Southern Ehtiopia

As we entered the city of Moyale in southern Ethiopia in our wrecked Landrover we must have looked pretty strange to the locals. We were drunk as hell, bleeding, dirty, laughing and still pumped up from the adrenaline of the little roll over we had. We were thirsty from drinking booze all day in the hot dusty desert. We came upon what looked to be a city park with a water pump in the center of it. We stopped the vehicle and all got out and went over to the water pump and as one of us started to pump water the rest of us were washing off our faces and drinking the water that was gushing out. All of a sudden there was a gunshot. We all spun around to see a man in a uniform with a very angry serious expression on his face, pointing a pistol at us. We all put our hands up in the air.

The officer heard us speaking English and spoke to us in English. He angrily told us we were all under arrest for wasting water. We looked at each other with what the hell is he talking about looks on our faces. Then we looked around and we saw people starting to gather around us and they too were acting all indignant toward us. We did not understand. Then the officer told us that there were people dying every single day around the area from lack of water and we were just wasting the life giving liquid gold. Suddenly we understood the gravity of our situation. We had all forgotten about the big drought that was going on in Ethiopia at the time. I spoke up to the officer and told him that I was sorry. That I was extremely sorry for wasting water but that I did not know about the drought. He got even angrier about my claimed ignorance. He shouted and waved his gun at us. The people gathering around were getting more and more agitated too. They looked pathetic. All of them were skinny and lots of them had the distended bellies that are common in famines. They were starving and dying from lack of water and here we were callously wasting the very essence of life. I felt terrible. I was no longer drunk. I sobered up completely. So did the rest of us. I started to get nervous about the gathering crowd. So did the officer. He ordered us to get back in our vehicle and to follow him to the station. We did.

At the station I did my best to apologize for our behavior. I offered to pay for the water we wasted. He responded that money will not replace the water that went down into the ground that could have saved a child or somebody. I felt really bad. I groveled as much as I could to try to satisfy his need for acknowledgment of our grave mistake. Eventually he relented and accepted a hundred dollars for a fine and he let us go. He then wrote in our passports that we had entered Ethiopia. He became friendly with us as I think he realized that it was an innocent mistake on our part. I asked him if we could find a hotel to stay in and a place to eat. He told us of a place to stay but then said that there was no food in the town to eat no matter how much money we had. I believed him from the look of all the citizens we had seen so far.

We went out and found the hotel and checked in. At the hotel they told us about a store in town that would make us some food but that it would be expensive. We didn't care about the cost. We went and found the store. The store owner negotiated with us and we came to an agreement for him to make us some food. Then we asked him to make more than we could eat so that we could share it with the people out on the streets. He agreed and made us some food and then he gave away a lot of food to the people outside.

I could barely eat thinking about the starving people all around. When we had finished I went for a short walk outside and several mothers held out emaciated babies and tried to get me to take the babies from them so that maybe I could save their life. It was a heartbreaking experience. I thought about this often later on in my life when I had my own children and thought what it must have been like for those mothers. There were way more people there that needed help than I could personally help. I offered some cash to the mothers and went and bought some bottled water that I gave them. Then we went to the hotel and hid out inside because I just could not take any more of this human misery.

Back at the hotel my buddy with the broken arm was looking better but feeling worse. The booze was wearing off and the pain was setting in. He had been seen by the local doctor who told him there was nothing to do until the swelling went down in a few days. He did put the bones back in place by pulling on the man's arm and then making a sling for him to rest it in but nothing more. The Italians wanted to get out of Moyale as quickly as they could. So the next morning they left to go back the way we had come from. Kirsten and I found a ride going north to Addis Abba and we took the ride. We too were happy to get away from Moyale.

The ride going north went through very arid hot dusty mountains on twisting winding trails that we crawled along in the truck. It took us a couple of days to make our way north to the capital. As we got closer to the big city the roads got better and better until we were finally on wide paved roads again. Along the way we found food and water to drink despite the famine and drought going on. Our truck driver was a hard working friendly Greek man as almost all the truck drivers I found were. He talked to us about the conditions in Ethiopia and told us some of the history and also about the fighting going on in the country. The northern part of the country was currently fighting a civil war for their independence. It was all very interesting and new to me. I wish I had learned more about the places that I was traveling through. I was mostly traveling blind and dumb, ignorant of local history and current conditions. Of course maybe if I had known what I was going to get into in my travels through Africa before I arrived here then I most likely would not have ever gone to Africa. So my ignorance was the only thing permitting me to do this type of traveling.