The Thousand and One Ethiopian Nights

A Memoir by Susan Scharfman

As we move through life we carry so much of our friends with us. Those fine old times when we were young and life was fresh and all things seemed so simple.

Author near Addis Ababa, Entoto Mountains

The African country bordering Sudan, Somalia, Kenya and Eritrea is not on every traveler’s must-see list. Landlocked on the Horn of Africa, it is not on any AARP travel destination. Politically and geologically rocky and diverse, Ethiopia can sometimes be hazardous to your health. But if you want an unconventional experience in a 3 million year old civilization, you might find old Abyssinia much like its Yirgacheffe coffee—spicy, dicey, romantic and bold.

ZOMA Art Center

NETSA Art Village

Makush Art Gallery

Today there is a flourishing art scene in the capital Addis Ababa, with the Zoma Contemporary Art Center (ZCAC), the NETSA Art Village and Makush Art Gallery to name a few. Renowned in the 1960s for his murals, mosaics and stained glass, Afewerk Tekle (1932-2012) remains among the country’s most celebrated artists and one I especially remember when I remember Ethiopia.

Orthodox Church Mural by Afewerk Tekle

Stained Glass Mural by Afewerk Tekle

A History Older Than History
Ethiopians are a beautiful creative people with an ancient history that differs from any other African nation. Except for the brief Italian invasion by Benito Mussolini’s forces early in World War II, when the British kicked them out, Ethiopia is the only African country never colonized.

An old Abyssinian culture originally from what is modern-day Yemen, recent reconstruction of human prehistory from DNA studies trace Ethiopia’s beginnings to 1,000 BC. Composed of many ethnic tribes, the Oromo and Amhara are the most populous and the official language is Amharic. Since the cold blooded murder in 1975 of former Emperor Haile Selassi, strangled in the basement of his palace, Ethiopia has wavered between absolute rule by the God-King Selassi—to the totalitarian Marxist Militia that brutally executed him—to the present Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) with a prime minister and constitution.

Former Emperor Haile Selassie

Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip visit Emperor Haile Selassie in 1965

The Last Emperor
When I was assigned to our embassy in Addis Ababa in the mid-1960s, the country was relatively peaceful, the city very dark, and Emperor Haile Selassi was my next door neighbor. I had a front row seat to the 1965 royal visit of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip when they paraded through crowds at the palace gates. Since my apartment house stood directly behind the royal palace, sleep was challenging. At night the emperor’s pet lions roamed freely throughout the palace gardens, warding off potential prowlers and agitating the royal peacocks. So I went to bed every night to the “high C” screech of jittery peacocks, and the grunts and roars of those noisy cats.

Small in stature with an epithet ten times his size, “Emperor Haile Selassi I, Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah, Elect of God, King of Kings of Ethiopia” proclaimed himself the direct descendant of Menilek I, son of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. As absolute ruler, he reigned for 45 years and helped bring his country into the 20th century. And herein lies the tale of the once and little king.

A walk on the wild side

Former Ethiopian Flag

The Short Story According To Ethiopian/Arabian Biblical Lore
Once upon the mists of time, the beautiful, rich and well educated Queen of Sheba lived in southern Arabia. When she heard about the wise and wealthy King Solomon of the Hebrews in Jerusalem, she decided to make a pilgrimage to meet him. Her caravan lavishly loaded with spices, gold and precious stones for the king, Sheba made the 1,400 mile journey to Jerusalem and stayed longer than she had intended. Solomon became enamored of the exotic queen but made her promise not to take anything from his palace without permission or he would exact a penalty. One night, following a deliberately excessive spicy feast, the queen developed a terrible thirst and went seeking a drink of water. When a servant observed her taking the water without permission, it was reported to Solomon whose penalty was a night of lovemaking in the royal bed. From this union, Menelik I was born, and Haile Selassie claimed he was his direct descendent.

Queen of Sheba meets King Solomon

Before Coffee - Injera and Wat
You experience the geological diversity of this country when you fly over the Entoto mountains into the 8,000-foot high capital of Addis Ababa, where the land appears to rise up to meet you. Outside the city, eucalyptus forests, high canyons, steep gorges, scrub desert and ice-cold lakes are idyllic places for hikers and campers. The traditional meal is spicy Injera and Wat, which you eat with your fingers. Injera is baked from a sourdough batter and placed on your table or brass tray like a gigantic pancake. Wat is the fiery stew that’s served in the center of the Injera. You tear off a piece of Injera and use it to scoop up the stew (chicken, beef or vegetables). Cold beer helps.

The Legendary Hyena Man
In the 1960s television had not yet come to this part of the world, and our embassy tennis courts were not lit at night. With the exception of one crowded disco, and one second rate hotel, there wasn’t much to do in the evenings. Getting around involved careful driving and cautious walking. With few street lamps, the city at night was a dark, deserted place where feral hyenas brazenly entered the city to prowl for anything they could get their noxious jaws around—living or dead. Hyenas are not particular about what they eat including humans when the victim happens to be sleeping in the street. But not to fear. A mysterious entity lived in our city—a bedraggled recluse who had an uncanny alliance with the nasty predators. Solitary and harmless, the man wandered the shadowy backstreets whistling, humming, virtually luring the animals out of town with bits of meat. They followed him like the Pied Piper. We called him “the hyena man,” and that is all we knew about him. Present day local “entrepreneurs” have made that bizarre experience into a thriving act performed for tourists.

The Blue Nile Falls, A Bridge To The Sun
A former U.S. Air Force pilot, Walter was among our little band of expatriates who hung out together. At the request of the Ethiopian government, Walt had been hired by USAID to spray malaria infected areas. On returning to Addis from a trip to the old capital of Gondar, I hitched a ride with Walt to photograph the Blue Nile Falls. We took off in his single engine Cessna T-210, heading for Bahir Dar and Lake Tana, the largest lake in Ethiopia and source of the Blue Nile. The river gets its name from Lake Tana’s waters, blue-black at flood tide. From there it flows to Khartoum and on into Egypt and the White Nile, whose sediment gives it a light grey cast.

Blue Nile Falls

CESSNA T-210

When we reached the falls, Walt didn’t fly over them—he flew into them. A breathtaking rainbow colored bridge to the sun filtered through the mist. I opened my window, took some shots and got a face full of water. Hair soaking wet, I wanted more photos so I asked Walt to make another pass. Peering up at me through dense foliage—the white-fringed face of a silky black and white long-tailed monkey. The elegant Colobus Monkey is the only kind of its species without a thumb, and a marvel of East Africa’s natural world.  

Colobus Monkey

As we banked to head home, a barrage of bullets tore through the fuselage, zapping Walt in his bottom. We couldn’t see the gunmen but he knew they wanted the Cessna. Despite the pain, Walt wasn’t going to let anyone have his aircraft—or us as hostages. With Walt screaming obscenities and me praying, he managed to hold the aircraft steady while his blood leaked into the floorboards. We made it back to Bahir Dar with Walt’s pride as wounded as his anatomy. After medical attention and a few belts of his personal Johnnie Walker Black, the bush pilot was back on cloud nine.

Lalibella

Those Amazing Rock Churches of Lalibela
Some 400 miles from Addis is the city of Lalibela whose airport terminal in 1966 was a tin roofed hut. Here in the 13th century King Lalibela ordered construction of twelve monolithic churches. His intention was to construct (and conceal under ground) a 'New Jerusalem’ after Muslim conquests halted Christian pilgrimages to the Holy Land. Unlike the pyramids built with quarried stone blocks, these medieval churches were carved by skilled craftsmen out of solid living rock.

Originally concealed deep under ground, the churches remain holy places of Ethiopian Orthodox Christian pilgrimage. More accessible to pilgrims today, I had to crawl on my hands and knees to reach a subterranean darkness. Once there, I was transported to the Middle Ages. In the dim shadows a priest stood holding a torch in front of an altar surrounded by well preserved religious wall paintings. He looked like he’d been standing there for 500 years! The monks tell you the Ark of the Covenant is similarly hidden in a monastery in the ancient kingdom of Axum, where Queen Sheba lived among the obelisks in the 10th century BC. A powerful empire in northern Ethiopia, Axum played a vital role in international trade from the 1st century until the latter part of the 1st millennium I(100—940 CE). Ethiopia is indeed the old land of legends that Indy Jones missed.

Crocodile Hunters of the Baro River (Ethiopia/Sudan Border)
Though we spent considerable time at work or on embassy tennis courts, how long can you stay in a place that has one disco, no streetlights and hyenas lurking in the shadows? My friend Henry was a stringer for the Associated Press based in Addis and we backpacked often. When he learned that two Yugoslav brothers, Alek and Jan Rankoviç, made their living hunting crocodiles on the Baro River, he thought it would make a good story and a fun trip. Ravenous jaws of hyenas and snapping mandibles of crocs are not my idea of fun. But Henry's considerable coaxing convinced me to join him and Joe Frankel, a Coca Cola agent, for a safari to the South Sudan-Ethiopia border. Two Ethiopian friends from my office joined us. Relatively quiet in 1965, today our embassy will advise you not to go there.

Ethiopian Airlines pilots could take off and land on plateaus the size of postage stamps. Armed with malaria pills and insect repellent, we flew in one of their twin engine DC-3s crammed with farmers, chickens and goats, from Addis Ababa at 8,000 feet, to a low plateau where a Land Rover waited to drive us further down to the tropical Baro River. Two Peace Corps volunteers had worked in a nearby village. They knew the river was infested with crocodiles and were repeatedly warned not to swim there. When they disappeared we knew to heed the warning sign. Steamy tropics notwithstanding: No Swimming!

The Dance
On our first night after supper around an enormous fire, we had unexpected guests. Herdsmen and farmers, the Anuak tribe are a Luo Nilotic ethnic group who have inhabited parts of East Africa and the upper Nile for centuries. They trickled in to our little circle until we were surrounded by 25 or 30 curious blue-black naked bodies covered in ghostly white ash. The Rankoviç brothers had invited them to dance for us. In the flickering firelight they started drumming and plucking their primitive instruments while moving their bodies very slowly to the rhythm of the music. As the beat got faster and the dancing more erotic, they kicked up a cloud of white ash and dust that settled over all of us. One of the women broke away from her African chorus line, removed a large thick ivory bracelet from her forearm and slipped it on mine, up to and over my elbow. I’m not into ivory from animals, but to refuse the gift would have been an insult.

The following night we were invited to accompany the brothers on a crocodile hunt. That morning they had given us a tour of their warehouse. The spectacle of hundreds of carcasses hanging up to dry freaked me out. But everyone was going and I didn’t want to be left alone in the camp.

Medicine Man

The Hunt
It was dark on the river when we scrambled into several small boats—just we humans and the insects. I noticed the hunters had razor sharp pointed teeth that made them look ferocious. They carried lanterns and thick heavy clubs. Soon the river was swarming with crocodiles attracted to the lanterns. The lights hypnotized the animals long enough for the men to club them between the eyes. After stunning the crocs, they shot them once so as not to damage the skins. The scene was bloody and nauseating and I threw up over the side of the boat. Although crocodiles are not my favorite wildlife, it was too much for my stomach. I always regretted witnessing that mercenary slaughter, which today in Africa has reached unimaginable proportions among all animal species.

The final night, asleep in our camp beds, I awakened to a strange monotonous drone. Through the mosquito netting I saw two Anuak men with ornate headdresses sitting beside a small fire. They were chanting and throwing amulets into the flames. Henry had heard them too when he reached out his hand to mine. “Don’t worry,” he whispered. “They’re medicine men sending us protection for a safe journey home.” And it was.

See the PBS series, AFRICA’S GREAT CIVILIZATIONS with Henry Louis Gates, Jr.