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The drive down.
Tuesday 22nd December. The drives are always an adventure, so they are worth recording. Our Chinese pickup had just been serviced by an experienced engineer, so we set off later than usual, confident, to enjoy a smooth drive through to Jimma. We had never been so loaded – sacks of clothing for the Opo, stationery for the new Mission Centres and all our supplies were crammed into every available space, inside and outside the car. The road to Jimma was smooth and fast – asphalt all the way – although it still takes seven hours. On the way, Alex and I spent a good two hours evaluating all our staff. The Central Jimma Hotel was full, so we stayed in a new Hotel, the Honeyland, opened by a private investor, on the edge of town as you drive in. It was (too?) smart, comfortable and already becoming popular with the growing number of NGO consultants, road engineers and others who have appeared in the last few years. The weather was unusually cloudy.
Wednesday 23rd December. We set off before first light for Bedele, for breakfast – two and a half hours away over the mist blanketed mountain road. Even at this hour, the roadside is coming alive: men in pairs push trolleys of wood, old men swathed in white gabis stretch their legs, plantation workers wait to be picked up, children walk to school, men stand cleaning their teeth with twigs of wood, young girls fetch water, women tend newly lit cooking fires. After Bedele, the road disintegrates. The rutted, holed 80 year old asphalt gives way to rock and dried mud, baked hard by the sun. Just before Metu, the brakes jammed and Alemayehu began to complain of terrible tooth pain. Careful nudging backwards and forwards eased the brakes, but Alex’s tooth was getting worse. By Metu, the sun came through and car brakes were continuously rattling, but we managed to buy Diclofenac for Alex’s pain and I was able to give him some of the Metronidazole I was taking for Giardia. We reached Gambella by 3:45 in the afternoon, about the same time as Janice arrived by air from Addis. We took the car to the mechanic we know in Gambella, who told us the back brakes were completely shot. He kept the car overnight and we were really not sure we would reach the Opo at all. Supper that night with Sam Moody (our Project Director), in the Mekane Yesus Guest house was a mixture of relief at having arrived safely and uncertainty about how much we would need to change our plans for Christmas.
Christmas Eve.
The journey. At 7:30am, the mechanic had dismantled the back brakes completely and told us he would try to replace the brake pads in the front of the car, but would need power and there hadn’t been any all night. Within half an hour, we had spoken to Sisay, who drove round to show us the old Landcruiser he had found which was available for hire at 2,000 birr (£100) a day. The car looked strong, we liked Abraham, the driver and we took it.
Alex, though, was still not well. His tooth had given him pain most of the night and so, although he was still keen to come with us, Janice persuaded him to rest up, to give a chance for the antibiotic to work. By ten, we were on the road to Lare, having picked up David Onuk (our church leader in the Opo) and Joshua (an Opo student in Gambella). Because we did not have the pick up, we were unable to take the generator to show the “Jesus” film. David’s obvious disappointment soon gave way to excitement that we were heading for his people. At Lare, we managed to find a small local hotel (think wild west style wooden building, raised off the road and accessed over a deep wooden veranda) for soft drinks and something to eat. The whole town exists either side of a road they are in process of improving, so there were mounds of earth, earth movers and trucks everywhere. Well, you can never be anywhere for long without being spotted and soon, Simon Ker (our priest in Lare) was sitting with us, together with the five men he had brought from the Church Council. Simon was radiant because we had just helped them connect the church compound to the newly installed town water supply.
Within the hour, we turned down past the Catholic church compound, on a dusty track heading north from Lare, to find the Opo road. Well, it wasn’t a road at all, really. Fifteen minutes along the dusty track, David signalled frantically that we should turn into the scrub on the right – the best of the two roads that lead into the Opo. The road is little more than a track that weaves its way between thorn scrub, acacias and beautiful (name?) short trees whose bark flakes off after a brush fire to reveal a new layer of bright, ginger-orange bark.
Our track twists left and right, through low-hanging trees that snag the bags of clothing strapped to the roof. Fortunately, Abraham quickly notices the T-shirts and trousers hanging in the trees behind us and we stop to gather them. Only a week before, a polio vaccination team had come this way by car and we were able to follow such tracks as they had left. Without David, who knows this track well, we would have been totally lot. Only last week, he had walked it with his people, to clear as much as they could with pangas (machetes), to make a way for our car to get through.
After having nudged our way through trees, we came across a deep ditch crowned with long grasses, marking the border between the Nuer lands we had come through and the Opo. At this point, the car ground to a halt and we discovered that, when the engine gets hot, the starter motor struggles to re-start the engine. Abraham, patient and professional throughout, was completely unphased by this and, after some gentle rocking to and fro by the rest of us, he had the engine gunned and ready to go. It can’t have been more than half an hour when we spotted three strong young Opo who’d been waiting for us, to bring us in, having spent the entire morning with pangas to complete the job David had begun a week before. Having scrambled up onto the roof, they sang vigorously to announce our imminent arrival as we continued to trace deep furrows through grass and thorn. And suddenly, there we were. The choir had come out to meet us, Sam had got out to walk with them and we were drawing up to the beautiful clearing of Bonga Opo.
The arrival. It was just after three in the afternoon and we were all hot and dusty, so it was lovely to be greeted by three mothers Union members who washed our feet with river water. After we had unloaded the car, we sat to rest for a while in the shade of a short tree, in which some of the newly arrived Opo from other villages had begun to hang their possessions, to keep them off the ground.
The first thing was a big meeting with the community elders, who were sat in the shade at the far end of the beautifully swept, marked compound. Unlike some meetings, where everyone wants to have their say, this one had been carefully prepared. A man called Matu Paytut spoke on behalf of everyone:
Everyone agreed that if they had a generator, they could have a grinding mill and if they had both, they would benefit from real development. Janice offered to go with two or three of them tomorrow, by car, to visit their agricultural area and advise them on which crops might do well. Everyone was very pleased.
Christmas begins. Soon after this meeting broke up, a Nuer choir approached through the forest, singing and swirling in the air huge flags on long bamboo poles. This local Mekane Yesus (Lutheran) choir were out visiting nearby settlements to share something of Christmas with anyone they found. A crowd of some three hundred gathered around what turned out to be a preaching mound close by the church. Flag wavers and pastors crowded the top of the mound and I was invited to preach. As it was early Christmas Eve, I chose Isaiah 40, “Comfort, comfort my people” and “in the desert, prepare a way for the Lord.” David translated into Opo and someone else translated into Nuer.
The earth mounds and meandering tracks through to the Opo were images everyone could relate to. After the Mekane Yesus pastor had improved on my address, the choir set off into the bush for – well, where? No one seemed bothered, either by their presence or their absence.
As the sun began to set, David’s wife Sarah produced Mappo in a calabash, with a small enamelled bowl of cooked meat in oil. Mappo is a maize bread, formed into a perfect orb and baked somehow. It is heavier than genfo (ugali in Kenya and Uganda) and broken off, is dipped into the meat sauce by hand. When we were satisfied, David showed us the neat grass fence they’d built for us to wash in and took us to the river, to see where the baptisms would take place next morning. The narrow river ran strong from Dembidolo, in the highlands and the sunset was beautiful.
As we trace our way back, past the school (with highlander teachers!), the sun is below the horizon and the light is failing. David shows us his small, circular, grass tukul, where he has prepared a mattress for us for the night. We settle our things and lie down to rest before the evening programme begins. The sounds of family groups laughing and chattering as they erected their mosquito net “tents” all around us filled the dark. Someone arrived to offer us a net, which we refused, worried about the clawing heat of the hut. Half an hour later, they returned to ask why we wouldn’t take a net – we did and were grateful. These people had thought of everything. Just having us with them must have felt like a huge burden of responsibility.
The evening programme. At 8:20, David came and invited us to join them for the evening programme. Just by the grass church, they had prepared a circle of school desks, brought from the nearby school, now crammed with the whole community. Two candles and the LED light we had brought from Addis provided the only light. Overhead, a watery half moon lay on its back shedding its dim light on the few remaining patches of high evening cloud, making them appear ink-black. I read Luke’s account of the birth of Christ (David read in Amharic – there is no bible in Opo) and then re-told the story of salvation history, from the Creation and Fall to the Incarnation as David translated. Everyone listened: people leaning forward on their desks, women sitting on the floor nursing babies and the young people who would be acting out the same Christmas story later.
After I’d finished, they asked me if I would take questions which, of course, I did. I answered as fully and honestly as I could and each response seemed to increase their confidence to ask more. “Aren’t we all Christians – why different denominations?” led to “Why do the Seventh Day Adventists worship on Saturday and not keep Christmas?” which led to “When some of our people go to Gambella, they see Mosques – what do they believe?” to “Are some foods unclean?” and lastly to, “Who made Satan?” We finished at 10:30 and sat under the clearing sky for the Christmas drama to begin at 11:30pm. Around us, small groups of youths rehearsed their parts, women sat on the floor and talked, children slept and we listened to the noises of the night. And then at 11:30 promptly, the drama began. David Onuk took the part of Gabriel, wrapped in a sheet, in the style of a gabi. All the familiar elements of the narrative were presented, but with some delightful twists: Joseph, having been told Mary was pregnant, hit the bottle; Mary and her midwife covered themselves with a sheet for the birth and Mary panted a high pitched “uh” at regular intervals for ten minutes or more as the children, pretending to be recalcitrant sheep, arrived, scattered, dodged and avoided the shepherds who chased them around the space marked out by our desks.
A very tall man with clothing stuffed up his T-shirt represented Herod, who strutted around, leering at us and pointing to us each in turn. Whoops of delight from everyone as he approached us and then left, to usher in the three kings, who hovered indecisively over the manger – but we never saw the baby. As all this was going on, everyone began to twist nervously to the dark forest, where we heard the shouts and songs of what we took to be drunken revellers getting closer. But this was simply the final scene building up and soon, the fat, strutting, shouting Herod and his henchmen all burst into the clearing with huge branches in their hair, to act out the slaughter of the innocents. But this time, of course Mary, Joseph and the child had long gone – slipped away in the commotion of Herod’s arrival. The grand finale was Herod inexplicably collapsing (in a fit of rage?) and being bodily carried off stage by his soldiers to hoots of laughter from everyone there. It was now past 12 o’clock – Christmas Day. All went quiet; we prayed and set off for our beds. As we settled, we listened to the sounds of laughter all around us as, like us, everyone talked excitedly about what we had just seen. But very soon, the darkness curled around us as the firelight dimmed and the community settled into deep sleep.
Christmas Day.
In the early hours, we became aware that a watch had been set on the slumbering camp, as the voice of a man, singing gently to himself, broke the deep silence around us. At first light, everyone began to wake. Here, children stirred excitedly, there a man coughed, there someone began to beat a drum and then stopped, and there someone was stirring the cooking fires. By seven, a soft grey light filled the sky and we emerged from our tukul to find even more mosquito nets around us, gently disgorging their sleepy occupants. Very soon, I joined six of the young men who had brought the cow they’d bought three months ago and fattened for today’s feast.
The cow, tied to a fallen tree, was gently grazing the grass around it as the men began a soft but urgent discussion about who would actually kill it. No one, it seems, really wanted to. But first, they had to find a knife. Ten minutes later, a knife is found and the work begins. As soon as everyone is sure it is dead, the poor beast is dismembered as the others look on. A small fire is lit among the fallen leaves, presumably to clear the ground for later on.
Over by the church, four women are grinding fresh maize between stones and, as she watches, Janice is invited to join in. Perhaps expecting her to say “no”, there is a shriek of delight and laughter as she gets down on her knees and begins to follow what the others are doing. Her fellow-grinders call out encouragement and others gather around to watch. We both felt very much part of what was going on around us – no one bothered us with requests for anything (so unlike other places) and everyone seemed as happy to have us around as we were to be there.
Christmas day activities begin. At 8:30, we were ready to start the Christmas Day celebrations. Janice headed off in the car with Abraham and two men who knew the way to the agricultural area, to see for herself what they were growing and the problems they face.
So Andrew, in sandaled feet and dressed in an old alb and stole, wearing mitre (it was already getting hot) and carrying his pastoral staff, was led into church to start the liturgy. Except there were so many people we could not fit into the tiny grass church so, after the first two or three songs, David decided we should all move out under the trees. Desks were passed over people’s heads and soon, all the desks from the previous night were rearranged, classroom-style, under the trees for the readings and the sermon. The old men who had met us the previous afternoon all sat to one side, right at the front, to keep a close eye on everything that was to transpire. They didn’t really join in all morning.
As soon as the sermon was over, all those who would receive baptism or confirmation stood make their vows and we were led through the fields of grass, between the small, shaggily roofed tukuls, down to the river for the baptisms, which Janice and the others got back in time to join us for. The river in full spate must fill the space between the far bank, cut deep into the grassland rising high above it, all the way up the steep rocky bank we descended to reach it. At this time of year, it is no more fifteen feet wide and just where it rounds a sharp bend, the strong, green current makes the surface swirl and bubble. Everyone gathered at the water’s edge as I waded out, surprised at the strength of the current that caught the alb, pulling me, rather as an eighteenth century sea anchor must have done to a ship in a storm. One by one, adults were helped into the fast running water; they crouched forwards, some with their faces right in the water, as I baptised them by pouring water over their heads.
I was delighted when Matu Paytut, the man who spoke for the elders yesterday, stood before me to be baptised. The last of 32 adults. The children were baptised on the bank, in water scooped up into a large aluminium saucepan. I waded from the river, my alb and sandaled feet muddy, to walk back with everyone to the church for the confirmations. 43 adults were confirmed, after which I blessed and named eight babies, one no more than two weeks old, whom we called Samuel, much to Sam Moody’s delight. The liturgy was our new translation, just printed off in Addis. The Opo language has never been written down before so this is the first ever written material in Opo. David, who works for the government, tells me it is now being used as the baseline for the translation work he is doing in the education department. For communion, we used Mappo and wine brought from Addis.
By 12:30, we were finished; four very varied hours in intensifying heat. We had all hoped that we would be able to stay to share in the Christmas feast, but the prospect of the five hour drive back, over difficult terrain and without David (as leader, he had to stay) began to make us anxious. We set off just after 1:00, with two live chickens in the back of the car and four Opo students who needed to get back to Gambella that day. Joshua, who had come with us and sat in the front, is still at school and, although he has walked this many times, was not as good as David was at helping us navigate through trees and over thorn scrub to find the faint tracks of the Polio expedition’s Landcruiser. The result was that we had some wonderful brief detours around Nuer kraals (several small tukuls in a clearing). We were regularly chased by three or four dogs who, amazingly, could keep up with the car as it sped across flat land grazed clean by cattle. Everywhere was dry; only drought resistant trees showed any green and the earth was parched and cracked. We reached Lare after two hours and stopped for soft drinks again. It is only when you reach somewhere like Lare – still a remote town, once a huge cattle camp, served by a main road, now all earthworks – that you realise just how deep you have been into the bush. On the way back, we had a puncture on the rear, nearside wheel. As the Landcruiser is so high off the ground, Abraham had to raise the car on the jack, then wedge a huge stone underneath, so he could re-site the jack under the springs, to get the car high enough to change the tyre.
We arrived in Gambella, exhausted and sun burned, just after six, as the light was fading. Alemayehu, we discovered, when we met up with him shortly afterwards, had become so desperate about his tooth pain that he’d pleaded with the local doctor to extract his tooth. The seven injection process began, he tells us, with one in the backside (sic). He soon discovered that the tooth he did have removed was masking the pain in another, broken tooth in his top jaw and the doctor told him to have that done in Addis. The car, it seemed, wasn’t much better. The front brakes were fixed, but everything, brake pads, shoes, plates, springs had been removed from the back wheels and the handbrake dismantled completely – simply because it was beyond the mechanic’s ability to fix them in the field. We were just grateful he’d managed to do enough to get the car home again. Christmas dinner at the Baro Hotel, then back to sleep.
Boxing Day
The plan had been that we would go to Nininyang today - a new Mission Centre being established by Peter Kuel – but Nininyang is more than three hours away, each way, over rough roads. With Alemayehu still in pain, the car perhaps only just fit enough to get back to Addis and my utter exhaustion, we decided it was too much and took a much needed rest day in Gambella – walking by the river, watching the hundreds of people washing, bathing and fishing, as we sat on plastic mats under a large tree, drinking sugared, spiced tea. We bought mangoes there and went to the market to buy salad vegetables to sterilise for lunch. Around five, when the sun begins to set and it is cooler, Janice and I went to the Anglican Centre by ourselves, to walk around, look at buildings and discuss our vision of what we might do if Irish Aid cut our Year 2 and Year 3 funding completely. Just as it was getting dark, the power was cut in our section of the town and so I cooked Spanish omelette for the four of us by candlelight, on two gas rings.
Sunday 27th
Here was the plan – Alex would go to the Full Gospel Church and we’d pick him up later; Sam would go to St. Barnabas, our Annuak Church; Janice would stay to pray and then work; and I would go to St. Luke’s for eight thirty. I found St. Luke’s disappointing. Stephen Kuany was newly in post and I was hoping to see great things, but the church held barely more than forty people and a layman I recognised but didn’t know led the service. Moses Chuol translated for me, but I was encouraged to visit the Sunday School rather than sit through the notices. The Sunday School of around 30 children was great fun – enthusiastic, engaging and well led. When I got back into church, they were just about to read the Gospel and I had to leave, to pick up Alex, drive to the Mekane Yesus compound to collect Janice and our bags, so we could check-in at the airlines office by 10:30am. When we got to the airlines office, no one was there and were told that they had already left – so we set off to cover the hard rocky, dusty 17 kilometres to the airport, expecting to catch up with the convoy on its way. When we pulled up, a Federal Policeman in blue fatigues, leaning against a tree, with an automatic slung across his back, told us no one had come yet and that he thought the flight might be delayed. We pulled up under the trees and opened the Ritz crackers that Janice had been saving for just such a moment for days. We shared them with the policeman, whom Alex had begun to engage in conversation. Another car pulled up and three people got out: Dave, a Maths teacher in Denver,Colorado, and his sister Migs, a physician trying to set up a Fistula half-way house between Bure and Metu; and Teferi, an Ethiopian in charge of development for the Bethel Synod of the Mekane Yesus Church. Dave and I had a great chat sitting on top of the discarded rocket launcher that had fallen off some long-forgotten military ‘plane. Janice and Teferi were talking agriculture – and our Federal Police friend brought us all coffee. After an hour and a half, we gave up hope of seeing anyone else and decided to drive back into town, where Teferi found out that check-in had been changed to 1:30. Dave and Migs invited us for lunch at the Baro Hotel and we chatted until it was time to head out for the airport again, this time in the full heat of the day, for the process of checking-in, bag-checks, body-checks and waiting. We got back to Addis just as the sun was setting, having flown via Assosa in the next regional state. It was wonderful to have Emma with us for supper before she flew back early next morning to Dire Dawa.
Thank you, David and the Opo people, for a wonderful, memorable Christmas!
Janice and Andrew Proud
Addis Ababa
29th December 2009.
WINDOW ONTO THE HORN OF AFRICA
September 2009
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Maize drying |
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Sorghum in the field |
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Highly prized sweets |
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Emergency change of car from truck. |
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Jacob and his son with the harvest and the bottle of stones for scaring birds away; sorghum in the field |
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Andrew preparing for baptisms. |
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Baptising |
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Holy communion with the OPO |
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Brief respite |
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Open air discussion |
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Breakdown |
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After a long walk |
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David’s home, his family were beginning to prepare pieces of meat for the feast. Coffee was being ground between two flat stones by Sarah. |
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Sarah and David |
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The children enjoyed acting like recalcitrant sheep |
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Grinding wheat |
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Grinding wheat |