A Day in Tigray

After breakfast, Daniel, our driver picks us up to drive us over to the offices of REST. We spend the bulk of the morning getting a presentation from REST on how they work. Scott’s seen the presentation before, but it holds some interest for Dan and I. Overall, I think both of us see opportunities for improvement in the way they look at and present information, but they have clearly thought through their implementation processes. There are probably a dozen men from REST (no women) to the three of us.

A woman does come in to take orders for coffee. I’m able to avoid coffee by ordering tea, which comes in a small cup (think espresso) with a sedimentary layer of sugar. I think the idea is that you stir up as much sugar as you want. It works pretty well and the tea isn’t sickly sweet.
I notice that a few of the men in the room have a scar on their forehead in the shape of a cross. It actually seems inaccurate to call it a scar. It looks consistent the with forehead creases, but in a distinctive cross shape. In fact, the first time I saw it I thought of it as an interesting character line. Seeing it again convinced me that it was not genetic. Similarly, I notice that some of men have a pair of vertical scars on each side of their face between the eyes and ears. Finally, Tekla, the head of REST is missing half a finger. This I was already told by Scott was lost to a bullet in battle. Later that afternoon I asked Scott about the scars, but he didn’t know anything.

I haven’t sorted out who’s who at this stage, but I soon learn the players we’ll be seeing a lot of. Ketachoo is the head of water programs. Salomon and Yasoo work for him. After we share some of the videos from our borninseptember.org website we head out to lunch. First we head across the street to a juice bar. Scott and I arrive first and there’s a boy sitting there who seems to recognize Scott. Frankly, it’s a bit hard to tell since Scott seems to greet everyone with enthusiasm. Scott has shared his foolproof method for warding off beggars. The idea is simple. When the beggar asks for 1 birr, you say to them “give me 10 birr.” This, of course, raises the stakes and, presumably, they fold. Scott decides to give a real life demonstration on the boy at the juice bar. It goes slightly awry when Scott launches his 10 birr raise, prior to the boy offering the 1 birr ante. Ultimately, it leaves us mostly with a slightly confused boy.

We walk over to the restaurant which Scott has told has great tibs. Other than the avocado juice, it appears this will be our first foray into Ethiopian food. The restaurant is large and covered with a thatched roof. There’s a small stage and it’s not too hard to imagine it converting for music and dancing. There’s a window (no glass) with raw meat hanging from hooks. The butcher stands on the other side and I infer that the restaurant has a just-in-time butchering strategy. It’s atmospheric. Scott and Dan order the tibs. I decide to shake it up by ordering a different cooked meat, but alas its not available. I get tibs as well. The tibs come in a clay pot with charcoal underneath. It’s somewhat similar to the sizzling fajitas in Addis. It’s also served with injera – large (like 18 inch circles), thin (say, ¼ inch), spongy bread. It’s pretty good, but not spectacular.

After lunch we head back to the hotel to rest. At first we plan to walk, but when we see an auto-rickshaw it’s too tempting to pass-up. I’m familiar with these from my trips to India, but I’ve never actually been in one. In essence, it’s a three wheeled motorcycle with a body around it. A reasonable capacity is two passengers, but I swear I’ve seen as many as eight ride. The three of us squeeze into the back seat. It’s decorated with beads which seems to but us in a goofy mood and we spent a good portion of the ride snapping pictures of ourselves. We arrive at the bottom of the hill and our driver – no more that twenty years old – decides to take us all the way to the hotel. Halfway up the hill we are certain that it won’t make it. We offer to get out, but our driver downshifts and we creep our way up regaining speed along the way. With a triumphant shout we summit.

It’s nap time.

I wake Scott from the nap so we can head back to the office. He’s not happy and declares that the nap has done more harm than good. Dan is also not happy. The hotel situated immediately above a children’s amusement park playing loud music on about a seventy second loop. Dan swears the tune has been forcibly burned into his memory, but his efforts to hum it come up short. We spend a few hours finishing the mornings discussion and wrap up around six.
From the hotel we’d seen an Ethiopian Orthodox church. Dan and I are determined to get our tourism in so the three of us take a walk over. We walk down the main street past a pool hall which appears to be no more than about 3 feet bigger than the table on each side. We get to the church and it is a has a nice stone pattern, but it’s nothing spectacular. About fifty feet away is minaret of similar construction. There aren’t many people around, but the few who are have pressed themselves up against the wall which, on occasion, they kiss.


We stroll out the other side of the church compound onto a dusty road. We stop a few times to talk to children – most of whom seem to speak at least some English. We come across two boys playing soccer with a tennis ball. The three of us jump-in playing keep away for a few minutes. Then we stroll back up the hill to the hotel. We have dinner at a small restaurant near the hotel. Scott and Dan order pizzas – a questionable call in my book. Again my first choice is unavailable, but I get some very good roast vegetables instead. We grab a half-bottle of wine off the wine table next to ours. Ultimately we drink four of these. We head back up to the hotel. We have two channels on the TV – one is Ethiopia TV and the other is Dubai Sports. We get caught up on some Olympics and I head to bed early. Scott has graciously offered me the bedroom which also allows him to stay up watching TV.