Cyber Ethiopia

Local officials took us on a trip to the Alwera Dam, about 45 km from Gambella through the Gambella National Park. We saw some wildlife - baboons, colobus monkeys and a cat that looked like a cerval before it disappeared. One of the officials complained that he’d been held up on that road for 35 minutes recently by lions who lay there and wouldn’t move. I should have that kind of bad luck! At the dam we stopped by some fishermen who had pulled out a wonderful blowfish. It had puffed itself up incredibly and had little spikes sticking out and two little fins on the top flapping furiously. I didn’t realize blowfish were in the area or even in fresh water. My

only recollection was that they were a Japanese sushi delicacy, but you had to avoid the poison part (okay, okay, I got that from a Simpson’s cartoon). I held it for a little while, gingerly so I didn’t get spiked. The fishermen then threw it back (maybe it is poison) over a frighteningly high dam wall, but it landed softly, deflated and swam away. The National Park The part of the park I saw was ‘mixed use’, which means that whatever wildlife was around had to compete with a state farm growing cotton and a series of resettlement areas. There is an unfortunate practice of burning down the grass and undergrowth, which diminishes the wildness a tad. Fortunately, Gambella is a large park and it gets a lot wilder after Alwera towards the town of Gog. A new road is under construction to the very remote Akobo in the far Southwest of the region on the Sudanese border. Officials assured me that along there you would see elephant and water buffalo, and lions if you were lucky. There are no facilities in the park, so you must take day trips from Gambella town. Apparently this is the popular thing to do amongst the tourists who come there. Speaking of tourism, it is delightfully underdeveloped in Gambella. You have the place to yourself, apart from the 200,000 people who live there. Although you can fly in on the 50 seater Fokker aircraft (pronounce it carefully), to the nicely paved runway, there are no tour operators based in Gambella. There are no cars to rent. There are no boat tours down the rivers. Tourists come in four wheel drives and take care of themselves. I was therefore extremely fortunate to be hosted by the local officials on a boat ride down the Baro River. My highland colleagues declined to go on a boat, but I was very keen. I had understood that we would be out for about 5 hours, which was great, but the trip turned into an 11 hour marathon. Although I emerged with a face several shades redder than I started with, I wouldn’t trade the experience for anything. I want to explain that we went down the river for work. For you sceptics out there, we spent a productive time assessing the damage wreaked by the serious floods of July and August, 1999, and had an efficient and enlightening discussion with villagers who had been displaced. Plans emerged on how to strengthen the government capacity to manage flood disasters in future. It was very worthwhile. This does not distract from the fact that the river trip was beautiful and fascinating. We had a 60 hp motor on a flat bottomed skiff with 8 of us aboard (I’d been told the maximum capacity was 6). The river was wide and shallow, and although the driver obviously had a lot of expertise in following the deepest channels we did hit bottom a few times, especially on the way back. This was a bit alarming, as the outboard motor would suddenly leap out of the water and the boat would veer sharply to the side. A couple of times we were almost thrown out, which was a bit nerve wracking considering the large number of crocodiles we saw lining the shores. Apart from crocodiles, we saw a rather large water snake, but missed seeing any hippos which are supposed to be quite numerous. There are a lot of birds. I am not a birder, but long years in Africa have equipped even me to recognize a few. I will count on any avid twitchers reading this to correct my list - but I believe I saw kingfishers, terns, egrets, ibis, kites, bee-eaters, weaver birds, cormorants, cranes, herons, buzzards, a vulture, magpies, and 2 pelicans late in the day. The first part of the river from Gambella was tree lined and spectacular. Impossibly picturesque hamlets of tukuls perched on promontories on the river. Mangoes grew thickly on the branches of many of the trees. The dominant Anuwak people, who depend mainly on fishing, lined the banks and waved in a friendly fashion as we passed. Seeing a ferengi floating by must have been the big entertainment for the day. You can see these people have a completely intertwined relationship with the river - it is the centre of their lives. Not only does it provide their food, it also is their lifeline for travel in their little dugouts, for drinking and washing, and for fun and fooling around. Fortunately the fish in the river are very numerous - they were jumping all over and our boat thumped into at least three big ones during our trip, which has never happened to me on a boat before. About 60 km down the river we came to the substantial town of Itang, which also has a small port with a ferry boat. The ferries operate only during the rainy season, then tie up when the river is too shallow for them to navigate. The town was pleasant to walk through, with a big market and lots of folks sitting and chatting or smoking the pipes common in the area - a big gourd pipe or a little straight pipe. We had some tibs (chunks of goat meat) for lunch. Beyond Itang you begin to get into the big floodplain, and the population of Anuwak give way to Nuers. The Nuers are pastoralists who do some fishing and crops. They tend to be tall and slender - I’m 6 foot 2 inches and I didn’t feel tall when I was with the Nuer men, just a bit fat. This was where most of the 71,000 people displaced by the flooding a few months earlier lived. We stopped at the small hamlet of Telut about 35 km downriver from Itang to talk about the impact of the flood. Most of the houses in the village had been destroyed, and people had clustered into the few huts which had enough soil built up under them to be islands in the midst of the water. They reported that their grain had been destroyed, and that fishing had been useless because the flood gave the fish a lot more room to move around in. They were now subsisting on pumpkins and bananas. Fortunately the crocodiles hadn’t been a problem, as I’d heard in other areas that they’d picked people off because of their increased range and their hunger because fish were harder to catch. They reported that two elderly people had died, as well as four in the village down the way. They wanted more help the next time. I was impressed by the little village. People had put some effort into the tukuls they’d reconstructed, including fetching designs on the hardened mud walls. Little storage huts sat on stilts, not high enough in this flood year, but normally adequate. Women pounded grain in their pestles much like other parts of Africa. A small cluster of tobacco plants were thriving in a plot by the river. That was the furthest point I reached on the river, about 45 km short of the Sudan border. My suggestion that we carry on to Khartoum was greeted by polite laughter from the officials. By this time it was getting late, and we needed to head back. Although we were making good time, it became apparent that we were in a race against the dark. We’d set off at 9 AM, which I thought was pretty good - only one hour later than our planned departure. I’d expected to be back at about 2 PM. We grounded out a few times, which disconcertingly stalled the motor, but we were always back on our way in a few moments. I was a bit worried about how our capable driver could avoid the shallow spots in the dark. It was just getting dark and I was expecting to see the lights of the bridge at Gambella town at any moment when the engine cut out. It was announced in a very casual way that we were out of gas. I suspect that no one else was surprised because they’d probably been talking about the possibility in Nuer for an hour or so. I was surprised, and a bit pissed off. We paddled slowly into shore, the current pushing us backwards, where a small hamlet awaited us. The startled villagers must have been surprised enough to have a motorboat drop in, but shocked at the arrival of two ferengis - me and my colleague Paul. After a few moments of organizing for the protection of the boat, we set out walking for Gambella, which turned out to be a 1 ½ hour trudge. At the time I felt this was not a good thing to be doing. We did have a military guard with us, with his AK 47, and he had an extra AK which the Regional VP shouldered, so I guess we were in a pretty good position to fend off any aggression. I was glad that the Canadian Ambassador had headed off back to Jimma that morning rather than joining us on the boat trip. In the event, it turned out to be a wonderful experience. There was a well trodden path near the river which led to the town. There were plenty of tukuls along the way, with friendly if somewhat startled inhabitants. I’m sure seeing two ferengis walking along the river after dark has led to all sorts of rumours about military invasions or advisors or whatever. One topless middle aged woman couldn’t believe that she was seeing ferengis walking by her house, and stopped us for some time with her questioning. We were fortunate to have a bright half moon in the sky, and much of our walk was in the open so we were well lit. Oddly enough we hadn’t brought flashlights, foolishly not having anticipated the possibility of being 5 hours late and running out of gas. Under the shade of the trees it was quite dark, and Paul actually stepped in a hole and hurt his ankle. The brave lad walked out the sprain and didn’t slow us down a bit. I was glad to see the lights of the bridge, and an interminable time later the houses of the town. At about 8:30 PM we stopped at the first watering hole and overcame our dehydration with mineral water and pop. Our worried colleagues found us there and cancelled the insurance claims. It is really wonderful to go to Gambella and enjoy it’s relatively unspoiled charms. Just remember to check your gas.