Artist on a Quest in Abyssinia

Eritrea the Basket Case

Well, it looks as though my trip might be unravelling somewhat... It appears as if Djibouti has closed its border with Eritrea, after "escalating conflict", which means my plan, to travel from Ethiopia through Djibouti, to Eritrea can no longer happen. This seems like yet another case of Eritrea cutting off its nose to spite its face. It's no secret that Ethiopia and Eritrea have been on the brink of conflict for some time, but Djibouti was always the go-between. If Eritrea is cutting off relations here, then it really is becoming isolated. I asked at my posh hotelin mekele if I could put a call through to Eritrea, to the airline. You should have seen the receptionists' faces. "Eritrea?!! No. No phone call!" Their reaction seemed a little over the top- there hadn't been any actual conflict between the two countries for a couple of years. It was only later I found out that the Eritrean airforce had dropped cluster-bombs, on a civilian part of Mekele only a few years ago, killing 55 civilians including children from a school struck by the bombs, a few years ago. People here were still outraged by what they saw as a completely unprovoked act of war. Travelling across the north of ethiopia, i saw loads and loads of UN vehicles in all the towns. The UN has a massive peacekeeping force here, as the border is in dispute between ethiopia and eritrea, and the UN has declared it a demarcated zone, so it's still officially undecided.
The problem goes way back. The origin of Eritrea stems from the strip of land the Italians colonized when European powers were in the habit of arriving in a strange land and laying claim to it. They never managed to colonize the ancient empire of Abyssinia, but during the 2nd world war they invaded Ethiopia. After the war the job fell to the british to carve up the areas occupied by the italians in the horn of Africa. Wishing to keep the emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie, sweet, and prevent other countries from getting a toe-hold in the Horn, the British officials decided to give the area of Eritrea to Ethiopia as part of a federation- without ever meaningfully consulting the Eritreans on the matter. After a minor rebellion, Ethiiopia clamped down hard on this province and stripped it of all autonomous governance, but because of the way the UK had set it up, there was no international voice for Eritrea, no presence in the UN. Thus began a 30-year underground war of resistance, in which 100,000 eritreans lost their lives fighting for their country's right to rule itself.
By 1970, Ethiopia was still under the rule of Haile selassie (still very popular with the British and the US), yet the country was in tatters- It had less infrastructure than its poorer neighbours, and it was still run by a nobility dependent on the emperor. Famine and hardship were rife. This spawned a revolution headed by a committee called the Derg, headed by a certain Colonel Mengistu. The Eritrean Resistance were crucial in helping this come about, but the Derg still wanted to hang on to Eritrea; they were not given their freedom. If anything, it seems that the reactionary socialism of the Derg had an even worse impact on the people than the Emperor's system. There were mass killings of opposition and intellectuals, and it was known throughout the world as one of the bloodiest and cruellest regimes in power anywhere. (They used to make the families who came to collect the body of someone executed pay for the fatal bullet.) The people still continued to suffer economically, especially in the drought-affected areas of the North, and especially Tigray. by 1977 Eritrea was completely ungovernable, and this spirit spread across the border to Tigray, where a similar resistance movement was formed; the Tigrayan People's Liberation Front; the legendary TPLF.
I went to see an exhibition dedicated to the TPLF and it was amazing to see these photographs of this truly rag-tag army of skinny men with afros bearing all sorts of scrappy weapons, and how they managed to foster an unbreakable spirit of rebellion, hiding out in the mountains, that eventually triumphed over the massive Ethiopian army, funded by communist USSR and the Eastern-Bloc countries.
The crunch came in 1985 when a tremendous famine struck in the North of Ethiopia. It was due to climatic conditions, but the Derg government refused to allow any aid through to the rebellious regions, and over 1,000,000 people died. So whilst Live Aid sang 'Feed the World', the food was there, but the government wouldn't distribute it.
This merely served to strengthen the TPLF and the EPLF (the original Eritrean resistance) and spawned a new resistance group called the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Movement. Having murdered so many of their own people, and effectively caused huge amounts of them to starve, the tide was unstoppable and in 1990 when the eastern bloc collapsed, so did the Derg. Mengistu was given asylum in Zimbabwe (where I think he has just died untried for his crimes against humanity), and the rebel movements set up a new government. Eritrea was at last granted its full independence in 1993, and the TPLF were voted in as the ruling party in a new kind of democratic governemt in Ethiopia.
So- a happy ending? Well, no. Eritrea in 1997 decided to create its own currency, and split from the Ethiopian Birr. This caused a personal rift between the two leaders, Isais of Eritrea and Zenawi the PM of ethiopia, who was the leader of the TPLF, who had been loyal friends fighting alongside each other for years. Then something completely bewildering happened. Isais mobilised Eritrea's army at the border and ordered the invasion of an Ethiopian town (a teeny wee dusty place of no real consequence) saying it was historically Eritrean. Ethiopia retaliated, and there were many fatalities. This is when Eritrea decided to retaliate by bombing Ethiopian civilians, in Mekele. Ethiopia retaliated but with military strikes, bombing Eritrean airbases. So what did Eritrea do? THey bombed another town, Adigrat.
Now things were truly escalating and as many as 400,000 troops were amassed at the border, and there was a full scale conflict in 1999 with as many as 20,000 eritrean troops killed. Many civilians were extradited back to their 'country of origin'. The Organisation of African Unity called for eritrean withdrawal from this dusty bit of nowhere, but of course, the eritrean president refused. Eritrea announced it was ready for a full-scale conflict in 2000, but after a minor skirmish, the Ethioipans scored a resounding victory. It was only after this that the UN peacekeeping force could come in and try and enforce the ceasefire. Recently the Eritreans have consistently refused to let the UN ibserve their military movements which has caused the Ethiopians to amass even more troops at the border. THings are tense. And now it seems, Eritrea is making trouble with its border with Djibouti. Why doe this country, which must be one of the poorest in the worls have to do this? It is incomprehensible to me.
I thought it would have been interesting to visit, even though i don't agree with the regime at all, it is always interesting to meet the people who have to live under these regimes, but now as Eritrea becomes ever more cut off, the people who are forced to live in a poorer and poorer country find themselves ever more islated and cut off, for nothing.

more pics from the church in the rock

    

So who said going to church was boring...?

Doing things the hard way. This seems to be the Ethiopian national obsession, and at the moment I

feel it could be a good working title for the body of work I am hoping to produce as a result of this

trip. Everywhere I go I cannot believe the lengths people appear to go to to do something in a

topsy-turvy, completely difficult, irrational way. I thought Debre Damo was bonkers, but Abuna yemata

Guh, the church i visited o few days ago easily tops the poll of rank, terrifying absurdity.

After being so impressed with the rock hewn-history reverberating all around Lalibela, I was

intrigued to read in the 'guide'book (book of deception and trickery) that there were other rock-hewn

churches, perhaps even more spectacular, hidden deep in the remote mountains of Tigray (the

northernmost province of Ethiopia, which lies along the border with Eritrea). I decided I had to see

some of these and I so I mentioned it to the hustler-guy at my hotel in Aksum. (in every town there

are these guys who hang around the backpacker-type hotels, i.e the crap ones, wearing jeans and

T-shirts who are always the first locals that you 'meet'. You mention you want to do something and

they mysteriously slope off and return an hour later with the whole thing arranged for you-for a fee-

although often a little imperfectly! These 'hustlers' as i like to call them are an indispensible

asset to any traveller hoping to makeit through this impossible country.)
He arranged the minibus (with lovely camp plastic pink seats) for me to bounce around in for a couple

of days, and my driver Zakk and helper Eric. He also decided which churches I should visit. I

thanked him, imagining he had picked ones I would like, little realising he was in fact trying to

have me killed. He failed to mention that 2 of the churches were in completely unassailable

positions, one perched atop a 2480 metre-high freak of a mountain and only reachable by climbing up

an impossibly narrow claustrophobic crack in the side of the steep rock seemingly forever, and the

other, Abuna Yemata Guh, was carved by some Ethiopian Loony-Monk right into the top of a

frighteningly high finger of rock pointing straight up to heaven.
So I found myself clinging to a vertical rock-face, my wee red pumps poking into tiny toe-holds, my

weak artist-fingers clinging to little hollows wornto the surface of the rockface from centuries of

mad-monkism. Now I have no head for heights (I even get the heebie-jeebies at that bit in Dead Poets

Society when they all stand on the desks), and I'm not the most sure-footed of mountain-goat-type

blokes so i really did wonder at what I was doing. But once you start going up, you have to keep

going, so like a bad case of damp I slowly climbed, Zakk gong ahead of me to show me the way, and a

poor wee local lad beneath me break my fall (I thought).
Eventually, clambering on to a tiny flat plateau, the wind was knocked right out of me and my legs

nearly gave way (you know that feeling- like your legs are no longer your own, and respond to nothing

your brain suggests) by the incredible view beneath me. We were standing on a tiny summit of a rock

pinnacle. We had to hop over a wee gap (massive chasm in my mind) to then start climbing the even

bigger pinnacle the church was carved into. Shoes off, toes to grip. Sweaty palms. Promises to The

Almighty. After that last bit of clambering it was a relief of sorts to find myself on a 16-inch wide

ledge, circling round the pinnacle, and dropping a sheer 200 metres below. The view was immense, and

I was spurred on by the knowledge/hope that we were nearly there. I shouldn't have looked down at

this point, but the view was so incredible... my wee knees were ready to just give up and do their

own thing, but somehow despite the fear i clung to the rock and inched round like an athletic limpet, miles above the vast

plains below. This bit wasn't nearly as scary as climbing vertically because i could see where I was

headed: vertical i am such a granny, Inching sideways, I am Jason Bourne! (albeit in slo mo). Having

completed my death-defying inching I virtually collapsed into the wee hollow carved into the top of the rock

pinnacle. The wee Ethiopian lad arrived right after, hardly having broke a sweat!
The door to the church itself was locked. I didn't care. Zakk seemed really annoyed, but I was alive!

We had made it to the church that even the guidebook people hadn't got to! It was so good to be alive

and wonder at the chisel marks that showed how the place had been painstakingly carved out of the

solid rock, and the little wooden door looked mpossible, magical to be found here. In a way i think I

was glad we couldn't go in- it could only be a disappointment, no matter how beautiful the paintings

or pillare inside- compared to what should be behind the door of the hardest church to get to in the

world!
The way down was easier than I had feared. I had perfected (so I like to think) the

reverse-spider-descent-technique (if you a imagine a spider on it's back trying to navigate its way

downwards, all legs and arms (alright they don't have arms) groping and sproinging about all over the

place, and I was down in no time!
On the more straightforward parts of the descent back to the bounce-bus I was filled with a feeling

of complete euphoria. The rocks reassuringly generously spread out beneath my feet were an amazing

array of iron-oxide colours- yellows and browns that would cause Siena to burn with envy, and

purple-burgundy igneous swirls with the occaisional coppery-blue crystalised slate. As I watched

carefully where to place my next step I was amazed that i had seen what so few visitors to this

country have seen, and I marvel at what motivated that original monk to start cutting and see the job

through, and the bunch of monks and priests that have serviced this still-living church for 7

centuries at the top of the finger of rock- and of course I wondered- what lay behind that door?

Taking Belief To Another Level

Now I like to think of myself as a bit of a Monastery afficionado- perhaps no expert in the xcholastic sense, but at least someone with a good feeling for all things monastic- especialy since having been a monk for several years (you don't believe me? Just ask the Cadies and Witchery Tours back home). So when I heard that Debre Damo was perhaps Ethiopia's most sacred and special monastery I knew I had to check it out. I knew it was hard to get to, but I should have realised, in this country where they seem to thrive on the absurd and downright impossible, special is going to be, well, unreal. Debre Damo should not exist, and indeed in a rational, logical world it wouldn't. But this place is none of those things, and so this miraculous place of worship was founded in the 6th century atop a vertical-sided mountain, and there is no way feasible way up.

And so it was that I found myself dangling from a 50-foot greasy rope half way up a vertiginous rock face being shouted at from above by an enthusiastic bearded monk.

I'd decided to hire my own transport to get there, and somehow ended up with  my very own minibus. I spent a diverting about 4 bum-shattering hours travelling only 90km on unsurfaced roads bouncing around all on my own in the back of the bus with Zakk and Eric (not their real names, but the driver seemed like he would be called Zakk if he wasn't Ethiopian, and his helper was definitely an Eric-type smiley fellow...) in the front. We got stuck trying to cross a wee river in our tough little bus at one point (Ethioipans are very imaginative when it comes to roads- i always thought they were long grey flat, rather boring things, but the Ethipians are way more creative...) but eventually we arrived at the base of a large, impressive table-mountain. There was a steepish climb, and then a sheer rock face. Just visible at the top was a small white building; the gatehouse of Debre Damo. How on Earth had the monks in the 7th century built something up there? Well of course, this being Ethiopia, the explanation was delightfully logic-crushing: A giant serpent sent from God had carried the first monk up the mountain. Of course this sounds daft, but everyone tells you the same story. Even taxi drivers in the cities have pictures of the Monk wrapped in mountain-ascending serpent taped to the inside of their cabs, along with Virgin Marys and other more bog-standard religious fare. And although it still seems daft, the monastery is there- on top of a vertiacal-sided mountain- there really is no other way up. It has to be seen to be believed, so deny that, sceptical unbelievers!
And so now, instead of a heavenly serpent, there's a rope. A 50-foot long rope. As Eric and I walked up to the cliff face where the rope dangled down, a local lad appeared from nowhere (as they always seem to do) and obligingly showed us how to climb. With consummate grace and skill (and no doubt quite some strength) he scaled the rock face as if he were a lamb skipping through a meadow. My clammy hands grasped the thick greasy ancient rope and began my tortuous ascent, shouted at enthusiastically (I like to think) by the monk at the top guarding the entrance. Like a failed audition for King Kong's stunt double I spongled my way up the greasy rope-serpent of death.
Eventually hauling myself over the top of the ledge it really was like entering another world! I discovered the most amazing and developed settlement. Home to around 80 monks living in extensive brick-built houses with cultivated gardens, the monastery also suppports a large amount of livestock (Oxen being hauled up in a special harness apparently, no doubt to much mooing and protesting!) allowing the monks to be entirely self-sufficient. Only males are allowed here- an exception is made for cats (to keep the rats at bay) and chickens. The main church here is especially old and beautiful. The monks I met were very friendly, and as I sat in the grass trying to sketch the church they capered about like a right bunch of galoots-joshing each other and generaly acting like any bunch of young lads would, which i liked very much. They seemed to appreciate my attempts at drawing and made me feel very welcome. I would have liked to stay longer and try and soak up the unique atmosphere, but Eric was worried about the coming rain, and just how 'creative' that would make our road experience, so we had to leave, slipping back down the slippery serpent.
Debre Damo was certainly a special place but it did make me wonder- could the monks (especially the first lot who built it) have made life any more diffivult for themselves? And is this a national trait? It was testament as to how far people will go if they truly believe in something. Belief is the most powerful of all forces- even gravity cannot overcome it!

Not Seeing is Believing

One of my friends who travelled in Ethiopia a few years ago described it to me before I left as a unique country in Africa, having such a strong 'sense of place'. Now that I have been here a few weeks I think I am beginning to understand what he meant. As a nation, Ethiopia is acutely aware of its own history, or perhaps it would be more true to say it is aware of its own story, for Ethiopian pride and identity is not so much based around facts learned in school (75% of the country's population is still illiterate) but instead is based around legends. And of course, this being the sort of place that it is, the more unbelievable, bonkers and absurd the myth, the stronger seems to be the unanimous conviction.
Thus it was without a shred of doubt that I found myself standing barely 30 metres away from perhaps the most powerful and mysterious object on Earth (not to be too melodramatic about it or anything!)- The Ark of the Covenant. This most sacred and holy object is the casket designed through Divine Revelation to contain the actual 10 commandments passed down from the Hand of God to Moses on Mount Sinai; that same vessel that the whole Jewish Nation revered with awe and terror and became the centre and focus for the nation- the very reason Solomon built the Temple of Jerusalem; the same power that was unleashed and killed all those nasty Nazis at the end of the first Indiana Jones film... Well here it was housed in a drab, breezeblock flatpack chapel thrown together in the 1960's under the direction of the last emperor Haile Selassie and his wife.

It was separated from me by two rather easy-looking fences, overseen by a snoozy, shabby old geezer with a rifle, and a monk. The monk is the only person alive allowed to enter this chapel. The heavy red curtains over the entrance began to flap tantalisingly in the rising stormy wind that whipped up as I started to snoop around. Just as I am working out how to scale the fence and get to the window without being shot I spy the monk. He sees me. We stare at each other for an instant, and suddenly i go for my camera- he turns tail and flees toward the chapel door-curtain in the most unnecessarily over-the-top fashion, his loose robes flapping about all over the place a bit like what a chicken looks like when it tries to fly and run at te same time- I snap, but boy, he is fast! So I guess he's not so keen on getting his photo taken.He's the only one who knows if there's anything there at all, and even he mustn't actually lay eyes upon it (I guess it's covered).(There is another monk who's job it is to look after monk #1 and fetch him if he suddenly dies (presumably from giving in to temptation and having a sneaky peek)
So none of this highly devout nation have ever seen it, yet they all believe it. Indeed their entire elaborate religious structure is developed around the idea of this holy relic being here-  every church has a little wooden replica of the Ark (called a Tabot), which itself is so holy it is kept in the part of the church called the Holy of Holies, and is kept covered, and only the Priest may see it. It seems that in this case, not seeing is believing. It's as if the religion of the Ethiopians thrives on the idea of the hidden, of the concealed and unseen.
So rather than base the entire nation's fervent belief on something a little more easily believable, like they've got the true cross Christ was crucified on, or a fine collection of St Peter's beard follicles, or that Elvis lives in the breezeblock chapel or something, they choose the Ark of the Covenant- probably the One single artefact most closely associated with God Himself in any of the three monotheistic religions;  bloody typical.
But although this is certainly the most central tenet of Ethiopian beyond-belief-mess, it is by no means the least fanciful. It is after all physically possible that there is a 3000-year old relic nicked from the kingdom of Solomon all those years ago and hidden in the depths of Africa and seen by only one man. There are so many other things here that seem incredible enough, but are enhanced by a "You-Think-That's-Incredible-Well-Actually-It's-Even-More-Incredible-Than-You-thought" legend: A vast archeological site outside Aksum is not just an excitingly sophisticated building for something so ancient, but it's got to be the Queen of Sheba's Palace. No it is! Archaeologists can go hang! It seems that things here are more valid if they are given a kind of legendary celebrity-status, or a link to the supernatural  or Divine. Ras Teferi, the rogue from Harar crowned Emperor Haile Selassie, the last emperor of Ethiopia, overthrown in 1974, is not just the Emperor, but the Lion of Judah himself, direct descendant of Kings David and Solomon- God's own chosen line. This jump in belief is the starting point point for Rastafarianism, and seems to be another typical Ethiopian delight in the unbelievable.

So although I got close I never managed to tackle the mysterious monk and have a sneaky peek at Africa's best-kept-secret, so I'm still none the wiser. Although it seems to me so unlikely, the will of this massive nation is so bent upon it that I wouldn't be surprised if they have more-or-less willed it into existence! But although I didn't get to see any evidence of this uber-myth, I did get to see the evidence of probably the daftest legend of them all- that of the monastery of Debre Damo. But more on that later!

Shattered in Aksum

I don't know what I was expecting when I arrived in Aksum; it seems daft to expect anything from anywhere here, but the "guide"book (read: book of deception and confusion) put it forward as "perhaps the spiritual fulcrum of Northern Ethiopia". So you can understand my slight disappointment as I started to walk around the dusty long straight streets where every wall seemed to have crumbled, every sign faded, and every gateway reduced to a pile of untidy rubble. I felt a bit og empathy for the mighty Bob Geldof when he alighted in Timbuktu back in the eighties, took one look round, and said a little too loudly "God, is this it?".

This was a living, breathing town no doubt, with hordes of kids running about with shoe-polishing boxes, and loads of local lads sitting staring at the whitey, and girls wrapped in shawls hurrying past under bright umbrellas, shielding them from the glare of the sun. But I had come here because of Aksums majestic past. Once the capital of a vast empire that stretched from Egypt through Sudan and across to Yemen, it has been described as the last great civilisation of Antiquity to be revealed to modern man, and thrived at the same time as the Roman Empire dwindled. It was hard to imagine, looking at this dusty dilapidated town, but I'd heard it's main relics, a set of giant stone carved obelisks (stelae) that marked the turning point in Ethiopian history, from Pagan to Christian, could give Egypt a run for its Pyramid-money. Ever hopeful I hot-footed it toward the Field of the Stelae.

These massive stones were carved and erected in the 4th century ad, and included, so i was led to believe, the most massive single block of stone ever attempted to be placed upright, at 520 tonnes and 33metres in height. However it seemed that 'attempted' was the key word here, as it seemed to have collapsed as it was installed, and lay shattered, in several very large pieces in the long unkempt grass. Of the pther major stelae, the 2 sole upright ones were surrounded by cranes and scaffolding and a really untidy fence made, like so many things here) of dirty corrugated iron, and the rest were toppled giants, lying in a general state of dilapidation amongst weeds and grass. So I think the pyramids might just have the edge.

After taking a few snaps of the broken stones I sat down on one and consulted the guidebook. It raved about Aksum's exemplary museum, so headed there, only to discover that it too was in a general state of disrepair as they were rebuilding it, and so instaed of closing it in the meantime, they charged the usual entrance fee and I was subjected to an enthusiastyic tour in broken english by some old guy with no teeth and towel round his head, showing me the new (empty) cabinets, the wiring for the lights, and a room with no floor. Exemplary indeed.

I decided to head back to the hotel (it had hot water-amazing!), but on the way I bumped into a "helpful guide" (any guy aged between 18-30 here is a helpful guide, it seems). He pointed out the very unmissable large walled church complex (the Church of Mary of Zion) which is said to contain the very real Ark of the Covenant in a closely guarded chapel. The Ark, which was supposedly (definitely, if you're ethiopian) half-inched from Solomon's Jerusalem way back 500 years before Christ and stashed in various hidey-holes in Ethiopia, is kept out of sight in a special chapel in the complex, closely guarded by a single monk, the guardian of the ark, who is the only man allowed to be in the chapel grounds and sleeps with the ark. Well Mr Helpful Guide informed me that although of course I couldn't see the ark, I could see the next best thing. The next moening was a special festival, he informed me, where the Priests of the Mary of Zion church, the most important church in all Ethiopia, carried a replica of the ark out of the church and processed around the complex with it before holding a special vigil under the oldest tree in Aksum. This sounded pretty interesting right enough, and he assured me that hundreds of devoted pilgrims came dressed in white from all around for the occasion. The only thing was that they started at 4.30 am, before sunrise. I groaned, but it was for these strange rituals and mystical things that I come here in the first place, so i went home and set my alarm clock.

I dragged myself out of bed in what seemed the middle of the night, and scuttled out the dark hotel. The streets were completely silent and black, and I prayed that I wouldn't fall down a hole in the road or into a sewage ditch. In the distance in front of me I could make out a ghostly solitary figure draped in a white shawl walking in the right direction so I decided to follow. After about 25 minutes we arrived at the church. I was expecting to hear some kind of singing or chanting, but it was silent. She stopped and went to press her head against the church compound entrance for a while (as they do), and I wandered about trying to find the procession. Nothing. I could see into the church grounds, and there was a gathering of white-clad figures, but only 30 or so, and no sign of activity- certainly no sign of a wow-factor celebration. After hanging around like a right wierdo for about an hour I decided to head back to the hotel.

Later that day I bumped into Mr helpful guide "Oh yes" he said smiling as I brought up the subject, "I think it was not this morning indeed, but definitely it will happen tomorrow morning!" Forget it. I wanted to hit him but I was too shattered.

I went back to the hotel and enjoyed a full-blown cold a day of diarrhoea.

I love Aksum.

Bella Bella Lalibella!

Clambering down stone steps so worn they seem soft, so curved they appear to give underfoot..
The steps lead down into a deep chasm of amazing red-pink rock several metres wide. One side is rough rock, the other is carved into a massive wall replete with huge pillars which forms one of the sides of the church 'Bet Medane Alem', carved out of the very ground. The chasm was dug over 800 years ago by unknown hands. They dug with primitive tools a square -shaped trench, digging down 12 metres deep until a huge block was left standing, 35 metres by 25 metres, it's top level with the rocky ground. Then they excavated inside the block, digging out a space complete with over 30 pillars to support the massive roof. Then, having completed an unbelievable task, these unknown workers did it 10 more times to create the cluster of underground churches that surely must rank as one of the wonders of the world
Some scholars have estimated that 40,000 workers would have been necessary to complete the work within the 30 or so years that seem to have the building period. No one knows where this workforce came from. The people of Lalibela have realised that the only way this place could have come into being was with the help of angels- a celestial force working through the nights were the secret behingd the miracle of the rock-churches.
At the bottom of the trench, the church building towers above, its block-like shape decorated with windows carved into different shapes: each with a symbolic meaning relating it to the scriptures. At the entrance I bend to remove my shoes and a man rushes forward to lift the bottoms of my trouser-legs for me. He is my very own shoe-bearer (I told you i was entering Mariah Carey's league...), an accessory it seems you cant do without on a visit to the churches.
I didn't expect the space inside to appear so cavernous. Digging away the stone from around the block is one thing, but to excavate the inside of it to create such a finely proportioned and spacious shell is quite another. This church is literally the Earth itself- not constructed, but revealed from the dry barren rock. It reminds me of Michengelo insisting that he didn't so much sculpt his figures as discover them and release them from the marble. So it seems that these churches have been discovered; unearthed.
Compared with Petra, the rock-hewn city in Jordan, Lalibela astonishes all the more. In Petra the the vast beautiful facades are carved out of the face of the rock, but here, there is no rock-face: the buildings were created simply by digging down into hard mountain rock, lugging the stone up and out as they progressed. Also the excavation inside the buildings is far more extensive and architecturally elaborate than the cave-like interiors of Petra. 
But the one reason that makes this place so much more special, is that it still lives and breathes: The atmosphere of Lalibela is alive and tangible. As I descended those first steps, the sound of singing was carried on the air. A deep heavy drum boomed every few seconds accompanied by the rhythmic shaking of tiny bells. This slow lilting rhythm underpinned a beautiful group vocal, sung with gusto by a group of about 12 male monks and priests, both young and old, singing from the 'chanting place' of the neighbouring rock-hewn church, Bet Maryam. The music, that sounded at once african and slightly arabian to my ignorant ears, would crescendo to a sustained long note, before the melody would break with the beat of the drum into a descending cascade of rhythmic consonants - not everyone moved or sang at the smae moment- some voices seemed to be singing a beat or two behind, but the looseness of this gave the music a fluid feel, as though it was full of its own echoes. Singing outside the church, they were not singing for anyone- no congregation or audience of tourists,, but just singing up and out- to the glory of God.
The place was filled with an amazing atmosphere, and monks and nuns in turmeric yellow robes or bottle-green cloaks wafted in and out of ancient wooden doorways, kissing the lintel as they passed, disappearing down dark stone tunnels leading to the next hidden church. Inside the buildings, the floors were covered with rugs and coloured reed-mats, and tucked away in corners, motionless figures wrapped head-to-toe in white murmured as they read from tiny scripture books, the air quiet but charged. Every church seemed to collected its own set of mysteries, like a pillar that to always remain wrapped in cloth as it had started to glow and revealed the secret of the end of the world, and was too dangerous for anyone to look upon it, or the light which never went out but glowed from one the chapels ceaselessly, or even King Lalibela himself, buried near his ancient toolbox, which once contained the magic implements which wrought this place from the Earth.
The only down-side to the adventure into this deep place was that as I stood, be-socked upon the ancient mats, I could feel an itching, a crawling up my legs. When i hot-footed it out of the church I hoiked up my trouser leg (helped of course by my obliging shoe-bearer) and found severl little bites. So I burst into a slightly ungainly bout of leg-slapping, a bit like a kind of angst-ridden morris dance. I think this slightly alarmed Shoe-Bearer, but then maybe he took it as some kind of act of penance.
So I guess I now have fleas. But at least they're holy fleas, and I can't think of a more amazing place to aquire them!
Hang on, just need to have a wee scratch... aaaaah

leaving lalibela

I've really loved my time in Lalibela, but now I am leaving. Anna and I have already gone our separate ways, so now I am striking out on my own, heading North to the region of Ethiopia called Tigray, the home of the resistance movement that brought down the previous Communist government(more on that later) and effectively the spiritual heartland of Orthodox Ethiopia; home of the Ark of the Covenant and the most ancient of Abyssinian cultures, the Axumite civilisation.
But as I'm leaving I thought I would just write a few observations and thoughts on this wee town Lalibela, famous for its rockin' churches, but quite inspiring in its own right as a town.
The first thing that struck me when I got here was the amount of 'country folk' that gathered in the centre of the town. and just sat about all day doing nothing. Hundreds and hundreds of tall skinny men draped in dust-coloured blanket shawls that fell from their narrow shoulders in bulky folds covering their short shorts leaving their long skinny dark legs sticking out, terminating in a particular kind of fake plastic shoe- a kind of all-in-one moulded plastic sandals. (some even have fake plastic trainers with pretend moulded laces, but anyway..) and tehy often wearcrazy wee woolly hats, or have extra blanket-cloths wraped around their heads furthering their top-heavy appearance. They sit about staring impassively, rarely returning a smile. The other distinctive feature these country folk have is that they all, without exception, carry a shortish knobbly wood staff that they often carry across their shoulders with their arms hooked over, yoke-style. I was given a clue as to why they were gathered in the town when a big truck arrived carrying a shipment of huge sacks emblazoned with "Wheat - US AID - Not for resale". Soon it was emptied and the roads were full of skinny men staggering away with huge sacks on their shoulders, wandering off to sell them no doubt. The NGO's (non-government organisations) are a bit of an issue here. The government claims they have a negative effect on agriculture, encouraging the farmers to neglect their hard work and simply trying to sell the aid on. It was an interesting sight to see, all these african peasants disappearing under the weight of these sacks emblazoned with the stars and stripes.
However, it's normally the women who do the heavy carrying. One of the most striking sights are tiny women, some barely in their teens, others looking as old as the rocks bent double under the weight of a huge bundle of rough sticks and wood nearly as big as themselves. These women walk for miles like this, in order to sell the wood in the town. A lot of people and businesses in the town have to buy it as they can't rely on electricity all the time as the government has to ration it, so most places at the moment are getting electricity 5 days out of 7. This is ok, but when the water supply is also stopped, this is hard. Many women can be seen walking for miles with the ubiquitous bright yellow plastic water cannister strapped to their backs. I'm no good at estimating volumes, but those things must contain 80 litres at least. These people are tough.
The town of Lalibela is really a loose sprinkling up the mountainsides of mud and concrete shacks, with patchwork corrugated tin roofing, painted whatever, comnined with tighter clusters of round 'Tukal' huts- these are much older traditional dwellings, made of mud and brick with the characteristic conical thatched roof culminating in a little pointy tuft. It is fairly primitive- more so than anywhere else i think I've stayed- and that reminds me, the internet is herem obviously, but it's really reaaly slow, and totally unjustifiably expensive- to upload one photo would take over an hour and to do a couple would cost the same amount as a night in the hotel, so there won't be many pics to go with this blether i'm afraid- i'll stick photos up when I get to a faster connection.......)
There is one 'road' in lalibela, the rest of the walkways are just dirt and mud. When it rains, it's a bit boggin. And it does rain. It has rained every day I've been here so far. They call it the rainy season. For some reason I didn't really believe it would actually rain that much, despiteeverything I heard to the contrary. I think that's because i'm a bit stupid.
So the sounds I hear all the time are: Thunder (there seems to be a thunderstorm happening in the mountains all the time), Birdsong (Ethiopia is full of the most amazing coloured birds), singing wafting on the breeze from somewhere, especialy in the morning (probably from the churches- Ethiopian Orthodox Christians, like Muslims, often announce the new day with a sung call to prayer) and people shouting out "Hello!" in a very enthusiastic way. Not just kids, but anyone. Even bonnie lassies- one gratifyingly passed me yesterday and said "Hello Beautiful!"- I like this place!
People are friendly to a fault here, but they leave you alone if want them to, so there's no real sense of hassle, just the awareness that you stand out. A few kids have called out "Hello Money!" as I've walked past. The only exception to the general sense that people will leav you alobe is if you try and draw on the street. Yesterday I managed to break my record with a crowd of over 50 all straining to see what the strange white man was doing, (people always seem much more intrigued when I use colour- when i'm sketching with my oilbars basically for some reason!) people cinging to my sketchbook, children trying to push through the crowd to get closer by crawling through people's legs. It really was extraordinary. I started taking photos of them and that made some of them disappear, but only a passing thunderstorm succeeded in clearing  the crowd properly. I obstinately stood my ground as the rain poured down with 5 completely unshakable children clinging to me and each other under the shelter of my small umbrella.
Well that's probably enough pointless blether about Lalibela- I've loved it here and got more than enough material I reckon for my exhibition, but I'm going to keep keeping on and head up to Axum.

I Have Been Tej-ukated

Woke up feeling pretty sick. Had a heave session last night- on the Tej. (maybe this will become a new expression!?) Tej is a traditional Ethiopian drink- they call it 'honey wine', alhough it tastes more like a cross between undiluted orange squash and home-brew wine that's only half done- and it's lethal!
I wanted to try some so I asked the waiter at my hotel place if they had any. "No no no!" he laugh-mumbled in his singularly camp way (this waiter always speaks with his tongue poking out the side of his mouth). "Tej not here- you must go to Tej-House." So it turns out they have special places set aside purely for tejjing- intriguing! So In asked hime where I could find such a place and he said he would take me, the next night. For some reason I said that sounded like a great idea. So a date, with the camp waiter. Lucky me.
However when I met him, he'd brought his brother along, which was a relief, and he was a bit better at english too.
We walked down a dark dirt track off the main street. It wound down a steep hill getting darker and darker (there are no streetlights in Lalibela). Soon we were picking our waybetween round 'tukal' huts made of stone, wood and mud, and very primitive shack-houses. It was very quiet. Then, as the houses were getting denser and the lane getting narrower, we came to a doorway where there was light and laughter.
Inside was a room, painted bright egg-yolk yellow on rough mud walls. All around the edges of the room sat pretty rough-looking ethiopian men, all now staring at me, including one with a rifle slung over his shoulder. I nodded genially at the starers and tok a seat on the far side of the room. In front of each of the men stood a large-ish flask, fat and round at the bottom, tapering to a long thin neck- the sort of thing you might expect to see in some ancient chemistry lab- and they were all filled with the same bright orange liquid. A girl appeared from a doorway with a large tin kettle and 3 empty flasks. She sat them down in front of us and filled them each to the very brim with the orange syrupy stuff. Then my escorts picked up their flasks and flicked them so that the top inch or so of liquid just splahed out- it didn't seem to matter where it went- over my shoes seemed to be perfectly acceptable, and all across our wee table too, and then we drank. Quite grim.
As we drank more tej, the brothers' english rapidly deteriorated, but they managed to explain that the men were mostly workers from the fields who would come and drink tej to wind down before returning to their homes, food and sleep. Their hard faces implied these were indeed quite poor folk.
After 2 flaskfuls (they must be nearly a pint each) we thought it would be a great idea to try a different tej house. This one was on the main street and seemed to be more set up for tourists. The best thin g about this new place was their house band. This consisted of a girl singer and a young guy with no hair and an amazing voice playing a strange one-stringed instrument that he had strapped vertically to his torso. He played the string deftly and intricately with his left hand whilst employing a very primitive-looking short bow with his right. They walked around the space as they sang, having a 'conversation' with each other as they scrutinized the various patrons of thesitting around the walls of the place. Then they would pick on somebody and basically make up a song about them to lampon them or make fun of them, singing about their terrible hair or how ugly their boyfriend was etc, much to the delight of all the other ethiopians in the room. This is the gist i got from my 'translators' who tried valiently to convey the hilarious Amharic words to me through fits of giggles but their breathlessness and uncontrollable laughter overcame their slurred tej-ukated english. When the singers came to address me the foreigner, In think several tejjers may have actually died laughing.
It was a thoroughly enjoyable evening, and as I stumbled home in the dark I knew I might just regret slugging back that 4th (or was it 5th?) pint of potent half-done home-brew-Kia Ora...

The Sacred Lake

When we first arrived in Bahir Dar we were treated to (yet another) massive thunderstorm. The clouds were thick and dark, and their weighty mass seemed to sit heavily on the dark ominous water of Lake Tana like a headache pressing on your temples. The huge body of water, which is regarded as sacred by many Ethiopian Christiand seemed ominous and full of foreboding, perhaps enhanced by the knowledge that hidden among its tiny islands lay ancient places where men had secreted themselves away for centuries to immerse themselves in a deep, unfathonable spirituality.

The next morning the sky was bright blue and the sunlight was clear and sharp. Yet as we headed down to the little cluster of canopied motorboats bobbing about the rickety jetty, made, like everything else, from thick wonky sticks bound together with twin, I couldn't help noticing the water of the lake still seemed thick and heavy, as if it still contained the oppressive atmosphere of the storm from the night before. I lept nimbly from the jetty (fell into the boat) and we chugged out into the slowly-lapping caramac-brown waves.We were to be on the lake for 2 days.

The first place we stopped was by a rough stone jetty was about 1-hour from where we had set out from and We were helped out of the boat by a local lad who spoke great english. He led us straight into the dense forest and along a maze of thin mud-tracks that cut through the coffee trees and verdant undergrowth, our passage into the thick green heralded by exotic birdsong and the chattering of monkeys overhead. (They are a reputedly extremely intelligent breed: the guy at the hotel who arranged the boat for me assured me the Monkees on the Island- They speak very good Engleesh!) Occaissionally through the thick leafy trees I could make out rudimentary circular huts with those conical thatched roofs. This was the begginnnings of the monastery. Eventually breathless and disorientated we came to a thick stone gateway with its own wee thatched roof across the path. Suddenly a wizened old man appeared draped in a bright orange cloth, his stick-thin brown legs seemingly needing the help of a thick staff to support the brightly coloured bundle. OUr guide kissed the cross the priest was holding and bent down low before him, and the priest bent over him and kissed the back of his shoulders. This looked qite complicated and i didn't fancy trying it, so not sure how to greet the Holy man ikind of did a jerky nod-bow thing that probably looked like I suffered from bad stomach cramps or something but he didn't seem to mind. We passed through and there was the strangest building. Circular, wih a shallow conical roof, much like an epic version of the huts, there were steps leading up to it, and three concentric rings or passages, each separated from the other by vast tall thin doors. We took off our shoes and squeezing through a tall narrow dorway, entered the dark circular passage. As one of the priests started opening doors around the passage the interior of the great church was flooded with colour, the light revealed an astonishing array of paintings adorning every surface of the interior. Ethiopian Orthodox art is quite unlike anything else I've seen- it seems to have developed a bright, cheery medieval-but-cartoony style, all big eyes and angels with afros, that hasn't changed for 800 years. The paintings were all of scenes that told stories, some from the Bible, others more particular to Ethiopian interests. As the guide pointed one out and told us how thw ark of the covenant had been rescued from israel 2400 years ago and was hidden first on an island on Lake Tana, and then taken to the northern ethiopian city of Axum, where it residees, secretly, to this day, his eyes blazed with fierce patriotic pride, defying us to disbelieve him. I did my best assiduous murmuring and conciliatory 'oh"'ing, and tried not to sound too sceptical.

Back on the Boat the sun was now high in the sky and the heat was making the air seem dense and oppressive. The water of the lake was still lapping and churning in thick syrupy waves that our little boat seemed to take forever to cut through. We eventually arrived, in our slo-motion state at an island that seemed to be a thin crescent of rock like the rim of an ancient volcano emerging from the water. On the path from the tiny deserted jetty was a sign next to a narrow gate which said "No Lady Here". I proceeded up the forested path in as unladylike a manner as possible and soon came to the cluster of buildings at the tip of the island, with the large round church-building in the centre of the clearing.
A monk appeared with a dark green monk cap pulled right down half over his eyes and fairly comical facial hair and small pouty lips with protuding teeth that made him look alarmingly like an Ewok (for those not in the know- ewoks are the small bear-like creatures that appear in the 3rd original Star Wars movie 'Return of the Jedi'- now you know!) He spoke no english but took me to a tiny wee building that looked like a kind of hut with several padlocks on the door. Inside the monk-shed were piled high stacks of ancient manuscripts. Huge books, that must have been centuries old. He lugged some of them out for me to look at. It was quite incredible: the books were made out of goatskin, with incredible illuminations and illustrations on countless pages. This stuff should be in a museum, but it was just stashed in a fairly carefree way on old shelves in this shed. I've seen many illuminated manuscripts in my day and these books were of superior quality, there's no doubt! As well as letting me leaf through these priceless artefacts ewok-monk also let me take some photographs of the books, but i was careful not to use flash... I asked him if I could take his photot but he got shy and declined, which is a shame because i think you would have liked him.

After spending two days on this strange atmospheric lake, probabaly the most inspiring place was the most distant monastery, Narga Selassie. It seems as though the priests here don't get too many visitors and as our noisy wee boat approached a lone figure in white could be seen watching us from the stone gate above the jetty. He came down to greet us; a thin dark figure swathed in white shawls, with a tall thin staff bowing low and then turning to lead us to the nearby church. It felt like the place hadn't seen any visitores in months as the large church building with its hairy thatched roof seemed to emerge out of the tall grass, with large black birds swooping backwards and forwards, and forest all around. I started to draw in the church and the priests really seemed to like this. We stayed for quite some time and I even managed a sketch of both the priests which they seemed to appreciate. They had a very gentle manner, and as we finished up and took our leave they followed us down the path and on to the jetty waving to the boat until they were no more than little white specks in the distance.

Time seemed to be doing its own thing on the lake, and although it had taken forever to get there we seemed to be back on shore in no time, and the monks and their isloated lives seemed like a strangely distant memory.