Sometimes you just gotta relax. I remember last Saturday writing up the last blog post. I had the whole day to myself and it was awesome. At one point I went up to the guesthouse rooftop for some fresh air and inspiration, and man did I get a good dose! The blue sky was peppered with the perfect amount of clouds, and a nice cool breeze blew across. On the side, some fresh laundry dangling on the clothesline fluttered in the wind. It immediately brought me back to a time in my childhood, when washing machines and dryers didn’t exist and life was simple. I could stay on this rooftop all day.
But sometimes, you just gotta get off of your rooftop and go on an adventure, ya know? I mean, I could see mountains from that rooftop. And if you know me, you know I love me some mountains. So the next day I sought to fulfill one of my bucket listers – to climb foreign rock. And man, was it an adventure.
I had already researched Amora Gedel, Ethiopia’s premiere sport climbing crag, weeks before I left Atlanta. I lucked out and was able to buy all the necessary gear on sale – very reluctantly, I might add, because climbing gear is expensive as shit even if it’s on sale – right before I left, too. But because I had done my research, I also knew that it could be quite the challenge getting from the last paved street to the crag without having somebody with you who’s been there before. If you get lost, there aren’t any signs. There aren’t any locals whom you can ask “Um… excuse me sir, could you point me to the crag? The internet says there’s one around here.”
If I had left the day before, I would’ve been able to join a bunch of veteran climbers who knew the area and were also camping overnight. Luckily there was one other newcomer who joined me on the I-have-no-idea-where-the-crag-is-but-I’m-just-gonna-go-for-it plan. Long story short, we got lost and ended up taking 30 minutes more to rendezvous with the other climbers who had spent the night. In hindsight, I had the GPS coordinates and could’ve used those… but details, details.
We eventually meet up with the other climbers at their campsite, and we hike another 20 or so minutes to the base of the cliff. And the cliff is absolutely massive. The basalt wall towers over us, extending about 150 feet up in the air, with tiny spots of lichen and shrubs scattered on the face. I look more closely at the rock and sure enough I see tiny, metal bolts glinting from the sun. Awww hell yeah, I thought to myself. I’m going climbing today!
The climbing community in Addis Ababa is a diverse group of mostly foreigners. They mostly work in NGO’s, developmental agencies, or diplomatic positions. It’s cool to meet this new crowd of people that I never knew existed yet somehow felt that I had been looking for. It’s a weird feeling. And one of them is an NGO photographer. A photographer!
I was a little bummed that there weren’t any local climbers, though. The sport is very cost-prohibitive and the routes are only 3 years old, I guess some things just take time. I’m glad that I brought Yonas, my driver/friend, and that he was brave enough to try rock climbing for the first time. Now that he’s done it, he’s probably one of the first 100 Ethiopians to have ever put on a harness, climbing shoes and helmet, and climb rock!
Adventure, however, doesn’t have to be getting lost in the wilderness and climbing epic cliffs. I looked up the definition and it reads:
Adventure (n.): An unusual and exciting or daring experience.
Arguably the best part of research so far is getting to interface with locals and exploring Ethiopian culture. I work with nurses every day as I rely on them to recruit participants, operate the devices, and run the experiments. Included in the recipe of any good team is good communication – and since I currently speak Amharic like a 1-year old, I make it my top priority to learn the language and the culture so as to be the best communicator possible. This in and of itself is an adventure, as I navigate the subtle gender-based grammar of Amharic and discover the boundaries of cultural personal bubbles. And just like any outdoor excursion, you need good gear to get some good explorin’ done. I’m thankful to be blessed with no food allergies (that I know of), a fairly unintimidating outward appearance, and some great Amharic teachers (aka Yonas, and really, everybody else that doesn’t speak to me in English)!
I’ll wrap up with my last big adventure for the week – getting to cook for the first time. They have these excellent cooks at my guesthouse, and I’m not just talking traditional cuisine. I can honestly say I’ve had the best tacos ever in my life here, thanks to the cooks. But being fed all the time makes me feel incompetent – not sure from which culture in my upbringing I got that from – so I must cook! Food is a huge part of any culture, and so is making food. The last thing I want to do is make the cooks feel like they’re not doing a good job or insensitively stepping on societal/gender roles. Eventually I want to learn how to cook real, traditional meals, because I love to cook, to explore culture through food, and to know that I can feed myself (haha). It’ll be a slow adventure with the cooks, but hopefully, like my stomach adapting to injera and the tap water, it’ll get better with time!
