Howdy,
I know it’s been sometime so I’ll try and re-cap what I’ve been up to for the past few weeks. Over mid-term break (Nov. 8-11) myself and four other teachers made a trip to Harar, Ethiopia for a couple of relaxing days. Harar is a small historic city of about 150,000 located in eastern Ethiopia. In theory, the Ethiopian border should be about an hour away. However, due to the last hour or so being not on a road it takes about two hours to get to the Wuchale the border town. In order to get to Ethiopia you basically have to off road for an hour in the middle of the desert and drive in the general direction of Wuchale. After arriving in Wuchale the first thing I noticed was the incessant amount of trash. While I was waiting for my Ethiopian visa at the Ethiopian embassy, a Norwegian Somali man told me that it’s often said that the national flower of Somaliland is a plastic bag since so many of them are caught up in the trees all over the country. Wuchale for sure is no exception to this saying. The entire town looked like it was a land fill with a town some how placed somewhere in the center. After going through immigration on both sides of the border we went to haggle with cab drivers to get us a bus or cab to Harar.
In most cases you would normally take a bus for a few dollars to the next city Jijiga and then catch another bus to Harar, but in our case, one of the other teachers suggested for a few more dollars we could take a nicer bus with fewer people in it. We agreed and took the more expensive route. The bus was nearly empty with exception of a few people hitching rides along the way. In the end we probably paid too much money for the ride and made sure to skip out on the option on the way back.
The most interesting part of the journey into Ethopia was when we stopped at the many government check points and the women sharing the van with us nervously stuffed bags filled with sandals, tea kettles and clothes underneath the seats in front of them. What they were hiding was imported “contraband” from the military police. At every checkpoint the guards knew what was up and instead of persecuting the women they accepted cash bribes and allowed them continue on into Ethiopia. At point while I was watching one of the women pay off the guards, one of the men in the front seat turned around said to me “see Ethiopia is very civilized!” with a big smile on his face.
On the way back we experienced the same smuggling of goods except this time the goods were mainly qat. Qat is grown all over Ethiopia and is brought into Somaliland daily. Often coffee farmers will stop growing coffee since qat is far more profitable. One woman and her boyfriend smuggling qat happened to be sitting next to me. As soon as we reached our first government check point the woman made sure to reach across me, shut the curtains on my window and stuff her bushel of Qat underneath the seat in front of me. Once again the guards had seen this routine far too many times and reached into my window through the closed curtain and grabbed the Qat underneath the seat. The women’s qat was returned to her minutes later after some arguing and I’m sure some cash payment.
After driving through the mountains we arrived in Harar. Compared to Hargaesa, Harar is much more definable in terms actually being a city. Paved roads and sidewalks are abundant which is a nice change of scenery from dusty dirty unpaved roads you find in Hargaesa. However, I was quite taken back by the state of the toilets, easily some of the worst I’ve ever seen. Picture the worst bar’s toilet you’ve ever encountered and multiply that times 100 and you’ll get the toliets in Harar.
View of Harar from Arthur Rimbaud’s House
With the state of the toilets aside, Harar has some extremely beautiful historic sites. My favorite by far was touring the French poet Arthur Rimbauds house. Rimbaud lived in Harar for a short period before the end of his life. If you have not read any of his poetry I would highly recommend checking him out. Not only is his poetry extremely epic, but so are the stories that made up his nomadic lifestyle during his later years eventually bringing him to Harar. While living in Harar, Rimbaud was a weapons and coffee merchant.
Inside of Rimbaud’s House
Hawks near the market in Harar
Another popular spot that we made sure to check out was the Hyena man and his feeding of wild Hyenas. Apparently, the Hyenas are so tame in Harar that they wander the streets in packs at night. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to witness this but instead visited the Hyena man and fed some Hyenas.
Feeding a wild Hyena
One of my main goals was to come across some Ethopian coffee since Harar is a well known region for producing high quality Ethopoian coffee. Through my search which brought many areas all across the city, I was only able to find out that just because high grade coffee is grown in the region does not mean that the best coffee even makes it to the markets. I still made sure to pick up some green coffee in the market and vist the only coffee roaster in Harar. The roasted coffee turned out to be incredibly burned and roasted very inconsisnatly but still is of much better quality then the instant coffee we have at Abaarso Tech. When asking around about where I might find the best coffee in Harar the owner of our hotel laughed in my face and said “they’re all gimmicks, go to Starbucks!”
Wandering the streets of the “old city”
Jump ahead a few weeks and it’s the annual Thanksgiving Day Teacher’s vs Students American tackle football game.
To give you an idea about our annual Abaarso Tech Thanksgiving Day teacher vs Student Football Match our school is built on extremely rock inhabited ground. The football field has had a decent amount rocks taken out (thanks to students in detention), but to say the least it’s no AstroTurf. We played full on tackle which equated out to the tossing of teachers and students alike with a few smacked craniums and bloody elbows thrown in on the side. After I made my first head on tackle the adrenaline rush and urgent need not to loose kept me going for the rest of the two hour game.
Will getting ripped to shreds
So I’ve taken it upon myself mainly because I was asked to but also maybe because I come from a family of runners to coach the Abaarso Tech boys cross country team. Even though it’s been quite sometime since I’ve done a lot of serious running I’ve decided to give it a shot. The only problem is we don’t really have a lot of options for places to run. The main place we have been running is on a dirt road below the school which leads out a sand filled valley. Besides the valley, we have a “track’ that loops around the school which is supposedly a kilometer.
Down in the valley it is much cooler and easier on your lungs since the school is located so high up on a hill. The only small caveat is that the road leading into the valley is amongst a inactive mine field that is in the process of being deactivated. However, thanks to the Halo Trust an NGO with a camp located at the base of the school we are safe from blowing ourselves up.
On one of the days that we were out running in the valley we ran into a Halo Trust jeep with a British man behind the wheel. He asked how much further we were running and warned us that in a kilometer or so there were still active mine fields. He said as long as we stayed away from the red rocks and on the right side of the road we would be fine. I was sure to cover those details at the next practice.
Anyway, that’s enough from the Horn for now. I’ve booked my ticket and will be heading to the Kenyan coast for New Years and Christmas.
Oh and I wanted to thank the Somaliland regional elections for giving us two days off the other week. In Somaliland, you do not have to be from a certain region to vote in that region. Since the roads are all closed on election day you must be in the region that you want to vote in during the election. Also, in order to mark that you have voted you get a smudge of permanent marker on your pinky finger. It was explained to me in class that if you stick your finger in some oil you can remove the marker and go and vote again. Some students voted multiple times. I believe this unfair voting process may have been the result of the violent clashes that occurred a few days ago in Hargeisa. One of our student’s brothers was running for a position in office so 50 students went to travel to that region to vote for him. Hence why we got the days off. Some democracy eh? Looks like I got a good writing assignment for my 12th graders.
Salaam
Daniel