Last Sunday, my working status took an unexpected turn when I was sent to Djibouti to interpret for Igad. My flights were bought for me, my hotel was booked for me and I was even given some per diem! Suddenly, I was becoming an interpreter of international standard… Well, I should mention that Djibouti apparently has no interpreters at all, which is very bizarre for people who naturally speak at least four languages.
Anyway, here I am leaving Ethiopia for the first time in 7 months and going to this old French colony, bordering the red sea. All I can think about is eating fish and going to Casino to buy some cheese and saucisson! I am also pretty excited by the perspective to visit Djibouti, famous for its lovely town center and the Kempinsky, luxurious hotel where the conference will be held.
In the flight, I meet with Pascaline, my fellow interpreter, a lovely French girl who has already been to Djibouti many times. After a chaotic flight (apparently, Orangina-sponsored landings are a big hit in Djibouti), and a very long wait for our visa, I am entering a new country… Well, at least a new city, Djibouti is really really small, and so is Djibouti city. The first thing I notice is the heat, after 1 minute 30 seconds, every ounce of my skin is covered in sweat (yes, nice), it is 8 pm and it must at least be 35 degree. After dropping my stuff at the hotel, a very ugly carpeted building (I am not kidding, there even was carpet on the outside wall, because of course it is a well known fact that nothing better than carpet can keep the coolness), I am ready to get out again.
A short taxi ride later, costing 1000 djibouti franc, and I am walking along the only two lighted streets of Djibouti. I am slightly disappointed. It is very dirty, not that pretty, and people, under the influence of ch’at are aggressive. Every body talks to you: “t’es francaise?”, and men are very flirty. I end up in a greasy spoon at the end of a road called Blue Nile. The fish, a creamy sea bream, is excellent despite the low hygiene of the place. I take a picture of the place, and two veiled ladies just shout at me, “if my husband see the pictures, he will beat me…”, how lovely. I show them the picture I took, the hall were I ate, with two shadow completely covered, how on earth is someone going to be able to identify you on that, and why would your husband see it? Does not matter, is the answer, you erase. HUM, I am definitely not so sure about Djibouti, I am hot, I found the people incredibly unpleasant, I am hot, I don’t find the city that attractive, and also, I am way too hot.
The morning after, following a long debate with myself on what is worse, the heat or the noise of the air con?, I am ready to go to work. The Kempinsky is beautiful, the sea is so tempting, the food is delicious, a much better day, especially after a small nap near the pool. In the evening, my colleague takes me out with her Djibouti friend to a lovely restaurant on the sea shore. The place is beautiful, very oriental and lighted by a full moon. The temperature has also dropped to a reasonable 28. Pascaline’s friends are lovely, the three of them are wearing a veil, they switch non stop between French and Arabic, and they are really good fun. I hear about aquagym in a burkini, about husband left at home for this girl evening, about working for the education sector, about putting on weight after getting married. The cultural experience is really unique and my respect for Djibouti people increases a lot.
Last day of translation, we finish at 4pm. I jump in a swimming suit and Pascaline and her friend take me to the sea. After a quick stop in the poorest area of Djibouti (Djibouti a middle income country, not so convinced about it), we arrive at the beach. The red sea… warm, salty, lovely. It is a real pleasure, despite the rocks which are very hard to avoid (ask my knee). That is the one thing missing in Ethiopia, no access whatsoever to the sea. To finish the trip, a calm evening at the hotel watching a Bollywood and thinking that it is a lot more fun with my sister!
So to conclude this long post, Djibouti? Not really my cup of tea, but I am sure it is a fantastic place for snorkeling and whale shark swimming if you can afford the Kempinsky!
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
To be continued...
- I have hand-fed the second most dangerous predator in Africa (Harar, january 2011)
- Like Orpheus, I have been through hell, and came out alive. (lalibela, October 2010)
- I have sat on top of the world twice (east of Lalibela, October 2010, Tigray, April 2011)
- I have sang New York New York on top of the Empire State building (NYC, December 2005)
- I have survived Katrina, and got a lot more than a lousy tee-shirt out of it (Louisiana, August 2005)
- Like Orpheus, I have been through hell, and came out alive. (lalibela, October 2010)
- I have sat on top of the world twice (east of Lalibela, October 2010, Tigray, April 2011)
- I have sang New York New York on top of the Empire State building (NYC, December 2005)
- I have survived Katrina, and got a lot more than a lousy tee-shirt out of it (Louisiana, August 2005)
Dare you?
I have already written in these pages about Tigray. The golden colour of the landscape, the dark skin of the people, the hair style of the women, the hidden churches and of course the poverty of this deserted place. So I will focus this blog on one church, the incredible Abuna Yemata Guh.
Abuna Yematah Guh is another church, hidden in the Gheralta Mountain. Another church? Not quite. Only the bravest, the fiercest, the strongest can discover it… Ok, that is a bit dramatic, but only the people who don’t have any symptom of vertigo can ascend the path that lead to this church.
Carved into the side of a 600 meters spire of rock, the 45 minutes walk to the top is already a challenge. Especially if your guide is Haile, with his flip flop, especially if it is hot, and therefore he wants to make it to the church as quickly as possible. After 40 minutes straight up (no detour to get to Yematah shall be found, straight from bottom to top you shall go), we arrived at a wall, a proper wall. No rope, no harness, nothing. My local guide gave me very complete explanations about how to pass this small obstacles. My problem, he only speaks Amharic. I understood right, and left, and right again, and then something about a chiken (I am not so sure about this part). So, I guessed he said here is where your left foot go, and that is for the right, then, your right hand move here and there is for your left hand, or may be he was just saying, you silly silly girl, you think with your Dana nah you can speak Amharic? Here is what you get for playing smart.
Any way, here I am climbing for 2 or 3 meters, already thinking this is not that difficult, I can do it, but how on earth I am going to get down???
Once I am on top, the view is absolutely fabulous, kilometers of blue sky, kilometers of cultivated land, everything is gold in this region, it is frankly breathtaking. From now on, I have to get my shoes off. So here I am climbing in socks the last few obstacles before the mysterious church. That is how I discovered that you have more grip in socks than in walking shoes! Finally on top, I can see what every body has warned me again. An 40 centimeters wide, 4 meters long edge with its shire drop of 50 to 100 meters.
I never had vertigo, and we are only talking about a few strides. But I am finding myself hesitating. It is very intimidating. Enough, I can’t chicken out now, and more than anything, I don’t want to think yet about the descent, so I start walking again, holding the wall as strongly as I can. I risk a look: I am suspended in the emptiness, I am walking along heaven, I am as high as a bird, and I can see the entire world at my feet… I am shit scared, I have to face the wall! Any way, I am already getting at the entrance of the church.
It is a beautifully painted 13th century church with 24 pillars, small and intimate, if I could I would get married there (I have a smile just to think about my 100 guests in high heels walking up the mountain). All I can think of is Why, why here? How, how did they carve at this height? How did they paint in this darkness? Who is THAT crazy? Faith can be a very powerful tool and used appropriately, it can accomplish miracle. The priest who need 20 minutes to get there arrives fresh as the morning dew, and show us the various paintings. I miss Ben terribly as I can’t share the intense emotion that the climb has provoked.
Unfortunately, we can’t stay there all day and we are already crossing back to the human world. The way down is not that terrible, except for the famous wall, I really need to learn to differentiate my right from my left. I am down in 30 minutes, hoping that this experience will have change me forever.
If you come to Ethiopia, you have to climb that mountain, the beauty of this place can not be express with world, and I apologize for the weak attempt you can see above.
Abuna Yematah Guh is another church, hidden in the Gheralta Mountain. Another church? Not quite. Only the bravest, the fiercest, the strongest can discover it… Ok, that is a bit dramatic, but only the people who don’t have any symptom of vertigo can ascend the path that lead to this church.
Carved into the side of a 600 meters spire of rock, the 45 minutes walk to the top is already a challenge. Especially if your guide is Haile, with his flip flop, especially if it is hot, and therefore he wants to make it to the church as quickly as possible. After 40 minutes straight up (no detour to get to Yematah shall be found, straight from bottom to top you shall go), we arrived at a wall, a proper wall. No rope, no harness, nothing. My local guide gave me very complete explanations about how to pass this small obstacles. My problem, he only speaks Amharic. I understood right, and left, and right again, and then something about a chiken (I am not so sure about this part). So, I guessed he said here is where your left foot go, and that is for the right, then, your right hand move here and there is for your left hand, or may be he was just saying, you silly silly girl, you think with your Dana nah you can speak Amharic? Here is what you get for playing smart.
Any way, here I am climbing for 2 or 3 meters, already thinking this is not that difficult, I can do it, but how on earth I am going to get down???
Once I am on top, the view is absolutely fabulous, kilometers of blue sky, kilometers of cultivated land, everything is gold in this region, it is frankly breathtaking. From now on, I have to get my shoes off. So here I am climbing in socks the last few obstacles before the mysterious church. That is how I discovered that you have more grip in socks than in walking shoes! Finally on top, I can see what every body has warned me again. An 40 centimeters wide, 4 meters long edge with its shire drop of 50 to 100 meters.
I never had vertigo, and we are only talking about a few strides. But I am finding myself hesitating. It is very intimidating. Enough, I can’t chicken out now, and more than anything, I don’t want to think yet about the descent, so I start walking again, holding the wall as strongly as I can. I risk a look: I am suspended in the emptiness, I am walking along heaven, I am as high as a bird, and I can see the entire world at my feet… I am shit scared, I have to face the wall! Any way, I am already getting at the entrance of the church.
It is a beautifully painted 13th century church with 24 pillars, small and intimate, if I could I would get married there (I have a smile just to think about my 100 guests in high heels walking up the mountain). All I can think of is Why, why here? How, how did they carve at this height? How did they paint in this darkness? Who is THAT crazy? Faith can be a very powerful tool and used appropriately, it can accomplish miracle. The priest who need 20 minutes to get there arrives fresh as the morning dew, and show us the various paintings. I miss Ben terribly as I can’t share the intense emotion that the climb has provoked.
Unfortunately, we can’t stay there all day and we are already crossing back to the human world. The way down is not that terrible, except for the famous wall, I really need to learn to differentiate my right from my left. I am down in 30 minutes, hoping that this experience will have change me forever.
If you come to Ethiopia, you have to climb that mountain, the beauty of this place can not be express with world, and I apologize for the weak attempt you can see above.
Monday, April 11, 2011
A mismatch made in heaven
As you may know, I am car sick. I have two ways to fight it, sleeping (great for short journey, boring highways and rainy days) or listening to music (works exclusively if there is lyrics). In Ethiopia of course, sleeping would really be a shame as most of the time, the car journey is a unique part of the experience. In addition, it is always sunny (remember the 13 months of sunshine?), they have no highways and no short ways either.
One of my favorite activities in a car is therefore to find the perfect music for the perfect landscape. I have noticed that Bob Dylan works perfectly well near Lalibela (with a special mention for Knocking on heavens door on top of the mountains), Muse is better for greener sites such as the North, and weirdly enough rap fits perfectly the dry land of Tigray.
However, my ipod having stopped working normally, I now can only listen to it in shuffle. And some of the song just does not fit at all, example being Michael Jackson on the way to Harar, Zazie on the way to Langano and the Wombat on the delicate road to Wenchi.
As I was driving back from the Gheralta mountain (see following post), David Getta came on (don’t ask why it is on my ipod) in the middle of the desert as we were crossing the tiny villages before the lodge. I was going to press forward when I realised how out of place the song felt in a place where they have nothing. “Get rich or die trying”, in front of houses made of cow excrements, around girls of 6 to 12 walking to the well to get water, amid young man sitting around in the same ancestral position… Here the slogan would be survive or die trying, get food of die trying, get water or die trying. I never thought David Getta would actually make me think about anything, but actually, his song made me reflect on my own materialistic approach to life. I am not going to change of course, my way of life is so different from Mulugeta from Worku in the middle of nowhere, but may be it is time for me to understand better what money really represents and what money can buy...
One of my favorite activities in a car is therefore to find the perfect music for the perfect landscape. I have noticed that Bob Dylan works perfectly well near Lalibela (with a special mention for Knocking on heavens door on top of the mountains), Muse is better for greener sites such as the North, and weirdly enough rap fits perfectly the dry land of Tigray.
However, my ipod having stopped working normally, I now can only listen to it in shuffle. And some of the song just does not fit at all, example being Michael Jackson on the way to Harar, Zazie on the way to Langano and the Wombat on the delicate road to Wenchi.
As I was driving back from the Gheralta mountain (see following post), David Getta came on (don’t ask why it is on my ipod) in the middle of the desert as we were crossing the tiny villages before the lodge. I was going to press forward when I realised how out of place the song felt in a place where they have nothing. “Get rich or die trying”, in front of houses made of cow excrements, around girls of 6 to 12 walking to the well to get water, amid young man sitting around in the same ancestral position… Here the slogan would be survive or die trying, get food of die trying, get water or die trying. I never thought David Getta would actually make me think about anything, but actually, his song made me reflect on my own materialistic approach to life. I am not going to change of course, my way of life is so different from Mulugeta from Worku in the middle of nowhere, but may be it is time for me to understand better what money really represents and what money can buy...
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