Free In Ethiopia with a Mule by Dervla Murphy Page A

heat.
    All day we climbed steeply up and down countless arid grey-brown hills, dotted with thorny scrub. An amount of white marble was mixed with the rock and clay – great chunks of it glistened in the sun and sometimes marble chips lay in such profusion that the slopes looked like urban cemeteries. No settlements were visible, though we passed several herds of cattle and flocks of goats – tended, as usual, by small, naked, circumcised boys. In the heat of the day these children wear their folded shammas as thick pads on top of their shaven heads.
    Our toughest climb was during the hottest noon hour – up a precipitous mountain of bare rock on a rough, dusty path. Yet in these highlands a strong, cool breeze often relieves even the midday heat. This climb ended on a high pass, where I paused to drink deeply from my water-bottle while gazing across the hills that we had traversed since morning. Already the weirdly shaped ridges around Workhsegeh were blurred by haze and distance.
    My impatient bodyguard had hurried on with Jock and, as I trotted downhill after them, I reflected that the machine-age has dangerously deprived Western man of whole areas of experience that until recently were common to the entire human race. Too many of us are now cut off from the basic sensual gratifications of resting after violent exercise, finding relief from extremes of heat or cold, eating when ravenously hungry and drinking when the ache of thirst makes water seem the most precious of God’s creations.
    My map proclaims that Mai Cheneta is another town and I’m beginning to get the idea: any village with a police post and a primary school is a ‘town’.
    My arrival here almost caused a riot. Hundreds of people raced to stare at me, the children trampling on each other in an effort to see the faranj clearly. Then a Muslim tailor invited me into his tiny workshop, ordered tea and sent his son to summon an English-speaking teacher. As I gulped the black syrupy tea three men had to stand by the door, beating back the populace with their dulas : in my experience this was an unique scene.
    Soon the teacher arrived – a quiet, kind young man named Haile Mariam, who at once offered me his room for the night. I’m now installed in it, being attacked by apparently spray-proof bugs, while small rats scuttle round my feet. The Italians are responsible for most of Mai Cheneta’s solid buildings, of which this is one – high-ceilinged, about fifteen foot square, with a tin roof, an earth floor inches deep in dust, once whitewashed stone walls and a small, unglazed window. When I arrived the only piece of furniture was an iron bedstead with a hair mattress. (All the teacher’s possessions hang on the walls.) Then a battered table and chair were imported from the police station, so that I might write in comfort, and a few moments ago Haile Mariam came in with a big, bright oil-lamp.
    When Jock had been looked after the three teachers urged me to visit their school-house on the summit of a hill overlooking the town. This house was built as the Italian CO’s residence and is now a semi-ruin. All the windows and doors have been removed, part of the tin roof has collapsed and hundreds of pigeons roost in the rafters and cover the floor with their droppings. There are four finerooms, completely unfurnished save for small hanging blackboards and rows of stones brought in from the hillside as seats for the pupils. Two years ago, when the school opened, there were thirty on the roll; now there are ninety, despite much opposition from local parents and clergy. As is usual in such communities many parents are anti-school, preferring their children to herd flocks rather than to study; and the highland clergy resent the recent intrusion of the state on a domain that hitherto has been exclusively theirs.
    Looking at a diagram of the planetary system on one of the blackboards I wondered how the parents of these children would react if their youngsters had