three stories

In Uganda I finished one book and read another – both beautiful works of creative nonfiction. The Chains of Heaven took me through northern Ethiopia visiting remote villages and monasteries more secluded than what seems possible. And through it all, it was as if Philip Marsden was saying, “This is what life is in Ethiopia. Here is history that lives on today.” The Bookseller of Kabul took me to Afghanistan to get to know a family that seemed different, but was trapped by tradition on every side. And through this family, Asne Seierstad  seemed to say, “Here is Afghanistan, where tradition traps people and slowly destroys women.”

And while I am reading these books, I am in Northern Uganda where there has been an incredible amount of pain and heartache in recent years. I visit villages that, just two years ago, were on roads that were dangerous to travel. I pass schools were children were abducted. I hear stories of bravery in the face of evil. I hear of a child left for dead by the rebels, but who survived. I see houses newly rebuilt as people returned from the camps. Driving through the beautiful countryside it takes my colleagues, my friends, telling me these stories to make it real because there are no bombed out buildings to indicate recent destruction. Just red dirt roads. It as is if I am reading a creative nonfiction book through their stories. And so, in my head, I am in Ethiopia, Afghanistan, and Uganda all at once. 

I spend one day visiting villages where our partners have not worked, and the next two days I go where they have worked. I say worked, but really I mean loved. How to explain the difference in these villages? Where they have not worked, people are drinking out of streams and water holes that resemble mud holes. Latrines are falling down, it seems as if the bush is pushing in on the village trying to slowly suffocate it. In the villages where they have worked, clean water is being drunk from wells or biosand filters. There are drying racks for dishes, latrines with doors and roofs and solid floors, hand washing stations, and garbage pits. The compounds around the houses are clean and the bush seems content to stay where it is. Are the children and the clothes cleaner? Is there a brightness in their eyes? I would like to believe so, but maybe it is just my imagination. Regardless, it seems as if there is hope here. They could live steeped in past pain, but this is a story of change, of growth, of hope. And that is why I say my colleagues and friends loved on these people. Because items and things can change the physical, but for the heart, it takes love.

Ethiopia was about history and today being one. Afghanistan was about tradition trapping people. Uganda was about hope and love prevailing. Uganda was my favorite story. 

Title: The Chains of Heaven: An Ethiopian Romance

Author: Philip Marsden

Genre: creative nonfiction, travel 

Form: paperback

Recommended: Yes

Thoughts:  At age 21 Marsden tried to travel Ethiopia, but was quickly shut out as the nation was collapsing in conflict. Two decades later he was able to fulfill his dream and walks through northern Ethiopia visiting churches and remote monasteries along the way. Marsden winds his story of walking with the history of the region in such a way that past becomes present as history lives through the people he meets. At times there is more history filled with hard to pronounce (much less remember) names than there is story, but as a whole, The Chains of Heaven leaves you with a vivid image of Ethiopia that entices you to put on your walking shoes. 

There were a few great quotes in this book, and I can’t resist including to excerpts here. I hope you enjoy: 

“Ethiopia taught me many things. As a naive twenty-one-year-old, with years of flunked schooling behind me, I was ready for the simplest of lessons. Instead I was presented with paradoxes. I learnt of the cruelty that could be perpetrated in the name of a good idea. I saw how a people hurtling towards catastrophe, hungry, with population growth out of control, could go on living day to day with such astonishing grace. I saw how those apparently ignored by divine goodness could still apply their greatest energy to worship. I learnt that the human spirit is more robust than life itself.

Ethiopia opened my eyes to the earth’s limitless range. I pictured the country’s startling scenes and stories multiplied across the globe, then factored up by the past. It made the notion of ‘a small world’, ‘a shrinking world’, look absurd, and it made me restless. 

Ethiopia instilled in me the habit of a lifetime, the habit of travel. It revealed the rewards that can be had simply from being footloose among strangers, from taking remote and narrow paths with bare-legged farmers. It bred in me the conviction that if there is any purpose to our time on this earth, it is to understand it, to seek out its diversity, to celebrate its heroes and its wonders — in short, to witness it.” pg 21

“Outside the church gates, two hundred men had gathered for their monthly council. They sat in the dust, on bare banks and knuckle-like boulders. They were clustered beneath the cooling foliage of eucalyptus. I stood in the shad with Hiluf and we watched. 

One among them rose to his feet. 

‘I bought fertilizer. The kebelle [administrative district] gave me the money and said, You can pay us after harvest. But the size of the harvest was too small. Now they want much more money.’

A debtara [non-ordained church official, responsible for the music and danching, often expert in herbal lore] answered. ‘You must be careful to pay back as early as you can. Even if your maize is not growing, the amount to pay still grows.’

Another stood. ‘They told us we must dig a hole for a pond. They said they will give us a sheet. Well I have dug my hole and they say there is no sheet.’

‘I have dug a hole too. My cattle fell in and couldn’t get out.’

‘Put brush around it. At kermet [the season of ‘big’ rains, typically late June to early September] God will provide water.’

‘Last kermet the water did not fill the pond even half — now it is all gone…’

For some time the complexities of rural life were aired, a life in which development schemes arrived like the weather, God-given: sometimes they brought salvation and sometimes they brought disaster.” pg 248-250

To me, summer months mean that my weekends will begin to fill up with camping trips, picnics, and any other outing that will place me in nature surrounded by friends. Sadly, this equates to a lot of time on the road, and I will likely spend time waiting impatiently to pass sections of ongoing road work as construction crews fix roads damaged by winter frosts, summer rains, vehicles carrying heavy loads, and excessive traffic. Although I am impatient, I should not be as I have roads to travel. 

Most of the communities where Blood:Water Mission supports work are not blessed by good roads and construction crews are rare. The roads are rough, some are not passable in the rainy season, and others do not have bridges to cross streams. In Ethiopia, there was no road, and the community used hand tools to build an additional 1.5 kilometers of road in order to transport a drill rig. 

The day I went to visit the well that had been drilled, our car came to a place in the road that had been washed out the day before by heavy rains. The road was not marked with construction cones or signs, and there was no pile-up of vehicles waiting to pass. There was just us, and in front of us the community was already working to repair the road in the same way that they had built it – with their farm tools and their sweat. As we abandoned the vehicle to walk to the well, I realized that I was walking on a road literally built so that people could drink safe water. And they did so joyfully. 

This summer when I pass construction crews on the road I will be reminded of these people who built their own road so that they could have water, and maybe, just maybe, I will not grow impatient as I wait.

~written for Blood:Water Mission’s June Newsletter

Barkot, who’s name means blessing, is the young child of a woman who works at WaterAid. I had the blessing of sharing food, coffee, and time with this family.

The Holy Trinity Church, where Haile Selassie is buried.

I had more good coffee in Ethiopia than I have had anywhere in the world.

Notice the beautiful terracing – it covered all of the hills.

A latrine made in the traditional style of the homes in Konso.

A young girl standing in front of her family’s latrine made out of wood and grasses.

I remember when I did not like Ethiopian food and would dream of Indian food every time I would end up at an Ethiopian restaurant. Since then, much has changed in my taste buds. Now I enjoy the  depth of each dish that comes from the spices and cooking styles used – neither common in the American kitchen. And so, I ate my way through Ethiopia. But, beyond even the specific foods, I now appreciate how Ethiopian food is eaten. 

Each meal is served on a large platter covered with injera, the airy, tangy local bread. The different dishes are found in piles around the platter, and everyone gathers around this common plate. Pieces of injera are broken off to scoop up sauces made of vegetables, beans, and meats. The meal becomes a negotiation between hands as each person reaches for their favorite dishes. Sometimes you pause mid-air to prevent a collision of hands searching for food, and other times you stop to offer more injera or certain dish to your neighbor. By the end, everyone has had their fill, oily hands are ready to be washed, and each person is asked if he will, “Take coffee or tea.”

The most beautiful part of this is that it is a shared experience. Acquaintance or best friend, a meal like this is a unifying experience. You cannot pull your ‘a la carte’ plate to your little corner to hide behind your knife and fork. You cannot ignore your neighbor – you might be secretly thankful that his favorite sauce seems to be your least favorite sauce or be hoping he offers you the last bit of your that special sauce you happen to love. Maybe a certain sauce is particularly outstanding tonight and you want everyone to try it – no awkward passing of the plate the table – everyone just reaches across to try it for themselves. 

And so, someday, I think I might learn to cook Ethiopian food. When I do, we can gather around one plate in my kitchen for this shared experience.

The work that I came to see is in southwest Ethiopia is in a hard but beautiful land. Our partner organization, WA, was warned that the Konso Woreda was not an easy place to work and that many had failed before them, but they decided to try. All of the mountainsides are terraced with layers supported by rocks. Household compounds are surrounded by wood fences and include a round home or two with thatched roofs, a cooking area, and a small chicken coop or two. These compounds are often grouped in villages, though some are found as solitary fortresses dropped in the middle of terraced fields. Most of the men are gone from the villages as they tend to their main farms for days, or possibly weeks, at a time in the rift valley, a five plus hour walk from their homes. I am here during the middle of the big rainy season, and so I am surrounded by green and the weather is idilic – warm but not hot, some rain, and cool nights. But during the dry seasons, it is not hard to imagine how the heat will return, the land dry up, the vegetation disappear, and the colors be reduced to shades of brown. It is in this land of contrasts between the dry and rainy season that people here carve out a living and a home. And, in the midst of it all, they smile and they laugh. 

I am standing in front of a set of latrines being constructed at an elementary school. (I have not downloaded photos yet, so this one and the car photos are thanks to WA staff.)

For those of you who pray for me, thank you. Tuesday midmorning, I was in an accident. No one was hurt in the accident, and it could have been much worse. As is, the Land Cruiser landed on its side turned around 180 degrees. I have often wondered what it would be like to crawl out of a vehicle on its side, and I found out. After the police report was filed, the gathered crowd helped to right the vehicle and get it out of the ditch. A missing bolt was found, and we were on the road that afternoon. From the moment of the accident until we left, people surrounded us with help and concern – from lending hands to get out of the Land Cruiser to righting the vehicle to asking about my health to helping the police officer, we could not have been surrounded by more caring and helpful people. While not physically hurt or emotionally shaken by the accident, I am reminded that the travel I do by road is by far the most dangerous part of my job and my life. Thank you for your prayers.

n every relationship there is a first impression – cities and countries included. Today, day one, has my mind flitting from image to image as that first impression of my relationship with Addis Ababa, and Ethiopia, begins to form. These are a few of those images:

• An airport that I was able to glide through and a visa that only cost $20. The crowds upon exit did not crush me or force me through an uncomfortable river of taxi drivers. 
• Over breakfast I was blessed to share a table with three Ugandan parliamentarians, all women, here for a conference. You never know who you will meet before you are caffeinated. But the coffee moments later was strong and wonderful. 
• At the hotel and office, people have been kind and friendly, but not in an intrusive or overbearing manner. 
• On each floor in the office was a station for hot beverages that had three thermoses: tea, coffee, and hot milk. Small tea cups are found in plentitude – a Starbuck’s tall would be an extra large. 
• Two flights of stairs make my heart go: Kaboom…Kaboom…Kaboom.At 7,700 feet elevation, my body needs to do a bit of adjusting. (Thankfully it does not go: KABOOM…KABOOM…KABOOM, thus bringing me some hope that I am not 100% out of shape.)
• The coolness of the altitude makes for an incredibly easy transition from Nashville spring.
• Ethiopian foods rich with flavor were served family style at the canteen (lunch room). It is good to be in a place where one’s right hand smells of the richness of local cuisine.
• Sim cards for cell phones are hard to come by, and East African sim cards (e.g., Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, etc.) do not work here. Tomorrow I get to borrow one for my stay. But even that will probably not work where I am going first part of the week. A government controlled market.
• Tea starts with spiced water and is outstanding. 
• On my hour long walk this evening I did not run into another white face. I also received wonderfully little attention. 
• Children cannot resist returning a smile when you look them in the eye. 
• There is not much traffic on the roads. Side streets remain unpaved. Taxis have blue bodies and white tops. 
• Some women wear pants, primarily jeans, but a women’s calves do not seem to be shown. Sleeveless tops also seem to be out. 
• Over coffee and cake, the group of women I was with laughed beautiful laughs.
• My skin is coated with the film that comes from a desert city (end of the dry season) which is not exclusively sterilized by pavement and sidewalks and air conditioners. 
• The local beer I had tonight, St. George’s, was a not bad, but certainly not something to write home about. But, the shield on its logo was something not normally seen on a beer bottle. 

Those are some of my first impressions. Yes, they are fragmented and hop from one thing to another, but is that not the joy of a first impression? First impressions take time to get one’s mind around and to attempt to unpack. They are filled with emotions and hidden observations. It is part of the m