don't just share it with the locals. An Ethiopian with money would just give it out to anyone who asked, and even push it on a few who didn't. Needless to say, this has adverse results on Ethiopia's investment climate. People don't save money for the future, they just hope if they share what they have now then others will share with them in the future if they fall on hard times.

Some tourists get a bit weird with all this. I met an Italian in his 40s walking round Gheralta who said he'd chosen not to go actually into any of the churches, because it was a rip off. They range in price from 1 pound 25 to just under 4 pounds - averaging 3 quid. They were carved out of the rock hundreds of years ago and have astonishing murals from a unique artistic tradition. I refuse to pay people for making my day worse, but I feel it's fair enough to pay an old priest
(you should see some of these guys, more weathered than the rock sanctuaries they tend) to climb for half an hour to let me see a sacred treasure. And if you're friendly and respectful they'll share their disgusting Tella with you and have a wee sing song of one of their interminable hymns, which I swear they make up as they go along.

And I should emphasize, apart from a few bad experiences noted above, generally things have been really great. The countryside is beautiful, the curches real world treasures, and on the days I was a subject of some stone throwing, I spent a good hour playing with one of the sweetest children I've ever met. She would do her 'floppy-woppy jumping bunny dance' (may not be exact translation) and then laugh hysterically when I replied with the 'shakey-wakey head dance'.

And most people you meet are friendly, and after nothing other than a chance to practice their English (or show off to their friends what they know) or a chance to meet a real life Faranji and welcome them to their country (though walking against the traffic on market day can be
bruising as everyone will want to shake your hand which includes a shoulder clash or two). In the more urban situaions the children can be lovely, and the people friendly without any expectations at all - although you do tend to miss the breathtaking scenery. For every bad
apple, an orchard of friendliness blooms .

I really enjoyed Wukro, particularly because of the hotel I was staying in; one which a passing Tourist official ran and told me not to stay at as it was 'unfit for foreigners'. It was lovely and ran by a really welcoming family, who aside from a room for 1 pound 25 threw in as many coffee ceremonies as I could manage, as well as fruit from trees growing in the courtyard (Papaya and a delicious but mysterious Kazmierz fruit - green with white flesh, sweet but odd flavour), and
bread and milk in the morning. I had to force money on them for washing my clothes, and looking after my big pack when I went deep into the country to visit the further off churches. The only bad things about Wukro was their unforgivable lack of fruit juice joints, and the fact that restaurants wouldn't serve me anything apart from Tibs (fried meat, very nice, but plain after a while) or omelette. I would even point to what someone else was eating after all else had
failed, and they'd nod and bring back an omelette. "Faranjis can't handle our (not actually That) spicy food."

I'm now in Mekele - the capital of Tigrai. It's got more than one paved street! And traffic lights! Luckily it doesn't have the attendent evil of traffic, though you do have to look before you cross
the road. Juice runs freely (but, thankfully, spoon-standing-up-in-it thickly). It has a street where every building is high rise, but also has lots of back streets with the typically Tigraien handsome stone houses, which come straight from Italian hill villages (if they had universally decided that corrugated iron roofs were the way forward). Plus I had a hot shower this morning! The trappings of development have sent me a bit giddy, but I'm heading back to the wilderness as I trek south to reach the fabled Lalibella, before heading on to the wonderful Lake Tana with its island monasteries. I should reach Addis in the next couple of weeks.

Keep being good boys and girls - Santa always knows,

Simon

Back Home

We came back home from Scotland today - Ds brother Mike kindly drove us to Edinburgh Station where we got a direct train home.

The journey went well - I slept for a big part of it, and Douglas read, or lost himself in his thoughts and the scenery.

It was lovely seeing all the family - but would have been even better under more cheerful circumstances, as Elaine will be missed by all of us.

When we got back Douglas went to the supermarket - partly out of need, and partly to distract himself, so I unpacked and sorted out our many bags.

Our cats were very pleased to see us back, so pleased that Billy got up onto the sofa, walked over me and snuggled down beside me for about ten mins :-)

We go back to work tomorrow, then we have a long bank holiday to rest and recover. Our only plan at the moment is to invite our friend Dangerous around - Douglas and he enjoy playing Cribb, and its nice for Douglas to have some company for a bit. I will probably see my mum and dad on Saturday.. possibly D too.

Sad sad news..

Yesterday, after battling with failing health for years, my mum in law Elaine passed away peacefully in hospital with many of her family at her side.

She was a feisty interesting lady with a great sense of humour who will be very much missed by me, and of course her family.

Douglas and I are going up to Scotland soon to be with the rest of the family, so the blog will go quiet for a while.

Anna