among lorries, taxis and cars of every size, age, make, condition and colour. Throngs of people surged around temporary market stalls at roadside intersections. Petrol and diesel fumes filled the still, clammy air.
It was late afternoon, and the shops and roadside stalls were full of people bartering for food, fabrics and fuel: a conglomerate of humanity, some barely existing, others clearly enjoying the pleasures of the city. The two women saw starving people with cerebral palsy, handicapped people begging and limping along, while others sauntered into the few palatial restaurants to be welcomed at the door by uniformed maître d’s. These first visions caught Louise’s attention and heightened her emotions, especially when a gaunt, crippled boy begged at their car window as they stopped at an intersection. She felt helpless and realised how a traveller’s heart could harden when faced with such profuse distress.
In the city centre, they drove past the limestone St George’s Cathedral, Addis Ababa’s famous Orthodox Coptic church, with bold notices inviting worshippers to Meet your God. Louise stared as hundreds of worshippers kissed its perimeter walls, seeking blessings and answers to prayers.
‘They come every day, looking for cures for sickness, and confirmation of riches in heaven,’ said Abebe. ‘Cathedral’s locked at the moment for a priest’s prayer service, but there is still much to see in the grounds. If you like, I’ll stop, so you can take a closer look.’
He parked the 4WD in a side street. Louise and Carmen climbed down, tired, but keen to observe the rituals and customs of Addis Ababa’s faithful. The Coptic worshippers ignored them. People repeatedly kissed walls, stained with a million previous kisses, or knelt in devotion on adjacent paths and grass – anywhere they could find a space. They bought cheap amulets of St George with images of him and his lance on a fat white horse, and endlessly repeated an Old Testament mantra in Amharic: God is our heavenly Father and we will obey him. Hundreds, of all ages, stood or knelt. Abebe told Louise they were waiting for a sign that the Second Coming was near. Did these people really believe in the Second Coming? All this intensity, this level of devotion, was so unexpected – not what Louise had imagined or read about. She stood and watched these people, in their pleading and prayer.
Amid their mutterings, Louise thought of the once-a-week sedate Anglican worshippers at her home church in the Adelaide Hills, with people dressed in their Sunday best, thanking the vicar for his oft-repeated sermon about St Paul on the road to Damascus. Incredulous at what they were observing, Louise and Carmen walked away past street vendors and climbed back into the 4WD.
‘Nothing much will come of their prayers, but they’ll be back again tomorrow,’ Abebe said, as if to confirm his scepticism. ‘They are here every day; it’s been like this forever.’
They drove the last mile to the university campus, entering via high, imposing black wrought-iron gates; the university name was printed in metre-high letters on an adjacent stone wall. Once inside, they drove down a wide avenue of palm trees with well-tended flower beds, shrubs and lawns on either side. Beyond were picturesque features of the old formal Selassie buildings, set alongside hibiscus and bougainvillea. Further along the driveway and its many tangential paths, students sat in animated conversation; young men and women embraced in the shelter of pepper trees, while others stretched out, enjoying late afternoon sunshine.
‘Campus is a good place to be, very different from in the city,’ said Abebe. Louise and Carmen had to agree. This was an oasis compared to their first experiences of Addis Ababa. The 4WD swung past two-storey stone administration buildings and pulled up outside a prefab student accommodation block.
After introductions to other students, Carmen and Louise unpacked in a small, sparsely furnished bedroom with two single beds. At 5.30 pm it was still too early to go to bed, despite their tiredness from the long flight. Louise was buoyant, just as she had been when she first arrived in London. She was anxious to explore the campus. She put on close-fitting grey tracksuit pants with the Australian gold and green stripes on the legs and asked Carmen to go with her, but she declined, saying she needed to rest. ‘Louise, you never stop. Even now, when we haven’t slept for a day, you’re in your conquer-all, find-out-about-everything mood!’
‘I’ll just stretch my legs; I won’t be long, no more than half an hour.’
‘Enjoy yourself.’
The campus was vast and sprawling. It would be easy to get lost, Louise thought, as she followed signs pointing to the Department of Ethiopian Studies. She stood for a moment in order to get her bearings, unsure of which way to go. Ethiopia’s heritage was everywhere. She sensed the spectre of another time in this land as she saw more distant pillars at buildings’ entrances, stone-lined pathways and monuments: symbols of the Ras dynasty, and of the old Emperor Haile Selassie, ‘Elect of God’. She imagined him feeding his pet lions that apparently used to roam freely in adjacent grounds. Ethiopian life had changed irrevocably since the Emperor’s demise in 1974.
The campus was quiet except for the city traffic beyond the perimeter walls. Sighting further signs pointing to Ethiopian Studies, she strode on. Soon she was in front of a flight of wide stone steps leading to heavy, engraved double doors at the department entrance.
Feeling weary, her mood changed. She looked at the imposing stairway, then turned and walked slowly back the way she had come.
As she walked, she regained her usual confidence and decided to capture the effects of these first hours in Ethiopia in her notebook: the cool evening air in this high plateau city, the well-maintained Haile Selassie-endowed buildings, the contrasting shacks and poverty, the teeming people, uniformed Derg soldiers, the beggars and worshippers. As she walked she also recalled some of the finer points of articles in journals about Ethiopia and realised she needed to explore the creative lives of some of Ethiopia’s writers because, she believed, good literature reflected the lives and spirit of the people. Writers such as Abbe Gubennya and Mengistu Lemma, she had been told, held a mirror up to their society. She would read their work. She pushed on and arrived back at the hostel in time to join Carmen for an evening meal.
In London Louise was usually up by seven, but here everyone was afoot as soon as it was light. Each morning she was wakened by loud music and the cacophonous sounds of traffic. Abebe called on the first two mornings to take them on short tours of the city. On the first morning Louise watched the hazy sun as it broke free of the rooftops, causing shadows and splashes of bright light. People were already at work: hundreds of them, walking along with well-dressed children, presumably on their way to school. Some people sat on the kerbside, others sprawled on pavements around buildings and shacks. Abebe parked in a side street adjacent to an entrance to Addis Ababa’s huge Mercato Market.
They walked down the crumbling lane to the market entrance. Since Louise knew only a few words of Amharic, the comfort of Carmen’s company strengthened her resolve to communicate with stallholders. Carmen had spent six months in Kenya, but Louise had never been to Africa before and, despite her gap year in Italy, had rarely left the reassuring noises and patterns of Adelaide and London.
Stepping round street vendors, they entered the market. Abebe advised that it would be safest if, at least on this first visit, he accompanied them. While the rest of Addis Ababa symbolised a country establishing a fresh identity under the Derg, the timeless, noisy and vigorous Mercato Market remained unchanged. Louise was surprised at the labyrinth of streets and alleyways, the blacksmiths’ forges spewing smoke and flames, and the tanners sitting with piles of hides and fresh skins hung up to dry, still crusted with blood. There were men cutting rocks and others trimming vegetables, while aromas of spicy beef curries, fruit, vegetables and flowers, along with the smells of donkeys and goats, wafted over the stalls.
For the next
