Dour, 電通-controlled, family-centric Belgian Neocolonialism, enthusiastically jaded observations, support for state-owned neoliberalist media and occasional rants from the twisted mind of a privileged middle-class expatriate atheist projecting some leftist ideals with my ridicule of Tucker Carlson (from The Blogs Formerly Known As Sponge Bear and Kaminoge 物語)
*see disclaimer below
After 87 days apart I'm happy to announce that we're a family again! The girls arrived from Taipei 台北 (via Dubai) this afternoon, and I couldn't have asked for a better Christmas present. My wife and daughter will now have to go through the same two-week quarantine period at home that I had the "pleasure" of experiencing when I got here 77 days ago. Surprisingly, I don't need to be confined even though we're in the same house, though I am encouraged to keep my distance. To be on the safe side, however, I'm taking the next couple of weeks off, both to catch up on things, and as an act of solidarity with my loved ones. Now that Amber and Shu-E are back at what passes for "home", we can end this year on a normal note, or at least what counts for "normal" in a year that has been anything but, as we prepare for 2021 and our next assignment (more on that in a moment).
Prior to our reunion, there was the matter of what to do with an unexpected day off. Last week we learned that federal government employees would be given a holiday on Christmas Eve. With nothing else to do, I decided to go to visit another historic church, the Bete Maryam Mausoleum ቤተ ማርያም መቃብር, located not far from the Hilton Addis Ababa. With the area where Menelik II Avenue meets Itega Menen Street being torn up as part of some road improvement project, I knew driving to the church would be difficult if not impossible (it would turn out to more closely approximate the latter), I parked my car at the Hilton and proceeded to walk, following instructions given by Google Maps. Which I should've known better not to do, as I promptly found myself in a neighborhood of unpaved roads and corrugated tin shacks, and lacking running water or a functioning sewage system. I didn't feel threatened, but clearly ferenji like myself were a rare site, even though just a few hundred meters away, healthy-looking white families were enjoying themselves in the Hilton's swimming pool, probably unaware of the squalor on the other side of the parking lot. Merry Christmas!
The Bete Maryam Church was about a twenty-minute walk on the route I'd elected to follow. The Lonely Planet guide to Ethiopia (and Djibouti) had warned me of "surly and unhelpful soldiers", who make visiting the church "problematic", but I didn't see any on the church grounds. In fact, the only security presence was an apologetic woman who scanned me with a metal detector wand just in front of the entrance gate. My lone encounter with a soldier came after my visit, when one told me not to photograph the hills in the distance (due to the prime minister's residence being in the immediate vicinity), but he sounded more bored than hostile.
The church was erected in 1911 by Empress Zewditu ንግሥት ዘውዲቱ. Upon arriving I took a walk around the exterior, beginning with the eastern side:
Carved lions guard the entrances, like this one looking to the north:
The adjacent Kidane Miheret Church was undergoing restoration work:
The façade facing west:
And the southern entrance. It was here while I was deciding if I would be allowed to enter that Fasil, my "guide" for the morning, introduced himself to me, took me inside and proceeded to show me around:
According to Fasil, I was lucky to have shown up when I did, because apparently the church had only just reopened following two years of renovation or restoration work (although there were still workers inside finishing up). Fasil took me into the mausoleum, where Menelik II ዳግማዊ ምኒልክ (the founder of Addis Ababa አዲስ አበባ) is entombed in the middle sarcophagus. To the left lies the remains of his wife, Empress Taitu ጣይቱ ብጡል; while on the other side is their daughter, the aforementioned Empress Zewditu:
The thrones of Menelik and Taitu, pushed up against a wall. Like I said, the work hadn't been finished yet:
The tomb of Princess Tsehay, daughter of Haile Selassie ቀዳማዊ ኃይለ ሥላሴ, who died at age 22 from complications during childbirth. The chair in front was a throne for Haile Selassie. My guide accidentally broke off one of the armrests while explaining the significance of the chair:
A more believable moment in history is the defeat of the Italians at the Battle of Adwa የአድዋ ጦርነት, depicted in this mural:
Fasil explaining the finer points of a particular church service:
The golden building on the right houses the church's replica of the Ark of the Covenant - almost every Ethiopian Orthodox house of worship has one, which can only be seen by the priests. Another widely-held belief among Ethiopians is that the actual Ark is housed at the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion in Axum አክሱም, which my daughter and I visited in November of last year (how that now seems so, so long ago). We all know, of course, the real Ark is stashed safely away in a U.S. government warehouse:
This painting is one of several that were relocated from the Monastery of Debre Libanos, which was destroyed by the Italians when they occupied Ethiopia from 1936 to 1941:
It was ETB200 ($5.15) to see the inside of the church, payable to a priest sitting in a chair. As for Fasil's services, he asked for a thousand birr ($25.75!), but accepted the ETB300 ($7.75) I handed him. After all, he was out of work, had a family to support etc. etc. I don't mind having guides...sometimes (Fasil did a good job explaining things), but if Ethiopia is serious about turning itself as a world-class tourist destination, it needs to develop a system of licensed guides who charge clearly-posted set fees.
On my way back to the Hilton I passed by St. Gibi Gebriel, which as a review on Google Maps helpfully points out, "is a church":
The contrasts can be stark at times in Addis:
And nowhere more so than back at the Hilton, where I had a leisurely lunch of beef tibs at the Gazebo restaurant next to the pool:
And a "caramel in a glass" for dessert:
The Hilton has a small supermarket, where I picked up these bottles. Happy holidays indeed!:
And now that the family has returned, some news of a different sort - it appears I finally have an onward assignment. Nothing is official yet, and may not be for several months (which is why I haven't posted anything up to now on social media), but barring unforeseen obstacles, we should be headed to Beijing 北京, starting in the fall of 2023. It won't be a Consular position - I will, instead, be an Assistant General Services Officer, working in the areas of housing, motor pool, procurement, property, shipping and customs, travel and VIP visits. This will require an extensive training course, after which I will need to study Mandarin (again), only this time for two years, with the second year in Beijing. My Mandarin skills have clearly atrophied, thanks to having to endure Russian and Amharic at the Foreign Service Institute since the end of my tour in Shanghai 上海 more than five years ago, and I am most definitely not looking forward to relearning a language in the manner in which the State Department goes about doing these things. But I really wanted to return to the Asia-Pacific region, not only for myself but for Shu-E, who has had a difficult time in Ethiopia. And the best thing about this assignment is that I won't have to endure the brutal and demeaning bidding process again until 2025!
And now I can vent. Actually, if I had written this several weeks ago, this would have been a very long and profane blog post that might have ended my relatively brief career as a diplomat. Time has had a mellowing effect, but the bitterness still remains. The bidding process (see here) this time around has brought into focus just how
unmeritorious the State Department can be in practice. The good jobs are given out
not on the basis of ability and qualifications, but to those who have
connections to the decision makers (i.e. the ones who decide who goes where). It's called "corridor reputation"
and its perniciousness is a cancer eating away at the inner workings of an
antiquated institution that can't seem to catch up to the fact that we're now
one-fifth of the way into the twenty-first century. But like employee
evaluations and language instruction at FSI, the
bureaucracy does all it can to resist meaningful change. There's supposed to be
a union out there somewhere, but it's harder to find than a taxi in a heavy
downpour after the trains have stopped running for the night. Kids, if you're
thinking of pursuing a career in the Foreign Service, my suggestions would be
to reconsider your options while you're still young.
But, hey, it looks like we're going back to Asia, where we'll be close to Japan and Taiwan, so I'm happy (temporarily) again. For now. Until the next pointless exercise in frustration comes along.
And on that note I'll leave you with a few random images taken since the last entry. Such as this typical neighborhood scene:
I've often posted photos taken from our third-floor balcony, but here are a couple of shots from a bedroom on the opposite side of the house:
The buildings in the background on the left are part of the African Union complex:
This is what happens when I'm left alone to decorate the artificial Christmas tree. Wait till next year:
The view along Roosevelt Street, looking northeast:
The girls may be back, but they did send me a few final photos of some of the things they did in Taiwan, like when they went to Chiayi 嘉義 to watch the son of one of Shu-E's friends play baseball:
While in the area they also visited this place, of which I know nothing about:
On one of their final excursions they made a day trip to Fenqihu 奮起湖, a small village that was once a maintenance and repair station on the Alishan Forest Railway 阿里山森林鐵路. Shu-E and I visited years ago, but it was the first time for Amber. These days tourists come to see the Old Street (Taiwan is full of them):
Fenqihu is especially noted for its lunch boxes 便當, derived from the Japanese bento 弁当. The real thing is more appetizing than this photo taken by my wife would suggest:
Though I've been to many places in Taiwan, I've yet to ride on the forest railway train. One more for the Formosan bucket list:
I'll close this post out with the cliched but still-relevant (especially in these trying times) wish to all of you that you have the happiest of holiday seasons!
Africa, arguably the most misunderstood/stereotyped of continents. Its 54 countries (55 if you include the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, which the current administration doesn't, especially after negotiating the establishment of diplomatic relations between Israel and Morocco) range from the Arab nations of the north, to the rainbow that is South Africa. 1.2 billion people live in a land mass so huge the United States, China, Japan and India could fit inside it, with room left over for several European nations. Those 1.2 billion souls come from more than 3000 ethnic groups (Ethiopia alone has 80 different groups) speaking well over 2100 different languages (at least 86 native tongues in Ethiopia) . The complexity and diversity are overwhelming, and I've only experienced a very small part of the African continent. This is a dynamic place, offering much to the world's shared artistic and cultural heritage.
But when we in the West think of Africa, what comes to mind are those images most closely related to the central part of the continent - of dense jungles, dangerous animals and so-called "primitive tribes". When Africa is in the news, it's usually for all the wrong reasons - corrupt dictators, bloody wars and devastating famines. One of the worst examples of the latter occurred in Ethiopia in 1983-5 and resulted in 1.2 million deaths, 400,000 refugees and 2.5 million internally displaced persons (It also gave us Band Aid, "Do They Know It's Christmas?" and "We Are The World" - more on that in a moment.). At that time news reports on the famine left an image in my mind of Ethiopia as a desolate, dusty country, with a population perpetually on the brink of starvation, an image that couldn't help but shape my expectations before we arrived here in July of last year, even though I knew so much had taken place in Ethiopia in the 35 years since.
So, of course, the reality is quite different. While it can get dusty and dry here, Addis Ababa አዲስ አበባ is surrounded by mountains that can be surprisingly lush, and as the above photo hopefully illustrates, the city doesn't sit in the middle of a harsh desert (rather, it lies in a grassland 2355 meters/7726 feet above sea level, which explains why it's been taking me so long to readjust to the elevation). And while poverty and strife are endemic, a lot has changed since those dark days of the famine and the Derg, when the world's music stars came together to produce a couple of horrendous songs in a well-intended but misguided effort to raise money for famine relief.
"Do They Know It's Christmas?", in particular, rankles for its Western-centric lyrics and "white savior" message. "Feed the world. Let them know it's Christmastime again"? Ethiopia adopted Christianity as the state religion in 330 CE, making it the second-oldest Christian country in the world. 63% of the population is Christian, with 44% belonging to the Ethiopian Orthodox Tehawedo Church. The rock-hewn churches of Lalibela, with the earliest dating back to the 7th century, are UNESCO World Heritage Sites (and I still haven't seen them, though I hope to do so before we leave next July). And yet Bob Geldof and Midge Ure would have had us believe the population was unaware of Christmas, even if they do celebrate it on January 7, according to the Orthodox calendar, instead of December 25. Geldof and Ure could've done their research instead of composing a song based on culturally-biased assumptions, but facts would probably have gotten in the way of the song's narrative, and had a deleterious effect on fund raising (even though in the end much of the money apparently never made it to its intended beneficiaries).
Do I know it's Christmas? Enough to know the holiday season is also a time of Holiday Depression and Seasonal Affective Disorder. While I'm not at those stages yet, 75 days apart from my wife and daughter haven't exactly made for a jolly, happy Christmas. Especially since on Friday I learned that Amber and Shu-E's flight next Saturday from Taipei to Dubai has been canceled, meaning that instead of arriving at Bole International Airport a week from today, their schedule has been pushed back by five days. If you do the math, that means they'll be arriving on Christmas Day, which the optimists can point out is a present itself. I would've preferred, however, to have time spent with the family before then, doing things like putting up the (artificial) tree, wrapping presents and then opening them on Christmas morning. With the disruptions in air travel due to the coronavirus, the pessimist in me thinks that the girls will get here just in time for Christmas...the Orthodox one early next month.
Oh well, they'll get here eventually. I did use the free time yesterday to finish my holiday shopping, driving to the Kore garden market at Sabahar ሳባ ሐር, where different artisan groups were showcasing a selection of handicrafts. The Kore area is home to many artisans, but is also one of the poorer communities in Addis Ababa. On the off-chance Shu-E reads this, I won't reveal what I bought, but Amber assures me she'll like the gifts:
This morning, with more free time on my hands, I went for a walk back to the Kore area. On the way the contrasts between rich and poor were clearly evident, as I first passed through an upscale neighborhood of embassies, expats and the Ethiopian upper class:
Even in this area, though, there are beggars - notice the woman cradling a child outside this house:
The Armenian embassy. Armenia is the oldest Christian country in the world, adopting Christianity as a state religion 29 years before Ethiopia. I was reprimanded by a guard for taking this photo, and, yes, I of all people should've known better. But I did it anyway:
I'm often asked if I often walk alone in Addis, with the answer being yes, at least in my area. Security is an issue here, and while I have been the target of some attempted pickpocketing, I haven't faced any serious threats...yet. It helps that I'm bigger than the average Ethiopian, and that I only walk in the daytime. Even so, as I approached the shantytowns of Kore, I felt a little uneasy, as it was obvious ferenji ፈረንጂ on foot are not a common sight. And yet people were friendly, including the shepherd who good-naturedly asked me if I wanted to buy one of his goats. Nonetheless, I didn't linger, nor venture from South Africa Street:
Construction work on Alexander Pushkin Street has made the side roads in my area congested at times. It doesn't help when cement mixers try to make their way through. A good thing I was on foot this time:
While my life is dullsville over here, in Taiwan the girls seem to be keeping themselves occupied, at least judging by the photos I keep getting from my wife. Here's Amber enjoying hot pot somewhere:
Feeding the fish and fowl at the Huwei Shenxiang Park 虎尾沈香園 in Yunlin County 雲林縣:
One of my sisters-in-law and her husband. After all these years, I don't know her name, for she's only referred to by Shu-E as her "second sister". My daughter only knows her as "Aunt No. 2":
The park's designers were obviously influenced by Japan's famous Kenroku-en 兼六園 in Kanazawa 金沢, which I had planned on taking Amber to this past summer, until COVID-19 came along:
Later that evening they visited a local night market:
On another occasion they visited the Dahu Fayun Temple 大湖法雲禪寺. The Zen temple dates from the Japanese colonial era, a fact of which I'm aware because the three of us had checked it out way back in March 2011:
The temple is located in a region known for its strawberry cultivation, so of course the girls went to do some pickin' after visiting the temple. From the photos my wife sent, it looks like the same area where we did the same in February 2011:
Amber has loved strawberries ever since she transitioned to solid foods. At the same time we visited the Fayun Temple, we also had to stop at a Strawberry Culture Museum (same link as for the temple); now known as the Dahu Wineland Resort 大湖酒庄, nine years later the girls made a return visit:
Going to Liyu Lake 鯉魚潭 in Nantou County 南投縣 to see some flowering trees:
This weekend Amber and Shu-E drove down to Tainan 台南 to see one of my wife's friends. I don't know what they were doing there, but apparently they visited a place called Tsou Ma Lai Farm 走馬瀨農場, and it looks like they enjoyed themselves:
Amber with my wife's friend, 詠心. Shu-E always refers to her as "Penghu Mei" 澎湖美, meaning a "beauty from Penghu", the archipelago in the Taiwan Strait where she hails from:
So thanks to Emirates Airlines, I now have to wait twelve more days until we're a family in more than name again. Until then, I'll try to keep myself sane by admiring the sunrises every morning while getting ready for work:
The obvious song to leave you with would be "Do They Know It's Christmas?", but I'm not going to inflict that on myself, you or anyone else. Instead, I'll put aside the jaded cynicism just this time, and let you enjoy this Minnutes song from 2009. Until next time...:
