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Overland trip Ethiopia
Posted on 15-10-2008
Ethiopia is slowly but surely getting under our skin. After spending the first day of our stay in this country mostly in and around the hotel in Addis Ababa, our minds still partly trailing somewhere in Morocco (courtesy of having to finish the country report), we delved right into the thick of things on Monday.
While the tour’s three-member delegation - Venkat, Radha and Driss - jetted across the sky, heading north to Bahir Dar, we set off for an overland journey to the same destination with our local driver Sisay and his reliable four-wheel drive. Just in case you thought we would now launch into a whining fit about having to endure more than 9 hours and 564 kilometers on the road, think again: we wouldn’t have traded it for anything.
Going through all the hair-raising statistics which underline the seriousness of Ethiopia’s child labour problem is tough enough, but coming to terms with the harsh reality of the life in the rural areas while gazing through the car window into the admittedly beautiful landscape of this country is quite another thing.
Contrary to all my preconceptions about Ethiopia which has lately gotten on the news almost exclusively because of the catastrophic drought and ensuing famine, what I saw was a fertile land with ubiquitous herds of livestock grazing on green pastures stretching all the way to the horizon.
Alas, the story continues - I also saw countless kids herding the cattle while their luckier peers, bags over their shoulders rushed towards a school. Some of these little herdsmen and herdswomen must have been as young as five, I swear.
While the state-run newspapers are full of stories about the continuing modernization of the agricultural technology in the countryside, the reality is somewhat different. There is a picture of a tractor plowing the field on the backside of the ten birr banknote, roughly equivalent of a dollar, while the front side of the one hundred birr banknote features a picture of a pair of oxen pulling a wooden plow. There are no prizes for guessing which one is a common sight in the fields and which one remains a distant dream.
Boys rushing to a school
Although I did not count the cars we have met on the road during the drive, I know they did not number more then in dozens. The road-curious livestock (and “deadstock” too, unfortunately) was a much bigger nuisance.
What else did we see during the drive which took us the better part of the day? Endless lines of country folk snaking along the road, all wrapped in colorful robes, some barefoot, many with a stick in their hand, looking like Moses and his people in search of a promised land. Women mostly carried heavy loads on their heads and backs, men mostly didn’t.
Women overloaded with heavy baskets
While these scenes all exuded a certain kind of undeniable beauty which surely provides a thrill to a typically detached Western tourist enjoying his holiday dose of human safari, it cannot fail to send a strong disconcerting signal to those who know that the fight against harmful practices like child labour calls for nothing less than a revolution in social norms.
It may be a tall order in the case of Ethiopia, but even this Methuselah of a country needs to abandon some of its age old traditions that so much define it - like it or not - if it is serious about development and its benefits for the whole population. Let’s hope we are about to see some positive signs in this respect over the next few days.
Pavel and Nadia
Ethiopia is slowly but surely getting under our skin. After spending the first day of our stay in this country mostly in and around the hotel in Addis Ababa, our minds still partly trailing somewhere in Morocco (courtesy of having to finish the country report), we delved right into the thick of things on Monday.While the tour’s three-member delegation - Venkat, Radha and Driss - jetted across the sky, heading north to Bahir Dar, we set off for an overland journey to the same destination with our local driver Sisay and his reliable four-wheel drive. Just in case you thought we would now launch into a whining fit about having to endure more than 9 hours and 564 kilometers on the road, think again: we wouldn’t have traded it for anything.
Going through all the hair-raising statistics which underline the seriousness of Ethiopia’s child labour problem is tough enough, but coming to terms with the harsh reality of the life in the rural areas while gazing through the car window into the admittedly beautiful landscape of this country is quite another thing.
Contrary to all my preconceptions about Ethiopia which has lately gotten on the news almost exclusively because of the catastrophic drought and ensuing famine, what I saw was a fertile land with ubiquitous herds of livestock grazing on green pastures stretching all the way to the horizon.
Alas, the story continues - I also saw countless kids herding the cattle while their luckier peers, bags over their shoulders rushed towards a school. Some of these little herdsmen and herdswomen must have been as young as five, I swear.
While the state-run newspapers are full of stories about the continuing modernization of the agricultural technology in the countryside, the reality is somewhat different. There is a picture of a tractor plowing the field on the backside of the ten birr banknote, roughly equivalent of a dollar, while the front side of the one hundred birr banknote features a picture of a pair of oxen pulling a wooden plow. There are no prizes for guessing which one is a common sight in the fields and which one remains a distant dream.
Boys rushing to a school
Although I did not count the cars we have met on the road during the drive, I know they did not number more then in dozens. The road-curious livestock (and “deadstock” too, unfortunately) was a much bigger nuisance.
What else did we see during the drive which took us the better part of the day? Endless lines of country folk snaking along the road, all wrapped in colorful robes, some barefoot, many with a stick in their hand, looking like Moses and his people in search of a promised land. Women mostly carried heavy loads on their heads and backs, men mostly didn’t.
Women overloaded with heavy basketsWhile these scenes all exuded a certain kind of undeniable beauty which surely provides a thrill to a typically detached Western tourist enjoying his holiday dose of human safari, it cannot fail to send a strong disconcerting signal to those who know that the fight against harmful practices like child labour calls for nothing less than a revolution in social norms.
It may be a tall order in the case of Ethiopia, but even this Methuselah of a country needs to abandon some of its age old traditions that so much define it - like it or not - if it is serious about development and its benefits for the whole population. Let’s hope we are about to see some positive signs in this respect over the next few days.
Pavel and Nadia
