Ethiopian Adventure - The Northern Loop - Part I

Me and the view in Debre Markos

               

Seeing as I’m an education volunteer, I found myself with a lot more spare time while the schools went on break for the growing season. I did lend my hands to put on a week long summer for upper grade students with some of my fellow Peace Corps volunteers, though. While the camp was enlightening and well worth the effort, it did only occupy a few weeks of my time. To my delight I discovered one of my site-mates was in the same boat, as the CTE (College of Teacher Education) was void of both teachers and students. So, we thought “what a good time to visit the rest of the country!” and that’s exactly what we did.

                Our first stop of course was to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s Capital City. Now, we happened to end up there as the city was holding the memorial services for the late Prime Minister Meles. This meant that there were a crap-ton of people in from all over the world and all over the country. Several main roads and areas were closed off, making getting around the city by line taxi quite hellish. Line taxi’s even on good days are quite the frustration, but I’ll leave that for another blog. The point is, getting around Addis was a pain and took three times as long as usual.

                We did manage, after some twisting and turning and fighting our way onto various automobiles, to check into a hotel. Next step, figure out our root and buy our bus tickets. We decided to start our trip by visiting Debre Markos to see our pals, also Peace Corps Volunteers, for a day or two. This meant finding the offices to buy our tickets, and it just so happened that the offices were in the exact area that was blocked of for the memorials service. After miles of wondering and managing our way through a handful of English/Amharic conversations, we found someone to guide us into the closed off areas to the Selam Bus office….but they had no tickets. Another few miles of wondering and we found our way to the Sky Bus office, but they didn’t have tickets either…..wait….wait….yes! Yes they did have tickets after all. We’d leave the next morning but we have to get ourselves to Meskel Squaire, the closed off area, by 5am. 5 am!!!

                We requested the hotel taxi for 4:30am to take us to our bus. “No,” he said “it is too busy at this time. 3:30 is better.” So, begrudgingly, we accept. And thank god we did because he ended up dropping us off of the opposite end Meskel Square from where we needed to be. Since the whole place was blocked off, we ended up having to walk a good 3 miles detour to where we needed to be. We got there just as our bus pulled up. We got on, tired, thirsty, only to discover that because of the closed off part we’d have to transfer buses in another part of the city. If we hadn’t managed to get onto that bus when we did, we never would have known that we needed to board another bus in another area of the city. We would have been lost and completely confused. The bus didn’t end up leaving until well after 6.

One long, but beautiful ride, and one pee in the woods in front of god and everyone, we found ourselves in Debre Markos with Jen and Chad. My pals, and two of the coolest people you could ever hope to meet.

Jen and Chad


There isn’t anything touristy in Debre Markos. Nothing notable to speak of, but we enjoyed ourselves immensely. We explored the town, had some good coffee, ate good food, and took a very steep and scary hike down into a ravine to see the river and the monasteries that are hidden away there. The view at the top was absolutely beautiful and it was time well spent with some awesome company.

On our way to and from the ravine we met these lovely children.

Peek-a-boo! Notice the baby on the little girl's back (on the far left)

 We found them building with mud, and shaping them into tiny sculptures. One little girl managed an absolutely wonderful little ox, complete with hump and all. That's her in the orange hoody with ears. Now, you might be thinking “what’s the big deal?”. One thing you have to understand is creative thinking, let alone imaginative play and crafting, are nearly non-existent here, even in children. The arts are simply not taught to children in public schools. Imaginative play isn’t encouraged among the general population because it doesn’t produce anything. It’s not because they don’t care, it’s just that the focus is on making ends meet, and playing pretend doesn’t exactly make it on to the list of useful activities.





The children's clay creations



The frames of a gojo bet and a house

                All in all it was an awesome visit. We even ended up staying an extra night. Thanks Jen and Chad for letting us stay with you and for being so awesome! Even though Debre Markos isn’t a tourist hot-spot, I would recommend staying a night or two there, just for the sake of the view from the top of the ravine and the views on the way up there from Addis. Beautiful country.

                So, we left Debre Markos with full bellies and happy hearts. Next stop? Bahir Dar………



Big Dan, Chad, and Jen resting after our hike