The Road to Zenzellma
11:30am, December 4th, 2014, University of Bahir Dar, Ethiopia — the campus is beautiful, trees grow so thickly on even small medians between the concrete walkway and the cheerily-red-painted campus buildings that it feels like walking down a forest path. I watch two small monkeys scamper across the walkway. Gosh, darn monkeys! I think, happily picturing myself as part of this campus community. Students casually walk up and down the pathway in groups of twos and threes, wearing jeans and button-up shirts, holding a few books and chatting on their way from one class to another seemingly in no hurry. I, on the other hand, need to hurry. I have an appointment with the Dean of the Agricultural College at 12:00 to discuss the possibility of participating in their beekeeping graduate degree program, but, as time ticks away and I continue to find no evidence of the College of Agriculture, I am beginning to feel a bit stressed.
“Excuse me,” I address some passing students.
“Yes?” one of the young men in a group of three responds in a friendly manner as they stop.
“Hi, I am looking for the College of Agriculture, could you point me towards it please?”
“Oh it’s on the Zenzellma campus, eleven kilometers out of town” he gestures to his left.
“It’s… eleven kilometers out of town??” I ask, suddenly very panicked.
“You can get a bus by the college entrance,” he adds helpfully.
“Ameseg — Amese — , uh, thank you!” after an abortive attempt at the daunting Amharic word for “thank you,” ameseginalehu, I begin speedwalking towards the entrance. The remaining time seems very chancy to cover 11 kilometers of Ethiopian town and countryside with whatever local transportation I can find on the fly, to make a very important meeting.
8:30am, earlier that morning — As I approach Bahir Dar in a Fokker 50 turboprop from the national capital, the ground below is a patchwork of brown and tan fields, organized concentrically around small hills topped with the tree-filled enclosures of Ethiopian Orthodox churches. A single red dome is visible above the trees in the center of each sacred grove. An asphalt highway sweeps past a nearby church, like a casual pen stroke through the land, I follow it with my eyes as it passes three long low buildings sitting alone in the countryside, and disappears out of my sight under the plane, headed to the city I can’t see on the other side. The vast blue expanse of Lake Tana suddenly comes into view as we bank for the final approach to the airport. As the ground rushes up, I look for the hulk of a Soviet-era helicopter I remember from my previous visit in 2012, and there it is — the sinister shape of a Soviet Mi-24 Hind, sitting defanged and impotent without its rotors, in the corner of the field like a discarded shoe.
9:45am — after checking in to the hotel and eating a quick breakfast on the hotel’s lovely terrace, I set out to walk across town to the university campus five kilometres away — ample time to get there for my 12:00 appointment and also look for a friend’s restaurant on the way.
The main roads of Bahir Dar are broad and quiet, with only light automobile traffic. Blue-and-white three-wheeled “bajaj” auto-rickshaws are the most numerous vehicle and serve as local taxis. One drives past with long stalks of sugarcane extending far out the passenger window. Donkeys plod down the main thoroughfares loaded with goods. I walk along the palm-lined sidewalk, parallel to the lake, which is beyond the buildings on the far side of the road. “Bahir Dar” is Amharic (the main Ethiopian language) for “Sea Shore,” due to the lake, the largest body of water in landlocked Ethiopia. In a leafy acacia tree by the road, a number of big ugly vulture-headed marabou storks perch with macabre dignity. I turn down another main road leading away from the lake, this one has a median in the middle with trees and some works of art. The buildings on either side have that elegance of an earlier era, with balconies fronted by elegant wrought-iron railings
I think I recognize the place where on my previous visit, in 2012, my driver had met me for breakfast on his day off, a Sunday. After a delicious breakfast we had caught a bajaj to an Ethiopian Orthodox church service. Beide had been ridiculously overqualified to be my driver — teaching mechanical engineering at the university and owning a little restaurant. Though he’d have been within his rights to feel being my driver was beneath his dignity, he had shown me such kindness and hospitality from the start that I had felt extremely grateful. Both passengers in a bajaj that Sunday, no longer were we driver-and-client, but two friends on a day off. After the church service, we bajajed back to his own little restaurant off a side street near where we’d met for breakfast.
I very badly want to see this old friend again, but I had never had an email address for Beide, and lost his phone number a few phones ago, so I am without a means of contacting him. All I have is my memory and some photos taken in front of his restaurant. I look at the old photos on my phone, and try to match the surroundings as I walk around a few blocks in the general area. In the small seating area under a tree in front of Beide’s shop in 2012 I drank coffee the way Ethiopians do — green coffee beans roasted then and there in a skillet over a fire and then ground by hand in a mortar and pestle and immediately brewed. One of Beide’s little boys climbed on him, as we sat and talked, and then Beide surprised me with a dish of tere sega — chunks of raw beef served with spicy sauce. When I’d first heard of this “delicacy” I had been extremely skeptical, but it turns out when a friend has placed it in front of me and is smiling expectantly, I’ll risk my life rather than disappoint my friend — using my fingers, I dipped the glistening red chunks of meat in the spicy mustard sauce (senafich) and popped them into my mouth, they were tender and flavorful, and probably would have been delicious if I hadn’t been convinced I was swallowing my death warrant. As soon as I found some internet later, I googled “I ate raw beef will I die now?” and Dr Google informed me that apparently the only negative outcome of any likelihood would be “tapeworms,” which are “probably underreported because there are few or no symptoms.” Well okay, that’s a relief, I guess.
Alas, I’m unable to find Beide’s cafe, and the clock is ticking. I continue towards the university, passing through the stylized triangular arch of the official entry gate around 10:30. Plenty of time! I stroll through campus in a leisurely manner, taking in the beautiful abundance of trees and peaceful atmosphere, though anxiety begins to mount over seeing no sign of the Agricultural College, until at 11:30 I discover the error of my ways.
Hurrying back to the gate I don’t see an obvious bus stop, but there are security guards in green military camo, so I ask a guard.
“Excuse me, where do I catch a bus to the Zenzellma campus?”
She smiles warmly and replies “Take a seat I will wave down a bus for you.”
Sure enough, though the next van-sized bus that happens along doesn’t appear to have otherwise intended to stop in front of the gate, the guard steps out in front and waves down the driver, speaks to them briefly, and then turns to me.
“This one isn’t headed to Zenzellma, but it’s headed to another campus in that direction, you can catch another bus there”
“Ameseganalla — amesegenal — thank you,” I gratefully leave a trail of attempted thankyous as I hop on. Looking at my watch. it’s 11:38.
This little bus winds across town until it arrives at another campus. It doesn’t appear there is any fare for this inter-campus shuttle. Everyone disembarks at our destination and immediately sets off for various campus buildings. Seeing my erstwhile bus mates dissipating quickly and having no clear indication of where I should go next, in a bit of a panic I ask aloud to the crowd in general.
“How do I get from here to Zenzellma Campus??”
A shortish professorial-looking man in a tweed jacket immediately turns towards me, saying “Here, follow me!”
I follow him as we hastily walk through a small block of campus shaded by large trees to the road on the far side where there is another bus stop. He seems to be in a hurry himself and I feel deeply grateful for his kindness in taking this detour from his busy schedule. A few small buses come by but he says they are bound for the wrong place.
“I should maybe just take a taxi, I think?” I ask.
“No, no, no, you don’t want to do that, it’s too expensive.” I’m not sure that what is expensive for him would quite qualify as expensive for me, considering I’ve flown hundreds of miles out of my way for the appointment I’m presently in grave danger of missing, but respect for his professorial gravitas compels me to heed his admonition. We both wait impatiently for the correct bus. When it finally comes, he recognizes a student aboard it, and, leaning in, he speaks to the student quickly, before gesturing for me to board.
“You’ll need to change buses one more time but I know this student and he will look after you.”
“Amasegnalla — ama — thank you!”
11:55. The bus departs and, after just a mile or two, rumbles across the long concrete bridge over the Blue Nile, which begins right here at Lake Tana. The river below is broad and relatively shallow, rocks emerging above the surface in many places. Down on the bank some women are washing their clothes in the river. Just across the bridge the bus pulls to the shoulder and stops, and my new guide leads me out towards another waiting bus.
“Wait, don’t I need to pay my fare for that bus?” I ask
“Don’t worry, I paid your fare,” my guide, a mere kind stranger, a student, informs me.
“How much was it?”
“Don’t worry about it, really,” he responds sincerely. I see in his sparkling golden eyes that to insist would be to trod upon his dignity.
He indicates the waiting bus and I climb aboard.
“Amasegenalhu”
“Menem adel,” he responds with a smile, and he is gone, continuing his own journey. I take a seat beside a man in the battered clothes of a farmer, with baskets of goods on his lap. He smiles and nods and then resumes looking out the window. In the seat behind me, a woman has a chicken on her lap. I wait impatiently as the bus waits for a few more passengers. 12:10 … 12:20 … I console myself that from past experience the local attitude towards the importance of punctuality is extremely lax, but I’m very anxious to make the best impression on the dean. Finally, the driver is content and we are off into the countryside. The solid buildings of town give way to a patchwork of small fields stretched out on either side of us, interspersed with trees like a tilled savanna. Just past the farmland to our left, the blue of the lake shimmers to the horizon. I anxiously worry I won’t know where to get off, now with no guide, but the Zenzellma Campus turns out to be impossible to miss, three long low buildings in a lonely place in the countryside. The driver doesn’t speak any English but I indicate I want to get off here and after he stops, through hand signals we work out how much I should pay him, I hand over rumpled currency notes totaling a few cents, and step off the bus saying,
“Ameseginalehu!”
“Menem adel,” drifts after me as the door closes and the bus takes off again, leaving me all alone on the empty country road. I watch the bus disappear up the road over a rise beside the tree-filled enclosure of a church, the red dome poking out from the middle like a large egg in a nest, and I smile. I will always struggle to express the depth of my gratitude to these kind people.
Then I look at my watch, 12:40, and begin to run towards the building. Finally, I burst into the Dean’s office, sweaty and exasperated. He and an assistant are sitting with their feet up, they greet me cheerfully without looking at the clock, in fact, there isn’t one.
“Have you eaten?” he asks me, “Come let’s get some lunch.”
