Tour d'Afrique - Cairo to Cape Town by Bike

I found some unexpected internet access in Marsabit, Kenya so here is a little update. I haven't had a chance to formalize these yet, so I may update them a little later on.

To explain the title; Ethiopia uses the Julian calendar which means that they have thirteen months in the year, it is currently 1999 (they are very excited for their upcoming millennium) and their time is offset by 6 hours. 0:00 happens when the sun rises: makes sense.

The people:

• In one word: "amazing!"
• Densely populated! From when we crossed the border in Metema to when we crossed out of Ethiopia in Moyale, I feel like there were people absolutely everywhere. No matter how rural of a place I felt I was in, if I stopped for whatever reason (including answering nature's call) there was nearly instantly a group around me. If I stopped in a town, it would not be a surprise to have a crowd of up to 100 (confirmed by rough count!) surrounding me just staring at what just breezed into town. I can't say I blame them, I would probably do the same. While travelling along the roads, there were constantly calls from both sides of the road yelling either "You, you, you...", "Where are you go?" or "Farangi!"
• Misunderstood?: I would make an estimate that 99% of the people here are super friendly and enjoy greeting the strange people on bikes as we crawl through their towns. They enjoy staring and touching our strange skin and trying their limited English on us even if they have no idea what they are asking. The remaining 1% (which considering the number of people by the roads leaves an apparently large number of people) which seemed to all fit into the male 5-18 age category have different ideas of greeting. For our suspected but not confirmed reasons of economic jealousy, our lack of effort to communicate in a language they understand, the fact that adults control children like their livestock (throw rocks at them, hit them with sticks and whips, etc.), the children in turn treat us foreign looking creatures the only way they know how. Whether they realize the pain an severity of injuries they are able to inflict by their actions remains a mystery to us. As a side note, I am surprised that the US doesn't send Major League baseball scouts to Ethiopia; the speed, distance and accuracy that these surprisingly small children can hurl large rocks is incredible!
• People tend to locally work together more. Though neighbouring communities compete and disagree, within a community seem to help each other. This was in contrast with Egypt where two salespeople would in tandem keep lowering their prices to make the sale.
• Begging: how different it was after crossing from the Sudan. People of all ages (though predominantly children) have no shame in begging. Though they take diverse approaches from the pouty face look, to the yelling in anger, to simply holding out the cupped hand, to the intellectual long story of how they are a student with little money, it is a very accepted practice. Unfortunately, it doesn't get many conversations off to a good start. After having a pack of kids pester me for pens, money, sweets and other goodies for a good half-hour of monkey watching, I turned around and started playing with a ball with them and the next thing you know I am playing soccer with a bunch of them. They taught me a little Amheric, I taught them a little English, all was well. It really is unfortunate how accepted agressive begging is.
• The people are as diverse as the rapidly changing landscape (see below)

Landscape:

• Beautiful and stunningly diverse! To summarize all of the landscapes that we travelled through to any degree of accuracy would take some time. Our path travelled through a dry and lightly forested area, then into jagged mountains, tree-less high-rolling hills, green lush bush around Lake Tana, swampy hippo-inhabited areas, greener mountains, flat lands dotted with lakes, very green and very lush banana areas, re-forested coniferous forests, back into dry desert with towering termite mounds and scrubby, thorny bushes that manage to suck enough water from the dry soil to survive, and more!
• Many are very hard working! I saw people (mostly women) hauling a huge amount of goods over large distances (often greater than an estimated 50 pounds (23 kilos) and over distances up to an estimated 10km. The donkeys here also haul huge loads on their backs and with carts. It was common to see a single donkey with an unfathomable load behind it huffing and puffing its way up a hill. It was also common to see a group of women hauling large loads with a single husband strolling beside them carrying a stick.
• Everyone carries sticks. Not much depth to this comment, but the "stick trade" here seems fairly extensive. They are used for scaffolding, mud-structure building and for carrying. As a rider keeping a close eye out for potential stick swings in my direction (or the direction of my spokes), it is easy to note how so many carry sticks. They use them for any combination of hitting their donkeys, help carry the load on their head, controlling children, "encouraging" their horse, or of course swinging at passing foreigners. Relative to the others, the latter is likely the least common.

Public health:

• Do take this section with a grain of salt as I am nowhere near qualified to talk about things like this so I'll just state the facts. It was interesting to note that once we approached Ethiopia and the entire way through the country, a large portion of our group had some sort of stomach sickness to some degree. Our poor tour nurse with limited resources was treating bacterial and protozoal infections and watching potentially viral infections pass through. The water we drink is treated, but will bacteria etc. still get through? Is it from the quality of ingredients that is used to cook our food? Is it from contact with others? Is it because every surface around has donkey/goat/cattle/camel/human feces on it? We found it tough cycling the distances we do every day while the body is fighting off a multitude of infections even with our defence line of modern medicine, abundant water, quality foods, etc. Imagine having that same sickness with little food, no clean water and exerting yourself in a similar manner hauling goods around just to survive.

That is all I have for now. The incredible amount of experiences I have will likely add to more of these, but I am still mentally digesting them. Beautiful place Ethiopia; beautiful place. On to Kenya!