Black market stamps

In May, I spent a week in Ethiopia. The flight price from Dar to Addis Ababa is almost the same as the flight from Dar to Delhi, so when I realized I could stop over on my return to Dar from India without an extra fee, the decision to visit was easy. 

My expectations were high.  Without exception, everyone I know who has traveled to Ethiopia has raved about it.  An ancient civilization where Orthodox Christians carry out rituals in churches that have stood for almost a thousand years, the professed home of the Arc of the Covenant and the birthplace of coffee, what isn’t there to love?  Perhaps it was because I had just come from India, or because my expectations were so high, but my trip was not easy.  I know that many of my stories on this blog recount awesome times on the road.  Quite honestly, most of my travel experiences have been overwhelmingly positive. In fact, many things during my short stay in Ethiopia were remarkable.  But as we all know, nothing can be perfect, not everything works and sometimes what we expect to be enjoyable isn’t.  So here’s my authentic accounting of my northern circuit trip: Axum, Gonder and Lalibela.

Traveling as a single woman has some advantages.   Besides the luxury of doing exactly what you want, being alone makes it far easier to make connections with new people.  But it also makes some things more difficult.  For example, in conservative societies, local women are almost entirely absent from daily life.  Even in non-conservative places, since women are usually charged with maintaining their households, they are frequently behind the scenes.  This means that streets are often filled with idle and leering young men, seeking any number of things.  Some are innocuous, like employment as a guide or information about your home country, while others are less so, anticipating encounters with what they perceive are loose and lonely Western women.  Usually they can be dissuaded by avoiding eye contact or a terse response and seldom does their presence invoke actual cause for alarm.  But when every corner, storefront and restaurant echoes with their exhortations, it becomes frustrating and exhausting.  Unfortunately, this was my experience in several of the towns I visited in Northern Ethiopia.

So while I visited places that bore witness to an ancient, powerful and undeniably sophisticated African civilization, I seldom escaped constant haranguing.  When I arrive somewhere new, I like to walk around, keeping an eye out for landmarks (I’m directionally-challenged) and interesting food stalls while taking in what the people on the streets are doing.  The joy of wandering was sapped as I struggled to adjust to the idea that my every movement required chaperoning, even though I recognized that most only sought to help me.  Having spent most of my time in India in an area catering to tourists, I also had forgotten one of my key travel strategies: accepting I cannot understand many nuances of the culture around me and choosing my objections wisely.  As a consequence, daily transactions became more frustrating than necessary.  Lapsing yet again one morning, I asked the clerk at the airport gift shop why I was charged 40% over the face value of the stamps I purchased.  Her response: ‘they are black market stamps’.  At the airport.  Remembering my rule, I dutifully returned to my seat, recognizing the futility of the obvious follow up questions and eager for the arrival of my flight, which was already 4 hours late.

I began and ended my trip in Addis and thankfully, my experience there was much different.  My arrival was a homecoming to the continent and a reminder of the staggering beauty of Eastern Africa.  Walking along the streets, I was repeatedly mistaken for Habesha (Ethiopian) and rarely approached. My final night was spent having dinner with an American couple living in Addis who I’d met in Gonder and who had generously invited me into their home.  

And so, while I was genuinely relieved to leave Ethiopia, I wholeheartedly recommend visiting it.  Why? First, because as my experience and those of my friends suggest, everyone experiences a place differently.  And because it reminded me of the rewards of the effort of traveling in a difficult place.  Now, long after my irritation has subsided, I still can still conjure the memory of cool morning air penetrating the white shrouds of hundreds at a rock-hewn church in Lalibela.  I can taste the bittersweet heat of berbere (a local spice) and feel the welcome of the teacher who asked me the time in Amharic and ended up buying me a macchiato.  The pages of my journal capture lunch with a restaurant proprietress who had an extended, translated conversation with me about the nature of love in response to her daughter’s question ‘how do you know?’ Human brains are hardwired to remember the best experiences and I’m thankful for that -- these are memories worth keeping.