Conor and I with our travel buddy Monty and soldier Mohamed at Las Geel.
Two days ago I returned from a week-long trip to Somaliland/Somalia with my buddies Chris and Conor. Somaliland is technically an internationally unrecognized but de facto sovereign state, meaning that it has essentially seceded from the volatile southern regions of Puntland and Somalia, both of which are by all definitions failed states. Somalia proper is one of the most war-torn areas on the planet, a haven for terrorists, and virtually no westerners are allowed there. But the good news is that Somaliland is relatively peaceful. Every once in a while terrorists from Mogadishu attack within the country, but the last attack was a series of suicide bombs in Hargeisa back in October 2008, and Somaliland has since tightened controls of its borders.
One of countless checkpoints on the drive to Berbera.
Mohamed about to punch a camel.
Inflation galore! Money-traders would sit around with bricks of Somaliland shillings worth only a few bucks.
Foreigners traveling outside the capital of Hargeisa are required to have an armed soldier accompany them, or risk getting turned back at the many checkpoints that litter the roads there, so we arranged a driver, soldier, and 4WD vehicle for our jaunt to Las Geel and Berbera. The next morning, we joined our guard, Mohamed, and our driver, Abdi, for the ride to the Berbera. On the way, we stopped at the stunning archeological site of Las Geel, where five thousand-year-old cave paintings adorn a rock formation springing up from the desolate desert landscape. We spent the next few days in Hargeisa and Berbera, exploring the towns and swimming in the Gulf of Aden, but were fortunate to avoid any run-ins with Somali pirates.
Mind-boggling cave paintings at Las Geel.
Me, Mohamed, Chris, and Conor at Las Geel.
Me about to put the hurting on some hyenas that were eating raw meat from my mouth in Harar.
Somaliland on the whole was without a doubt the most unique place I’ve ever been—a supremely surreal country. Upon seeing both towns, I joked that Hargeisa looked like it had been shelled about a year ago, and Berbera looked like it had been shelled last week. Up until very recently, the country was ravaged by civil war, the after-effects of which are still visible everywhere. Many buildings were reduced to rubble, and those that were left standing were pockmarked with bullet holes and artillery shells. It definitely looked like something straight out of Black Hawk Down. But that made exploring both towns all the more exciting and edgy.
Camels on the road to Hargeisa.
To add to the surreal atmosphere of the country, we only really saw three other foreigners during our five days there. And as if we needed more edge to our adventure, elections took place while we were there, and results were announced on Thursday night while we were staying in the capital. The opposition party (Kulmiye) won, and fortunately the transition of power was peaceful, a rare event in east Africa. On Thursday night, all of Hargeisa poured into the streets to celebrate the peaceful transition, singing and dancing about the streets waving flags. It was definitely memorable to be there for elections and witness history in the making.
Kulmiye supporters stoked about their party's victory.
My good buddy Will Robinson, former editor of the Duke Chronicle, is keeping a World Cup blog while he's in South Africa for the summer. I recently contributed a post with the Ethiopian perspective, which I have included below. I encourage anyone interested in reading excellent writing and a unique perspective on the Cup to follow the blog at http://wavinflag.wordpress.com/.
ADDIS ABABA — Ethiopia was a far cry from qualifying for this year’s World Cup, but that hasn’t dampened Ethiopians’ enthusiasm for the game on this football-obsessed continent. Every game sees downtown Addis Ababa’s largest public square packed with fans hoping to catch some action on the Coca-Cola-sponsored big screen devoted exclusively to World Cup content.
On Friday evening I headed over to Addis’ iconic Meskal Square to cheer on the Americans in their match against the Slovenians. For a number of reasons—prominent among which is the fact that Ethiopia is the number one recipient of US aid in Africa—the crowd was overwhelmingly rooting for the Red, White, and Blue.
Unsurprisingly, reactions were muted as the Slovenians took an early 2-0 lead. But when the US club clawed back to a 2-2 tie powered by goals from Donovan and Bradley, the crowd erupted.
Yet these reactions paled in comparison with the mayhem that followed the Americans’ third goal in the 87th minute. Pandemonium broke out as hundreds of Ethiopians danced in the streets and backed up traffic on the capital’s main thoroughfare.
Once the raucousness subsided and it became clear that the goal was left uncounted, however, the contagious enthusiasm quickly cooled. Almost on cue, the clouds opened up and unleashed a torrent of rain, sending Ethiopian football fans packing. Such was the metaphorical conclusion to the Americans’ disappointing performance against Slovenia.
Last night I returned from an epic five-day trek in the northern highlands of Ethiopia. On Thursday morning at 4am six friends and I boarded a frightening Ethiopian Airlines propeller plane for Lalibela. After two unexpected stops in Bahir Dar and Gondor, we landed on an isolated concrete airstrip in Lalibela, effectively flying in a giant circle to reach our destination. After checking out the overhyped and therefore disappointing rock-hewn churches for which Lalibela is most well-known, we piled in a dilapidated Land Cruiser for a teeth-rattling two-hour drive through rugged backcountry on a primitive dirt road.
From our drop-off point we followed our guide Fantow on a short hike to a spectacular set of dirt huts overlooking a panorama evoking memories of the Grand Canyon. Seated before nature’s symphony, we devoured pancakes smothered in wild honey, steaming lentil soup, and hot pepper medley over rice, all washed down with delicious highlands tea. And the best part was that essentially the same ritual was performed regularly for each meal.
Each night we retreated to our huts amidst a breathtaking sunset and each morning arose to an explosion of brilliant color over the horizon. As darkness enveloped the night sky, thousands of dazzling stars illuminated the windswept and inhospitable landscape, the distinct luster of each individual star accentuated by the starkly contrasted black backdrop. Every morning after a hearty breakfast, we hiked for hours through stunning gorges, over picturesque escarpments, and across desolate plateaus until lunch. After feasting on injera and doro wat, we continued traversing marvelous landscapes until reaching that night’s camp, at which point we would usually day hike or boulder on the many rocks littering the terrain.
But rather than bore my readers with verbiage that fails to do the sweeping natural beauty the slightest justice, I have included several photos to accomplish what I cannot. I hope they convey at least a shred of the imposing terrain and sheer grandeur I encountered over the past week in the northern highlands.
The working draft of the blog for Korah Group is up and running, and I successfully petitioned Google Maps to add Korah Group as a business listing, such that a Google Maps search for “korah group” will yield the location and website information as the first search result. Hopefully this will help put Korah Group on the map, both literally and figuratively. As I’ve mentioned in earlier entries, Korah Group is tucked back in the Korah neighborhood, so ideally this development will make the business easier to access.
Hello again and apologies for my absence. Internet in Ethiopia is reputed to be among the worst not only in sub-Saharan Africa, but in the entire world, with some estimating Internet infrastructure as the fourth worst in the world. Government monopoly over the Internet market and a draconian system of domestic restrictions have together produced one of the least connected countries on the planet. Even to access unreliable Internet requires a commute across town to one of few western hotels in the city where I’m able to hang out and briefly connect with the outside world. So posts will be few and far between, but I’ll do my best to keep the blog updated.
I spent most of this week on-site at the Korah Group, learning more about the business in its current state, and forming a plan of action for moving more goods to market here in Addis. Spending all day in Korah can be an exhausting routine – every afternoon I return to the house both physically and emotionally drained. Conditions in Korah are abysmal, and society and the government have long since given up on the area. The Korah neighborhood was originally given its name because of the widespread perception that the people there were cursed, much like the two biblical villains to whom Korah refers in the original Hebrew. Korah’s etymological roots have only reinforced this sense of stigmatization and societal rejection.
When the leper colony was initially established, King Haile Selassie gave land far away from the city center, far removed from Addis. Under the Communist Dergue, soldiers massacred those afflicted with leprosy, believing society to be better off without the leprous population. These mentalities persist today, reflecting societal and governmental attitudes toward leprosy, and as a result Korah is effectively isolated, both literally and figuratively, from city life. Information on Korah is sparse, but helpkorah.com is a helpful resource for those interested on reading more about the area.
Although the needs here are perhaps greater than anywhere else in Ethiopia, even foreign NGOs and doctors have failed to penetrate the impoverished slum, creating a dire humanitarian situation. The fact that the national government, the central governing apparatus of which is located in the same city only kilometers away, has essentially ignored Korah can be exasperating and even depressing. Every day I make a long walk into the neighborhood, after taking public transportation as close as it goes to Korah, and this lengthy walking commute provides a daily reflection of the fundamental apathy espoused by the government.
These attitudes create the perception among those living in Korah that they are an unwanted population, forsaken by society and by the government. Initially people were pretty skeptical of me, a white kid walking through this place where outsiders seldom venture, but as they get used to seeing me on a daily basis they’re warming up to me. Every afternoon, I walk around and explore the area, and some days I end up joining a soccer game with some local kids, hopefully buttressing my image as a non-threatening foreigner.
Despite the aforementioned humanitarian and stigma obstacles, the people of Korah are resilient, and I anticipate learning much from them over the coming months. Over the course of my stay here, I plan to establish relationships between the Korah Group and retailers throughout the city, providing a starting point for economic regeneration of the business.
Power outages here are common, and the daily blackout just struck, limiting my battery power, so I’m out. As always, thanks for reading, and stay tuned for more updates as Internet permits.
Greeting from Addis! I arrived here late Thursday night after the wicked Greensboro to Detroit to Amsterdam to Khartoum to Addis Ababa. Having taken a class which spent a substantial portion of the semester studying the genocide perpetrated by the Sudanese government, and given that the International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for Omar al-Bashir for crimes against humanity, stopping over in Khartoum was a somewhat surreal experience.
Before I jump in, a quick note on the status of my blog. Ostensibly because of the recent elections, specifically the simmering discontent here in the capital, the government has blocked in-country access to blogspot. Fortunately, my Duke-provided VPN (Virtual Private Network) allows me to bypass domestic Internet restrictions, so I will be posting to this blog address as long as I’m able. In the event that this tactic becomes no longer feasible, it’s possible that I will change host domains, in which case I would notify my readers of the new address. But enough housekeeping – on to the update.
Jetlag woke me bright and early on Friday, and I spent most of the morning at the leper colony, attempting a preliminary assessment and getting a feel for the production process. The Korah leper colony, situated on the southern outskirts of Addis, is a sprawling collection of ramshackle houses and substandard living conditions. Home to over 75,000 Ethiopians, who either have leprosy or are living with a family member afflicted with leprosy, Korah is reputed to be among the poorest communities in the country, if not the continent. Getting to the site requires a harrowing ride down a crater-ridden road (although ‘road’ is an egregious misnomer), but observing the whole operation was definitely worth it, as I found both the people and process quite impressive. Based on my initial assessment, their most pressing need is a website for publicizing their business, so my first task here will be learning enough web programming to get a website up and running.
Friday was actually an Ethiopian holiday to commemorate the 20-year anniversary of the fall of Soviet-style Communism in 1991. You may be scratching your head, thinking to yourself that it hasn’t been 20 years since 1991. I certainly was. But alas, the Ethiopian calendar (and even the Ethiopian clock!) bear little resemblance to their western counterparts, an adjustment that has taken some getting used to. Like the time I arranged to meet one of the managers of the leprosy work group at 9am, rather than the correct 3am, fortunately realizing my error in time. Not surprisingly, my western sensibilities still protest every time I schedule an engagement for the wee hours of the morning, but I’m (slowly) learning.
Again on Saturday morning, jetlag plus the neighboring mosque’s call to prayer roused me from my slumber at 4am, but it was conducive to an early and productive start. Chris Cole and I browsed an NGO fair downtown and explored the city for the better part of the day. By far one of the highlights here (I can already hear the few friends and family who brave the ramblings of my blog snickering at their computer screens) has been the food. Ethiopian cuisine has surpassed all my expectations. Injera, a spongy, flat bread the size of a large pizza, is heaped with meat accompanied by a rich, spicy sauce, into which torn pieces of injera are dipped. This is an Ethiopian staple has constituted the dominant portion of my food intake so far, and I look forward to retaining its monopoly on my diet in the coming two months.
Monday constituted my official first day of work, and I spent the morning meeting with Birke, the Ethiopian woman behind the whole weaving business. She introduced me to Sebsibe, the manager and accountant of a government association tasked with overseeing and coordinating multiple production operations in Korah. After talking with Sebsibe for five minutes, he asked how I liked Ethiopia, and I responded that I loved everything about the country, but especially the food. His response was to invite me to lunch at his house, and no sooner had I met the guy than we hopped on a bus and headed to his house.
When we arrived, his mom had prepared a veritable feast of injera and doro watt, essentially chicken and egg. As in many countries, hosts like to stuff their guest, and Ethiopia is no exception. We talked, laughed, and feasted for a while, before participating in a traditional Ethiopian coffee ceremony. After roasting coffee beans over an open fire, his mom heated water and burned frankincense (for aesthetic purposes, I gathered), and made a pot of outrageously strong coffee, of which I polished off three cups. By now we had been gone for about three hours, so stuffed with injera and riding a caffeine high, Sebsibe and I headed back to work. I spent the rest of the day learning more about Sebsibe’s role in Birke’s business, and then headed home, just missing a torrential downpour.
As always, thanks for reading, and please don’t forget to reciprocate with updates of what’s happening in your own lives!
Tomorrow I head to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where I will be from May 26 until July 19 devising a business plan and implementation strategy for a leper colony that produces beautiful handicrafts and woven cloth, yet struggles to sell its goods because of obvious stigma-related market access issues. My brother Chris will join me for the second month there, and he’ll be working on a survey project for the World Health Organization. From there, we’ll meet the rest of the family in Cairo for two weeks of traveling and diving in Egypt, before returning to the States on August 1. But before I regale you with tales from Addis, do the history major in me a favor by indulging in a little Ethiopian history.
Nearly 5,000 years ago, Ethiopia and neighboring Eritrea constituted the Land of Punt, constituting a trading empire rich in natural resources and trading partners. Out of this sprawling area rose the remarkable civilization of the Kingdom of Aksum, fortuitously situated at the important commercial crossroads of flourishing trade among the peoples of the Horn of Africa. During its apogee, the Askumite kingdom extended west to the Sudanese Nile Valley and north into southern Arabia, cementing its reputation as one of the great civilizations of the era.
Around the beginning of the 4th century, Christianity was introduced to Ethiopia, a historical development that would exert immense influence on the societal and cultural fabric of the country. Centuries later, after the introduction of Islam, Christians and Muslims enjoyed good relations, but rising Arab civilizations caused the commercial center of gravity to slowly shift across the Red Sea. Doomed to commercial irrelevance, Ethiopia entered a dark period of its history, during which the little-known Zagwe Dynasty ruled.
Yet around 1270, Yekuno Amlak established the ‘Solomonic dynasty,’ which would reign for the next 500 years, and which ushered in Ethiopia’s well-documented Middle Ages. Contacts with European Christendom skyrocketed as opportunists realized Ethiopia’s geostrategic importance, and for decades bloody religious wars between Muslims and Christians wracked the Horn. With the Muslim population largely debilitated, the nomadic warrior horsemen of the Oromos moved in from the south to fill the power vacuum, and the next 200 years of Ethiopian history was characterized by intermittent armed conflict with the bellicose Oromos.
In 1636, Emperor Fasiladas established a permanent capital at Gondor, and under his rule Ethiopia once again experienced a golden age of commercial flourishing and architectural grandeur, despite the palace intrigue that played out amidst Gondor’s court. As Gondor waned, Ethiopia splintered into regional fiefdoms, until the capable ruler Emperor Tewodros was crowned in 1855. Unfortunately, Tewodros aroused the wrath of the British when he imprisoned some visiting Brits, and British forces routed Tewodros, seriously weakening Ethiopia and creating an opening for hungry European colonial powers.
Emperor Yohannes soon filled the power gap, and his military prowess helped revolutionize the Ethiopian armed forces, but the expansionistic Italians, lured by the strategic potential of the Red Sea, landed in Eritrea with eyes set firmly on Ethiopia. The next emperor, Menelik, at first enjoyed harmonious relations with the Italians, but a linguistic discrepancy in the Amharic translation of the Treaty of Wechale quickly soured relations. Incessantly provoked by Italian forces, Menelik’s troops finally marched to Adwa where they handed the Italians a resounding defeat, maintaining Ethiopia’s independence amidst a continent entirely dominated by colonialism.
Following Menelik’s natural death in 1913, and a brief rule by his young grandson, the illustrious Prince Ras Tafari came to power, and successfully secured Ethiopia’s entry into the League of Nations in 1923, overwhelmingly considered a diplomatic coup for an African nation during the proverbial colonial scramble of the early twentieth century. Tafari was crowned Emperor Haile Salassie in 1930, and soon thereafter Ethiopia saw its first written constitution, but again Italian expansionism overshadowed domestic successes.
Ethiopia’s location between the Italian colonies of Eritrea and Somalia rendered it desirable to Mussolini, and in 1934 the Italians provoked Ethiopian forces, creating the pretext for invasion. Defying the Geneva Convention, the Italians relied heavily on mustard gas and bombed civilian targets, prompting a triumphant Mussolini to declare in 1936 that “Ethiopia is Italian.” With the outbreak of WWII, however, the Italians diverted military resources from their Ethiopian venture, and in 1941 Ethiopian patriots marched unchallenged into Addis Ababa.
Although Ethiopia underwent rapid modernization, discontent over the authoritarian nature of the government simmered among the populace, and in 1973 a radical military organization called the Derg (Committee) arrested Salassie and dissolved parliament. In late 1974 the Derg proclaimed a socialist state, and bolstered by generous military aid from the Soviet Union, Ethiopia finally neutralized the lingering Somali border threat. Yet a ruthless Red Terror campaign and severe famine, compounded by the fall of the Soviet Union, ushered in a democratic government under Meles Zenawi, who continues to rule today.
Just as it seemed Ethiopia had emerged from the woods, in 1997 Eritrea replaced the Ethiopian birr with the nakfa currency, prompting a seismic diplomatic rift between the two erstwhile allies. Both countries engaged in prolonged bombing campaigns against one another, and in February 1999 an all-out military conflict engulfed the region, lasting until a December 2000 ceasefire, yet at the price of tens of thousands of civilian casualties. Since 2001, the UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea has supervised the demilitarized zone until withdrawing due to crippling supply restrictions imposed by Eritrea, prompting fears of renewed border hostilities.
Currently, Ethiopia enjoys moderate political stability, at least relatively speaking. Following the tumultuous 2005 elections, mass protests rocked the capital of Addis Ababa, leading to thousands of arrests and nearly one hundred civilian casualties. In 2006, Ethiopia invaded Somalia to eliminate the threat posed by the Islamic Courts Union, a radical Islamist organization widely believed to sponsor al-Qaeda. But after becoming bogged down in a bloody sectarian struggle in Somalia, Ethiopian troops were replaced by African Union peacekeepers in 2009, ending Ethiopian military involvement there. Today, the ongoing border conflict with Eritrea dominates Ethiopian foreign affairs, and both countries are widely believed to be fighting a proxy war in neighboring Somalia, further destabilizing the Horn.
Fortunately for me, Ethiopian and Eritrean leaders had the courtesy to fight a proxy war, relieving me of any serious concerns regarding the enduring border hostilities. One development that could prove interesting is the violence almost certain to follow elections, scheduled for May 23, but with the results announced on June 21. May elections are not expected to provoke violence, but the State Department has issued a word of caution to nationals following the release of election results in June, so expect updates as that date draws closer. See below for selected New York Times articles (coverage has been extensive in recent weeks) regarding elections.
