The Rock Orphans Who Took me for a Wild Ride through the Birth Canal
I jumped down from the bus quickly and made it out of the bus station before any street urchins attached to my shadow. I found a nearby hotel, dropped my bag and grabbed my climbing shoes.
I’ve been in Ethiopia just four months. In such as mountainous country, I made it custom to get to the highest point above every city I visit to scan for climbing opportunities. Mekele sits in the high desert in Tigray, in northern Ethiopia. Just a few hours from here, sits the famous Gheralta Massif, sandstone towers and rock churches.
As I marched to the edge of town I came across a holy man. With my broken Amharic, I mustered the question: path to mountain? He took my request much more literal than metaphysical, and took me by the hand up a series of steep, rocky roads. He led me to an Orthodox church where the path continued up the mountainside. Spotting an interesting boulder, I bade him farewell and took up the trail on my own.
He sat and watched from the church wall, and I reached the boulder. He made a positive sign that this boulder was meant for me. The boulder wasn’t to my liking, and I walked on around a corner, before I disappeared I looked back at the holy man. He waved his arms furiously with his sacred book in the air! Something he was trying to tell me.
I arrived to a much larger crag and was immediately surrounded by children. As they danced around screaming the word farenji, their numbers grew. I had crossed an invisible line. I left the church and the holy man behind and landed in the hectic world of the Mekele rock orphans. A twelve year old boy named Samy wearing tattered pants and an oversized, dusty white t-shirt stepped towards me and grabbed my hand.
Come, he said in Amharic.
The rest of the boys eagerly watched me as I followed Samy to a small opening at the bottom of the cliff. Samy crawled out of the sunlight into the rock, and I saw his feet disappear in the tunnel’s shadows.
Come, he repeated
Without much assessment, I bent down and started crawling up the ramp leading into the cave. After 10 feet, I reached a chamber where Samy was waiting. Luckily, I had my Ethiopian cell phone flashlight and could see the true dimensions of the small three foot chamber. I assumed this was the end of the rock orphan cave tour, and when I looked back down the tunnel numerous scrubby headed rock orphans blotted out the light and the rest of the world.
Turning this train of rock orphans around would take time, sure, but I would eventually escape from the cave’s constrictions. The chamber was only three feet wide. There were no other visible passages. Samy pointed up and started climbing.
Come, he said.
I stuck the cell phone in my mouth and put my chimney climbing technique in practice. The walls of the cave were conglomerate masses of rounded stones, frozen in time following an ancient volcanic explosion in the Great Rift Valley long before there were orphans. The crack was probably formed from thousands of years of seepage. I briefly imagined climbing through the earth’s crust, where two tectonic plates were sliding by one another.
After another eight feet, I reached the next chamber where Samy was wedged between the walls, smiling. I could no longer see the entrance to the cave and looking above resembled a narrow mouth of crooked teeth leading to an ever tighter esophagus, suffocating and desperate.
I put my head into high gear, arm wrestling thoughts of claustrophobia. Thoughts are the catalyst for disasters in these types of situations, and steady breathing and silence are like medicine.
I looked at Samy and read an adolescent coolness in his beady eyes. Surely he has sat here numerous times before. He pointed up again and moved up. I had to remove the backpack and give it to Samy to maneuver my body through the vertical cavern. After another seven feet I reached a chamber that opened slightly wider, meaning I could actually look down, into the darkness where I could hear the voices but see no children. The darkness had swallowed me.
If the rock orphans were after my backpack, this was it. All Samy had to do was drop the backpack down the windy crack to his friends. Instead, Samy handed me my backpack and joined me in the next chamber. This time he smiled even wider and pointed to a corner of the cave where a faint light filtered through the darkness.
End, he said
I don’t know if he meant it was the end for me or the cave, but I was thrilled to see sunlight. The final move — which I will call the birth canal — required worm-like maneuvering. Headfirst, I shifted my shoulders through a 12 inch split just big enough. After negotiating the shoulders, I slid my hips through the birth canal, one at a time and came out in a small cave perched 25 feet above the ground.
I was overcome with happiness and looked back at Samy, whose 50 pound body seemed to dart through the hole. I think he told me I was the first farenji to do this. We hugged and shouted our triumph over the top of the city. If the holy man had prayed for me, this was it.
The rock orphans must have been impressed. Only two others would follow me and Samy all the way through the birth canal, while the rest, too afraid of the vertical crack, climbed up the side of the rock on the outside and joined us in the cave. Yet again I was surrounded by more than a dozen children, staring at me, this time with a tinge of respect. The biggest rock orphan, and clearly their leader, demanded money.
I was charged up after the birth canal and wanted to adopt Samy or at least take him out for injera (Ethiopian bread). Without thinking it through, I handed Samy 10 birr (75 cents) which was way too much for a 12-year old, but the smallest bill I had in my pocket. Immediately the rock orphan bully took the money from Samy and slid it into his pocket. We’re brothers, he said in Amharic. I was surprised yet sure it was a mistake.
Samy disappeared around the corner and started climbing up the second half of the wall, I still had to complete the rest of the orphan tour. Out of the cave was a 15 foot face climb. I decided to put on my climbing shoes. The rock orphans had never seen climbing equipment and were especially mesmerized by the chalk bag and my supply of white dust that they believed would make your hands stick to any surface, possibly even upside down. I passed the chalk around the orphans, allowing them to experience this farenji magic. As a climber, I was captivated by the scene of oohs and aahs as a multitude of miniature hands all tried to grab as much magnesium as possible.
I put the chalk away, started climbing and joined Samy on top. The rock orphan bully struggled with the climb and was disappointed and angry that the chalk didn't actually provide any super powers.
On top of the escarpment, the orphan rock gang and I mounted a stone wall, formally used for terracing. I went to take a photo when suddenly I heard a shuffle. When I turned around, I saw a rock orphan hit the ground, 15 feet below. His body seemed to bounce on the rocks below and rolled another ten feet downhill. The rock orphan fun was over. This could be a serious injury compounded by the fact that he’s an orphan, can’t go to a hospital or a family for that matter.
He was sobbing softly and bleeding from his ankle. Before moving him, I tried to check his spine and head for possible injuries. But his friends quickly picked him up and told him to walk; the rock orphan law dictates that if he was strong enough to survive the fall, he was strong enough to walk.
I decided we should carry the kid down the mountain and see if he could limp into the city from there. We picked up the shoeless orphan and marched slowly down the steep mountainside negotiating small boulders and drop offs. It was here, where one of the more audacious rock orphans decided to take advantage of his friend’s unfortunate tumble and tried to unbutton my back pocket. When I felt his fumbling hands reaching into my trousers, I dropped his friend on the rocks. The rock orphan’s second fall produced a hollow thud followed by a painful sob.
“Alright you little fuckers. Your friend is too heavy for me. You’re on your own,” I yelled at them. I chased the long-fingered thief off and threw rocks at him. His friends watched helplessly. I walked the rest of the way on my own, no longer taking any interest in the poor kid’s foot or fate.
On the main path, I stopped two men walking side by side. Urgently, I explained a boy was hurt and may need a hospital. The boy appeared, piggybacking on his friend. The old man walked up to the kid and asked him something in the local Tigrenya. The boy replied with a smile.
He wagged his finger saying nothing was wrong with the boy. A bomb of confusion created a plume of doubt in my head. I wondered if he had a broken foot. Did he really fall? Did his friend push him? Was this part of an elaborate scam to try to rob me? Did I really just slither through a vertical cave and free solo on the heels of a 12 year old orphan in Northern Ethiopia?
When I was near the main road, I turned around and called Samy to me. I held his hand, and we walked the last block to Mekele.
It’s bad this, I said in Amharic, I like rock, but I don’t like thieves.
The money. I get none of that. Do you have any more? he asked.
There is no money, Samy. You know why?
He looked at me waiting for a reason.
There are thieves among us, I said.
Yes, there are thieves among us, he repeated my words.
postscript: I met Samy on a future trip to Mekele. He was very excited to see me and we ate some injera. He didn’t ask for any money. I also saw the rock orphan who fell off the wall. He was limping.
