Tuesday, February 8

     Today is our 20^nd day in Ethiopia and only our 13^th day in Mekelle. We have been out of touch with the world, it seems, since we left Addis Ababa. No internet, phone calls to the States are very expensive, so we called our son one night and our friend Tesfai another. Nine minutes costs six dollars, so it is best for people to call us from the States, it’s cheaper.

     Our first days in Mekelle were challenging. The house they picked for us was just not going to work. Better than the typical Tigrinya housing, it was more like a cave than a house. It was old, dirty and it had a bad smell about it. So last Saturday we moved next door to a house that is brand new, so new in fact that many things weren’t working yet. Most of the plumbing and electric were not hooked up yet. Still no kitchen cabinets (they’re on order), but we hope to have some within the month. We’re praying to get them by Easter. Is Easter in March or April this year?

     We currently have a bed, a table, a smaller table, a mostly useless coffee table, two chairs, a stove and a fridge. And here is the best part: we really like it here. It’s like nothing we’ve ever seen.

     Mekelle is about 7,000 feet above sea level, more or less depending where you are. It’s the Ethiopian version of a boomtown. Building is going on everywhere, no building codes. Everything is built from concrete and stone, finished in tile or stucco. Steel frame windows, porcelain fixtures. And there is marble on the bathroom floors and the stairway treads. A toddler in a Tigraian home must be all scrapes and bruises    

     Hundreds of three-wheeled mini-taxis carom down the streets. They have 12-inch rubber wheels and break down regularly, thanks to the rough, unpaved roads in the newer sections. They cost about 20% of what a regular cab costs (regular cabs 50 Birr from downtown to our house, mini-cabs cost 10 Birr. One Ethiopian Birr equals 6 cents in US money), allowing the mostly poor citizens of Mekelle to get around town cheaply.

     The regular taxis are bigger, consisting mostly of Toyota Corollas. Toyota makes a fortune here in Ethiopia. The drivers have no addresses to guide them. Many streets have no names. In short, either the driver knows where your destination is, or he doesn’t. We live one block from the school we work at, the Merha Tibeb Academy. So we say “We go Merha Tibeb Academy. If the driver knows where it is, that’s good. If not, we find a driver or someone who does know where it is, get directions and we’re off. When we get to the school, we point the way to our house. That’s how it works.

     Tigrai has 3,000 years of recorded history, so they’ve had lots of practice in making things work. And they weren’t always this badly off. Sure, there are always poor people, but the last 120 years have been very hard for Tigrai. First there were the Italians, who wrote two versions of their agreement with Emperor Melenik II in 1889. The Italian version said that Ethiopia belonged to the Italians and that they were in charge. The Tigrinya version left that part out. In 1896, Melenik II invited the British and Swiss ambassadors to his coronation, only to be told that he couldn’t do that, because the Italians were in charge. As a result, despite superior weapons, the Italians were defeated at the battle of Adwa in that same year.

     In the 1920’s, a power vacuum and a struggle for succession led to the coronation of Hailie Salassie as Emperor. He was a grandiose, self-serving man who largely neglected his people. The infrastructure began to fail. The Italians, now under Mussolini returned again in the early 1930’s. Fighting continued right up until the Second World War. Hailie Selasse prevailed and reigned into the 1970’s, when the Communist regime, the Dirge, took power. It was not until the 1990’s that the Dirge was ousted, due in part to the collapse of the former Soviet Union.

     The government since then has established democracy and is trying to get foreign investment going throughout the country. They are building dams for water retention and hydro-electric power; roads are being improved; railroads have been planned and begun. But it’s a huge task and much more help is needed. I said help, not aid. The possibilities for foreign investment are numberless, as long as it is done with the inclusion and involvement of the Ethiopian people.

     Ethiopia deserves its shot at creating a decent life for its people. We’re pleased to be part of it all.