The Apinautica -- Ethiopia I, Day 3

[aggienaut]

   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.

Comments

[newwaytowrite.livejournal.com]

If this is non fiction travel story I think the time line and thrush of what happened when you could tell the story with say a footnote to explain this museum section was a merge of two separate visits. Would that work?

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure I follow, are you suggesting I keep it more or less as is with a footnote saying it happened at a different time?

In another piece I wrote about Ethiopia for a magazine, that got rejected, I had just bounced back and forth in time, ie flash forward to this 2014 visit, and telling them thats what we were doing. In fact that one bounces back and forth in time rather a bit. I felt it was a bit confusing so am trying to smooth it over more this time.

[newwaytowrite.livejournal.com]

I don't see a problem with weaving two visits into one. I just wondered if that was really bothering you and thinking it would bother your readers the way around might be by way of footnote. Maybe just a short sweet acknowledgement in a bracket or parenthesis would work? I am wondering why the entry is entitled day three but the account begins day 18. I personally thought it read beautifully as a mix of some history and your experience seems to cement you as in the place looking at the history of where you are and yet showing you are not simply choosing what history you should see. The willingness to have a citizen of the country select the museums and locations and the age range of the citizens who shared their stories woven into the history of their country is a smart and self aware choice.

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Thanks! Yes you caught some of the things I'm going for here, trying to have the history of the places I visit be essentially part of the story, pinned by the contemporary. And yes, thats why I didn't want to replace the locals who showed me around with paid guides or something, because them showing me "organically" what they thought was important I felt was an important part of the story.

As for the "day 18," that's continuing from the first day in Ethiopia which starts with "Sunday, April 22nd, 2012, Day 16 in Africa –" since it's back-to-back with the previous Nigeria trip. I want to maintain that sense of how long I've been traveling, though I'm thinking I might take it out of the daily "timestamp" and just reference it occasionally because it is a bit confusing. Also I've always kind of liked the feel of old timey journal entries (or are they all joke parodies of old timey journals) that begin "day 18 — we're running out of food and the natives are looking at us hungrily" or whatever whatever. (:

[engarian.livejournal.com]

I think you did well with the history, minor as it is, but I have to say, I think you're overthinking Addis. The fact that you had a female offer to take you to some tourist destinations does not imply a romantic link-up in any way, whether it takes place in 2012 or in 2014. It could as easily been a hired guide who happened to be female. Lord knows I've had enough male tour guides here and there on my travels around and outside the USA.

- Erulisse (one L)

[suzanna-o.livejournal.com]

I agree with this feedback. Inserting a conversation about a girlfriend makes this past-you read as insecure in how you relate to other women. It doesn’t add anything. I think you’re going for something like Paul Theroux’s travel writing. If you want to add an internal observation that Addis was very attractive, and that you regretted you couldn’t spend more time with her, that’s fine. If she was a guide whose time you paid for, or if you thanked her by paying for lunch, you can say that too.

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Yes Paul Theroux's travel writing is very much in the line of what I aspire to. Are you saying you think he would have an internal monologue about her being attractive versus just saying she was? I feel like he'd be more likely to say she was than to have himself thinking it.

I guess part of the reason I'm picking apart this specific thing is one of my first beta readers commented that she didn't like me saying Addis was attractive, but I'm thinking now she was an outlier. (though also I couldn't think of any very good ways to describe Addis and think in general wish I was better at character descriptions. Maybe the key is just to describe her more thoroughly but I'm not sure how)

[suzanna-o.livejournal.com]

Don’t have the fake written conversation about the girlfriend waiting for you at home, and don’t make it creepy that a woman offered to guide you around the city. Whether she found you attractive is irrelevant for the reader trying to follow your travels. Cut that out, and you could allude to enjoying Addis’s smile or something if you think it’s important to frame your relation to her.

I think Theroux mostly travels alone. ;)

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Yeah it sounds like everyone here agrees I was overthinking it. For the record I personally think its the normal-ist thing to have friends of the opposite sex, my best friend here is a girl (Billie) after all. I was just really worried about readers thinking the protagonist-me was philandering around but I think it looks like I was overthinking that.

[livejournal.livejournal.com]

Hello! Your entry got to top-25 of the most popular entries in LiveJournal!
Learn more about LiveJournal Ratings in FAQ (https://www.dreamwidth.org/support/faqbrowse?faqid=303).

[aerodrome1.livejournal.com]

Great entry!

I've always been interested in Ethiopia and its history,

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

I think I want to put the history of the place in more than it currently is. I'm thinking of maybe inserting it between days again, either as "dreams" like in the first Nigeria chapter or perhaps just like an extended epigraph between each day (the days themselves being like mini chapters). But I don't think I can do it as "scenes" like in Nigeria, it might just be the best expository writing I can manage about it. Still grappling with this undertaking in my head.

[mollywheezy.livejournal.com]

I agree that you can write a true story without being a slave to the precise factual details. I think your lunch mention of your girlfriend worked well. Also, my husband and I have always had friends of the opposite sex and have gone out with them one on one so I see no issue with having a local female take you on a tour. I realize some people do have issues with that . . . I once was out to lunch with a male friend from graduate school, and saw an elderly church member in the restaurant and introduced her. The following Sunday, she asked to talk to me privately. She began, "Sweetie, you're married." I was like, "I know?" And she explained that I shouldn't be having lunch with a man who wasn't my husband. I told my husband that and he just rolled his eyes, lol.

As for history, I find it fascinating, so if you want to put in more you certainly can, but I don't think you would need to.

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Yeah it sounds like everyone here agrees I was overthinking it. For the record I personally think its the normal-ist thing to have friends of the opposite sex, my best friend here is a girl (Billie) after all. I was just really worried about readers thinking the protagonist-me was philandering around but I think it looks like I was overthinking that.

I do want to give the readers a feeling for the history of the places I've visited. I'm thinking now I want to insert more into this chapter. I'm thinking of maybe inserting it between days again, either as "dreams" like in the first Nigeria chapter or perhaps just like an extended epigraph between each day (the days themselves being like mini chapters). But I don't think I can do it as "scenes" like in Nigeria, it might just be the best expository writing I can manage about it. Still grappling with this undertaking in my head.