 |
A girl wearing beads at the market. |
As Tedy, the tour guide, and I traversed through the old market-place my eye caught three young girls, who seemed no older than ten, seeking shade under a black umbrella. They were selling red onions.
I doubted if they would say yes to being photographed and Tedy suggested that I may purchase lollipops for a photo.
Two of the girls did not mind being photographed. They would gladly accept the lollipops. But one of the girls forcefully opposed. She took to her feet and closed the umbrella. She had been told that foreigners with cameras would most likely sell their photos to magazines or newspapers. And so she had also learnt to demand cash if a tourist asks to take her photo.
“He’s going to tell people in his country that this is what we look like,” she argued to her two friends.
I was not up for unwanted attention, although none of the adults around interfered. So I agreed to pay her for the photo. The young girl wanted no less than one Ethiopian Birr, which converts roughly to seventy South African cents. I parted with the lollipops and cash.
Feeding Hyena
Throughout our walk Tedy exhibited – and confirmed – that he had read the guide book in my backpack. He showed me the places and people, almost in exact reference order, to confirm that we are on the same page.
Most of Harar’s sites can be easily covered in two days. These include shrines of former Islamic leaders, the town’s somewhat not-so-splendid six gates, and feeding raw meat to a pack of hyenas after dark.
|
|
Balay and hyenas.
|
“Stand close to me,” I hurriedly told the hyena’s friend, Balay, when he handed me a piece of meat to airlift.
One of the hyenas reached for the meat and I let go as he pulled it with his fangs. There was not much light where we did the feeding and I counted almost 20 hyenas around us.
Harar has always had a special relationship with hyenas. Balay spoke to the creatures like they were little puppies. He had learnt how to handle them from his legendary father who has been feeding hungry packs nightly for years.
In previous times, holes were even dug into the old town’s walls as it was believed that hyenas absorbed evil spirits when they passed humans. It is also believed that these scavengers prefer raw donkey meat. After we had fed them, two strayed from the pack and followed us. Balay chased them off with scowls and stones.
At night, the hyenas and humans walk the same paths without attacking each other.
Tuna Pizza, The Safer Option!
I had to rush back to the Belayneh Hotel because water shortages in Harar means that one has to schedule things like taking a shower. At Belayneh, water was only available in the morning between 6am and 8am and then again at night from 6pm until 10pm. Water shortages in Harar also meant hands were washed bucket-style.
I was dying for roast chicken but lost my appetite when I used the outside toilet and saw one of the kitchen staff plucking the feathers off a dangling chicken. Harar’s butcheries notoriously hang their meat out in the open, without refrigeration.
Tuna pizza seemed like a safer option but when it arrived forty minutes later it was missing an important component: melted cheese. The base was smeared with tomato sauce and a can of tuna mixed with onion. Five minutes is probably all it spent in the oven.
“We ran out of cheese,” the owner came over minus apologetic sympathy.
Unfortunately, quality restaurant service is not an Ethiopian highlight, even in its capital city Addis Ababa, so I was not going to send back the pizza. Even though I wanted to tell the owner that his waiter forgot to tell me earlier that they had run out of cheese. Besides, there are not that many restaurant options after 9pm.
Harar goes to bed early. So I had to hurriedly swallow whole to get back to Belayneh for a shower. Tedy wasn’t too impressed either with his offering of Tibs, a local favorite comprising fried meat pieces, served with sour-tasting traditional bread called injera.
“I don’t want to eat at this restaurant again,” I told Tedy as we finished up.
“I don’t even want to walk in this street again,” said Tedy, displaying dissatisfaction with his Tibs.
It was like when I told an Ethiopian journalist that I do not need five-star accommodation he tellingly joked, “You won’t find that in Harar”.
Charm is not discovered in the hotels or services but rather in the invisible Harar atmosphere. And if you’re not looking for it all you will see is a dump.
Deep Thoughts Under the Sun
|
|
However it is a small town, Harar gets noisy.
|
The sun must have gotten to me because I started having deep thoughts about the vast development needs in Ethiopia, the country that hosts the African Union – an organization that aims to rescue the continent of its woes.
In Harar one comes face-to-face with every statistic you will encounter in reports drawn up by organizations like the United Nations. Statistics that read like ‘fifty percent of the world lives on less than one dollar a day’ and ‘thirty-five percent of the world’s citizens do not have access to clean drinking water’.
I wondered how one even begins to talk development in Africa from a fancy building in New York. Or from a road distance roughly ten hours beyond Harar, in Addis Ababa, where the UN’s Economic Commission for Africa is based.
How do we talk development to communities whose sons don’t go to school because they need to herd animals that are sold at livestock markets?
The noise of life awoke me from these thoughts. Harar might be small but it can get noisy, with its rickshaw drivers speeding by and taxies competing for space with donkeys and goats and people carrying live chickens for tonight’s supper.
Tedy then also had the bright idea of traveling to Babille and Jijiga. Once again my heart lifted to the possibilities for exploration. I felt happy to be on the move; on the road of newness. What will be greeting my eyes on the other end of this ride? What stories will increase my memory bank?
To continue
|
