Rock hewn churches and rockets.

Lalibela, Amhara region, Ethiopia, Oct - Nov 2024

In the months leading up to my setting off to explore the people and places between Gobekli Tepe on the Turkish - Syrian border, to Cape Town in South Africa, I’d kept a close eye on the geo-political situation in pretty much every country I planned to visit and from what I was seeing on social media, western tourists were returning to Ethiopia again.

No country has ever been thrust into the public glare in the way Ethiopia was during the appalling famine of the 1970s - 1980s. Many people my age will remember the first ever, televised famine appeals. I have a vivid memory of me, sitting on the sofa with my Dad, eating strawberries and cream when the appeal was first aired.

The feelings of guilt mixed with despair that hit me that night was something I had never experienced and was, I suppose, my first experience of so-called white guilt.

I now know that the actions of the marxist regime in Ethiopia bore some responsibility for the repeated crop failures of the early eighties. Rural farmers were killed or detained in huge numbers as the Derg  regime saw millions of Ethiopians killed by famine, political oppression and civil war.

With the signing in November 2022 of a peace treaty between the government and the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front, TPLF, and the end of the cross border conflict with Eritrea, the area was enjoying a rare period of relative peace and I was thrilled at being able to visit the astonishing rock hewn churches.

They had been on my trip bucket list since I first read about them online.

Talking to different people in Addis Ababa I learnt that the picture of tranquility being painted by the ruling Oromo party was not entirely accurate. Although the Tigray was enjoying relative peace, there was fighting taking place in the Amhara region between government forces and Fano, meaning freedom fighter and evoking memories of the historic Ethiopian resistance fighters of the second Ethio-Italian war.

Although officially annexed into Italy from 1937 - 1941, Ethiopia, along with Liberia, remains the only African country never to have been colonised. 

Consecutive droughts meant that the word famine was again being whispered on the streets of Bole and as I got to know people better, they opened up to me more and more about how they really felt about the government.

I met a group of people travelling with a tour guide who informed me that their trip to Lalibel had been cancelled at the last minute due to ongoing fighting in the Amhara region.The local news showed footage of government troops being transported into the region to subdue the rebels.

Security in the city capital was increased at the same time and whenever I wandered away from the main tourist areas, I was stopped and questioned by the police or military. For my own protection, I was assured.

Thankfully, Ethiopian airlines was still flying to Lalibela airport from Bole and as I boarded the Bombardier Dash 8 I was directed to the ‘posh seats’ at the front of the plane as I had been given a free upgrade !

At the time I couldn't help thinking, “oh look, the only white guy on the plane gets upgraded”. Looking back on my time in Ethiopia though, I realise that it was because I was a tourist. 

Ethiopians need tourism. Extensive, overseas investment in Ethiopia all seems to be spent on military drones from Turkey and replacing peoples houses with office blocks, apartment buildings and luxury hotels. The vast majority of which are half finished or when completed, stand empty.

Upgrading me was both a little “thank you for visiting” and a “please tell your friends how well you were treated when you were here”.

Well, let me tell you friends. 

Firstly, I've flown many times with Ethiopian airlines and they have always been first class!

Secondly, I was treated fantastically in Ethiopia wherever I went.

Ethiopians have had to become streetwise on a national level. They are savvy and I had some really deep conversations with locals, especially students, who displayed a clear understanding of how the corporate west was never going to release its stranglehold on African economies as long as Africans kept voting for leaders who were in the pockets of the same mega corporations.

They held up Burkina Faso’s Ibrahim Traoré as the type of leader Africans should be electing. Not that he was elected.

It doesn't surprise me that I have heard praise for the Burkinabé leader all throughout Africa.

What struck me the most about the Ethiopian people, whatever region I was in, was their kindness, hospitality, friendliness and above all, the insistence of some of the most economically disadvantaged people that I have ever met, to share the little they had with me!

Actually let’s drop the politically correct terms. MANY Ethiopians are living in absolute poverty. Families with nothing. Zip. Diddly squat. Sweet F___A__.

People who have been subjected to a brutal, marxist regime, civil wars, wars with their neighbours, all sorts of weather related catastrophes.

And yet.

These were the people who were inviting me to share dinner with their families.

Inviting me to enjoy the sacred coffee ceremonies. Somehow managing to make the precious injera and shiro feed an extra mouth.

Their kindness didn't come with the expectation of a reward of some kind.

Ethiopians welcomed me into their houses and treated me like a VIP because that is their way.

As I had already learnt in all of the countries I had visited so far, ordinary people are kind.

In the middle east and Africa, strangers are welcomed.

At least this stranger was.

I never felt like a stranger.

Never once.

Simunye! We are One.

Lalibela airport is pretty basic and within 15 minutes of landing I had collected my luggage and Ephrim who had been recommended by my friend Ephrim in Addis had spotted me amongst the rest of the arriving travellers, all twelve of us, and was demonstrating with the armed soldiers guarding the place that he had to be allowed in as he was meeting Mr Adam.

Loading my gear into the boot of his spotless hybrid, and when I say hybrid I mean it was cobbled together with bits of different cars! Ephrim explained that usually the guards just let him in but Fano was close to the town.

The effect of the climate was obvious. Riverbeds were dry, fields were brown and food was scarce.

It was unusually hot at 42℃ and the car had no aircon so I was relieved when Ephrim told me that it would only be a 30 minute journey as long as we weren't stopped by soldiers.

We were about to be stopped by soldiers when upon noticing me in the car, the army captain in command of this particular roadblock made a huge fuss of waving us through.

Clearly he also recognised the importance of tourism to the hungry locals.

The road from the airport to Lalibela is a constant reminder of the region's tumultuous recent history. Mortar craters, flash flooding, rockslides have traffic by armoured vehicles and a total lack of maintenance have left a rocky track with a few potholes of tarmac !

There are now apparently plans to improve the road. I hope they include building a road.

To me, it just added to the adventure and I happily agreed when Ephrim suggested we take a short detour to see Lalibela Lodge where President George W Bush had spent the night when he visited the area. I later learnt that his security detail and entourage was so huge that half the security team never even got into the site of the historic rock hewn, underground churches!

You could see that this Lodge, along with dozens of similar hotels had been built in the lush green gorge above Lalibela with the clear expectation that they would be filled with wealthy tourists expecting a luxury experience.

The trees and vines that have overgrown these places care little for the plans of men. All that can be seen from the hills above the gorge is a flash of red roof tile here or there. A lone chimney stack protrudes from the forest canopy and when your eyes become accustomed to the bright sunlight,  you can just make out the shadowy silhouettes of forgotten plans and dreams where the most powerful man in the world once fell asleep listening to the sounds of Africa.

Crickets. Wild dogs. Frogs and in his case, the squelch of two way radios.

POTUS is secure.

Although my accommodation was nowhere near as luxurious, in spite of the lack of power, water, toilet paper (I had my own) and food, it suited me perfectly. I had a sweeping view of the valley and mountains that encircled it on three sides, it was clean,spotlessly clean, too high up the hill for the noise from the town centre to reach only 20 minutes walk to the historic site where according to legend, aided at night by The Angels, King Lalibela built the series of awe inspiring churches from the rock. He literally cut them out of the earth.

It was too late in the day for me to enter the site on the day I arrived so I chatted to the young deacons who stood in a group outside the church for a few minutes then headed down the hill into the bustling market area.

I was looking for somewhere that had food to sell and a shop with bottled water available. As a rule I drink the local water if the locals do. Apart from the fact that the place I was staying at had no running water, my taxi driver friend Ephrim had made me promise not to drink the tap water. Showering was OK.

As it transpired, the power and water would be out around half of the time I was in Lalibela.

Not the end of the world.

I couldn't always charge my phone.

First world problems.

I spotted a group of young children playing football although the football itself looked more like a bag of rags loosely sown together.

It didn't bounce. It was hard to kick it above knee height, even for these kids, the goalie was in danger of being hit in the face by bits flying off and with loose pieces it was going to be tricky getting goalline technology to work!

Fortunately, I’d spotted a general store that had on its shelves, chilli sauce, toilet paper, teff flour for injera, cooking oil and very dusty, uninflated footballs! 

Twenty minutes later, I sort of fell out of the tuk tuk as the 10 year old driver performed a Fast and Furious style stop on the edge of the dusty football pitch. By the time I had figured out who was, theoretically, in charge, a hand pump had been located and two older boys had taken responsibility for inflating the ball to the correct pressure.

The time honoured method of bouncing the ball on the head of the smallest child to check the pressure was employed and once the older boys were bored of that, a huge cheer went up and the game restarted.

As more older boys arrived I got chatting to the leaders and learnt that they were students in the local high school and took it upon themselves to run the town's junior football team.

Due to the conditions these youngsters had grown up under, there had been no league games for over 5 years and the town’s official club had closed. Realising that football was a valuable escape for themselves and the youngsters, these 17 year old boys had stepped in and held weekly training sessions and arranged friendly games between the local children.

As is often the case in poor areas, the camaraderie of the football team that included boys and girls was the only thing that these children had to look forward to and as such, they spent most of their time running around the dusty pitch that the older boys had marked out.

They later showed me the original pitch. 

It had been used as a vehicle park during the war and had been shortened during an air raid. The goal line now rested on the edge of a huge crater that led into a steep ravine. Retrieving the ball after a goal took longer than the game itself!

The smiles on the faces of these young faces as they chased after a ball that actually went in the direction they intended and rolled instead of wobbling is a memory of the trip that I will never forget.

The older boys were very keen to stress that children only got to play in the matches if they had attended school in the previous week! 

I still had supplies to source so I said my goodbyes and headed off to explore the narrow streets of the market and before I left Kidane, one of the older boys told me that they would like to invite me for coffee at their house and that some of the children would like to be there.

Naturally I was happy to accept the offer and we arranged to meet at the market later in the week.

I walked away to shouts of “bye mister Adam” feeling good about the world and looking forward to enjoying some traditional Ethiopian Tibs, a delicious meat dish in a spicy sort of stew.

More about my time in Lalibela including the astonishing ancient site coming soon!