Bahir Dar and Meskel
The jeep was half an hour late. When it appeared, it was a minibus.
We squeezed into the front seat by the driver, and drove off into the still black night. It was five in the morning, but the city was dotted with people dressed in athletic gear jogging through the streets. The minibus stopped at an intersection and we waited as luggage was loaded onto the roof. By the side of the road, shepherds slept by their flocks of goats. I found myself staring blankly at the goats as they fidgeted and slept in the bus's headlights. By the time we left Addis, the skies were becoming light.
The bus wound its way through the mountains and then began to descend into the Blue Nile Gorge. The temperature rose as we dropped and the road became rough. At one point an overturned truck stopped traffic. It had flipped over on a washed out area of the road and straddled both lanes. People crowded around, wondering what to do. One truck tried to clear a path to one side. Our driver edged his bus towards the accident, and then squeezed around the truck, skirting the outermost edge of the road. We piled back in and the driver continued down into the gorge.
Villages of earthen buildings lined the road, interrupting the plains. People and animals filled the streets, ignoring what little traffic there was. Our driver raced through them, honking his horn and swerving around the stragglers. At one point he hit a bird with his windshield. His attention wandered from the road and he swapped CDs out of his walkman as they bored him. He went through various Ethiopian artists, before finding a CD of western rap songs. We were bobbing our heads to the beat as we pulled into Bahir Dar.
We checked into the Ghion Hotel, situated on the southern shore of Lake Tana. As we were putting our bags into our room, the manager told us we should hurry if we wanted to catch the Meskel celebration. We thanked him for the warning and went off in search of the festivities.
Commemorating the discovery by the Empress Helena of the true cross upon which Jesus was crucified, Meskel also generally marks the end of the rainy seasons. The celebration includes the burning of a bonfire, based on a revelation the Empress had in a dream. She was told that the smoke of a bonfire would reveal where the true cross was buried.
We followed the groups of people to a large enclosure on the edge of town. The pyre had already been built and dressed with yellow meskel flowers. A simple wooden cross stood atop the cone of firewood. We had arrived just in time. A group of priests had begun their processional around the pyre. We joind the crush of people surrounding them. People clapped and cheered as the bonefire was lit. Small groups danced and sang and beat drums as the fire burned. The flames crept up to swallow the pyre, but the cross stood firm. It was the last to succumb.
As the flames died down, people broke through the enforced circle around the field to grab ash. Police chased them back, striking indiscriminantly with their clubs. As the pyre collapsed, people pressed closer towards it. Occassionally, the police would chase the crowd back, but still it pressed inward. At one point I found myself in the middle of a crowd running away from the police. We had pushed too close and were being beat back.
Soon the crowd proved too much, and the police could no longer maintain a perimeter. People raced to collect ash, applying it to their foreheads in the sign of the cross. A group of children offered Ed ash. He held still as they rubbed it on his forehead. He said he'd take any blessings he could get.
