The Apinautica -- Ethiopia I, Day 3
Continuing with The Book, recall that last time we had the first two days in Ethiopia, introducing the reader to Ethiopia and establishing the goals here. Let us continue with the third day!
Haile Selassie, looking a bit like Steve Carell here I think?
Tuesday, April 24th, Day 18 - “So what are the best museums in town, and how do I get to them?” I ask Addis the receptionist in the morning.
“Are you going by yourself, where are your colleagues?”
“They are busy today, I am just sightseeing by myself.”
“I get off in an hour, do you want me to show you around the city?”
“Yes that would be delightful”
“Okay in an hour meet me about one hundred meters down the road that way” and she points to the left of the front door.”
“Okay great!”
Just as I’m beginning to think I’ve gotten her instructions wrong, I see her walking towards me on the sidewalk ahead, looking pretty in a simple green skirt and black top, with her hair in a bun atop her head. We walk a short distance to where the road overlooks the African Union headquarters buildings just a few hundred meters away - one tall narrow highrise attached to a lower building with a metallic dome like a giant silvery hamburger bun. We are close enough that we are able to connect to their wifi, which is good - I have no phone service and want to google something.
“Excuse me, what’s the password for the Africa Union Wifi?” Addis asks a passing man in a suit.
“‘We are all Africans!’ Capital W and A, and an exclamation point at the end” the man politely explains before continuing on his way. Clever I think to myself, a password that someone like me can’t honestly type.
“Hey Addis could you type that for me?”
Next under Addis’ expert guidance we catch one of the taxi/bus minivans that drive set circuits around the city. I’m not sure how someone not thoroughly familiar with the city would be able to get around. We change vans twice, to get onto vans traveling a connecting circuit, until we finally arrive at the campus of Addis Ababa University. From there we walk a short distance through beautiful gardens and lawns towards a two story building situated regally at the culmination of the lawns and fountains.
“The Ethnographic Museum is in Haile Selassie’s former palace” Addis explained, “well, one of his palaces anyway.”
The palace has a grand entrance approached by a set of steps, flanked by statues, with the sort of balcony one would address a crowd from directly above it, but other than that the palace doesn’t look overly grand - mostly bare brick with some sections painted pale yellow or grey, with toothpaste colored trim. [Seriously, I'm trying not to insult Ethiopia's cultural heritage here, but between you and me it looks like a run down apartment building from the 70s to me really]
Just across the drive from the entrance a freestanding spiral staircase stretches up about a floor and a half to nowhere. Fourteen steps, topped with a gold painted crouching lion.
“The italians built this stairway during their occupation, one step for each year of the reign of Mussolini. When they were kicked out the Lion of Judah was placed on top, representing the Ethiopian triumph.”
“I wonder how the Italians had planned to finish it.”
She smiles and shrugs.
We stroll through the ornate rooms of the museum, filled with artifacts of Ethiopia’s rich history and culture. I admire the interesting musical instruments and farming tools. There’s even a traditional beehive - a woven cylinder slightly tapering to one end, covered in a plaster of mud, dung and ash. Similar hives are easily recognizable in depictions on ancient tapestries.
I am fascinated to learn that right up until the 1980s Ethiopia had a feudal society. In lieu of the counts and dukes of Europe they had aristocratic titles like dejazmach or ras. And at the top of it all they had the King of Kings (“Negusa Nagast”), the emperor. As a history nerd who has always been fascinated with medieval Europe and a cynic towards modern society, this intrigues me, but the reality of the institutional inequality I find unenjoyably grim. The tone of the displays about the monarchy seem to balance a pride in the reputation of the last emperor, Haile Selassie, as a globally respected statesman, with an un-nostalgic criticism of the feudal system.
[I wish I could remember more specific details about the exhibits but the fact is I really just remember my general impressions at this point]
After the Ethnographic Museum, we have lunch in a nearby cafe. I let Addis order for me since the menu is all in amharic and there’s not even an easy translation for most of it, it’s all uniquely Ethiopian. The server sets an earthenware bowl of mouthwatering spicy ground lamb in front of me, as well as a cup of peanut tea and a square dense peace of bread, lacking the big holes I am accustomed to bread having.
“The bread is made from the ‘ensete,’ the ‘false banana tree’” Addis explains.
"That’s a tree that grows here?” I ask. “My girlfriend Tarragon would find this so interesting” I continue, feeling a bit guilty for using the old gratuitous-mention-of-significant -other technique to ensure there’s not misunderstandings. Addis doesn’t miss a beat, or perhaps, was that just a fraction of a missed beat?
“Yes, it looks just like a banana tree but the fruit aren’t edible” I stop mid bite of the ensete bread. She laughs and continues “the bread is made from the root actually.”
I find myself wondering if Tarragon would ever come here with me. She certainly doesn’t lack for adventurous spirit - she is presently sailing off the US East Coast after all - but sometimes an adventurous spirit is not enough…
[I inserted this lunch scene to try to dial in a reminder to the reader of the current state of things with Tarragon, and/or without this I felt the reader might be wondering "hey I thought the protagonist had a girlfriend why's he's traipsing about with some other girl." How well does this fit / work here?]
I want to go to the Red Terror Museum, which was also among the top rated museums in Addis Ababa and Addis concedes with a heavy sigh that it is important. We find it near a broad and dirty concrete square overshadowed by an overpass.
“You can go in, I’ll wait out here,” says Addis, looking serious. “I’ve been there before and it’s very depressing,” so I go in while she sits on a bench outside and takes out her phone.
Inside the exhibit once again begins with the feudal system under Haile Selassie, with the same mix of pride and condemnation in the tone of the exhibits. This museum focuses on the end of his reign, and how resentment of the medieval inequality led to a revolution in 1974. A communist dictatorship called the Derg took over and Haile Selassie was arrested and secretly strangled. The Derg then embarked on a repressive campaign to consolidate its power, known as the Red Terror.
The museum is somber and quiet. The docent, a gentle and dignified man of about fifty with thin grey hair approaches and stands companionably by me as I look at the newspaper headlines, photographs and artifacts. He helpfully elaborates on the context of some of the earlier exhibits, and seeing as I don’t find this unwelcome he continues with me through the galleries explaining the exhibits in the manner of a skilled university professor, neither over explaining nor leaving me confused. Soon he’s telling me of his own experience. He was arrested at the age of 15, for reasons he didn’t understand (“I don’t know why … what had I done??”), and imprisoned and tortured for the next eight years. I try not to look at his fingers, twisted by torture. By the time he was released, his family and friends were all dead and gone, he had missed out on receiving an education, and still no one wanted to hire or befriend him for fear he was still being watched by the government.
We walk into a dimly lit gallery in which one wall is entirely shelves of skulls exhumed from a mass grave. Next to each skull in its cubicle are a few personal items found with it, shoes, a watch band, a little wooden Ethiopian orthodox cross necklace, a smudged wallet sized photo of a little girl. We stand in silence for a moment.
Arriving back in the lobby, the docent explains how the civil war finally resulted in the overthrow of the Derg in 1991. For the first time he seems close to tears as he tells how the top leaders of the Derg fled to Zimbabwe where they live free to this day.
I walk out into the grey afternoon with a lump in my throat, and hug Addis. Grim indeed. As we walk to the nearest taxi stop, she explains, having been born just after the Derg was overthrown, her parents had named her “New World” -- Addis Alem.
I'm in a constant philosophical battle with the advice of people who say "don't let the truth get in the way of a good story" and my inclination to cleave strictly to what happened exactly how it happened. In this case I've taken an unusually big liberty -- I wanted to front load the Ethiopian chapter with Ethiopian history so I took this visit to the Ethnological museum that actually occurred on a second visit in 2014 and inserted it here in the beginning of the first visit in 2012. But then it's brought with it a string of problems ... because I went with Addis, and so in order to write her in I need to put her and her hotel in here in 2012. Which isn't really a big problem except in 2014 I was single and it was fine if I was cavorting with cute hotel receptionists but in 2012 I was not, so you can see my inserted lunch to try to patch that.
And then her and her hotel being here in 2012 means they'll be missing from 2014. We'll see how we can fix that problem when we get there I guess.
I wonder if I can/should insert more about Haile Selassie's life in this section? Such as his title of Ras Tafari giving the name to the Rastafarians who worship him as a god; and his exile from Ethiopia during the Italian occupation in WWII and his subsequent return.
Original post from the day I went museum hopping with Addis.
And in reality I didn't go to the Red Terror Museum with Addis, though that was also in 2014. I think the local I went with had indeed declined to go in with me though.
So yeah, the purpose of this section is obviously to insert some Ethiopian history. How well does it do that? Should there be more or less history?
I could have sworn I had a picture of me pretending the lion was biting my hand but I can't find it.