A final fling with Africans

I manned this shop to earn my coffee

It was time to say goodbye to the guide I brought from Gondar to Axum.  For many days, we were constantly bickering over his habit of not finishing the food he ordered.  I told him that there are many people (including his fellow Ethiopians) who are starving, and yet he wastes food.

Me and my guide

Towards the end of our travels, he would clean-up his plate and call my attention to it.  He said that he could not thank me enough for giving him the opportunity to travel around Ethiopia, and the education that he received along the way.  He says that even his family and friends could not believe his good fortune.  I gave him a handsome bonus which I hoped would help him partly finance his school fees.   

See the thread on his ears?  He also uses the door knob as bobbin.  

There was also this gentle old man who is a tailor.  He is 70 years old (in modern times or 62 years old in Ethiopian calendar) who asked me to drop by his shop everyday for coffee.  Oh, I love the old man who uses his left ear lobe as a bobbin for the thread of his sewing machine. 

I enjoyed his company

He sews traditional Ethiopian clothing

I had an unforgettable experience of taking a domestic flight that operates like a bus.  To return to Manila, I took  a plane from Axum to Addis Ababa, the capital,  without knowing that the plane makes brief stop-overs in each of the places that I had been to:  Lalibela, Bahir Dar, Gondar and finally Addis. 

Tried riding in the badjas....

Ethiopia has 17 domestic airports and the Ethiopian Airlines  run these airports like a bus stop.  It was fun waiting inside the plane and watching while it loads and unloads passengers at all the airport stops.

and in a dressed-up donkey with blinders

I almost missed my plane to Manila.  I forgot the time while enjoying the food and having a drink too many at a Filipino friend's house while my things were still all over Uziel's (co-volunteer) house.  

We were strangers sharing a taxi.  It turned out, she, too was a VSO volunteer!

At the VSO office in Addis Ababa

But Uziel had all my stuff packed and ready for my pick-up on the way to the airport.  Nothing left behind.  Among the skills that a volunteer possess is the thoroughness in the art of personal packing.

Well, my boots are now clean and shiny.  Manila, here I come!

I arrive Manila after two years in Africa.  Coming home is another adventure.  

That's for the next post.

 

End of the Historic Route

Park of the Stelae

What are the biblical and legendary allures of Axum?  To name drop:  One of the 3 magis in the Nativity (King Balthazar who brought the gift of gold)  is said to be the Emperor of Ethiopia at that time.  His tomb is in Axum.

King Balthazar (3rd from left),  the bearer of gold

The Queen of Sheba, who became the wife of King Solomon ruled from Axum.  The remains of her palace and bath can be seen today.  Last March 2012, the mine pit believed to be the source of the gold that Queen Sheba gifted King Solomon was reported to have been discovered by Louise Schofield, an archaeologist and former British Museum curator.   

Remains of Queen of  Sheba's palace

The Queen's bath (a lagoon)

Prince Menelik I, the son of the Queen and King Solomon was said to have brought the Ark of the Covenant containing the tablet of the Ten Commandments from Jerusalem when he visited his father.  The Ark is said (as it is off-limits to the public) to be kept in the Chapel of the Tablet at the Church of our Lady Mary of Zion.

Is the Ark of the Covenant inside?

The Ge'ez alphabet used some 2,000 years ago is now extinct.  But some of the books written in Ge'ez are still read in  Ethiopia's church liturgy.

Ge'ez alphabet

Bible written in Ge'ez

Well, before I went to Ethiopia, I thought that I would find Noah's Ark there.  I was wrong.  Evidences of Noah's Ark are supposed to be in Turkey.    What is claimed to be in Axum is the Ark of the Covenant.  But this claim is refuted in several research.

The tallest obelisk in the world

But regardless of religious affiliation,  Axum is famous for its monolith granite obelisks.  The tallest (33 meters high, 500 tonnes) obelisk in the world has crumbled, but the 2nd tallest (24 meters) is now back in the park.  The latter has a very touching story:  It crumbled some years back, then in 1937, it was looted by the Italians during their brief occupation and the pieces were

Details of the obelisk

brought to and assembled in Rome.  Italy was ordered to return it to Ethiopia.  Compliance suffered many delays such as the airport of Addis Ababa had to be upgraded for the arrival of the obelisk and finally in 2008, (after 60 years), it was re-erected, and is now a UNESCO Heritage site.   

Thanks to the Italians, spaghetti is good here.

The Garden of Eden

There is more 

Very few travel to Axum by road because it cannot be reached in one day.  Buses do not  ply at night and it is just right because the landscape to Axum from the Amhara region is not to be missed.

Look like the Great Pyramids

At the Woldia terminal while waiting for the bus to leave for an overnight in Makele, I called a Filipino VSO volunteer assigned in the area  to meet him for the first time.

Till the last goat is down; then bus leaves

The famous badjas; not found in Uganda

Five minutes later,  I saw a farengi alight from the badjas, and I was tempted to say, “Dr.  Livingstone, I supposed”.  It was such a pleasant albeit spontaneous and brief reunion.  

Good vibes grass.  In buses, too!

Traversing the well-maintained road to Axum was like going up to heaven. The hills gave different views as we navigate the  zigzag road.  The sight was awesome,  like seeing the pyramids in Egypt, jutting out of the desert.   It was breathtaking.

The hills take on different views

The long and winding road to heaven

If God placed the perfectly-baked man (olive-colored skin) in Ethiopia,  then He must have created this  garden that is beautiful in the rainy season. My eyes were never satisfied with seeing.

Same hills, different view

Cactus plants line the road and the cactus fruits are aplenty.  I tried eating the fruit which tastes and looks like a big red kiwi.  It was delicious and I finished a basketful during that long trip. 

Cactus plants with fruits

The edible cactus fruit 

Some parts of the Tigray region are barren and suffering from drought.  I understand that there is famine in the area.  According to the grapevine,   there is some kind of weeds that destroy vegetation and pasture land…. and these are believed to have sprouted together with the  seeds that were sown as part of some international food aid programs. 

The barren part of Tigray region

Animals show sign of starvation

On to Axum, the thriving capital of Ethiopia at the time that Jesus was preaching in Palestine. 

Wondering where to spend the night

I met Jesus Christ in Lalibela

Priests practicing their chants and dance

That’s what a Filipino co-volunteer said to me when he first arrived in Ethiopia.   It had not  occurred to me before but, I think he was right, especially after seeing the priests in Lalibela.

Scene from the School of Athens?  

Lalibela is famous for its rock-hewn churches -  11 churches mostly carved (not constructed but excavated) entirely out of a single block of granite with the roof at ground level.  

Church of  Emmanuel

These churches, some still in use today,  were allegedly built around the 11^th and 12^th century at the time of King Lalibela – the  king who abdicated his throne to become a hermit and later canonized as saint.  He wanted to build a "New Jerusalem".

Church of St. George, 40 meters below ground level

Roof (Greek cruciform) of  St. George at ground level 

Portuguese explorers "discovered" the churches in the 15th century.  It takes a brave heart to reach Lalibela by road from the nearest city but most who visited Lalibela left awestruck.

He guards the tomb of St. Lalibela

For this blog, I chose the pictures not only of the churches, but also of the laid back town of Lalibela that still seems biblical with its hilly and rocky roads (with 8,000 people, 1,000 of them priests according to my very competent and pricey guide). 

I mailed post cards from here

Coffee house

He makes  icons from cowhide.  

More pictures of Lalibela are available to the public in my Facebook (Evelyna Avila) album, Lalibela.

Praying outside the church

Praying inside the church

The churches of Lalibela reminded me of the rose-colored city of Petra, Jordan and the rock-houses in Capadoccia, Turkey - all 3 locations are UNESCO Heritage sites.

Will  future generations be looking then at our modern infrastructure today as part of antiquity?  

Centuries-old feet of pilgrims displayed inside a church.  

Believed not to have decomposed as the pilgrims were blessed by 

the waters of  the River Jordan on their way to Lalibela.

Ain't no pilgrim but this leads to one church

This post is dedicated to a Portuguese Comboni missionary priest who has spent 20 years of his young life in Uganda.  May he have the gift of good health as he continues to spread the Word.

Obrigada!