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Feeling Dirty In Ethiopia

December 17th, 2007

This is the dirtiest country I have visited. There is dust everywhere. A few days ago we drove through Konso town and I commented on how the government should pave the road in that town since so much dust is getting kicked up by traffic in a place where so many people exist. It has to be a medical problem for the poor people walking and living in Konso. It is the dustiest place I have visited. I’ll write more about the roads of Ethiopia in another entry since this one is not about dusty roads. Unfortunately, tonight my tour company decided to stay in Konso and I am in the most absolutely filthy room that I could ever imagine. It’s just like the rest of the town! The hotel is only four years old and it is apparent that no one has really ever cleaned the rooms. Plus, after camping last night without a shower and staying in a dreadful rat-infested room in Jinka the night before, there is no running water in this hotel!!! The town has no flowing water! They gave me a bucket of dirty water with which to wash. I paid a fair amount of money for this tour 🙁 Yet this is not why I am writing because it isn’t the dust that makes me feel dirty this week.

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Ethiopia – Land of Beauty Filled with People of Faith

December 17th, 2007

Ethiopia is not a destination for newcomers to the impoverished world. It would break you in two very quickly. This is the poorest country and the most broken country I have visited so far. Now I know the image in your head is starving people and featureless desert, but you need to remove these images burnt into your memory by too much television and move forward with me. First, the last big famine in Ethiopia – the one that was brought into your livingroom each evening and has you thinking everyone in Ethiopia is starving – was in 1985 – twenty-two years ago! Second, I’m not sure where the desert image comes from other than maybe the same video showing dead, emaciated people. Most of Ethiopia is not desert. It is mountain highlands with forest and farms and rivers and lakes. The desert areas are located near Somalia and Eritrea and not many Ethiopians live in these areas and those that do live there are probably quite capable people like the people of the Sahara. I have seen no one starving and malnourishment may be less of an issue here than other places I have visited. Understand that Ethiopia lives a bit on the edge, but doesn’t fall off it unless there is prolonged drought.

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Chimps!!!

December 17th, 2007

Pamela and I traveled from Kampala to Fort Portal via matatu. It was a four hour drive on an excellent paved road through a beautiful section of Uganda (I have not seen any part of Uganda that is not beautiful) with green farms, forest and some rock outcroppings. We were packed into the back of the van with a total of 20 people during some of the trip although we were pretty comfortable on the back bench with just one other person. The woman next to us had some kind of health problem that caused a second chin to grow looking like a fleshy rhino horn protruding from her throat. I see a lot of these growths in Africa although this one was particularly pointy. They are not easy to look at. Halfway through the trip, we stopped at a village where people were prepared with food for sale. We had two skewers of meat (probably goat), two chipatis (fried flat bread) and sodas passed through the window costing about $3 total. This may have been the mzungu price, too! Ugandans think Pamela is Ugandan until she can’t speak Lugandan. I usually laugh by their confusion, but they are always glad to meet a Kenyan. We have seen that Pamela gets a better price although I really don’t mind paying the bumped charges especially in an impoverished country like Uganda. We hired a cab in Fort Portal to drive us the last 45 minutes up the mountain above the western Rift Valley’s crater lakes to Ndali Lodge. This is where we would enjoy the next three days and nights accessing Kibale NP and its primates.

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Quick Ethiopia Update

December 5th, 2007

I came to Ethiopia because I thought it would be different than everywhere else on earth.  I am absolutely sure of that now that I have completed the northern circuit which took me to the historical, cultural and holy sites for Ethiopia and the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.  Technology is primitive here so I will skip more details for now, but suffice to say that I am loving this country and its people.  Tomorrow I am in Addis Ababa where I might get to see another queen – Condi Rice who arrived today.  Today’s hotel has CNN and it is very strange to see the rest of the world from within Ethiopia.  Maybe Bhutan or Burma will take me somewhere as removed from the rest of the world, but I am not sure of that.

On another front, I am very, very happy that Iran is not pursuing nuclear weapons.  I had scratched Israel, Jordan, Syria, Turkey, possibly Yemen and possibly Iran from my list for anytime before late summer 2008 (thinking Bush can’t bomb someone else “pre-emptively” that late in his career).  It makes more sense for me to ease out of Africa into Mideast and then on to India and the rest of Asia assuming I do ease out of Africa.  There was no way that I was going to be caught in Syria waking up to bomber news so this opens up some options.

The next two weeks will be spent doing the southern circuit of Ethiopia which is a whole other planet.  That circuit focuses on the tribal peoples that are famous for body decorations like huge earlobes and extended lips as well as makeup.  It will be a strange transition from the faithful of the north to the animists of the south.  We also leave the beautiful highlands and head for the tropics.  Many nights will be very remote with camping rather than hotels so my communication will really be limited.  Going from these next two weeks back to USA will really be a twist of the mind, but I am looking forward to a brief break before 2008.

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Ethiopia

November 29th, 2007

That’s where I am.  I still have more Kenya and Uganda stories, but they will come out in some order that will probably be confusing.  You’ll survive!  Ethiopia is… WEIRD!  But that’s for another blog entry in the future.  The day after Thanksgiving was one of loss for me.  Foremost, I had to say goodbye to Pamela hurriedly at the Entebbe airport as she went back to Kenya and I moved on to Ethiopia.  That was painful, but we will need to handle separations.  I wish she was here in Ethiopia to see more Africans and to laugh at all of the craziness.  Secondly, I was about to make the backup of my Kenya and Uganda photos when the external disk drive crashed and it is probable that I lost all 5000 photos many of which were the best I have ever done.  It was very painful because so many friends were captured in those photos.  They certainly represented the best wildlife photography I have done and I was really proud and now quite sad about the loss.  The chimpanzees in particular were extremely difficult to photograph and I had pulled off about two dozen superior shots.  Both of these losses have weighed on me this week, but I am getting my head into Ethiopia and I will not let all of this bring me down.  Internet sucks in Ethiopia so expect dribbles of blogs even though I am working on them on my laptop.  Strange place… Ethiopia…

 Luckily, about 100 Uganda photos were still in the camera at the time of the crash so here is your visual introduction to Pam…  http://www.flickr.com/photos/7411983@N06/

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Thanksgiving – Queen and I, Farming and Boda-Boda Ride

November 29th, 2007

Thanksgiving Day had Pamela and I back in Kampala with a full day of activites scheduled. We walked to a hotel and hired a cab (not to be confused with a taxi which we learned earlier in the week only refered to a matatu or mini-bus form of mass transportation) to take us around. Pam wanted to buy shoes to take back to Kenya to sell (prices in Kenya are much higher than Uganda) and I needed to pick up a suitcase and a box from the hotel that we stayed at the weekend prior and then mail the box home. We then planned to go and visit the family that I lived with last year when I volunteered for their farm. The day became much more exciting than I could have imagined ending with a simple dinner of warmed up pizza at the apartment we had rented since we were exhausted.

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Pamela

November 29th, 2007

Last year I had met a woman in Nairobi during my first visit and we went to dinner and hung out each time I traveled through that city with a major hub of an airport. I told her I would come back to Nairobi although at the time I did not know if I would return to Africa anytime soon. When I decided to go to Madagascar, I decided it would be the right time to plan an extended visit to Kenya which I had only visited for Nairobi and Masai Mara NP last year. I also decided that I would invite Pamela and two friends from Tanzania and use a guide that I had met last year. I thought I was being real cute mixing a bunch of people from different tribes so that I could kick back and watch. I also thought it would be amazing to watch Africans see more of Africa than their normal lives allow. Understand that the average African rarely leaves their local area and few get to enjoy a vacation or seeing the wildlife for which Westerners flock to their continent. Our guide is Masai, Pamela is Meru, Albert and his daughter, Ayanna, is one of the 135 tribes in Tanzania the name of which now escapes me. Also, we had one Meru driver, another driver who is Kikuyu and we met people from a number of the aproximately 47 tribes in Kenya. What I did not understand about my socialogical experiment is that I would fall in love with my friend, Pam.

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Chris’ Twin

November 29th, 2007

All of us supposedly have a twin. I actually saw my look-alike once in Sacramento in a parking lot outside of Raley’s grocery store. It freaked me out. I did not approach the other guy. On the Madagascar kayak trip that I completed recently, one of the other customers, Wendy from Colorado, turned out to be Chris’ twin. As soon as I saw Wendy, I saw Chris in her and it soon became apparent that her personality was almost identical to Chris. After a day of having my head spinning over this, I finally told her. I told her that it was 90% great and 10% difficult, a ratio that was probably true through the aproximately three weeks that we were around each other. Most of the time she kept me laughing with crazy stuff just like Chris. Once in a while, Wendy would say or do something that would send chills though me and make me just wish Chris was still around. These were always things that Chris would have said and I had assumed no one else. We had a great time with it and our friendship was strong from the start. I told the whole group about it yet I don’t think anyone could ever understand what I was going through. When I post pictures of Madagascar, you’ll be able to figure out who this twin is because they even look similar except for blonde hair versus red. Wendy, of course, has her own personality, but considering I lived with Chris for sixteen years Wendy must have been a pretty damn close copy. I thought they broke the mold after Chris was born, but apparently that was a false belief. Also, I kept thinking about what Chris’ family, friends and acquaintances will think if they meet Wendy. I am sure there will be a mix of astonishment, joy, sadness, laughter and head-shaking. Basically, everything I went through during the trip. I kept thinking that life could not get any stranger than this, but my travels make me think that it sure can. I bet Chris and Wendy have a triplet out there, too. Of the six billion people on the planet, I wonder how many unique molds were used! So, I will enjoy the next time I meet Chris’ twin. Hope we all get to meet a twin in our lifetime even if it is just to get a bit freaked out by life in general.

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Madagascar Paddle

November 29th, 2007

The paddling in Madagascar was probably secondary to seeing the people, landscapes and lemurs, but overall it was a joy. The paddling part of the trip did not start until I had been on the island for a week so I was ready to go. The group first met in the capital, Tana. I ate dinner with Sandra and two other customers. I was immediately suspect of one of them when after hearing what I am doing travel/life-wise that I will be good for the other guy because he is a little lost in life. Of course, the other person was not present. I told her that I didn’t think my situation would help anyone else and I wondered where she came off talking about someone else who she had known for less than a day. She also talked on and on almost all about herself and her glorious kayaking historywhich also did not endear her to me. Another member refered to her as the monologue lady. She reminded me in almost all details to a woman on the Morocco trip that drove me nuts so being only three in the future from that adventure I was disturbed. We spent the first 2-3 days in Tana, driving to Perinet NP where we stayed and saw lemurs, driving on to the coast and flying to the small town of Maronsetra where Pierre met us with the kayaks.

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Where the Hell is Rick?

November 14th, 2007

Well, I have been quite busy with a whirlwind tour of one of my favorite… possibly my favorite… countries – Kenya.  I am almost done here and finally got some internet connection so I will finish Madagascar (yes, I will finally get to the paddling part) and then fill you in on Kenya.  I think you will find I have some interesting things to share with you.  So stay tuned!  Also, I am overwhelmed with photos and can officially claim I am now in photo hell!  The good news is that I have amazing photos from Egypt, Brazil, Madagascar and Kenya to share with you and I will do it as possible with a goal of clearing the deck by time I leave for my next leg in early January.  By the way, I get back to JFK/Vermont December 19th after next week in Uganda and a month in Ethiopia.  The next leg is very unclear and for good reasons that you will learn about soon enough.  The start is the trip to Central Africa Republic to camp with the Ba’Aka people in the deep Congo forest.  WILD to say the least.  After that I will spend time in Cameroon since I will have a visa.  Then I return to Kenya for what I have not told you about yet!  Maybe South Africa, Zimbabwe and Malawi, but that will have to be determined later in the year.  Will I ever get to Asia?  I really do not know at this time!!!  I LOVE AFRICA!

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