Ancient Kingdoms, the 8th Wonder of the World, and Unexpected Trouble(s)

It’s El Nino
We began last week with some trepidation. Melissa, my classmate from the US, was due
to arrive on Saturday night and our flight to Axum to begin our vacation week was early
Sunday morning. Judging from our own experience of jetlag, we were not sure that
Melissa would be keen on getting on yet another plane, or that Melissa would even
arrive. Her plane had been delayed each day of the previous week. Every day, I had told
my colleagues at the hospital that she was probably somewhere in the air by now. Every
day, I found out El Nino was not letting up and that two back-to-back blizzards had hit
Washington DC, making one of the local doctors at the Fistula Hospital joke, “Is Melissa
still stuck in the sky?” Needless to say, exactly 6 days, 1 hr and 15 minutes later than
expected, she landed in Bahir Dar. Because our Ethiopian contact for Medics Away was
tragically in Addis Ababa for the funeral of his brother’s wife (due to a car accident), Dr.
Browning generously offered to take us to pick her up from the airport. Melissa was a
great sport and she insisted that the short night of sleep (11pm arrival to 6:30am trip back
to the airport) would suffice. We began using her mannerisms when we encountered
“bummer” circumstances. She just shrugged and said, “It’s El Nino. What can you do?”
Ancient Kingdoms “It is legendary… legend has it.”

Our flight to Axum was, amazingly, ahead of schedule. We had to make 3 short flight
segments to get to the remote city of Axum in the north of Ethiopia. My expectations for
this stop on our tour of the northern historical part of Ethiopia were minimal. All I had
heard was that there were giant stelae (rock pillars) and the original Ark of the Covenant
in the city, but not much else. We were pleasantly surprised to be led by a very capable
guide to numerous sites. At nearly every venue, the guide would either say, “Legend has
it that…” or he would conclude, “This is legendary.” So take the rest of this description
with this “legendary” perspective in mind.

We saw a 10ft by 5ft pillar with engraved writing from the 4th-6th century AD which
contained Greek writing (I can confirm this), the ancient script of G’eez, and (another
ancient script I can’t remember). It was found in a farmer’s field and preserved by
enclosing it in a cement block building on the same place it was found. We looked down
at a tunnel many meters below the rocky surface which led to Eritrea, 170km away. ☺
The view at the top of this rocky, mountainous hillside was gorgeous. The mountains on
which the Ethiopians defeated the Italians rose up in defiance—jagged, somewhat green,
but never uniform or smooth. Ethiopia is the only country in Africa which was never
colonized and has always maintained its independence. Even so, I cannot help but thank
the Italians for giving Ethiopia pizza, an easy “goodbye” word in “Ciao,” and the
prevalence of spaghetti during their attempt to colonize.

We explored the tombs of Axumite kings. They reminded me of what I imagine the
tombs underneath the pyramids might look like, although I have never been. The sheer
size of the individual stones used to build the tombs, especially the “ceiling” stones, was
quite impressive, as was the engineering behind the way each stone locked with the next
using notches or angling them just right. Each tomb had multiple rooms used to store
treasures. They say 90% of Axum is unexcavated. As she peered into an additional,
unexcavated chamber of one tomb, Melissa let out a muffled scream and jumped down
from her perch. A bat flew out the small hole she had just had her face in near the top of
the ceiling. I grabbed the flashlight and looked myself, keeping my face at a slight
distance. Those are big bats! I thought better of it and just put my camera up to the hole
so that we could get some cool pictures without a close encounter of face vs. bat. We
climbed the steep stairs back up to daylight shortly after, as the newly-liberated bat was
now flying back and forth between the rooms of the tomb and was hard to avoid in the
close quarters.

We visited Queen Sheba’s bath, a large man-made pool which is larger than a basketball
court. From what we could both see on the steep sides as well as what our guide
explained, the water level ranged from 1 meter deep at the end of the dry season to about
8 meters deep in the rainy season.

The remnants of Queen Sheba’s palace were stunning. According to the guide, in that
time period, either they built using huge stones placed directly on top of one another or
they built using smaller stones with mud in-between. Queen Sheba’s palace used both
styles, but mainly the smaller stone approach. What used to be a two or three-story
structure was now just part of the first story, but it was intricate. There were the stones
leading up to her throne room, her “shower,” a partially-intact oven with the stones
making an arch, an elaborate drainage system, and about 40 rooms on the outside of the
palace. Queen Sheba was known for her wisdom, and when she heard of King Solomon,
she went to Israel to see for herself. Legend has it that she had a son by King Solomon
and he established the Solomonic dynasty (the longest continuous dynasty) which lasted
until the 1970’s when the King was killed at the hands of the communist Derg.

We visited tombs carved out of the rocky hillside dated to the time of Christ, 2000 years
ago. I could just imagine that this was the kind of tomb that Christ stayed in for 3 days. It
was also significant to see the lay of the land, the shepherds with their sheep, goats, and
cows, and to think of David writing Psalm 23.

Lastly (of potential interest to you, as we saw other random things), we saw the main
stelae field. The huge stones marked the sites of underground tombs and treasure. They
had been moved to the sites by the strength of elephants and men from a rock quarry
quite a distance and downhill from where their final resting place was. I suppose they
devised a way just as the Egyptians had when they built the pyramids. The largest had
fallen during its erection. It still lay there, intricately chiseled, broken in several HUGE
pieces. They say it weighs 500 tons, according to the guidebook. It was 33m tall and was taken from a quarry 4km away. I guess you’ll just have to see the pictures. We looked briefly at the tomb inside. It was larger (or perhaps more fully excavated) than the previous tombs, but similar in description. There were two other standing stelae which were the most impressive. Apparently, one had just been returned (in 3 pieces) by the Italian government in the Ethiopian Millennium (back in the European calendar Sept of 2008). They were at least 30 feet high, but again, our pictures will be more indicative. The resting place of the original Ark of the Covenant
was across the street from the stelae field, but we elected not to pay entrance fees to the
church as only 1 high priest/monk is allowed to see the Ark (that’s his job until he dies),
and anyway, who would want to be struck dead by sneaking a peek? It’s legendary.

The 8th Wonder of the World
Monday we flew to Lalibela, home to the famous rock-hewn churches. To roughly quote
our guidebook, “If any place would evoke feelings of divine intervention, Lalibela does.”
Indeed, many people say that if it were more accessible, it would have been named in the
7 Wonders of the World. When we landed, I began taking pictures of a beautiful
mountain in the near distance. One hour later, I realized that on that mountain was
Lalibela. It was a beautiful, steep drive along cliffs and switchbacks, albeit a bit further
than we thought to get to from the airport. At least it was a paved road. We got a hotel
room and a mid-afternoon lunch and decided to use the rest of the day to explore the
churches on our own. Our guidebook had warned us of the multitude of people wanting
to be guides, so we prepared to fend them off with, “We’re coming back tomorrow.”
Cleverly, we fended them off the next day with, “Oh, we were already here yesterday”
and we managed to get through the churches as we wanted to, cheaply, peacefully, and by
ourselves.

This was definitely the highlight of our trip as far as tourism goes. If there is anything a
person must see in Ethiopia, it is these churches. They are unbelievable. Indeed, the
explorer who first discovered them wrote little about them “because it seemed to me that
they will accuse me of untruth.” There are 11 churches in 3 locations. Hewn straight from
the rock, the Orthodox Christians say that angels helped the workers carve them in a very
short period of time. I knew the churches would be immense, but I hadn’t heard anything
about the system of cave-like tunnels with stairs and rooms and turns which connected
each of the individual churches so that the priests could move around without going up to
“ground level.” The great part about exploring these on our own was that we had no idea
where a tunnel would go, but we just used our flashlight and were happy to turn off into
random dark rooms to see where they might lead. It reminded me so much of
caving/spelunking in America. Some of the tunnels with stairs led to the top of the rock
face which was essentially ground level. Then we could see the churches from above. As
the trenches and courtyards around the church were sometimes 20-30 feet straight down
without railings, we heard many times, “Remember: don’t fall!” Haha. As if we could
forget.

Inside the churches, we took the advice of some other travelers to just spend time
reflecting. Each church was cool inside, like a cave. 4 feet of stone is a great insulator
against heat. We would take off our shoes (symbolic of shaking off the dust of this world)
and walk on the stone floor smoothed out by many many years of people walking on
them. It’s especially a unique place to visit because although they are an attraction for
tourists, each church is still active and functioning with many Ethiopian Orthodox
believers making pilgrimages to these churches for church celebrations, locals coming to
pray or worship (only tourists must pay an entrance fee), priests and monks chanting and
singing passages of the bible or other prayers. We enjoyed just sitting and listening to the
chatter, observing how the priests functioned, seeing young boys training to be priests
just like Samuel did, contemplating the paintings inside the church depicting different
bible stories or stories of the Ethiopian saints, listening to other tourists’ guides talk about
the church (for free ☺), reading portions of our bibles, and reading on our own about
each church as we found them from a book I bought at a souvenir shop.

One of our favorite experiences occurred in a small church. Ryan and I had taken seats in
the darkness, using our flashlight to see the faded paintings near the ceiling and the
different crosses carved on the stone pillars. After about 5 minutes, Melissa entered the
darkness from the bright afternoon sunlight outside. From across the room, the priest
sitting stoically and nearly motionless near the curtain separating us from the Holy Place
suddenly called out, “Boo!” to which Melissa jumped. He gave a toothy grin. Ryan,
Melissa, and I all looked at each other (once Melissa found us and her eyes adjusted) and
then Ryan asked the obvious question on our minds. “Did he just say that?” We had a
good laugh, noting that priests have a good sense of humor too.

Each church is unique, some hewn on all sides, some on three sides in a cave-like
atmosphere, some with wooden bridges over trenches to get to them, some small, others
huge. They were built in the 11th century The largest was almost exactly 37.5 feet tall,
110.5 ft long, and 77.75ft wide supported by 36 pillars on the inside and 36 pillars on the
outside. I know that pictures won’t do this experience justice, so perhaps you’ll just have
to make the trip someday yourself. It truly for me was a Wonder of the World.

Unexpected Trouble(s)
We left Lalibela on Wednesday, excited about the history and magnificence of the last
three days. We had also been able to hike a bit to see wonderful mountain views, drink
macchiatos, listen to local live music and see the local dances, and eat wonderful food.
We sat in the airport, and as our plane seemed more and more delayed, we reconsidered
our potential plans to arrive in Gondor and make a 4 day trek up to the Simien
Mountains. Because Melissa had just arrived, she had not been able to be at the hospital
or work with the patients, and she was rightly concerned about coming to Ethiopia to
learn and practice medicine. We made the decision to see the castles in Gondor for a
short time and then head back to Bahir Dar on a bus that evening. Perhaps we would hike
the Simiens just before we left Ethiopia. In addition, we had noticed during our flights
that our tourist visa was due to expire before we were to depart Ethiopia. Going back to
Bahir Dar early gave us some peace that we could take care of some of these issues.
Our plane was delayed a couple of hours, putting us in Gondor around 1:30pm. Taxis
were our only option, so we reluctantly walked to them to see if we could get a good
price. Yeah right. He quoted an outrageous (although maybe standard) price of 150 birr.
Our 1 hour trip to Lalibela appropriately would have cost 40 birr per person if our hotel
hadn’t provided it free. We asked the taxi driver just how far it was to the city centre. He
said, 20 km. Well, that is kinda far. We told him we had been in Ethiopia for a month
and that we were Habesha (local) and not forenji (foreigners). “We just want to go to
Bahir Dar where we have been working for the past 4 weeks,” I said. “That is the
Habesha price,” he insisted. I asked, “Why would you give a forenji a habesha price right
away?” to which the guy tried hard not to smile. I had him. We got him down to 120 birr,
still higher than we wanted, but 20 km is far and we didn’t have an option. We started
driving, bummed that he was so inflexible and tired enough to just want to go home.
LESS than 5 minutes later, we were at the minibus stop where the minibuses are that go
to Bahir Dar. “Please let us out,” I said. “We want to go to Bahir Dar.” He tarried, first
driving past the minibuses, but turning around when we kept insisting that we wanted to
go to Bahir Dar. We got out and I gave him 60 birr, half the agreed-upon price but more
than enough in our minds for a 5 minute drive. We could have walked to this in 10
minutes. He shoved it back in my hand. I responded by explaining, “You told us it was 20
km. That was not 20 km. We will give you 60 birr.” He saw his predicament. “No, I will
take you to city centre and you can get the minibus there. Get in,” he said, opening his
trunk. “No, you lied to us. And why would we go further away from Bahir Dar when this
minibus here is going to leave out of town now?” The same conversation, or a variation
of it, continued until there was an ever-growing swarm of people pressing in on us as we
stood between the taxi and the minibus. Soon, it swelled to at least 50 people, crowding
us so that we were unable to get back to the taxi even if we had wanted to. We kept trying
to give the taxi driver 60 birr, and he kept trying to get us to get in and make the journey
longer so that he could get 120 birr (although I’m certain the rest of the way was not
significantly further). Finally, for safety reasons, Melissa and I scrambled onto the
minibus bound for Bahir Dar to escape the horde of people. Ryan added 20 birr and
handed 80 to the taxi driver and got in the bus with us. Our hearts were pounding as the
minibus pulled out, lunch was forgotten, the castles of Gondor not enticing in the
slightest. We all just wanted to get out of Gondor as fast as possible. “That man just
ruined our day,” Melissa commented.

We had a 3 hour drive left to contemplate the situation. I regret telling him in such frank
terms in front of others that he had lied to us, yet that’s what we felt he deliberately did.
(We have experienced this also in Bahir Dar, know for hiking prices for tourists). I
wondered how many cultural faux pas we had made. Was that really the price? Was it
that different from Bahir Dar, a city the same in size and tourist attraction? Did we just
give foreigners a bad name? What was the right thing to do? More maddening for me,
how did this man expect to earn more in one 5-minute car ride than a doctor will make in
a whole day of hard work? What should have been our response to him?
It was a relief to get away from the crowd, but soon we had our own crowd on the
minibus. They are made to seat twelve, but the official law limits it to fifteen. At any
point in the journey, it stops to take more passengers or let someone off. At one point, our
twelve passengers had increased to twenty! Luckily for the driver, four were let off just
before a police checkpoint. Gruffly, the police officer ordered one passenger off and the
driver to the back to discuss something. After a brief discussion (only a warning this
time, we found out later), he returned to his seat and began slowly driving away. The
police officer turned his back, and the 16th passenger ran to hop back on, the door was
closed, and we were on our way. A jovial mood overtook the minibus. The driver
exchanged a laugh with the guy charged with opening and closing the door. I guess the
giddiness of getting the best of the police (in a small matter) is something that transcends
cultural borders. ☺

Bottoming out
Back in Bahir Dar, we felt at home. It was a relief to be back in a familiar city where the
Bajaj drivers knew me and shouted out, “Hospital?” before I had even reached them.
Melissa, ever the trooper and eager to start work in the hospital, came with me on
Thursday even though she felt nauseous. However, she was unable to finish work either
Thursday or Friday due to severe GI issues. I thought I might have to buy an IV at the
pharmacy to rehydrate her. This was the start of a low point in our trip. Melissa’s El Nino
struck again. I felt this was such a damper as I had been so excited to have another
classmate to experience the hospital environment, and I felt horrible that she had invested
so much time and money to come when so much had happened.

Secondly, as I said briefly when we made the decision to skip the Simien Mountains, our
tourist visa was going to expire Feb 24th, 9 days before we would leave. I was frustrated
that we had not seen that before, confused why we had not been given three months (as I
think I had last time when I was here for five weeks without issue), and I just hoped that
it would work out. Ryan spent much of Thursday going from place to place on his bike,
trying to see if there was anything we could do to get an extension. No dice. Friday
morning, as I pointed Melissa in the direction of home due to her sickness, I learned that
one of my friends and patients had broke her waters early (and would likely lose her
baby) and Dr. Browning confirmed our fears that we would have to go to Addis to get a
visa extension. I spent the rest of the afternoon fighting that by going to the immigration
office in Bahir Dar, checking internet sites, and calling the US Embassy and the Addis
Immigration Office. Going to Addis would not only be expensive, but time-consuming in
our precious few days left. Melissa’s fiancé was coming in on Sunday and would have no
one to show him around if we left. We were told the Immigration Office can take up to a
week to issue visa extensions, if they grant the extension at all. I kicked myself for not
checking the dates sooner. Why, when we are just trying to do good and help people do
the taxi drivers try to rip us off and government documents and policies make it so
difficult? The bright spot in this was that we were not in the Simien Mountains with
sickness and documentation issues. Thank you God!

To Addis we must go
Saturday, I tried to get bus tickets to Addis so that we could get their Sunday night to be
at the Immigration Office first thing on Monday morning. Just in case. You know, the
phrase, People can deal with adversity much more than uncertainty, is quite true. WE
battled whether we should just leave Ethiopia early or just stay in Addis for the rest of the
trip. Ultimately, Ryan’s first week to be fully booked with activities was going to be cut
very short, but we really could not afford a $450 fine per person or go to court for an
expired visa. So, to get bus tickets I went. Skybus, we heard, was the best with air
conditioning and a picnic lunch. After going to 3 places by bicycle before I finally found
the ticket office, I found out they were completely full. Selam bus? Completely full. Now
what? Minibuses are not a safe option for that distance. A man who said he was from
Dallas (and later showed me his drivers license to prove it) stopped me from desperation.
“We are in the same boat,” he said. “I need to get to Addis tomorrow too.” After ruling
out hiring a private car, I went with him to the bus station. He spoke in Amharic and
found a cheaper local bus company with room for us. He said they were crowded and not
very nice, but they were much safer than the minibuses and our only option, it seemed.
He helped me buy the tickets and told us to be at bus 2027 at 5am sharp departure. Well,
this would be an adventure if nothing else!

Really, it’s a God-thing we didn’t know what was going on in the morning. It was
nearing the “5am sharp” time and there was a large crowd around a mostly-closed gate to
the bus station. “Well, we need to get in that gate cause that’s where our bus is leaving
from.” Ryan, with his large backpack on took it as a challenge. “Well, ok!” He barreled
through the crowd and I followed in his wake. He even went right past the guy with a
large gun who was “guarding the gate.” The guard/soldier appeared to want to tell us
something, but visibly gave up. Finally, we were inside. We used our flashlight and the
helpful guidance of other bus drivers to find our bus number in the multitude of buses
lined up around the perimeter of the large bus yard. Our bus driver directed us on and
checked our tickets. He guided us to two prime seats at the front of the bus which
guaranteed Ryan leg room as the (gear shifter box) was there.

We sat, glad to be in the right place, but curious why we were the only ones here at 5am.
We placed guesses on when we’d actually leave (just as my family has a tradition of
creating a competition with prizes for the winner to who has come the closest to guessing
the correct arrival time to a vacation destination). With no one present, it didn’t look
promising. Was “African time” kicking in?

Soon, we got our answer. A lone man walked to the middle of the bus yard and blew a
whistle. We immediately heard the hum of voices, the slapping of feet on the ground, and
we watched as utter chaos took over the bus yard. Over 300 people, the very crowd we’d
pushed through at the gate, descended on the buses, vying for the best seats. Our eyes
widened as we silently knew what the other was thinking. That would have been us! That
should have been us! Can you imagine trying to find the right bus quickly in the dark
when no one is speaking English?? Thank you, God, for our ignorance!

The bus ride was long, a full twelve hours with only one short stop for a lunch/bathroom
break. It was amazing scenery; at one point, we drove across a vast gorge through which
the Nile River flows. The largest bridge in Ethiopia, finished just two years ago, is across
the Nile at that point. It was beautiful mountainous countryside as well! We brought our
lunch of bread, peanut butter, and honey. At the lunch stop, I stood to stretch and picked
up the sack with the food in it. It had broken where the spoon had punctured the thin
plastic. As I was figuring out how to hold or retie the sack, I looked down to see a (small)
cockroach scurry away from where I had temporarily put my banana peels. Whoa, guess I
shouldn’t put our food in a holey sack on the floor. I thought about having to hold in on
my lap for 6 more hours. Maybe I can tie it tightly and it will be okay. Scurry went the
cockroach the other way. Nevermind! My lap it is!

In Addis, we stayed at the SIM guesthouse, comfortable since I’d stayed there four years
ago, and convenient because it was only a 5 minute walk to the Immigration Office. We
were at the gate at 8 am, ready for whatever uncertainties might come once it opened at
8:30. “I wish we would have had the time to email and ask for prayer for this. This is
huge!” Ryan assured me, “Everyone is already praying. And God knows.”

Who moved my cheese?
The process to apply was anything but well-organized. We nearly sat in the wrong queue
more than twice. “That’s what’s going to kill us—standing in the wrong line for a long
time,” Ryan noted. With two of us, one could hold a place while the other sought more
info. We went from one building to another, one time even having to leave the grounds to
get a photocopy of our current visa at a local kiosk. Occasionally, our moving to another
building accomplished a step in the process. ☺ Thankfully, there was a woman from
Finland who knew the procedures vaguely and we followed her lead. Also a plus, the
power stayed on throughout the time we were waiting, making in possible to enter the
information into the computers and take pictures. Just as hope was bubbling up that we
may be done and paid up, a woman behind the desk looked at her watch and stated, “Ok,
you can come tomorrow and pick up your passports. Next!” What? We filed out of the
building, feeling deflated, like we’d just finished a complicated maze to be rewarded by a
sign saying, “Finish line. Someone moved the cheese. Come back another time.” Oh well.
At least it is only tomorrow and not next week or even a “no.”

Unexpected reunions
We headed back to the SIM house just in time for tea. I was floored. I realize the
missionary community is small, but come on! Sitting around the table, sipping tea, a
middle-aged man looked up. Sure enough, he was the same water engineer whom I’d met
4 years earlier on my first trip to Ethiopia! At the next table, Laura Niblack was having
tea. She was the nurse with whom I worked in Awanno 4 years ago and also “randomly”
saw among 22,000 other attendees to the 2006 Urbana Conference. What a great time to
rejoice and reminisce!

Peace at last
We hitched a ride around Addis with the water well engineer, enjoyed coffee and various
shopping areas. Tonight, as Ryan and I ate supper alone on the second story of a
restaurant overlooking several beautiful city streets, eating Ethiopian food we’d guessed
on since the menu was in Amharic, with no other foreigner in sight, with the American
song, “You’re so beautiful” playing in the background, I felt a peace wash over me. I
have felt like a lot of my expectations for this trip have not come to fruition, and there
have been roadblocks, El Ninos, deaths, frustrations, etc., but sitting there, I felt peace.
God is here, God is good! He protects, He is sovereign. Ryan, ever the man of few but
significant words, summed up his view in a candid statement: “I had no agenda when I
came on this trip, so things are pretty much going according to plan.” Touché.