Tag: Gondar

  • Early Morning Race to the Airport

    I’m up at 5am, power goes out. Then back on. Still, for some unknown reason, they can’t charge it. I’m reading the instructions as we all give it a try. But no luck. I have a 300 birr bill, a flight leaving at 7am to…

  • Gondar Hospital

    The moment I step outside the hotel, there is a choir of children’s voices. Asking me to buy a packet of gum or tissue or merely pointing out “ferangi, ferangi!” (To which I sometimes respond in alarm, “where!? where?!”). I shake my head. Aznalo, mon…

  • Fasilides Bath & the Ethiopian Slow-Bird

    The British boys and I walk a couple miles out of town, down winding country roads, lined with fragrant eucalyptus trees and rows of laughing school children in pepto-pink polo shirts, towards the also massive separate bath also built by Emperor Fasilides (now used as…

  • The Hottest Breakfast Ever and Fasilides Castle

    The next morning starts like the last night ended: at The Coffee House with the British boys. And while we say the words “not too spicy” to the waiter, as the senior Habesha men within hearing distance grin, my breakfast is one of the hottest…

  • Spanish, Sunset and Beer at the Goha Hotel

    I head downstairs, when I spot the guard who bravely defended me from the crazy guy at the hotel gate two nights prior. I can only understand bits of his Amharic (“how are you” “friend” “it was no problem”) and I can only find bits…

  • The Most Unbelievable Moment of My Life

    I catch my breath, as I stand with my little tour-guide/self-appointed guardian, in the shadows of the stone walls of the Castle, well away from the chaos of the inner circle. Where the burning cross had once stood, is now a pile of coal, spewing…

  • Getting Blessed (and Saved From a Beating) at Meskel

    Already wedged between crowds of men, barely able to breath, I can’t imagine the promised fight after the massive burning cross falls. When the muscled army guards, in sand-green camo and guns on their shoulders, come racing down the line. With surprising vengeance, they whip…

  • An Army of Men & Boys Shouting “Flower! Flower!” (& Finding My Place in This World…)

    I ask what the men, dancing in the center around the cross, are shouting. “Abeba” they tell me. Or “flower” (Addis Ababa is really Addis Abeba, which means “new flower”). Flowers. The past time I love above all others, since childhood. Of course, I’m find…

  • The Finding of the True Cross (Or the Story of Meskel)

    In the middle of it all stands the largest cross yet. Like a giant telephone pole, multiple stories high. Roving bands of singing boys and men collide and clash, then circle around the cross. A massive mosh pit, punctuated by the sticks (whole and charcoal),…

  • Meskel Morning and a Choir of Hundreds

    I wake up coughing. My room is filled with acrid smoke, wafting lazy circles around the ceiling. Panic. Then recognition. Meskel. I fling back the covers and race to my balcony. Outside, the sky is a haze, as if the world was on fire, as…

  • Stuck Between a Gun and an Attempted Kidnapping…

    I work non-stop, the next day, only breaking to walk to the Ethiopian Airlines office in the center of town to re-arrange my ticket to fly back to Addis the day after Meskel, instead. (Which they easily do, with a phone call and no computer…

  • The Man from Sudan and My First Arabic Lesson

    Weary and tired, the party winds down. I share a cab with the American peace-corp couple, and listen to their stories of daily-life, and try to imagine what it would have been like to go that route. We trade Amharic tips. They compliment my speaking,…

  • Being Useless in Gondar

    I duck into the rattling blue tuk tuk of the only driver who seems to maybe recognize where I’m trying to head. We’re heading back through town, past busy streets and stands of eucalyptus. The driver stops in front of a cement block hotel. There…

  • Avocado Milkshakes and Arriving in Gondar

    Inside the tiny Gondar airport, the scene repeats. Talk to the men hovering around baggage claim to find a hotel, then find a taxi. I throw out the name of one I’d researched so I’d at least have a starting point: The Quara. A fast…