A stick by any other name would be as useful. In Ethiopia, men carry sticks, an implement of multiple uses limited only by the holder’s imagination. This stick is perhaps 4-5 feet long and may have a crook, a handle or nothing at its top end. It’s a simple affair really, often just a long branch. It’s carried slung behind the neck and shoulders, the bearer’s wrists draped over it, from which his hands dangle like two wilted flowers.
Sticks are useful for propping up awkwards loads of hay
No man seems willing to appear in public without his stick for company. At times, of course, the stick has to go to work. It may be employed to whack cows and bulls on the rump to move them out of the way, across the road, away from a planted field, closer to market. Similar rump-whacking maneuvers may be required with sheep and goats. Another possible stick job is as a guide to a donkey nearly hidden under a tall mound of hay.
If the donkey starts to weave in the wrong direction, the stick is waved on that side, sending the donkey back where he belongs. When not employed on livestock jobs, the stick may be used as furniture. The bearer, often someone resigned to long hours standing in a field guarding his flock, will plant the stick in the ground at a gentle angle to himself. Then he’ll lift one leg, rest that foot against the knee of the other leg and thus, stork-like, will lean against his stick, happily one-legged, no chair needed. On church days or holidays, the crook-necked stick may come down from its perch behind the shoulders, to be swung as snappily as any gentleman’s cane. When one of the few dogs in Ethiopia comes charging out from a house, the stick is a weapon of self-defense. It also can be used to dig a modest hole or two. it’s especially helpful when no other beast of burden is around and the man must carry a heavy load by himself. Then the stick rests on one shoulder, it’s back end supporting half the load while the front of the load sits on the man’s shoulder. And if your camel just isn’t moving at the pace you wish, the stick is long enough to give even that tall animal a reminder of who’s boss.
Apart from observing sticks, we have been heading steadily north. Recently we had two days in Axum, the seat of the early Axumite Empire which flourished from about 340-720AD. It is said the first Axumite Emperor was the one who became a Christian and then made that the official mode in Ethiopia. Not thrilled by the standard sights, in front of which were parked tourist buses spewing pale, frumpy Germans and Chinese, B and I went a bit off-grid. We decided to search out the one rock-hewn monastery in this area: Dereka Abba Meta. These rock-hewn places are exactly what the words themselves mean: church or monastery buildings that are actually chiseled into a rock massif, rather than being free-standing buildings that are built of stone. Typically they are barely visible from the outside, just a rectangular hole for a door, or a square hole for a window. But inside, apparently, are carved rooms with ceilings soaring 30 feet, columns and arches, painted walls, the whole shebang.
We had good directions to Dereka from our guide book, which advised having a private vehicle to get there. Brunhilde obliged, but at first all we could find were dead ends. After much futile asking of “Dereka?” and “Abba Meta?” to people who scratched their heads and then said they didn’t speak English, (and here I thought my Amharic accent was improving) we finally chanced on the right road by ourselves. We headed out into the countryside where, after less than a mile, the good dirt lane we were on devolved into one mighty rough track. We passed groups of people walking back from market, the men, of course, sauntering with sticks over their shoulders, the women laden as heavily as the donkeys. After another stretch we reached a what looked like a cobblestone street where an unfriendly giant had dug up all the cobbles and then flung them back down, helter-skelter, creating a torturous bed of sharp ends over which we bumped and rattled at 2 miles an hour.
Searching for Dereka Abba Meta
Unsure if we were going the right way, we searched for someone to confirm we were getting closer to the elusive Dereka. Just ahead we spied two priests, pausing to give an impromptu blessing to several people by the roadside. What does one want along when searching for a monastery? Priests, of course. If they don’t know the way they can always call in aid from that guy up above who doesn’t need a GPS for directions. As soon as we stop the car, these two tall, elderly gentlemen leave their blessing business, trot around to the passenger door and, without us even having the chance to say anything, jump spryly into the backseat. They clearly believe we are the answer to their prayers, too. They raise their crosses at us in a general blessing and smile ear to ear, one of them displaying a full set of rotting grey brown choppers, the other showing tiny yellowed nubs of teeth worn down by decades of qat chewing. They set their crosses on their laps, put their sun umbrellas and sticks between their knees, wriggle their bony fannies into place, and graciously motion us to proceed. Though they speak no English, from the fact that they nod enthusiastically when I say Dereka Abba Meta, we figure they live there. We’re way back in the hills, passing neat Tigraian farms: oval walled enclosures of pink and gold rocks, inside of which is a square rock house with four-sided tin roof, topped by a silvery finial that looks like a snowflake with little tin bells dangling from it. Across from the house is a thatched rondavel, probably for livestock. And in its own enclosure, 10-foot high puffs of pale gold hay. Fields are already tilled, clumps of bronze earth turned over, ready for planting. We bump along, the road ever more littered with bigger rocks. Sometimes the way narrows so that we wedge between a rock wall on one side and a thorny brush enclosure for livestock across from it. It’s not a place to hang your arm out the window, unless you like petting prickly pears.
Finally we must stop, to the dismay of our passengers, who keep urging us to continue. Perhaps they’d imagined we would be chauffeuring them right to the rock hewn doorstep of their rock hewn abode. But the track is no longer a track, just a collection of red boulders on the top of a low brown cliff, where driving is impossible. We all get out and start walking through the red sandstone rubble, the two priests in front with white shawls flapping, their caps, which look like a three-layer cake with white frosting, pulled down over their foreheads. Immediately a swarm of children appear out of nowhere. The priests shoo them away, but they tag along behind, motioning, I feel sure, at my own decidedly NOT boney fanny.
We walk 100 yards or so and then they point across the forested gorge below us, to a cliff tinged rosy gold in the late afternoon light. Near the base of that cliff we see two blue wood doors, flush with the cliff walls. For a moment, a ray of sun pierces the patchy clouds, illuminating the door and its red and white frame. Must be divine intervention. It’s the monastery. To get to it we would have to descend a steep set of boulders, cross the densely forested floor alive with birds and monkeys, and climb a short steep path partway up the cliff on the other side. It’s fantastically isolated and hidden. Of course, I’m not allowed to go anyway, but Bernard could have. However, the sun’s already starting to set and we need light to distinguish the right rocky road from similar looking rocky ditches and rocky footpaths. So Bernard declines the priests’ invitation to join them. We all bow and smile at each other multiple times. The last we see of the priests they’re hopping down the boulders, their sticks, umbrellas and crosses bobbing as they go, on their way home.
The next day we walked through the outskirts of Axum town, along quiet lanes where chickens scratched, and goats helped themselves to vicious thistles sprouting from the rock walls. We followed a faint path up a hill dotted with flowering euphorbia trees, which look like an upturned bunch of leggy broccoli, on the tips of which someone’s brushed red nail polish. After half an hour, we arrived at Pantaleon Monastery, which is 1500 years old. The royal blue steel gates were open, and even though I doubted I’d be allowed far, I resolved to walk until somebody stopped me.
Entering a dry, sandy courtyard, we saw two immense trees, pale smooth silvery bark like skin covering trunks bulging like heavily muscled arms rippling with sinews and twisted veins. It was quiet except for blue-green starlings twittering and doves hoo-hoo-ing in the broad span of leafy branches above us. We were the only ones there.
Within minutes a small priest in a beige rough muslin robe bustled out to greet us, his flipflops slapping down the stone steps. Instead of pointing sternly at me to ensure I stayed in my place, he led us into an old stone building, spread a woven mat on the stone floor, unlocked the door to the monastery grain store room, and motioned for us to wait. Disappearing among the dusty sacks of grain, he extracted treasures, revered items existing from the monastery’s foundation. First he deposited on the mat two tarnished silver crowns, then two exquisitely filigreed large crosses, and finally two religious books, four inches thick, inside which were the most richly detailed scripture paintings we have seen so far. The book illustrations were as bright as if they were painted yesterday, yet they and the other items are all from the sixth century AD. The priest stood in front of us, propped each book open on a fragile leather stool and then leafed through the densely calligraphed goatskin pages, exposing delicate, ancient paintings for us to see one by one.
After a brief tour of a more modern church within the monastery grounds, the priest motioned that that’s it for me, and indicates it would please him if I would stay right there while he and Bernard adjourned to more manly endeavors. While I wait below, he escorts Bernard up to the original monastery. I can see it from where I sit, a simple buff stone structure perhaps 20 meters square, perched 100 yards above us atop a modest nob. It looks so ephemeral I expect it to lift off and fly away. Off they go, up a collection of rocks that passes for a stairway to heaven. In the shade below, I listen to three young disciples go through their lessons, reciting religious chants and the ancient Ge-ez alphabet in which all religious matter is written. Their voices ring out from behind a nearby building, as they drone their letters and hymns. Every once in awhile, however, they’re consumed by the mischief that grabs boys that age. They ditch their books, giving themselves over to fits of wrestling, giggling and rock flinging. They look to be 14, 12 and 9 years old, heads shaved, clothes ragged. Then, their energy temporarily spent, they eye me as if hoping I won’t report them and, of their own accord, return to their books, sitting on rocks in the monastery courtyard.
The monotone chanting and repetition resumes. A small flock of brown and white sheep leave through the main gate, and a lone cow wanders in. Outside, the shrill of young voices rises in the distance, children shepherding their goats. Just as Bernard returns from inspecting the deep pit inside which St. Pantaleon supposedly lived for 45 years, a wizened woman robed in homespun white cotton peers around the blue steel doors, then enters. Her brown face is a mass of wrinkles and deep blue tattoos. She stumps into the courtyard and bows before the church, pulling her white shawl over her head, making the motions of the cross across her breast. She’s so tiny that when she kneels in devotion she’s hidden by the rock in front of her. For a moment she disappears, gone, like a churchyard ghost.
Since then we’ve clambered up steep red stone paths to the true rock-hewn churches carved in their hundreds in the Arizona-like cliffs of the Gheralta region of Ethiopia, which is very close to the Eritrean border. The people in Gheralta are Tigraian, tall, ebony-skinned, regal, often with long faces and wide-set eyes. Women wear their raven-black hair tightly braided in zigzag, diamond or curlicue patterns against their head, letting it all bush out at the back of their head. It’s very attractive, whether on a 6 year old, an adult woman or a grey-haired granny. More details on this next time, along with a description of our brief venture into the true Danakil Depression, home to the salt caravans of yore and other things.
-Dina
