Ethiopia stands out on the African continent for having never been successfully colonized by Europe, save for a brief period of occupation from 1936 to 1941 by the Italians. Dozens of cafes around Gondar’s central ‘piazza‘ sing notes of Italian culture through espresso drinks, pasta, and pizza. The urban fabric is woven from mud-huts and thatched roofs, colorful Italianate stucco, and modern glass and steel structures blossoming under gnarled wood scaffolding. Amharic is the primary spoken language, while ‘Ciao!‘ remains the single word to tell a friend goodbye, and ‘Hello’ is becoming a universal greeting as a gathering tide of tourism begins to rise in this ancient land. The residue of the brief Italian occupation seems sapped of any cynicism it may have once had, and "ferangie" (foreigner) is a friendly word to Ethiopians.
The sun rises and sets very close to six o’clock every day because we are so close to the equator. Ethiopians employ a strikingly logical time system, completely different from our own. The 'zero hour' occurs near sunrise at our 6am, and counts forward from then. 7am becomes one o'clock, noon becomes six o'clock, and so on. Most locals do us the courtesy of conversion, but more than once, clarification has been required over friendly chuckles. In keeping with the theme, the calendar diverges as well. Their's is a version of the Coptic calendar, encompassing 12 months of 30 days, a shorter 13th month, and a leap year in every four. Today in Ethiopia, therefore, is February 2nd, 2003. Heidi and I are certainly feeling younger!
For almost two weeks now, we have been rising with the light, moving through our work days under endless blue skies, and settling in for gentle and cool evenings of food and drink with new friends. We have been living in a small room at a charming hotel called ‘The Belegez Pension’ for only $10/night. There is a bathroom with a curtainless shower that manages to also soak the sink and toilet while we wash, and even boasts to have hot water on most days! Our room opens onto a small, protected courtyard that serves as a nexus of fellow travelers and joyful intersections. As we stand still here in Gondar, it seems, the world has come to us, and the ‘Belegez’ has become a familial neighborhood of ever-changing faces, accents, and communion.
A few of our neighbors:
Zak is a third-year resident at the University of Washington in Seattle, who was finishing his final week at the hospital when Heidi was starting her first. Bright, friendly, and clearly passionate about medicine, he was an almost constant companion to us both from the beginning of our stay, and a wonderful ambassador to Gondar, the ‘Belegez’, and the hospital. We hope to see him again in the Pacific Northwest, and wish him the best of luck as he becomes one of the chief residents at UW next year.
Robin and Suzanne are an affable and adventurous couple from Bristol, England who were traveling through Gondar on their way to the Simiens. Suzanne most recently spent six months volunteering in India working on educational projects, and Robin sneaks away from his job at Microsoft whenever possible to see even more of the world than they both already have. Fascinating minds and fantastic conversationalists, they were wonderful companions for a handful of days, and we look forward to knowing them again in other ports.
By chance, their arrival was timed with that of Russ, another Brit from Dorset. Russ is a “semi-retired” electrical engineer who radiates warmth and kindness, and possesses a seemingly unquenched thirst to know the world on a personal level. On his last adventure, he worked as a volunteer with a charity in Zambia that provides bicycles to locals and teaches them how to maintain them. We met him when he arrived in our pleasant court yard after a long day of traveling by himself on a bus from Addis Ababa. He has since been making short trips out of Gondar, and he and I have formed an unofficial “ferangie breakfast club” that I look forward to on most days.
And there are so many more... We have met dozens of other travelers, and formed growing bonds with a handful of locals outside the permeable walls of the small, eclectic, and ever-changing neighborhood that is the ‘Belegez’. Every evening, wherever we come from, a group of us; tourists, volunteers, and locals, gather around a common table to eat, drink, and to truly be merry. There is a vibrant exchange of ideas and experiences formed in the shape of the many places we have all seen at times before this one. And always, there is the joy of sharing a new moment together, a story freshly composed that will possibly be told at another table in another time and place. This is why I love to travel.
Tourism here is more than a promising stream of revenue to an expanding, but still rather anemic, economy. Ethiopia is a place carved almost entirely by her own hand. Today, she opens her arms to welcome others to know her beauty. We, as travelers, accept the invitation and enter into a peaceful exchange of not only money for goods and services, but of language, kinship, and shared, smiling experience.
