There are some spectacular drives in the world- probably too numerous to mention, and varied in their beauty and uniqueness.
I reckon I’ve had a chance to enjoy a few of them- but not nearly as many as I’d like. Among those that spring to mind immediately include the highway between Lausanne and Montreux, along the northern shore of Lac Leman with the Alps rising from the opposite shore (in fact, almost any road through the Swiss and French Alps would have to qualify, including the highway entering Chamonix from direction Annemasse, and the road that snakes into the Val d’Aosta from the Tunnel St. Bernard); PNG’s North Coast Road between Madang and the Ramu River after dawn, with the coastline gleaming in tropical sunlight; the desert track that winds through Niger’s rugged and barren Air Mountains; the road running into Yosemite Valley via Tioga Pass- a truly jaw-dropping scene as you finally round the bend and catch your first glimpses of Half Dome and El Capitan; the Nairobi-Naivasha road as it drops into the East African Rift Valley with sprawling, cloud-speckled views of Lake Naivasha, Longonot Volcano and the plains; and almost any road you care to mention in Ethiopia once you’ve cleared Addis Ababa.
Among my very favourite is the road running between Canmore, Alberta, and Golden, British Colombia. Taking in the length of Banff National Park, it is an unending array of glorious mountain peaks one after the other that tower into the sky in dizzying proximity. The first time I drove it end-to-end was an early March morning after a heavy snowfall, when the sky was almost indigo, utterly cloudless, and the peaks sagging under a fresh carpet of white. It was so crisp, so utterly beautiful that at points I had tears in my eyes just watching it slip by.
(A little aside for any skiers among you: Kicking Horse Resort, above Golden, would have to be the greatest on-station ski terrain I have ever come across. Make it your Mecca.)
I haven’t had much chance to spend time in the Rockies of late, but a brief detour from a business trip let me spend a couple of days with dear friends in Calgary who, knowing my love of all things vertical, took me for an afternoon drive out to Banff. We had a lovely time, and it did my soul good to be back among mountain peaks. I find myself inspired when I’m among them, more in touch with my spirit. Mountains are my church and my cathedral, a place where I feel closer to God and most inspired to worship.
The photographer in me was stoked as well. My last trip to the Rockies, my equipment had been a Canon Powershot G6. It was fun for some skiing snaps and a bit of backcountry footage, but having a serious camera with me this time made me hope for a repeat of the scenery I saw those years back on that brittle spring morning.
Alas, the weather was not on my side. I didn’t end up with that aching blue sky, nor the fierce light that makes the snowcaps shine. We had patchy cloud, a finger-numbing wind, and shifting light.
But I wasn’t disappointed. As a photographer- literally a ‘writer of light’- you adapt. Photography is about making the most of the conditions you have, and while I’m not adept enough to come out with anything truly great if the conditions aren’t precisely in my favour (heck- I’m not going to come out with anything truly great even then), one thing I feel I’ve been blessed with is the ability to see beauty in nature under most circumstances.
While patchy cloud doesn’t necessarily allow the most spectacular nature of the mountains to be showcased, it does lend a drama to the scene that a blue sky doesn’t. Not only that, but the shifting cloud means no two pictures are the same. I mean, a blue sky is a blue sky- a plain backdrop that looks more or less the same. The angle and colour of light and shadows might change with the time of day. But with blowing cloud, the mood shifts from one minute to the next. And while colours may not sing out in the most vibrant fashion, the sense of contrast, depth and darkness- white on black- make for some great black and white shots. You get to celebrate texture, detail and form in a way that hones the eye, and which can be lost by the distraction of colour.
I took a lot of these shots at the time with monochrome in mind. It was clear looking through the viewfinder that they were only going to be a step or two above dull in colour, but the potential to celebrate the contrast was evident even at the time. As a photographer, you compose the image you want in your mind even before you look through the viewfinder. You look for form, for light, for colour. It takes only a subtle shift to turn those colours into a greyscale palette as you look at them, and once you’ve done that, you can appreciate a view in a whole new way. And while the electronic conversion of the files from colour into black-and-white happened after I loaded them into my computer and post-processed them, the conceptual conversion happened before I pressed the shutter release.
The photos are nothing more or less than a record of one of my favourite drives, an afternoon spent with friends (even if those friends don’t appear in the image, they were at the heart of that afternoon), and my own take of what I was seeing. In that sense, they are neither ‘good’ nor ‘bad’- they just are, and I think anybody who enjoys creating should try and see their work in that light. I’m no Ansell Adams. I flinch at every flaw and shortcoming in my own work, and want to go back to do better. I also want to go back and take more photos under different lighting conditions. Heck, I just want to go back and enjoy the mountains. There are few places that draw me more fiercely than the Alberta Rockies. Cham maybe. Nepal. The Southern Alps. At least on a par.
Regardless, these are a few of the gorgeous peaks, dressed in a particular fashion and captured, like models, in a particular moment of glory. And for me, just another opportunity to work with the light I’m given, and learn.
NB: A couple of these photos I’ve linked to the original large-size image so you can explore the detail- it’s well worth clicking through and taking a look, in my impartial opinion as the photographer… 🙂
The first landing in Kabul is white-knuckled and spectacular. Beneath us, the azure blue of the Straights of Hormuz have given way to the wind-scoured deserts of Iran, then the frozen plains surrounding Kandahar, before the Hindu Kush erupts upward like a thrusting knife that threatens to cut us from the sky. I spend the flight with my face glued to the window. Images remain with me. The mountains outcrops of Oman’s Musandam Govenorate that jut from a sea of liquid silver like so many flooded peaks. Dust-storms racing below us across the cold brown plains inland of Bandar-e-Abbas. The spectacular faulting of the landscape, of Bazman’s rugged and striated peak, vast salt lakes along Afghanistan’s southern border, and the smattering of tiny muddy hamlets somehow eking survival from wildness. As we bypass Kandahar, subdued under a riming of frozen snow, I notice an object hovering a few thousand feet below us and see the dull, unmistakable silhouette of a military drone.
Kabul Valley seems to have just one way in and one way out. Nestled in a crook of the Hindu Kush, the peaks here have not forgotten that they are the tail end of the Himalaya. They are fierce and snow-capped, and for the first few minutes, while we are still twenty minutes out, I watch them, enthralled.
Then we drop down, and the cloud rolls in.
We’re still at twenty-some thousand feet as I catch sight, through a hole in the grey, that shows a finger of rock and ice jabbing up at us, not very far away at all. As the plane kicks in the shifting air currents, I begin to pray that the pilot has good GPS. We bank and circle, looking for our path through the rock-studded clouds. When visibility next opens up, we’re slipping through a pass into the valley, and there’s a peak perpendicular with the starboard wing, another straight off the port. The pilot’s found his way in, and there’s not much wriggle-room.
In late February, Kabul is still very much in the grip of the winter air that floods down the mountainsides and pools in its wide dun basin. The ground is hard with frost, desiccated with sheaves of windblown dust. The city itself has a squat profile, walled compounds and wide avenues punctuated by minarets and guard-towers. In the harsh afternoon sunlight, the mountains that peer down are crisp and severe.
The tension here is felt as soon as we disembark the aircraft. It’s an unspoken recognition that the context has changed. No longer Kansas. This is my first trip to Afghanistan, so if arriving here has always felt heavy, I have no idea. Multiple friends have reported that since last month’s deadly assault on the Taverna du Liban, a popular expatriate hangout, there has been a particularly sombre feel in the international community. Regardless, Afghanistan is heading for a choppy season- pending elections and an anticipated drawdown of foreign troops are likely to see an increase in destabilizing attacks. The place exhales a sullen anxiety.
It’s not helped by my immediate circumstances. My choice of reading on the plane in is Washington Post journalist and Pullitzer Prize winner Joby Warrick’s The Triple Agent, a gripping telling of the al Qaeda operative who blew himself and eight CIA officers up inside an FOB in eastern Afghanistan. As we stand in line to have our luggage collected, C. passes round his cell-phone. His team survived a suicide bombing here some years back, and he’s jokingly showing off images he’s snapped of the head of the hapless jihadi, neatly separated from its shoulders.
His subtext is clear. This is where we are, boys.
For all the callous joking, I like my team. C. is a gruff bear of a guy, ex-serviceman and a veteran of hard times and places both in the military and as an aid-worker, all but unapproachable any hour prior to noon, but knowledgeable, jovial and with a story for every occasion.
R. is newer to this line of work- like me this is his first trip to Afghanistan, and like me he’s a little edgy at first- but you wouldn’t know it to speak to him. He’s smart, sharp, a real pro, and good-natured to round it all off.
K. is from one of the ex-Soviet republics and a former special forces operator. He’s cool and switched on, with a sense of humour as dry as triple-distilled vodka, so that the only way you can tell he’s joking is the sharp little gleam in his eye and the suggestion of a curl at one corner of his mouth. I ask him if he’s ever been to Afghanistan before, and he looks at me a beat before replying,
“I don’t remember.”
Given that the country is about to celebrate a 25th anniversary commemorating getting rid of the Soviets, I remind myself not to stand too close to him.
Blackhawks are circling as we cross the concrete to the domestic terminal. Two of them to begin with, then joined by two more, then two more, and, finally, a pair of Mi-8s, all filling the city air with their thrumming, doing loops of the metropolitan area. I note the two observation blimps with a mixture of curiosity and amusement. Their purpose is obvious, but it’s still a little odd to see them hanging in the blue, oddly out of place above this cold, dusty city.
We stop for a cigarette break. I’m the odd one out here, the token non-smoker. We stand on the flat expanse of the airport forecourt, the air cold but the sun strong. The threat of car-bombs means that no vehicles of any sort can approach the terminals, and there’s a straggling line of arriving passengers and their luggage picking their way across to the first of many checkpoints leading into the city.
K. smokes thin little cigarettes.
“0.01 percent nicotine, 0.01 percent tar,” he tells me happily, and smokes two for every one that C. and R. light up.
I’m reluctant to board a domestic Afghan airliner- I have heard only bad things about Ariana- or, as it’s less affectionately known, Scary-ana- but the MD-11 is in decent shape (on the outside at least), and after a while circling the valley, we clear the mountain pass.
But not the mountains.
I’ve flown over the Rockies, over the Alps (northern and Southern), flown in and out of the Himalaya. I love my mountains and make no secret of it. So when I say I’ve never seen mountains like these before, I’m not being dramatic.
We fly for an hour westward in a commercial jet. During that time, the mountains don’t stop. Peak after peak, gashed ravines and wild peaks. Winter seas them blanketed in white, so only the sharpest ridgelines stand out in rocky contrast. We fly at 25,000 feet, and the crests seem to break not that far beneath us. Habitation is all but nonexistent. There are no roads, no towns, no evidence at all that people live here, or ever have. This place defines rugged. I am awestruck and spend the flight peering from the porthole.
The sun has fallen when we land in Herat, and is nothing more than a crimson smudge backlighting an outcrop several hundred feet high. The mountains have given way at what feels like the last minute to a snowless plain. We disembark into cold night air. Helicopter gunships lurk like oversized wasps on the apron.
We’re met by J. and A., our local fixers. J. has a face round as a moon, with intelligent eyes and a warm, patient smile which he shares with us often. Clean-shaven with short dark hair, he looks less like the typical Afghans portrayed in the media (most often the Pashtun from the east of the nation), and more Iranian. Herat is a border-town, with solid road links to both Iran and Tajikistan, and this difference- both cultural and economic- has made all the difference to the relative stability of this western province.
J.’s offsider A. is a small, slender man who has a constant sense of doing about him. During the week we spend with him, he becomes our go-to guy to get things happening, and he is never off his cell-phone, to the point that I’m convinced he’s running a business- or three- on the side. Hopefully in the saffron trade. A. has two wives and eight kids, the youngest of which we learn was born just a day or two before we arrived. He later informs us with a sheepish smile that he’s done with having children now.
The four westerners cram into an unmarked SUV, while the Afghans chase ahead in a red sedan with sunken suspension. The airport is twenty clicks outside town, joined by a single straight stretch of highway.
We race into the darkness, swerving around trucks, or vehicles stalled at the roadside. The Kandahar Highway has all the hallmarks of a popular target. Passengers from every flight- including expat aid workers, contractors or government officials- have no choice but to take it. It hasn’t been bombed in about six months, when an IED went off next to the police checkpoint at the end of the bridge. As J. pointed out to us in his written briefing, there’s nothing you can do about it. It’s a wrong-place wrong-time equation, but the odds are good these days. We don’t slow until we hit town.
Herat is Afghanistan, but not the Afghanistan portrayed in the media- of constant suicide bombings, complex insurgent attacks, and soldiers in body-armour patrolling dusty laneways. The city sits in the valley of the Hari River, where the Hindu Kush peters out into a series of serrated spurs and finally crumble to dust. From a good vantage in the city, you can see mountains on three sides. To the north, a low brown ridge like crushed velvet catches the morning light in folds in its flank. South and east, snowcapped ridges and peaks dominate the horizon, and only westward, towards Iran, is the landscape calm.
The Hindu Kush makes Afghanistan. It has carved a tough and resilient mountain people, at home in a harsh climate, and all the tougher for it. It has contributed to the rise of clans and tribes, separated by valleys and by winter snows that isolate them for months at a time and so make them fiercely independent and cohesive. And it has in effect created two nations- one to the south and east of the dividing range, and another to the north and west.
Security is tight in Herat. There are armed opposition groups in the surrounding countryside, hostile to government and to outsiders, and anybody perceived as helping them. Variations on the Taliban-allied militias have their reach even this far west, as well as local militias, disenfranchised tribal leaders and criminal gangs. The fragile government in Afghanistan is a breeding ground for this low-level anarchy, and Herat has had its share of bombings, kidnappings and assassinations, the most recent of which occurred a fortnight before our arrival when two election workers were shot dead.
None the less, it has none of the obvious trappings of a war-zone. There are no soldiers in evidence on the street, no coalition convoys or overt military presence to be seen. Compounds are walled and wired, guards standing watch, but life goes on in the streets much like it would in any other south Asian city.
There is bustle and there is energy, and the economy is reportedly in a solid upswing. This bodes well for stability. The streets are full, traffic is congested, and about the roundabouts and streetsides, shops are full of household goods and thronged with pedestrians. Little red motorbike tri-shaws, the trailers oddly tipped back at an awkward thirty degrees, run about laden with passengers and boxed cargo, while battered Toyota Hi-Ace vans, tailgates open and innards stripped out to cram fares, are the workhorses of the city’s public transportation network. Off-street shopping malls house glass-fronted stalls loaded with consumer electronics, children’s clothing and kitchenwares. Life goes on.
We don’t meander and we don’t loiter. We move quickly from compound to compound, and our observations of the city itself are snatched during moments when our scanning for threats lapses. While the city might be stable, we know that there are still hostile elements here, and an SUV full of expats makes for a valuable target. We travel in unmarked, unarmoured vehicles without any form of protection other than anonimity- as it should be- but we’re not silly about it, and we know we have no real protection if something should go wrong. The atmosphere, however, is one of focus, not of fear, and the vibe we get off the city is generally good.
If there’s an exception, it’s at the Blue Mosque.
We’ve taken an hour off from work and A. has offered to show us a little of the city. We visit the spectacular Citadel, a grand sandstone-brick structure first laid down in the time of Alexander the Great and more recently restored to superb condition courtesy of the Aga Khan Foundation. We wander the footpaths and battlements, enjoying the sweeping curves of the architecture and the prominent views it allows from its higher towers. Frozen snow lurks in the shadows. We look out across flat-roofed houses pierced by minarets, and cooking smoke hangs with a dusty haze in the still air. The sky is an aching blue that leaves outlines so sharp they look as though they could cut.
On the northern edge of town we see the Martyr’s Museum, a monument to those who gave their lives fighting the Soviet invaders during the 1980s. In particular it commemorates the Herat uprising of 1979, when the people of Herat rose up against the Soviet-backed government, and were subsequently brutally repressed, with as many as 25,000 killed. Ismail Khan, now a local legend, rose to lead one of the most significant anti-Soviet Mujaheddin, and later allied himself with Ahmed Shah Massoud’s Northern Alliance against the Taliban until fleeing to Iran. He returned to Herat to support US action against the Taliban, and in late 2001, Herat was liberated and Khan became provincial Governor.
(As an interesting aside- the liberation of Herat from the Taliban by US and coalition troops reportedly involved covert action by anti-Taliban factions within the area, but also Iranian operatives who crossed the border in support of US intervention. Amazing.)
The Museum is a large rotunda with Arabic calligraphy adorning the tiled outer walls. Captured Soviet-era weaponry- everything from small mortars and anti-aircraft guns, to an unmistakable Mi-24 gunship- are scattered about the grounds. Inside, the main hall has another display of weapons, from flintlock rifles of the 1800s, their stocks meticulously inlaid with mother-of-pearl, to real [deactivated] landmines, PPSh World War Two-era submachine-guns and modern PKM drum-fed machine-guns.
Upstairs, a circular diorama, a combination of fresco wall-paintings and scale models, depicts the Herat uprising in gruesome but startlingly powerful detail. Painted portraits of mujaheddin who gave their lives fighting the Soviets line the walls, each name prefaced by the title Shaheed– Martyr.
On a hill along from the Museum sits the US Consulate, notable for being the target of a complex attack in September. Ten assailants in suicide vests and driving VBIEDs attacked the compound with bombs and firearms, killing a number of local security forces and bystanders, but failing to gain entry to the compound itself.
The attack- otherwise unremarkable in a nation that has seen dozens like it over the last decade- is notable more for understanding the intelligence behind it. Media reported that all ten attackers were killed, while apparently in reality, two were seized alive but reported killed by local forces, and now languish at the pleasure of the Afghan Government in a facility somewhere.
Afghan and US intelligence forces both reportedly knew about the attack beforehand- right down to the number plates of the vehicles involved, and the names and profiles of the attackers. The decision was made to allow the attackers to converge on the Consulate and carry out their attack, knowing that adequate defenses would prevent them breaching their target. This was preferable to attempting to thwart the attack early and having the bombers detonate in a less controlled environment or, worse, risk them escaping into the city where they would be uncontrollable. The decision cost the lives of six local security guards working at the Consulate, but such is the harsh mathematics of counter-terrorism.
Four ancient minarets stand crumbling, outlined against the crisp sky. Vast and without structure to support them, they look almost like abandoned chimney-stacks, the remnants of some industrial complex relegated to history. We get out of the cars and observe them briefly, standing next to a man selling oranges from a bicycle stall. The British allegedly used the grand structures as targets for gunnery practice during their war with Persia in the mid-1800s. The pock-marks remain. It’s sad to see such treasures so degraded and disrespected.
When we finally make it to the Blue Mosque, the al-Asr prayer is finishing, and the devout are streaming out beneath the blue tiled minarets. The structure is grand and imposing. Delicate calligraphy patterns the walls as though a thousand small birds have dipped their feet in ink and run riot. In the deep shaded courtyard, snowdrifts have frozen like mounds of crystalized salt, treacherous underfoot.
It’s one of the few moments I feel more than just wary in Herat, but outright threatened. I’m no paranoiac- I have deep respect for Islam and its practitioners, and the years I’ve spent in Muslim countries and with Muslim friends and colleagues leave me with no doubt as to the peaceful heart of the vast majority. But in a nation where a fundamentalist insurgency preaches violence against foreign occupiers and their allies, I have no doubt there are people walking past us who would happily see harm come to us- a sensation I’ve never experienced walking into a mosque before.
We four westerners glance at each other and exchange a few words to the effect of, “This is a bad time to be here,” and promptly lead A. back out onto the street and to the vehicles.
The days are gentle, cloudless with bright sunshine that leaves the sky blue like an ink-pot and shadows black like ravines. Stone walls gleam until the eyes hurt. Everything tastes fresh. I sleep well, leaving my hotel window cracked to allow the freezing night air to trickle in as I tuck down.
The mornings are bitterly cold. I join C., R. and K. as they have their post-breakfast nicotine fix, and the sun isn’t above the blast-walls yet. White smoke billows upwards. K. loves his thin cigarettes, and has A. pick up two cartons specifically for K. to take home with him.
Our last night, we have dinner at the team house. The food has been delicious throughout- meat so tender that it drips from the bone under its own weight when you pick it up, aromatic rather than spicy, all accompanied by fresh naan and yoghurt. We start the evening sharing conversation around a shisha pipe, sitting in the courtyard under blankets against the bitter night breeze and blowing smoke-rings as the air stills. The local variant has a lemon twist to it, fresh and delicious. Exhausted as our mission comes to a close, I fall asleep early.
I have a restless dream in which a familiar, rhythmic sound won’t let me settle. I come to slowly with a sense that something is not right. I’ve not been asleep long, and as my mind focuses, I hear a sharp tok-tok-tok-tok-tok in the middle distance.
Bursts of automatic gunfire, unmistakenly Kalashnikovs, volley back and forth.
I listen long enough to know it’s not happy fire. The chatter is interspersed with throatier bangs. I raise myself up at the window. Maybe a mile west, straight up the main thoroughfare, I watch the flash of a grenade exploding. That deep pop follows, and then more shooting.
I don’t stay at the window, but move to where my clothes are already laid out and dress in the darkness. I put my shoes on, pocket my flashlight and two phones, grab my bug-out bag and lie back in bed, listening.
A major attack isn’t likely in Herat, but we’re staying in one of only a couple of expat-standard hotels in the city, so it’s obviously on the target list. I try to make sense of the action, but it’s at a distance. Certainly not a threat where we are. I’m listening to see if it’s coming any closer.
The bed is in the dead space against the corner, below the window. That way if the windows are blasted inwards, the glass will fly over the top of me and I won’t be lacerated. I’d already done that calculation when I first moved in at the start of the trip, and each night as I’ve bedded down, I’ve settled right into the very corner, just in case. The way my mind works. I lie there a while, and after some time, the shooting fades.
My local mobile buzzes. It’s J.. He tells us there’s an ongoing assault on a checkpoint in District 7, but we should still be able to make our flight in the morning as the airport is in a different direction.
Whether it’s a local feud, a deliberate attack on a government position by armed opposition, or part of a bigger operation isn’t clear right now. I keep listening. With no further shooting or blasts, I eventually remove my gear and fatigue takes me into a light sleep. Car tires crunch the gravel roundabout outside the hotel, and every crackle jolts me awake again, my nerves on edge. Come five a.m. when we have to get up to catch our flight, I’m not feeling very rested.
Seven of us squeeze into the SUV as we race back to the airport. I note the driver sticks stubbornly to the middle of the broad, empty avenues- standard practice in an environment notorious for roadside bombs, but we arrive without incident. The access road to the airport is a snaking maze of guards, boom-gates and 12-foot cement blast walls that make the approach feel like a level to Castle Wolfenstein.
A sign scrawled in front of the first checkpoint reads “Switch off ECMs”- the electronic counter-measures that block radio frequencies in an attempt to thwart phone-triggered booby-traps. Military convoys carry them. The envelope of supposed safety they create is called a ‘bubble’, although allegedly, insurgents are now setting up devices with long leads that run out to receivers planted outside the bubble’s perimeter, still allowing devices to be initiated remotely.
From 20,000 feet, the pre-dawn haze clears, and I watch the Hindu Kush slip by just underneath us. They keep my attention for the full hour. I find myself fantasizing about returning when there is more stability with my backcountry skis. Some of the lines look spectacular.
It’s dusty in Kabul. The mountains are lost behind a brown murk. We clear checkpoints and meet our driver in an unmarked pickup truck who slips us through the streets. It’s a Friday morning, so traffic is light.
We spend the hours before our flight out working at the team house. Blast-film covers the windows, to prevent them flying inwards in lacerating shards should a bomb go off nearby, as one did not too long ago.
During our brief passage through the city, Kabul looks to be one long stretch of blast wall. Grey cement fronts the avenues, topped with sandbags, concertina wire and guard-towers. Armed personnel stand watch at every gate and atop many of the walls. The thin weekend traffic gives the city a slightly abandoned feel, as though everybody is bunkered down.
The haze begins to clear. The morning air is cold and refreshing. We stretch our legs on the roof of the compound, from which we can see the old fortress, Bala Hissar, dominating the city skyline. Further round, and TV Hill bristles with antennae. Squat, one-storey flat-roofed dwellings crawl up the slopes like a moss. Everything is brown with just a frosting of rotten snow lining the shadows.
My folks lived here, back in the ‘70s. While the geology of Kabul might not have changed since their time here, I reflect that they probably wouldn’t recognize the city as it is today. With the changes brought about during the Soviet occupation, its widespread destruction during the civil wars of the 1990s, and now the reconstruction in an era of deep insecurity, both the vibe and appearance on its broad streets must be a world apart.
Getting back to the airport is a gauntlet of security checks. Vehicles are searched for explosives and magnetic limpet-mines. I receive the cosiest pat-downs I’ve had since a thorough fondling I was given by Ethiopian security back in 2003. K. counts of 12 separate security checkpoints, the first beginning a good mile or more out from the airport proper, and the last being as we stand on the tarmac at the foot of the stairs to the plane.
At one security checkpoint, the gruff guard calls out to him,
“Where are you from?”
K. tells him, a little reluctantly.
“This you bag?”
He nods.
The guard eyes him with suspicion for a few moments, and we all have a brief what now moment.
“You have smoking problem,” the guard says, referencing the two cartons in K.’s luggage, and we all break into guffaws.
Standing next to me as we board the plane is an Afghan family- father, mother, daughter and son. The girl is maybe five, the boy three, but what’s striking is the little girl’s blonde hair and blue eyes, compared to the rest of her family’s more typical dark colouring. She has their rosy cheeks, and she is chattering away in Dari, a cute little thing in pigtails that so clearly belongs and yet looks so thoroughly different. I presume that both parents have some Russian genes in their recent history- they are both young- but it also reminds me that the term ‘Aryan’ arose from this corner of the world, and that it’s not uncommon to find Afghans with green, grey or blue eyes. I wonder with amusement whether the bigots of the Aryan Nation ever realise that Afghanistan’s national airline- Ariana- draws its name from the same origin as theirs.
I get glimpses of the city as we fly out that afternoon, where breaks in the clouds let me peer past the towering pyramids of the Hindu Kush and into its dusty basin.
It’s been strange for me being here. I grew up on slideshows from my parents’ time here. A little faded with time, and 1970s imaging processes, I credit hearing tales of Afghanistan when I was a young boy with the start of my journey to becoming an aid worker. My parents adored the place, and they still talk about it with wistfulness, seasoned heavily with grief at what the place went through after they left.
It’s a place I’ve wanted to visit for many years, and in my brief visit this time, Afghanistan had a disproportional impact on me. The wildness, the ruggedness, the beauty, and the resilience of the people I met, all left a mark. I both hope and believe that this will not be my last trip to the place. I truly wish that when I next visit, its people will be in a securer, more stable environment than they are now. I’m no fool. I understand well many of the complex dynamics at play in this nation that undermine dreams and efforts towards a lasting peace. None the less, that’s my prayer, and one which left my soul earnestly as I watched the last of the mountains slip away beneath me, and I said au revoir to Afghanistan.
NB: Please forgive the over-processed images. I didn’t have my full camera gear with me, only the camera on my iPhone, and a little GoPro. Bored, I played with a new filters app called “Stackables” which has jazzed them up a little, at the expense of my usual style…
I recently stumbled across WordPress’s Daily Post blog, where they suggest a topic each day designed to inspire and encourage bloggers to write around a set theme. I’ve been meaning to respond to a few of them, but rarely seem to be able to have the time to spontaneously write something against the clock. And I don’t today, either. But I thought I’d do it anyway, because I particularly liked the theme.
Today’s theme, “No, Thanks”, asks the question “Is there a place in the world you never want to visit? Where, and why not?”
Couldn’t refuse…
As an aid worker, I generally get to see the worst of the worst. Nowhere’s really off-limits. In fact, the places I tend not to get to are the really nice ones. You know, the sort of spot you might take your family for a spot of skiing, or a two-week all-inclusive on the beach.
Refugee camps? Done ‘em in spades. War zones? Sure, why not? It’s been a few years since I was last shot at. Poverty and human misery? To be honest, I’m rarely out of arms’ reach of them.
So is there anywhere I wouldn’t go?
There are a few places I haven’t been, when it comes to the list of top trouble spots. I’ve not been to Baghdad, nor Afghanistan. My folks used to live in the A-stan, however, and I pretty much grew up on slide-shows of the place. In fact, along with watching re-runs of M*A*S*H, I’d credit a pretty fair percentage of my drive to get into aid work with those old washed-out positives. As for Iraq, well, there was a time when they were decapitating foreigners when it didn’t seem like such a great destination, but even then I had friends in Kurdistan telling me I was welcome for a visit, and with the right opportunity I wouldn’t hesitate today.
Another of the world’s aid hot-spots I’ve not managed to get to is Goma, in eastern DRC. Generally acknowledged as one of the very worst humanitarian crises– it’s prolonged, forgotten, and horrifically violent- Goma is also fearfully beautiful. Forested hills overlooking deep lakes and in turn overlooked by towering volcanoes, I’ve heard nothing but terrible things about the crisis, and nothing but awe about the landscape. It’s definitely on my to-do list when the right assignment comes up.
While I’ve travelled a little in the more peaceful portions of Somalia– and thoroughly enjoyed it- I haven’t been down to the Mog yet. A former colleague of mine was there a couple of weeks ago, and it was amusing to see pictures of her all dressed up in her ballistics vest standing next to the armored vehicle trucking her around. But to be honest, Mogadishu is stabilizing rapidly (for now), with Somali businessmen and their families returning in droves, and while I wouldn’t want to buy a summer home there just yet, I would certainly leap at the opportunity to pay a visit to what is one of the most fascinating pockets of east Africa at the moment.
Darfur, South Sudan, Sri Lanka (at the culmination of the civil war), even Turkana in northern Kenya make up the list of some of the more challenging and unstable places I’ve dropped in on- each of them deeply enriching and fascinating places, despite the conflict and the deeply entrenched physical poverty and even injustice. A year in Papua New Guinea had me dropping in and out of Port Moresby more often than I ever would have liked, but even PoM has beautiful hills and bays, and from what I hear, fantastic diving. And my time living in West Africa took me through some of the poorest nations on earth, and some of the poorest communities therein. I still remember Niger with deep fondness.
Chad remains the most unpleasant environment I’ve visited- and likewise for most of those I’ve met who’ve worked there. Physically harsh- beautiful in its own way- the plight of the hundreds of thousands of Sudanese refugees sheltering in the desert was devastating, and the violence and hopelessness rivals anywhere I’ve visited on earth. It was a hard, hard place. I’d go back though- if for no other reason than to see what’s changed.
All up, I’ve been to around 60 countries, most of them poor and many of them pre- or post-disaster, and routinely listed on government ‘Do Not Travel’ lists.
So, is there anywhere I wouldn’t go?
Well, don’t tell my wife, but, probably not. I mean, maybe I’d pick my timing. I wouldn’t be so keen to visit Karachi today (I was there a few years ago), and there are certain slums in Nairobi I’d be steering clear of for the next few days, just as a precaution.
But sometimes people ask me is there anywhere I have no interest in going, and there is a place that typically comes in at the bottom of my wish-list. It’s even a place that I had the opportunity to visit, and actively chose not to (probably the only such time I’ve done-so in my life). And I realise in saying this, I’ll undoubtedly upset a lot of people. Not least because the residents of this nation make up one in seven Africans, and I don’t doubt some of them routinely read this blog.
Nigeria.
Let me tell you why. And then, before you lynch me, let me tell you why I recognize that this is unfair.
Why Nigeria? It’s not that I wouldn’t go there, or even that I can’t recognize that there would be some lovely things about it. It’s just that there are enough things stacked against it that don’t make it an attractive option.
Nigeria has sadly got a terrible reputation when it comes to crime. Friends and contacts who have travelled through Lagos speak of the scams and the urban crime, which traditionally starts before you leave the airport. Political corruption is rife, as is corruption in the police force. There’s extensive poverty and inequality (nothing unique to Nigeria given the places I visit), and simmering tension, both between north and south, and within communities.
Boko Haram, a militant Islamic group, along with other similar groups, are carrying out attacks on government infrastructure, churches, civilians, and foreigners (including, allegedly, the abduction of a French family from northern Cameroun ten days ago). Meanwhile, pirates operate off the southern coast, targeting shipping, and seperatist rebels operate in the Niger Delta, targeting foreign oil interests.
Even some Nigerians I know hesitate to go home. A former colleague, who was from the south of Nigeria, would travel by bus from the northern border to get home to see her family, and was routinely held up and robbed on the journey home. The organization I used to work for had opened an office there briefly, and was forced to close it due to the strong corruption in the place.
Now, let me be clear. No one of these things is unique to Nigeria. Nor do I want to suggest that Nigeria is a universally awful place. In fact it isn’t. For every person I know who’s had a negative experience in Nigeria, I know several others who have loved it- people who have travelled, who have been there for short missions or service trips, people who have lived there and brought up children, both Nigerians and foreigners.
There are some physically beautiful places, and many, many beautiful places.
I have recently finished reading Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun, set during the Biafran War of the 1960s. It is an achingly beautiful story, stunningly written, and I would be lying if I said it didn’t make me interested in visiting, that my attitude didn’t soften. It should also be required reading for any students of modern African history, given that it addresses one of the most important historical events in one of the most important nations in Africa, which still has echoes in today’s politics.
There are many, many fascinating places in the world, and I don’t doubt for a moment that with the right information, the right contacts, knowing where to go, a trip to Nigeria would be fascinating, beautiful, inspiring. But for me, with the long (long long) list of places I want to see, and go back to, balanced against the hassle of getting to and around those places, Nigeria just doesn’t yet make it into the positive balance. It remains somewhere around the bottom of my list.
When I was living in Maradi, a grubby town on the edge of the Sahara about 50km north of the Nigerian border, an Ivorian friend of mine suggested we take the weekend off and go down to visit Nigeria. I’ve never yet turned down an opportunity to stamp my passport. But my friend had shared just a few evenings before a long story about how as a young man he had been extensively robbed in Nigeria, and I remember looking at him and saying, “Why would I want to do that? No thanks!”
To this day it remains the only time I’ve turned down a chance to cross a border.
To my Nigerian readers, and anybody else who has a soft spot for that country, I welcome your feedback as to what you love about Nigeria, and how my appraisal is utterly unfair and misplaced. Let me know below!
While trolling through my blog archives I found a bunch of posts which I wrote months (in some cases, like this one, years) ago, and never got around to publishing. So I might drop a few of them onto the site from time to time. This one was originally written in September 2010, when I was deployed managing an emergency response program in Niger, and had spent a few days with a TV news team filming a couple of pieces. I thought it would be good to share. Seeing as I wrote it and all.
-MA
If I were to want to tell you about my week filming with a foreign media team and wanted to use pseudonyms, I might flippantly call my reporter ‘Mike’ and my cameraman ‘Cam’.
In a twist of truth being at least as amusing as fiction (and frequently far weirder)’ these are actually their real names. ‘Mike’ is correspondent Mike McRoberts, and ‘Cam’ is news cameraman Cameron Williams, both of TVNZ in New Zealand. They’ve been here in Niger putting together some pieces about the current emergency, and about aid workers, and I’ve had the privilege of keeping them company for the last four days while we’ve bounced around the central Nigerien countryside.
(Here, of course, ‘bouncing’ is not simply a euphemistic reference to the extent to which we travelled across the far reaches of rural Maradi, but has a visceral tangibility best experienced in the back seat of our Land Cruiser troop carrier…)
Over the years I’ve found that the professions of aid work and international journalism (particularly war journalism) tend to attract similar personalities (albeit with certain key differences as well). The contexts and activities to which we’re drawn are similar, the situations we put ourselves into providing a similar kick to the system. They’re high-stress jobs on which driven people with an experientialist bent tend to thrive. They’re drawn by the opportunity to make unique contributions in unique locations, and the added risk factor is often an appeal.
Mike and Cam both fit that bill, and the rugged and frequently confronting context of Niger, the world’s poorest country and in the depths of a tragic nutrition crisis, seemed to excite rather than daunt them. I felt quickly comfortable with them. They were personalities I could identify with. The war-stories they shared were like those I’ve shared with dozens of relief colleagues in bars the world over. And to top it all off, they were consummate professionals.
I’ve dealt with the media a fair bit over the years now. Most of it has been more remote- phone interviews from garbage-strewn streets in central Niger and hotel rooms in Colombo jump to mind. Around the time of the Haiti earthquake I also did a few TV interviews with the Australian press, including a particularly daunting live appearance on a daytime chat show, which I have no desire to repeat. So the chance to watch a couple of experienced hands put together some foreign correspondent pieces was a chance to observe the process from both sides of the camera lens- something which as a photographer I found fascinating.
Mike and Cam were making a couple of news slots, as well as a longer in-depth piece about aid workers, and were in-country for about 5 days. I, with a couple of our media staff, accompanied them to the field, and took the opportunity to combine the story-gathering work with an assessment of how our emergency programs are functioning in the bush.
Reporting on these situations is always a challenge. Article 10 of the Red Cross Code of Conduct insists that in their communications material they present beneficiaries as survivors with dignity, not helpless victims. Media has its own internal guidelines- driven mostly by the integrity of the individual reporters and producers (and I’m happy to say that Mike defines himself as a Humanitarian first, a journalist second). Just like NGOs are wanting to have an emotional impact to encourage people to donate, the media wants to have an emotional impact to encourage people to watch the show or buy the edition. This can lend itself to a tendency to focus on the shocking, at the expense of balance and dignity.
It wasn’t hard to find shocking stories, of course. We were all particularly struck by the plight of a 9-month old boy who weighed roughly what Mike’s own son had weighed at birth, with skeletal limbs and a bulbous head. We spent time returning some women to their village who had walked more than 30km that morning to be at the distribution site. But so too they focused on the positive- the children whose weight can be seen improving over several weeks of treatment, the agricultural work helping farmers diversify their income and food intake, the schools offering children who have fallen through the cracks of the educational system a second chance at building a future for themselves.
I enjoyed watching Cam at work. Like me, he’s a student of light and form, and he’s at the top of his game (shortlisted as he’s been for a cameraman of the year award in New Zealand). He took great care not just composing his frames, but also ensuring that the light worked for the image he wanted to capture. I speak from personal experience when I say this is no mean feat in the Sahel. Sunlight during the middle of the day is harsh and washes out features, burns out backgrounds, and casts unsightly shadows. During the magic hours of dawn and dusk, when the light is soft and warm and beautiful, the angles change rapidly as the sun moves quicker in the tropics, presenting unique challenges for a documentary attempting to capture some stability in the light.
Like photography, putting together a piece for camera is a blend of science and art. We spent time finding locations and sometimes having to reshoot when circumstances undermined the quality of the work we were doing (one such instance involved a generator ten feet from where I sat giving an interview which, 20 minutes into the piece, decided to roar to life after the main power-grid failed; it took us an hour to find another location, and we had to restart the whole thing from scratch).
The visit captured yet another aspect of why aid work is a fascinating profession to be involved in. I doubt I could have had the experience of being so intimately involved with the creation of current affairs news in many other professions, but aid allows you to cross a lot of different paths. It was an enjoyable learning and fun to be a part of. But most of all, like so often happens in overseas postings, it was just a great opportunity to meet a couple of really good guys, share some fun, unique experiences, and more than one hearty belly-laugh with guys that get it.
It’s not a big surprise. In fact, in a town like Addis, the only surprise is that it’s taken two months. Addis is a safe city- safe from violent crime against expatriates, particularly. But it’s notorious for petty theft, especially in some parts of town. Not so much my part- but that’s probably because my part is boring, and there aren’t many expatriates. In fact the only crime round my neighbourhood I’ve witnessed, I rocked up at my local bakery after a thief had just lifted 70 Birr (about $4) from the till, much to the despondency of the girl behind the counter.
I was walking back from lunch with my wife, about 200 yards left to get back to my apartment. There was a young guy, early twenties probably, in a football shirt and jeans, talking animatedly on his cell-phone against the wall. As we got closer he walked over to a car parked beside him, a buddy in the front seat, and leant against it, facing away from us and still talking. Then, as we drew level, he spat, smattering gobs of saliva all over my pant legs. I stepped away from him, and he looked up, swearing in English and instantly apologetic, and as I walked away, pulled out a kleenex and energetically offered to clean my pant legs.
The game’s a pretty simple one, when you know what to look for. Young and slightly uncouth Ethiopian male accidentally spits on foreign white guy walking past. Foreign white guy is disgusted. Ethiopian apologizes profusely and offers to wipe off the offending spittle, and while doing so, helps himself to the contents of white guy’s pockets. The beauty of it is that the initial emotional shock of being spat on overcomes any warning signs about letting a stranger on the street get close, and the natural revulsion of somebody else’s spit on your clothing is comfortable letting somebody else- the offender- deal with it.
When you think about it, the psychology is really quite elegant.
I’m not sure at what point I knew I was being set up. There was a brief second where I, too, was revulsed, and sidestepped but kept walking. Another brief second where I was perfectly happy to write it off as an accident. About five paces on I turned to watch the guy pull out his convenient kleenex to wipe down my legs, knew what was up, and kept walking away without taking my eyes off him, ignoring his requests to clean me off except to say ‘no thank you’. He gave up when we were fifty yards further down the road, and I pointed out to my wife a moment later what had just happened.
I’m naturally suspicious. Almost anywhere. Particularly on the street, and particularly in third-world countries where I know I’m a higher profile target than on a street populated by other white guys like me. So my situational awareness is generally ratched up pretty high. I’d been given a security briefing probably two months ago that listed a bunch of different robbery setups that went on in the city, and although I’d forgotten about this particular variant until it actually started to happen, the moment it did it must have triggered the memory and tripped me into alert mode. Even if it hadn’t, though, I doubt I’d have let the guy come up to me. I’m not usually prone to letting strangers get within touching distance unless we’re just passing on the sidewalk, and even then I’m watching like a hawk. Even in Melbourne.
With the benefit of hindsight, the clues are there in the setup. The guy on the phone is already on my radar as I approach. First, simply because he’s a guy, and I’m going to be getting close to him, so I’m watching, just because. All the moreso because he’s in that late-teens to twenties age-bracket, which is where you’ll find a lot of street crime. Second, because he’s noticed me. He’s on the phone, which makes him a little innocuous, gives him an excuse to casually cast around as though he’s not actually looking at anything but is actually focused on the phone call (again, nice psychology). But the fact is, I’ve seen him look up, and look away again, and I’m aware I’ve been noticed.
Now come the pieces that ought to start raising flags. First off, we’re on a stretch of the street between the main road and a construction site, so a ways from other people. It’s broad daylight, and there’s buildings a hundred yards to the front and the back, so it’s not dangerous- just has a little more isolation, and he’s perfectly situated halfway down this stretch. Second, he’s standing ten feet from a car, passenger door open, a buddy behind the wheel. Obviously, when you know the setup, so that they can make a quick getaway once the lift has been made. But, who stops at the side of a city street to talk on the phone when they’ve got a buddy driving them? Sure, you can come up with suggestions, and some of them will be valid. The point is, it’s a little unusual. And when you’re talking security, and situational awareness, unusual is the point where you start asking more questions.
Now the guy crosses the sidewalk to be next to the car, right before I reach him. It lets him turn away for a moment so that the spit can seem accidental, so that he’s looking away from me when he does it. He’s also hoping that I’ll stop right there, maybe berate him a little so that he can look contrite as he offers to wipe me clean. Point is, he’s keeping by the open door of the car. Ready to bolt if it goes wrong, or move once he’s been through the pockets.
And then the spit. And there, too, you have the unusual. There are places where spitting is commonplace. French West Africa, for example. You can’t walk a hundred yards down the street without hearing somebody hock a spatter onto the sidewalk. Ethiopia’s not like that. People don’t spit that often on the streets. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen. But it’s not endemic like it is in other places. So again, you’re asking the question ‘why’.
Finally, the convenient kleenex. By now the play is well and truly underway. Sure, plenty of people might have a bit of tissue wadded up in their pockets. But you’ve just spat on somebody. If you’re a regular, healthy sort of person, right about now you’re probably feeling sick to your stomach. Guaranteed it’s going to take a good five or ten seconds before it occurs to you that you just happen to have something in your pocket to clean it off, even longer than that to decide you want to get within arms reach of somebody who’s probably contemplating knocking your block off for being disgusting. To have it out within a couple of seconds and offering to wipe the offending spit off within a couple of seconds? Just a little bit too much eagerness going on.
Situational awareness as relates to personal security is both a conscious and a subconscious thing. Conscious, in that you make a decision to watch and observe, to stay alert, to track for anything unusual. Body language. Things out of place. People changing track to move towards you. There’s a host of different signs and triggers to be watching for, which you can identify in part through training, in part through experience, in part through instinct. Unconscious, in that putting it all together in your brain to trigger a warning sometimes happens without you being aware of it.
Professionals tell you that the key to situational awareness is mindfulness- being aware, and being in the right-here right-now, not letting the brain drift. It’s a skill, a technique, akin to some types of meditation. It’s being able to identify something that’s a little off, track that something, but not lose focus on a dozen other somethings at the same time, just in case that first something is merely there to attract attention. It’s letting the conscious mind pick up a dozen different points of interest in half a minute, and let each one slide by as it reveals itself as harmless, and keep repeating that in subsequent right-heres and right nows. It’s about constantly updating your next step, your ten-second plan, should one of those somethings turn out to be real.
If there’s one tip I’ve always given when I’ve been giving security briefs or training on personal security, it’s never to ignore the gut reaction. The human brain is a phenomenally complex, highly adapted organ designed first and foremost to help you survive. It has evolved over millenia to identify potential risk factors, process them, and help you act to survive. Many of those processes are embedded deep in the subconscious. For example, studies have demonstrated that people produce micro-expressions- brief changes in facial muscles that unavoidably communicate intent, that last only fractions of a second. The subconscious brain can read those signals even while the conscious mind may not see anything happen on the fact because it’s all too quick. Likewise, a brain that is constantly scanning and feeding raw data to the subconscious may pick up a series of clues you didn’t even realise were there and have them pieced together. The fear reaction this subconscious processing produces is easy to subdue or dismiss as irrational. However being able to listen to a warning siren in the brain may give you just enough time to avoid something bad coming your way.
In my case, I was scanning and aware, without realising that I was about to be targeted until it actually happened. However, somewhere between the deliberate decision to be mindfully aware, my brain picking up the various pieces of data it was observing, and my memory of the security brief that I had ‘forgotten’ from my conscious mind, everything fitted together to set off an alarm-bell in my head within a couple of seconds of what could have been easily interpreted as a natural accident, or overwhelmed me with fluster before I could work out what was happening. As it was, I felt an almost immediate sense that things were not okay, reacted to that by putting distance between myself and the would-be thieves, gave my conscious brain the time to work out what was happening, and avoided the whole situation. The only casualty? My pants went straight in the wash.
Why am I sharing this? Well, I guess, if you come across this scam in the future you’ll know to avoid it. But really, it’s to encourage you to mindfulness. Be aware of what’s going on around you. Listen to that gut feeling, don’t drown it out or supress it, but encourage it. Above all, stay safe.
How about you guys? I’m sure many of you- whether you work in the aid world, whether you travel, or whether going about your daily lives- have had moments where, for reasons that may not have been immediately clear at the time, alarm-bells went off and it helped you avoid a harmful or unpleasant situation. I’d love to hear about it in the comments section below.
One of the biggest frustrations of being a photographer when traveling is often being at the mercy of others around when and where and for how long you can stop. This is particularly true when you’re traveling for work, not fun. And the frustration only grows when the landscape you’re passing through is visually spectacular.
The key to any good picture, and definitely true to landscape photography, is the need to move yourself into a position to make the most of a scene. Is that tree better placed on the left or the right? Should I get in close and use a wide angle, or stand off and zoom? If I wait here another five minutes, is the sun going to break through and hit that particular part of my composition and make it take off? Photography is the art of scribing light. You need to be in the perfect position, and the perfect moment.
And that perfect position and perfect moment is almost never through a car window. Or a car windshield. Or, for that matter, an airplane seat.
I’ve sadly had to score my fair share of shots from car windows. I hate it. They are always sub-standard to what I would like, or the vision I have for the scene, and unless you’re very fortunate, there’s almost invariable motion blur, particularly in the foreground. On my most recent trip through north-western Ethiopia, it was doubly painful. Not only was the landscape glorious, but the lighting was spectacular. It was variable and changing, we were on the road early and late as the light turned golden, and you really would have struggled to find more dramatic combinations of scenery and sunlight at times. I just wanted out of that vehicle and to be taking my sweet time framing up the shots I wanted to take.
Alas, there are only so many times you can ask the driver to stop and your colleagues to wait patiently in the car while you grab your snaps.
And the toilet-break excuse has a ceiling.
Sometimes you just make do with what you’ve got, however, and in this case, several of this little series of light-captures were snapped from the moving vehicle, the others grabbed during brief moments when we were stopped at the side of the road. Not my favourite option, and given the quality of the light, I wish I could have positioned myself better- there were some epic opportunities. But thems the breaks. Here’s what I got out of them though, and I quite like how some of them turned out. As much luck as anything. One of these days I hope to be out on the road myself here, able to stop whenever I feel like it. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy these ones.
Photos:
1. The Golden Hour: Morning haze gathers in folds of the landscape lit by a morning sun just on the Amhara side of the border with Benishangul-Gumuz Note: If you click on this image, I’ve included the link to a larger size of this image which is worth linking through to- the small frame doesn’t capture the landscape well.
2. Traveling Light: Shooting straight into the sun, hanging out of the side window of the Land Cruiser
3. Out of the Burning Dawn: A man walks along a road at sunrise not far from Chagni, in SW Amhara Region; shot through the car windshield into full sun. Note: Same for this one- click through for larger image.
4. A tree, captured out of the side window of the truck, stands silhouetted against the overexposed sky, smoke and dust from the road swirling at its roots
5. Metalled road west of Chagni, Amhara Region, at dawn
6. A painted truck, caught with the rising sun ahead of it, through the windshield of our four-by-four
7. Truck headlights at dusk in Mandura Woreda, Benishangul-Gumuz
8. Smoke and clouds blend at dusk above a burning rubbish tip on the outskirts of Bahir Dar
It’s hard to overstate Ethiopia as a travel destination. It has fascinating and unique history and culture, sites to visit and activities to do, a combination of anthropological and wild natural beauty- in short, all the things you would look for, from a range of travel backgrounds. In addition, Ethiopian Airlines has a safe, wide-reaching and very economical domestic network making it easy to get from place to place. The cost of food, accomodation and activities are all very low, the country is safe and stable (with the exception of some border regions), and the Ethiopian peoples are, as a rule, gentle and friendly. And finally, while there is a significant tourism business here, the place is not overrun by ferengi, so you don’t need to feel like you’re part of a giant guided tour.
If that doesn’t entice you to come for a visit, let me give you a short and very non-exhaustive list of things you can do in Amhara Region, one of the more popular travel destinations.
Note: I’ve generally quoted prices in Birr. The exchange rate is roughly USD 1: ETB 18.
1. Rock-Hewn Churches of Lalibela
The rock-hewn churches of Lalibela, UNESCO World Heritage listed, are possibly Ethiopia’s most famous tourist draw- and unsurprisingly-so. While the most famous of these- the cross-shaped Bete Giorgis (St George’s Church), sometimes refered to as the 8th Wonder of the World- features prominently in photographs, there are in fact a constellation of structure scattered around this small mountain village. The main dozen-or-so churches are clustered in three groups, all within easy walk of one another, carved into trenches out of the solid rock itself rather than constructed using bricks or blocks. They are connected by tunnels and passageways, worn by centuries of use (the churches are active to this day).
The churches themselves- St. Lalibela is said to have built the town and its icons around his memories of Jerusalem from time spent there in his youth- are tall and blocky, I suspect reminiscent of the Jewish Temple/Tarbernacle. In the Orthodox style, they have an outer area for the congregation, and then an inner sanctuary like the Holy Place, concealed behind a thick curtain, into which only priests can enter. Flash photography is forbidden, and shoes must be removed at the door. The insides are furnished with rugs and icons, dimly lit, some distinctly cavernous in mood.
The Lalibela churches, built in the 12th & 13th centuries, rate right up there with the most interesting and enjoyable archeological sites I’ve ever visited- right on a par with somewhere like Angkor Wat. Exploring the churches and passageways is a hoot, and in style true to the continent, there are no ropes or overly-cautious shepherding of visitors through set passageways. If you want to plunge to your death over a 50-foot rocky ledge, that’s your own dumb fault. We spent an afternoon and saw perhaps half the churches, but it was a rush job. I’d recommend you block out two days to take your time, explore the nooks and crannies, and really soak in the otherworldly atmosphere of this interesting place.
Lalibela village is probably the most touristed of Ethiopian locales, and because of its small size and big draw, it’s the one place in Ethiopia where you’re likely to trip over other foreigners. The kids will strike up conversation in any of the major tourist languages- I tried English, French and Spanish, and I suspect Italian and Russian are on the menu too- and will try the usual ways to get you to give them money- ask for foreign coins (we’re collecting coins for a school project), ask for footballs (we had a football team but the ball burst so now we can’t play), invite you home for coffee, or offer to guide you into the hills to see another church. They are harmless, and if you politely tell them to leave you alone (assuming you don’t want the banter, which can be entertaining), they generally will.
You can reach Lalibela by road, but most people fly in- there are a couple of flights daily to and from Addis, doing a loop via Gondar and Aksum. Shared minivans cost a set 70 Birr one-way for the 30-minute ride between the airport and the village, which is perched on a shoulder at around 2,500m above the valley. The ride is visually spectacular, as are the views from the village. A pass to visit all the churches costs 350 Birr and lasts for several days- you buy it at the tourist booth as you head into the first of the church complexes. You will be asked for it regularly, and if you get a pass with several friends, you’ll need to stay together (as I found out to my frustration). Guides are on offer and are entirely up to personal preference. The complex is self-explanatory and fun to explore alone, and we didn’t bother. There is plenty of material available online on the history of the churches, but if you want somebody to take you round and tell you stuff, that works too. Note that guides are of varying quality- and may spin things that aren’t true.
The Seven Olives Hotel, on the main road, has pleasant leafy gardens and a terrace overlooking the valley, and makes a lovely spot to have lunch. The Mountain View and the newer Cliff Edge Hotels have dramatic views from their exposed locations, the former with one of the towns better options for dinner. Consider booking, as it can get full during peak times.
2. Fasilides Castle, Gondar
When King Fasilides made Gondar the seat of his empire in the 1600s, he constructed a palace that would eventually sprawl into a large complex, as children and grandchildren added their own buildings to the compound. Set in the heart of what is now one of Ethiopia’s largest cities (still fairly small at around a quarter of a million people), the palace complex is a mixture of beautifully-preserved period architecture with European and Moorish influences, and rambling ruins.
Interestingly, Fasilides’ Castle itself is the best-preserved, and you can wander through its lower halls and explore its nooks and pockets. Elsewhere are reservoirs and steam-baths, the remains of kitchens and stables, even the enclosures for leopards and lions that used to grace the grounds. The place has a ramshackle feel in many ways, the buildings a little haphazard in their placing, but it makes for a great afternoon’s exploring.
As with Lalibela, guides are on offer (for a fee) but entirely optional. It’s fun and freeing just to explore by yourself, although again, if getting historical explanation is part and parcel of the experience for you, go for it. Entrance costs 100 Birr for a tourist, and will also give access to Fasilides’ baths, a ceremonial complex a five minute bajaj (tuk-tuk) ride away. The Castle sits by the Town Centre, where buses and taxis both drop off, and is hard to miss.
The Goha Hotel sits on top of a hill overlooking the town itself, and is a grand place to enjoy dinner and a drink (ideally a Daschen Beer, as their Brewery is in Gondar, so the stuff is fresh). I can’t comment on the rooms, but it looks like one of the town’s better hotels. There are plenty of cheaper options.
3. Blue Nile Falls
The Blue Nile- the shorter but higher-volume tributary of the Nile River vis-a-vis its chromatic counterpart, the White Nile- flows out of Lake Tana just a few kilometres north of Amhara’s administrative capital Bahir Dar. From there it flows thirty or forty kilometres eastward, and tumbles over a precipice. Its flow split between a hydro-electric power-station and the falls themselves, the flow over the falls can vary depending on season and the functioning of the power station, from not much more than a trickle, to a thundering wall of water 400m wide and up to 45m high.
I’ve seen the falls twice- once with the power-station turned off and water diverted over the waterfall, and once with lower flow. Both times were visually dramatic. The water spouts over and throws up a steady mist, creating swirling winds that gust over the little plateau at the falls’ base. A winding canyon is carved into the hillscape below the falls, and another narrow stream joins as well, over which is hung a suspension footbridge. It’s possible to walk almost to the base of the falls (although the mist makes it hard to take photos without spotting your lens), and it’s also possible to walk around to the very top of the falls (see earlier comment about lack of ropes and plunging to death). The view leaning out over the rock ledge above the cascading brown water is quite spectacular. When the water level is low, it’s also kind of fun walking in the ‘bed’ of the Nile to check out the falls.
It’s about a 45 minute picturesque car journey through open farmland from Bahir Dar to the falls- known locally as Tis Abay (Abay being the Amharic name for the Blue Nile). There is public transport (minivans), or alternatively, you can negotiate a hotel shuttle- we were quoted 800 Birr. Bajajs would struggle with the gravel road, and would probably take about 3 hours each way for the journey, so don’t try that option. In the small village of Tissisat, you pay an entrance fee (around 70 Birr, if I remember), then walk or drive to the river crossing about 500m upstream. A motor launch shuttles you across the channel for 10 Birr each way per person, and then it’s a 15 minute walk through gentle countryside to the site of the falls themselves. Children sell scarves and drinks at the top, but are generally good-natured and easily dissuaded.
There’s a second approach to the falls which involves a four-hour walk through local villages, coming up on the cascade from the other direction, which sounds like an enjoyable trip to make. I’d love to see the falls in flood, as I suspect it would be an awesome sight. None the less, the Blue Nile Falls should be a must-see on any Amharic agenda if you’re in Bahir Dar.
4. Lake Tana Monasteries
There are some sixty-odd Orthodox monasteries, apparently, scattered around Lake Tana. The Lake is Ethiopia’s biggest, source of the Blue Nile, and stretches northwards from Bahir Dar. The monasteries are situated around the lake’s edge, and on a number of small islets that dot the waters. And they’re open for business.
Checking out Lake Tana’s monasteries is one of the more unique things you can do in Ethiopia. I guess the idea behind any real monastery is an element of isolation or seclusion, but short of the needle-top monasteries of Meteora, in Greece, these guys really seem to be ahead of the curve. Started seven hundred years ago, these isolated little pockets of meditation are really worth checking out.
We visited three monasteries (all we had time for in a single afternoon). The first was at the mouth of the Nile, on what was said to be an island (though could also have been a little peninsula), surrounded by papyrus reeds, with a small village and an assortment of fruit trees to keep it company. The church at the heart of the complex was typical Orthodox style, a round shell with roof made from bamboo and leather strapping. The other two we visited were far more isolated, out in the centre of the shallow lake (Tana never gets deeper than 9m) on hilly little islets a couple of hundred metres across, if that. The sense of isolation was tangible, the natural beauty striking. It’d be hard to come up with a more idyllic place to spend ten years of your life meditating on scripture, if that’s your thing.
Getting out to the monasteries, you can hire a launch and driver from the lake’s edge in Bahir Dar. Rates vary by number of passengers, number of monasteries, and time. Three pax, three monastaries, and a good four hours or more on the water cost us about 700 Birr for the boat and driver. I’m sure that rate could be brought down with some good bargaining. Once you reach the islands, there is also an entry fee of 100 Birr per monastery. We hired a guide at the first stop (not knowing the protocol) for about 150 Birr, found him to be useless and factually vague, and also noted that after that first stop, there were no more guides available, so really, I wouldn’t recommend getting a guide. The two things worth noting: First, take your shoes off before entering the churches, and second, the inner sanctuary is holy, and non-Priests cannot enter, so don’t.
All up, factoring in driver, boat and entry fees, by Ethiopian standards, it’s a pretty pricey day. As much as the islands themselves, the journey is a big part of the fun, and we enjoyed lounging on our little boat in the choppy afternoon winds, chatting, dozing and enjoying the sunshine. It’s a relaxed, slow-paced and memorable half-day trip, highly recommended.
5. Flying Gondar-Aksum-Lalibela
Ethiopia’s domestic airways can be a bit of a shuttle-run, with short hops between multiple towns en route to your destination, and I was initially disappointed to find that our jump from Gondar to Lalibela- a very short flight in a straight line- first went via Aksum, almost on the Eritrean border. Each leg of the flight in the 80-seater Bombardier Q400 lasted just over 30 minutes. And the scenery was epic.
The flight takes you over the top of the Simien Mountains, to the north of Gondar. The mountains are sheer, craggy, riven by improbably deep valleys and split by rock walls that rise giddyingly out of the shadows. They’re a breathtaking view, and I spent the flight with my face glued to the window.
Approaching Aksum, the scenery is a dry patchwork of terraces and smallholdings set against a jagged horizon, also eye-popping. The leg from there South-East towards Lalibella skirts further to the east of the Simiens (still very visible as you fly past), and then the terrain breaks into a vast jumble of flat-topped hills and steep gullies, almost uninhabited and truly some of the wildest, most inaccessible landscape you can picture. Once clearly an upland plateau and now eroded by eons of flowing water, it’s a scene that leaves itself burned on your memory.
The plane flies at around 20,000 feet, but given that the landscape is already up at around 8-10,000 feet in places, it means you’re not so far off the ground, and at this time of year, the sky is cloudless. Sitting on the right-hand side of the plane (seat L) and far forward or far back gives the best view. I recommend 11L, which is right at the front on the right, and by good fortune was what I was given without realising the treat that was in store. None the less, despite being just a part of the travel process, the two flight legs became one of the strongest memories of that particular trip.
From a cost perspective, the itinerary Addis Ababa-Bahir Dar, then Gondar-Lalibela-Addis Ababa, came to a total of $160.
5 Quick Travel Tips
1. Public transportation has a fixed price. While taxis and bajajs will try and fleece you (and, given how cheap everything else is in Ethiopia, boy are they pricey), there’s usually a fixed cost for minivans that doesn’t require bartering, and doesn’t change between locals and ferengi. It’s worth finding out this price ahead of time, on the offchance that you do meet an unscrupulous tout on a minivan or some-such. The prices are generally pretty cheap for intercity travel. The 3-hour journey from Bahir Dar to Gondar costs 65 Birr ($3.60). The van from Lalibela airport to Lalibela town, by contrast, was 70 Birr for a half-hour trip- captive market. As a footnote, do bear in mind that the intercity minivans are a fairly unsafe form of travel- they roll and crash regularly, with high fatality rates.
2. Bring toilet paper. This one’s a no-brainer for anybody who’s travelled in the third world. But trust me, Ethiopia’s one of the worst offenders when it comes to disgruntled bowels- some combination of a relatively poor country, and high altitude (meaning water doesn’t necessarily sterilized when boiled due to the fact that water boils at a lower temperature at altitude; it’s the same reason so many people get sick in Nepal). I haven’t yet met anyone who’s spent any significant time out here and not had a bout of gastro of one form or another (myself included), and some of it’s nasty. While higher quality hotels will probably have toilet paper, cheaper places won’t (and practice your squat for the latrines). Of course, at the risk of going the TMI route, it should be pointed out that if you find yourself on round six or seven for the night cleaning yourself, some water and your left hand is far more soothing to tender areas than another scrape of dry paper. Just wash well.
Also, bring antibiotics.
3. Local ID gets cheaper rates. Often. Not always. But if you’re lucky enough to be in posession of a residency permit, even a temporary one, hotels will often discount room-rates (not as much as for an Ethiopian, but it’s a start), and you can also enter some tourist facilities at a reduced rate too.
4. Beware the cultural restaurant. Ethiopian dancing is pretty amazing stuff. And the music is interesting too. I really do recommend checking out one of the high-quality cultural restaurants in Addis Ababa- some place like Yod Abyssinia just off TeleBole Rd, for example. The dancers are energetic and skillful, and though the music is about 40dB too loud, it’s an unforgettable experience.
Once.
Unfortunately, there is an assumption that a tourist in Ethiopia must want to be serenaded in this fashion every time they eat. At restaurants frequented by ferengi, expect to find traditional performers, many of whom can be quite lacklustre, and whose musical escapades will leave your ears ringing. It makes conversation very difficult. They usually hit around the 6.30-8pm mark, so eating early or late can mitigate this particular travel hassle which, I’d have to say, our little posse found far more intrusive to our holiday pleasure than the kids approaching us for conversation and money.
5. Warm clothes/layers. At this time of year (December), Ethiopia’s pretty chilly. And by that I mean cold. At night time anyway. Days can be deceptively warm. The air is still and the sun bright, and you’ll want to be in short sleeves (with sunscreen) or thinly covered (as dress standards may dictate in places like monastaries). But within half an hour of sunset, you can expect the air to have a real bite. Most of these places are well above 2,000m (6,000ft) and this might be Africa, and not far off the equator, but it’s downright frigid at night time.
Budget
As I mentioned at the start of this post, Ethiopia is pretty cheap, especially compared to the rest of Africa. To give you an idea, if you eat at western-style restaurants, unless you’re staying in a spa resort, you can expect to pay well less than 100 Birr ($5.50) for a main, and no more than 30 Birr ($1.65) for a beer or soft-drink (imported wine is more expensive- 400-800 Birr ($22-44) for a bottle of South African, for example). Eating at restaurant targeting local Ethiopians, you can get away with a total meal cost of less than 40 Birr ($2.20), including soft drink (though you do need to watch food hygeine if your constitution isn’t bomb-proof). Three of us regularly ate at nice hotel-restaurants and generally paid less than 300 Birr ($16.65) for the full tab- and we weren’t trying to keep the cost down in the slightest.
Hotels vary with quality. Staying at a local pension, a small room with a toilet might go for under 200 Birr ($11) a night, a room without a toilet 150 Birr ($8.30) or less (I have paid 70 Birr- $3.80- for one such). At the better end, you can get a decent, clean and moderately-well appointed room (3-star standard in a good location) for 6-800 Birr ($33-44) in one of the better quality hotels in any of these places.
5 More Things to See and Do in Amhara Region
I’m hoping to have the chance to do more travel in the area, as there are still plenty of things I haven’t had a chance to check out yet. Among them:
1. Hike the Simien Mountains. From what people say, this is the thing to do in Ethiopia- possibly alongside the Lalibela churches. The scenery is apparently breathtaking (I can believe it, from what I saw from the air), and everybody who has done it has raved about it.
2. Hike the Lalibela area. There are apparently walks in the hills, as well as churches away from the town itself. The landscape around Lalibela is rugged and beautiful, and they say it also greens up during the rainy season. I’m keen to try this out.
3. Aksum. This isn’t technically Amhara- it’s in Tigray Region- but it’s easily accessible from Gondar and the Simiens find themselves halfway between Gondar and Aksum. There’s supposedly more UNESCO World Heritage goodness with the remnants of the ancient Aksumite Kingdom, and the landscape makes me want to check it out.
4. Gondar Area Castles. As well as Fasilides and his mob, I understand there are more old castles, forts and/or churches in the Gondar area. The terrain is just beautiful round there as well, so it would be well worth an explore over a couple of days.
5. Explore the Southern Hinterlands. South of Bahir Dar, there’s not much by way of tourist infrastructure, but I was lucky enough to drive through it on field visits. The landscape is lush and dramatic, and it would be a fantastic place to spend several days idling through, taking photos, and soaking in the slow pace.
In a break from our regular programming, may I direct you over to the SEAWL home-page where you’ll find my recent contribution discussing the pathological need Expat Aid Workers have to one-up each other on exotic travel tales…
I’ve recently returned from a week of work travel in north-western Ethiopia. Amhara Region has many claims, and among them, the claim to be the true ‘heartland’ of Ethiopia. Couched in the ancient highlands that were the natural fortress of old Abyssinia, it is a diverse and devastatingly beautiful landscape, full of history gone, and history still unfolding.
The region gives its name to both the dominant people group of Ethiopia, and the nation’s lingua franca- and hence the political as well as historical claim to be Ethiopia’s heartland. Both perspectives are easily challenged. Ethiopia is highly ethnically diverse, with over 80 ethnic groups, and its government carefully balances power among that recognized ethnic diversity: New Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn (who is a Wolayta, from the SNNPR) has appointed three deputy Prime Ministers, one each from Tigray, Oromia and Amhara (and have similarly ensured balanced religious representation, with one deputy being Muslim and two Orthodox, to compliment Hailemariam’s Protestant faith). Likewise, while Amharic is the state’s official language, and English has some currency as a foreign language understood by those who have completed secondary education, there are some 90 languages across Ethiopia, and native Amharic speakers make up just over a quarter of Ethiopia’s population. Geek fact: Amharic is the second most widely-spoken Semitic language in the world, after Arabic.
Amhara Region has somewhere in the vicinity of 18 million people, over 90% of them from the Amharic ethnic group (also a contested nomenclature) and most of them also Orthodox Christian. Its administrative capital is the town of Bahir Dar, which non-travellers to Ethiopia are unlikely to have heard of, but it is a pleasant and fast-growing town of nearly 200,000, with palm-lined avenues and magenta bougainvillea spilling over compound walls. It sits near the region’s centre on an inlet of Lake Tana, Ethiopia’s largest body of water and the source of the mighty Abbai- the Blue Nile (although the Piccolo Abbai- the Little Blue Nile) rises elsewhere in the south of the region to feed the lake, so in truth the lake is less the source, more a conduit).
Bahir Dar sits at an elevation of over 1,800m, which gives it a warm and gentle climate, just about perfect for walking around at night in a t-shirt at this equatorial latitude. Amusingly, when I asked colleagues about its elevation, I was told it was ‘very low’. I guess from Addis, at 2,500m, plenty of things seem low. In fact, Ethiopia has three main climatic zones, differentiated by altitude. The Kola, or lowlands, run up to 1,500m. The Woyinda Dega, or middle highlands, from 1,500-2,500m. And the Dega, or highlands, from 2,500m upwards. Most of Amhara Region is Woyinda Dega, but it also contains Ethiopia’s highest point, Ras Dashen, which perches at a lofty 4,550m.
Amhara Region’s better known locales, as well as Lake Tana and Ras Dashen, include the historic mountain city of Gondar, once seat to Abyssinian Emperors, the dramatic Simien Mountains, and Lalibela, famed for its rock churches. I’ve been told by people who’ve been there that the Simiens and Lalibela are two of the must-see places in the country, and I hope to get the chance to visit them someday. I did get a chance, on a late afternoon visit before my departing flight, to stop by the dramatic Blue Nile Falls. Due to a festival in Bahir Dar, an hour away, the hydro-electric power station that usually takes the river’s flow was switched off, and water diverted over the falls instead, and so the waterfall was in full thunderous flow, spray hanging in a great cloud in the evening sunlight.
The city of Gondar sits spread over several hilltops and the intervening valleys, at an altitude of a little over 2,100m. Like Bahir Dar- and many other corners of Ethiopia- it is a growing city and, deceptively, one of Ethiopia’s biggest, at a quarter of a million inhabitants. Its winding roads, forging pathways between buildings jostling for space on the hillsides, struck me at times as reminiscent of an Alpine town. The landscape has a Mediterranean dryness to it and sits beneath a haze that turns golden as the late-season sun sets behind the hills. At its heart grows the UNESCO-heritage King Fasilides’ castle, chief among a network of palaces first started in the 1600s whose remnants can be visited today- some, like Fasilides’ Castle itself, in excellent condition, others little more than ruins.
Gondar’s setting is beautiful, the surrounds of its approach moreso. Driving north from Bahir Dar, the road picks its way among rolling farmland and rocky hillocks, before climbing into the mountains proper. Before the mountain pass that leads into Gondar country, a great rock spire thrusts with phallic determination into the blue sky. Among the hills, the horizon is riven by outcrops and domes, while terraced fields and straw-roofed huts dot the valley floors. The terrain is dry, but not arid. Wildflowers bloom and grass is ripe for haying.
South of Bahir Dar, the landscape changes again. Instead of the dry hills of Gondar, the highlands are green and damp. Around the grubby crossroads of Injibara, hilltops are crowned with trees, as much as 10% of the land area in this heavily-populated and -farmed district still forested. The skyline is no less dramatic, however, with great protrusions of rock jutting into brooding clouds, while in the foreground, a patchwork of smallholdings is testament to the bustling agricultural sector. Fields are full of horses, and we pass riders in ceremonial garb, their mounts bedecked in white cloaks with red cloth baubles dangling at every trot. When one afternoon it rains, a rainbow paints itself over a spreading valley of fields. Driving back to town, the green of crops not-yet-ripened is somehow far more intense beneath the stormy clouds.
Following the road west, we pass through Chagni, a dusty outpost town with nothing to recommend itself, even to my colleagues, who commented distastefully that the place hadn’t changed in twenty years. Perhaps not quite true- construction on a large mosque in the centre of town was nearing completion, the two minarets like rockets standing against a blue sky, the dome covered in makeshift scaffolding that looked fragile enough to come down with a sturdy kick.
Past Chagni, the road winds among more hills, crosses the barrier that marks the division between Amhara Region and Benishangul-Gumuz, and plunges. Not a hundred yards past the checkpoint, it skirts the face of a great escarpment that drops into the rolling lowlands spreading out for a couple of hundred kilometres to the Sudanese border. The landscape undulates, instantly dry. Orange dust like the slappings of a chalkboard eraser coats trees at the side of the road, lending them an ochre pall.
Villages bounce by, no longer the rectangular tin-roofed homes of the Amhara, but round-walled tukuls like those found in Kenya and South Sudan. In fact even the people are reminiscent of South Sudan. The Gumuz are not as tall as the Nuer or the Dinka, but their skin is dark like coal compared to the relatively fair Amhara. The women walk barefooted in groups, sticks balanced across their shoulders from which they hang plastic jerry cans of water, or other supplies, up to 50kg of weight. Broad-horned cattle roam the countryside. Mixed brush, trees and thorn bushes, grows thick here, and in the golden haze-hung light of a setting sun, this is textbook National Geographic Africa.
There’s more to Bahir Dar- and Ethiopia generally- than its landscape. Some of this I’ll explore in later posts, for sure. But I was struck on this trip by the utter beauty of the scenery. The hills and mountains, the light and the variety of the place made it one of the more eye-catching and memorable journeys I’ve taken through the byways of this continent- and I’ve taken a few by now. Ethiopia- and Amhara specifically- does have a reputation as a tourist destination among some circles- especially the Simiens (for trekking) and Gondar and Lalibela, for the anthropoligically-minded. However it was the remote and rugged terrain in the south and west of the region that really drew me in, and I hope to go back for a longer trip soon, one in which I’m actually there to take time over the photography, and not just rush from one field visit to the next.
My wife and I just celebrated our two-year wedding anniversary.
By celebrated, I mean, we shared a 25-minute Skype chat via grainy video, which had to be curtailed fairly promptly after staff started queuing outside my office door. It was a fairly frustrating experience for me, even moreso for my wife, if the expression in her voice was anything to go by as we hung up- and I don’t blame her.
This was certainly not how either of us envisaged sharing our second wedding anniversary, even a couple of months back. Being a full hemisphere apart, however, separated by oceans and continents and eight or nine time-zones, this is what it looks like. We haven’t seen each other for five weeks, won’t see each other for another four, and even worse, my step-daughter and I will be apart for several months.
It sucks.
It’s more than just the fact that we don’t get to communicate face-to-face. Which is, let me tell you, horrendous enough. The time difference is brutal. Finding windows in my work day that fit windows in her routine of managing our home and looking after our child tends to rob very much spontaneity. Because I’m out here sans famille, I’m fair game for the office here, which means the work piles up without my usual incentive for boundaries, and during the [oh so short] workday itself, I’m usually dashing from task to task- but the last thing I want to do is make my wife feel like I’m penciling her in to my schedule. Unfortunately, this is what it can feel like sometimes.
As well, rather than sharing a life, we now find ourselves separated by worlds and lifestyles. My wife carries the responsibility of both of us, doing the work of two people and keeping our life together at home. Meanwhile, I’m filling my days with almost nothing but work, in a continent she’s never visited, and periodically disappearing off to one of our project sites. I know that in the past, especially while on humanitarian missions, she’s struggled to reconcile the need to raise issues that she’s dealing with at home which she feels are mundane, while I have my hands full with so many more ‘important’ things in the field (not a true reflection, but I grasp her struggle).
My wife and I are no stranger to this dynamic. When we first got together, I worked for an NGO’s emergency response team and was deployable almost immediately, anywhere in the world, traveling about six months a year. Three weeks into our relationship, I was deployed at 48 hours’ notice to a typhoon response. I was gone three weeks, back three more, then deployed somewhere else for yet another three. Shortly afterwards, I stepped away from that particular role, recognizing that such travel was not conducive to the survival of a new relationship. That didn’t stop me being deployed for five weeks during our short engagement, to Niger- quite literally as far away from my then-fiancee as I possibly could have gone. I challenge you to try and plan a wedding on two different continents.
Somehow, she still married me.
I’ve been travelling less since the wedding. Generally my trips have been three weeks or less, a total of about three months a year. Absence is still a key dynamic in our relationship, though- and in that of my relationship with our daughter. In fact, it’s a feature of many expat aid workers- and other professions that travel frequently.
It’s not a new thing for me, either. While I hadn’t been in many relationships prior to getting married (in itself part due to the fact that I traveled so much; we’ll ignore the fact that I’m a little clueless in the relationship department), pretty much all the relationships I did have were impacted, one way or another, by travel and distance. When I was a child, my own father- former EAW turned UN HQ staffer- would travel regularly. I literally cannot remember a time in my life that hasn’t involved regularly being away from loved ones.
So that’s my credentials of dysfunctionality out of the way.
I think this post has been brewing for some time. Pretty much any EAW will come up against the Long Distance Relationship (LDR, not to be confused by my supply chain colleagues with a Loss/Damage Report, although there are times you could be forgiven for confusing the two…) at one point or another in their lives, especially if they make a career of aid, and don’t do the wise thing of spending a few years in the field and then getting a *normal* job at home. The aid industry is full of people who’ve not been able to make relationships work with their transient or high-travel lifestyle.
A few months ago, @devxroads shot me a message asking for my perspective on what it was like trying to be an aid worker and a family man- unfortunately I was rushed off my feet at the time and wasn’t blogging, and I feel bad I didn’t contribute to the conversation. More recently, my dear friend, fellow TCK and very talented writer Lisa Mckay (author of two excellent books, the novel My Hands Came Away Red, and her memoir Love at the Speed of Email, about her own experiences of love, travel and EAWs) put out a question about managing long distance relationships, as part of an upcoming project of her own (that we are all very excited about), which also got me thinking.
So in brief, here are a few key pointers from MoreAltitude’s playbook on how to mitigate the risks posed by frequent travel when you’re in a serious relationship.
1. Communication.
Let me stress that for a moment:
Communication. Communication. Communication.
As often as possible, through as many different means as possible, as much as you possibly can. Any relationship lives and dies on the quality of the communication between partners, but distance not only reduces the available windows to communicate, it also compromises the ability to communicate well, because several communication channels (proximity, physical touch, body language, even expression and tone) are compromised. Therefore you have to overcompensate.
On a good day, my wife and I will communicate via Skype (written chat), email, SMS, and still try and have at least one video or voice call on Skype somewhere in there as well. It may not happen like that every day- especially if I’m in the field- but the more we manage regular, several-times-a-day communication, the more we feel better connected, and the more we share in each other’s daily lives. Even just simple little messages about what’s going on for you right now are important and mean something to the other person.
2. Spontaneity. If possible, try not to get locked into too much of a routine with communication. Sure, some of it is inevitable- especially where you have to make two busy lives overlap with massive time-zone differences. But just like a real relationship, when communication and interaction becomes routine, the relationship will suffer. Try and change the times, places and circumstances of chats and calls as much as you can, and where you can be spontaneous, do-so. Whatever happens, don’t let your significant other feel like they’ve become an entry in your daily task list.
3. Limit time apart. This is a total no-brainer too. This varies from couple to couple. For us, three weeks is our acceptable limit- and a lot of couples I know work by the three-week rule as well. I know my parents used it too, after one particularly gruelling 6-week trip by my Dad. It tends to strike a balance between what families can handle, and what people actually need to do their work overseas. Circumstances beyond our control have meant that A. and I are apart for longer this time, but we’ve generally been pretty good (one exception) at sticking to the three week thing. It’s for both our sakes- we generally find our coping ability matches pretty well. Ten days we can take in our stride. Things get painful around the 2 week mark, and by 2 ½ weeks we’re both pretty much done. We’ll push 3 if we have to, but we don’t like it.
This particular long-haul is just terrible.
4. Agree your boundaries ahead of time. Talk through how you’ll communicate before you separate, don’t expect to figure it out on the fly. Make sure you understand what your partner needs from you in terms of communication- and make sure you communicate your needs. Are you the sort of person that really needs to read a nice juicy email from your loved one every day? Does your partner need to hear from you at least once a day, even if you’re okay connecting every two or three days? Does your relationship really benefit from visual time on something like a Skype video call, or can you deal with a few days of seperation without it being a big deal? Sure, you’ll probably need to adjust your communication as you go along a bit, but make sure you’ve taken the time to communicate what you need, and learnt what your loved one needs from you in return- don’t let yourself make assumptions here. When I was growing up, my folks actually found it easier not to be regularly communicating. Dad would head out for ten days or two weeks, and rather than deal with the upsurge of emotion of trying to talk over a scratchy telephone line several times a week, my parents would go cold turkey until he got back. It worked for them. (Though since the advent of Skype, things have changed, and now they get regular link-ups whenever Dad travels).
5. Don’t leave stuff unsaid before you go away. And try not to bring up big issues the night before you go away. If there are any major issues in the relationship, distance is a sure way to make sure they bubble to the surface. Talk early and talk deep, and get things into as healthy a place as you can so you can both leave each other in a peaceful place, knowing that the relationship is as strong as you can make it. Make sure you keep talking about intimate, serious stuff while you’re apart- you mustn’t stick to trivialities or the relationship will become shallow- but any of the big contentious issues, try not to have to deal with them while you’re away, as distance facilitates miscommunication, hurt and damage.
Pro-tip: If you happened to have been involved in an extremely serious security incident on a previous field posting, the time to tell this to your new girlfriend is not the night before you deploy to another emergency response.
6. Don’t even think about a long distance relationship unless you already have rock-solid communication skills with your partner when you’re together, and can talk honestly and transparently about things.
7. Consider the practical implications for the person left behind. This is important, because for the person travelling, although there are hardships, it can often be easier to deal with the seperation due to busyness, and being stimulated by new surroundings. The person left behind is in the same old place, but with a big hole left by the traveller. If you’re living together, what extra work is the partner left behind going to have to cope with (especially if you have kids), and is there anything you can do to help with that or limit the load? What about finances? Does the person remaining behind have access to bank accounts, know which bills need paying, and everything else required to keep life ticking over while you’re gone?
8. Try and make the last day/night together special. Do something romantic, get away, go out together- something nice that will create a memory you can both hang on to while you’re apart, and give you something to look forward to when you come back. Involve kids in this process too if applicable- but always make sure the couple gets time alone together somewhere in there.
9. Ditto for the return. In that first few days to a week, make sure you spend some good quality time together as a couple doing something you both love. Again, with kids, involve them, but also make sure they get packed off to the grandparents (or something) for an afternoon or a night, and have some one-on-one reconnect time. It’s something to look forward to, and also something to help get the relationship back into ‘normal’ space.
10. Manage your goodbyes. Every couple is different, but try not to make goodbyes a traumatic emotional thing- it doesn’t actually help anybody, and can create a certain dread around the departure well ahead of time, as well as leave both parties carrying grief after they go. If you’re the sort of people who can hang out at the airport, have a meal together, say a gentle goodbye, and leave it at that, then great. Otherwise, if goodbyes invariably lead to floods of tears and great heartbreak, think about keeping it short and sweet- catch a cab and say a quick goodbye at the front door, or get dropped off on the curb of the departure terminal.
11. Manage your expectations. LDRs are tough. Difficult things will come up. At times, you will miscommunicate, irritate each other, even hurt each other, and it will be an effort to fix that over distance. Expect to struggle and to have negative feelings emerge. Expect your partner to struggle, and expect to be surprised by the things they struggle with, because they’re not you so their experience is going to be different. Expect these things to come up when it’s awkward to deal with them, for example when you’re rushed off your feet and the last thing you need to deal with right now is an emotional issue with your partner. And be prepared to drop everything and deal with it, because quite frankly, if this is your spouse or life partner we’re talking about, nothing you’re doing right now is as important as that relationship.
Don’t expect things just to drop back into the way they were when you left. It takes time to readjust and settle back in. While you were gone, your partner was busy living the life you left behind, and things have changed. They’ve had experiences, and so have you. Depending on how long you’ve been away, anything from a few days to a couple of weeks is normal, and during that time, communication together may be strained, time together may have some residual awkwardness (even if there’s a lot of relief and happiness at being back together again). Depending on the personalities involved, intimacy may need to be rebuilt. If you travel a lot, your ‘normal’ may be that constant change, limbo, and the regular hellos and goodbyes that, depending on your personalities, may work fine, or may mean that the relationship never really develops the foundations of intimacy it needs.
Utlimately, unless you’re the sort of couple who need time away from each other (and those exist too), LDRs are not fun, so expect them to suck.
12. For the person staying behind- mix up the routine a little. Nothing is as lonely as going through the same routine as before but without your significant other. If you can, fill some of that space with other social engagements. If you’ve got kids, think about changing the routine a little for all your sake- maybe have dinner in front of the television a little more often, or have them stay up a little later from time to time, eat out, or go away for a weekend. You don’t want changes to the routine to be disruptive to them, you want them to feel like life goes on, but you also want to compensate/distract from the absence of a parent, and also let them know, hey, things are a little different right now, it’s not normal, so don’t get used to it, and here’s a few things to make it a little better.
13. Think creatively. On this particular trip, we’ve asked a friend to come and live with the girls while they’re at home alone. It helps my wife feel safer in the house, gives her some adult company, and distracts the little one too. It’s been a great move and really reduced some of the pressures. If there’s someone (a good friend or a family member) who can be an additional part of life while you’re away, look into it. They may fill some of the gaps and ease the pain a little- or at least distract from it.
14. Kids make things a lot harder. You’re not just maintaining one long distance relationship, but two or more- each one its own distinct relationship that has to be supported. As adults we can cope with a lot- and we also have an element of choice and therefore control in things, which kids lack. Kids are resilient too, in fact they have remarkable bounce. They are also incredibly forgiving, even when you do put them through a hard time- but you must never take that for granted or exploit it. With a child, the dynamic changes, and spend very much time away- or regular time away- and that relationship will suffer quickly. The child may also be very unsettled which can put a lot of pressure on the parent left behind. We’ve really struggled with this dynamic in our family when I travel. Make sure in your communications arrangements you build in time to call when the child is present and awake, and it fits within the daily schedule. Granted, it makes things a lot more complicated- but there’s a lot more at stake, too.
15. For both parties, try and find the silver linings. What are the things that you can do by yourself that you enjoy, that maybe you don’t get as much time to do when you’re around your partner? It might be indulging in reading a book. It might be going out with your friends you don’t see much (equally true if you’re left at home, or if you’re the one travelling). It might be writing, or praying, or quiet time just pottering. Maybe watching dumb rom-coms or stupid action movies that your other doesn’t appreciate. But for each of you, try to make space in your apartness for those things, and give a bit of a positive angle to your separation, minimize the cost. It’s never a substitute for the other, but try and find the good spin.
16. Find as many things as you can to celebrate in your relationship as you can. Talk about your relationship, talk about your strengths together, congratulate each other as you pass milestones apart, and identify those areas that are going strong despite the distance.
17. Compliment each other. As often as you can. Say and write affirming, loving things about each other. Just because you’re apart, that doesn’t mean communicating those things to one another should stop. Make sure the other person knows you love them, and be specific about why. It’s so easy to forget that you’re loved when you’re a long way away, and a loving word from a distance from the person you care most about can make a huge difference to your day and keep that relationship sparking. If anything, this is even more important to focus on, because the normal little ways we might find when we’re sharing life together to tell each other “I love you”- in words or in actions- are missing, so you need to be very deliberate- and genuine- about doing this.
18. If you’re a regular traveler, try and stagger trips with as much time between them as possible. It’s very disruptive to be away for three weeks, back for two and away for another three. That time stable and together is essential for rebuilding intimacy, and if you leave again before you’ve reformed it, you’ll struggle to stay connected.
19. Did I mention “Communicate”?
20. Countdowns generally make the time go slower. Avoid them if humanly possible.
21. Long Distance Relationships suck. Avoid them if humanly possible.
A. and I are lucky. We married as a slightly older couple, with life experience behind us so we know our own characters, our needs, and how to relate maturely. We work hard at our communication, and even if things get difficult, we support each other and we make it through. Neither one of us enjoys being away from the other, and this is going to be a time apart we hope never to repeat. But for now, we just need to push through it, and we’ll make it work, because we’re determined to. We are deliberate about meeting each others’ needs over distance, and while we’ve got areas we need to grow in, we’re gentle with each other, love each other, and ultimately, can’t wait to see each other again.
Let me know your thoughts. What have I missed? Any other advice for couples who spend time apart on a regular basis? And should I try and talk @MadamInsideOut to guest-blog on her perspective on exactly what it’s like to be married to a travelling EAW? I’d love to know what you think or hear your experiences. Share them in the comments below. Thanks!