It was well after midnight with dawn still hours away. The lights of nearby Addis Ababa flickered in the distance as we neared the end of our travels upcountry and to the Red Sea, our visa set to expire in two days. A long line of transports, trucks of all sizes, crowded the highway, officially barred from travelling at night. They ignored the restriction in the hinterlands, but all had stopped as they neared the Ethiopian capital, awaiting first light when they could resume legal travel. I sat in the cab, graciously offered by our hitchhiking host, unable to sleep, trying to fully appreciate my good fortune of having experienced what we’d experienced the previous three weeks in early 1969 going this way and that with no clock, no compass, no map, guided by whim alone.
Sitting in a
spot once shared by the Queen of Sheba. Hunkering down in our lodging on a
rainy night in Dessie as we watched, through gaps in the floorboards of our
lodging, the permanent residents, rats, scurry about. (We did our best to
ignore them. They did the same.) Fixing 13 flat tires over two days. Stuck on a
remote roadside because of one of those flats, forcing us to spend a sleepless
night high in the mountains, the Rift Valley thousands of feet below just off
the edge of the roadway, our hitchhiking host having to trek into a nearby
village to hire someone to stand guard because of the threat of insurgent
activity, and, in the black of the night, uninterrupted by civilization, seeing
more stars than words can describe except “spectacular!” Riding in a crammed
kombi mid-day through a village when one passenger yelled “Stop! I know a great
place to get lunch. I used to teach here.”
We all
followed him into a mud hut in the middle of the small village, sat on goat
skins, flies in abundance, to feast on the local fare, injera and wat, a
stew-like concoction, served with mounds of cooked veggies, especially lentils,
all heavily laced with a spicy – HOT! – mixture called berbere (“bear-beary”) to
the great delight of all.
What’s not
to love!
The flies
were of no concern, by the way.
Ethiopia,
many believe, is the birthplace of Judaism and Christianity. Many scholars
believe it was home to the Garden of Eden. Because of its seminal Christian,
Jewish and Islamic influences, Ethiopian cuisine follows strict dietary laws.
Because of
that, Ethiopians of the time were extreme in their attention to hygiene. Before
every meal, even in those areas enveloped in drought, a bit of water and soap
to wash hands was always offered. Every dish, every glass was spotless. And no
utensils. Injera*, a flat bread made from teff, a high-protein grain indigenous
to Ethiopia, serves as both fork and spoon. And you always – always! – eat
using your right hand, never the left. The left is reserved for functions best
left unmentioned when chatting about food. The “no left hand” rule is important
because, when food is served, eating is done from a single platter shared by
all.
For me, it
was love at first taste!
But food
would prove to be my undoing – not of Ethiopia. But of Italy.
On our
return to our HQ in Addis Ababa, the YMCA, Andy and I decided to celebrate the
triumph of our travels by going out to a first-class restaurant. Because of the
Italian influence that remained strong in Ethiopia, we decided on Italian.
It was
delicious. And almost fatal – for me.
During the
night, I was struck with the “runs” – a bad, bad case that had me, throughout
the night, doing, over and over, what the ailment’s moniker implies.
We had to
fly to Dar es Salaam that morning, with me in great distress, an eye always on
a nearby “facility.” As you can imagine, having the runs and flying on an
airplane are two things that don’t go together well.
After landing
in Dar es Salaam, we found a small hotel. I crashed, becoming intimate,
frequently saying my “I dos,” with the lone toilet down the hall. In three
days, I’d lost 40 pounds and was not getting better. I needed medical help. We
went to the U.S. Embassy seeking a recommendation for a doctor. “We don’t do
that” was the reply. My tolerance for officious bureaucrats has always been
terribly short, so I persisted. Still “no.”
“Well, I’m
going to lie here in the lobby then until you do!”
I did.
That did the
trick.
The doctor
was gracious and understanding and prescribed medicine that quickly cured what
I’ve come to call “Mussolini’s revenge.”
The reason
for the ailment was not because I had eaten Italian. When Fascist Italy invaded
(never conquered) Ethiopia in 1935, it set about to install water and sewer
systems throughout the then-small capital of Addis Ababa. They wanted it done
quickly, so they simply dug a single trench, placing water and sewage lines
side by side. When new, all was fine. But in the decades since, well after the
Mussolini’s Fascist forces were driven from Ethiopia, the pipes had
deteriorated. You can imagine the result.
We were
always careful when eating in our travels in Africa, including Ethiopia. We
often ate street food (cheap, but tasty, especially samosas), but the food was
always well-cooked or had a skin we could peel, like a banana. We did it often,
before and after. Still do during visits. Never a problem.
But that
night, thinking a first-class restaurant in Ethiopia’s capital city was “safe,”
I ate a salad – rinsed, no doubt, in tap water coming from pipes in that single
trench.
Benito Mussolini
got his revenge.
NEXT: “Persona
Non Gratis? No thanks”
*Injera, the sour flat bread, is an acquired taste. It has what some say is an unappetizing grayish look with the texture of those old foam pads that sat under our manual typewriters in the Tampa Tribune’s newsroom to help still the symphony of “clanks” from each as dozens of folks pounded away on their Royals or Underwoods.
* * *
* * *
No comments:
Post a Comment