News from Ted
Nairobi, Tuesday, January 8th
Mike Pearson, the bluff and hearty boss of Lucas, Nairobi, says:
“I say! We just bought a plane. Where would you like to go?”
So I told him I’d got a postcard from a doctor working with the Turkana tribe in Lodwar.
[Before I left London a few letters from readers arrived at the Sunday Times wishing me well. One was a postcard from a doctor doing volunteer work at Lodwar in Kenya inviting me to stop by. Of course he never imagined for a moment that I would.]
Lodwar, January 9th
Arrived yesty. Cessna 310. Brand new. £34,000.
One and a half hours from Nairobi. (Cost about £100 here and back.) Alongside Rift Valley – far too small to relate to the size of the continent. Bumpy because of midday heat. Drive [Fly] with road map. Bob Croft [the pilot] is a farmer. 80 acres of coffee and a Guernsey herd. Content with Kenya. Would like to stay in spite of gathering problems, blatant corruption.
The hospital ward. Cherubic Irish face [Jerry, the doctor] with huge lenses gleaming up, astonished.
Black bodies with green cotton wraps round their middles, flapping and wrinkled breasts, dusty soles, here and there a bandage where operations have been performed. A batch of post-ops after visit by Flying Doctors. Mostly for hydatid cysts – local menace, either in liver or spleen, grow to enormous size, like grapes in juice. Dogs might be host.
Men like having their feet cut off. There’s a thing that swells the foot up and can be stopped but foot stays big. Also very painful.
Prisoners there with police. One pretty girl with spindly limbs dying of malignant tumour, but no-one can be told, or their rage and grief would be uncontrollable. Also, says Jerry, if parents are told their child will die they just leave it to starve.
[There was mission overseen by a Bishop Mahon.]
Long talk with bishop. “I’ve given up thinking. I never did very much of it, and now I don’t bother at all. Just get on with it, let the future take care of itself.” Caricaturing himself. Quite ready to accept that he’s just creating problems. “What can you do? You can’t just let people starve.”
Sitting opposite me, back to an open-lattice wall with lozenge shaped openings. Breeze bursting through, which he “built himself” – well – arranged with others to build. He had a mould made in Kitale. They pack in sand and a sprinkle of cement. The flies were buzzing around my head, attaching themselves to my eyes and lips, as they do, but I was uncomfortably aware that there were no flies on the bishop.
They’ve got an irrigation scheme going on the river further up. Should have about 50 acres at next rain in April (aiming for several hundred). But it’s hard work and only some of them are industrious. Without direction the channels would choke up.
“Did you see an irrigation scheme in Sudan? I flew over and saw a huge area.”
[I think he was talking about Kashm el Girbar.]
[I arranged a party and bought two goats, so that I could photograph them dancing in daylight.]
Those metal cans each carried five gallons of corn beer. They use a hard-fibre bun called an Aikit on their heads to support heavy objects. I brought one back, together with a spear, a wrist knife and a very low carved wooden seat.
The bartender.
Bishop Mahon (continued). Face that could equally suit a study or a stock pen. Tobacco-stained teeth, straight silver hair, physically fit, lean, golden skin, shorts, tea stained shirt, 9 years in Nigeria, 6 in Turkana, Medical Missionaries of St. Mary. Mission hospitals in various outlying villages (Kakomari?) Also has Danish volunteers as well as Irish pastors and sisters. Finds the Danes better suited, much less demanding than his church people, although can’t quite explain what motivates the Danes. Their unselfconscious, naturalistic behaviour can outrage the sisters, especially at the Norwegian swimming pool. The nuns, he thinks, are too often doctrinaire, officious, and their inflexibility makes it hard for them to survive the pressures. But his mission is dabbling in other things. Irrigation schemes and the Lake Rudolph fish project. FAO man reported the Lake capable of producing between 50 and 150 thousand tons of fish (Nile perch, up to 250lbs)
Got it started. A big British iron trawler is there as a development vessel. Asian traders to set up refrigeration (freezer on a lorry, which crashed: then on aircraft which also pranged on landing). But after good, early catches, yields dropped, and scheme failed to fulfill itself.
Mahon relates the up and downs of his missionary life in the way older men often describe the hopes and disappointments of their sons, with a wistful fondness and a rater irrational belief in the basic goodness of the life and its intentions, whatever the outcome. He would not willingly return to a Western life (hardly any I met could stomach that; its selfish, indulgent nature is too blatant now) but there are few expectations out here. He is resigned to criticism of his “meddling” in matters outside the brief of his mission. One feels that the technocrats of Oxfam, and the specialised relief agencies, have often snubbed his people. He is himself aware of the criticisms.
“We project a terrible image on these people, going round in Landrovers, living in concrete buildings. But if we build with mud, the termites work their way up the walls and eat the door jambs and attack the roof. We’ve tried most things. There’s a chap out here who lives in a tent. He’s very happy doing it, but he’s doing harm, because when he goes, I can find no-one to replace him who would put up with those conditions.”
He warns his people always about imposing their standards on the Turkana. “My only hope is that after a few years we can overcome the bad effects by showing them that we care as people.”
It is not difficult to find evidence of the corruption of tribal life by white civilisation – the universal phenomenon. Bizarre mixtures of western and tribal dress. The inevitable stories of missionaries (more often Protestant than Catholic) determined that native women should cover their breasts. The souvenir selling. The tin roof syndrome. The self-conscious proclamation of haughty pride before the camera followed by the outstretched hand for a posing fee. But the process is irreversible now. And it would be naïve to allocate blame too easily.
H. Johnston, 1902:
“The Turkana are very treacherous.”
“The Turkana are very conceited and idle.”
E.D. Emley, 1927:
“The Turkana is a careless and cruel herdsman and a most efficient liar.”
P. H. Gulliver, 1963:
“Although a general recognition exists that one must give hospitality to travelers, yet each man will attempt to evade responsibility, telling the most bare-faced lies if necessary.”
“A feature of social life which reacts strongly on character is the continual begging – begging that has to be satisfied sine it amounts almost to seizure ––– the only limits that I am aware of are that a man may not beg another man’s wife.”
And by the same author, who seems to have been the recent authority – “Savage and wild as the country he lives in, so he will remain, in my opinion, to the end of time.”
In 1963 there were no schools, no foreign administrative interference. Only the ultimate white sanction of a punitive expedition to prevent warfare. Today there are Flying Doctors from Nairobi, mission clinics. The opening for these intrusions was provided by the big drought and the cholera of the sixties, which persuaded the Kenya Government to open the Northern Frontier Province.
Huts from sheaves of long grass bound together.
Clay pots; three-legged stools, headrests.
Spears, wrist knives with leather guards.
NO musical instruments at all.
There was a British District Commissioner at Lodwar who refused to allow any of his people to wear European dress. They all had to dress like Turkana. Name was Whitehouse. Now Resident Magistrate in Kitale. He put the hawser and pulley across the riverbed to take supplies when the river was in flood. River usually runs six to nine months. March onwards. Now dry. Palms similar to Atbara, but drier.
Next week: The surgery.
The road from Moyale, on the border, to Nairobi had a bad reputation. It was unpaved, of course, and boasted a rich variety of stones of all colours and sizes but I found it relatively easy. There was game of all sorts – I saw my first wild ostrich and giraffe – but no traffic, and it was dry. The vibration, however, finished the job on my luggage rack which broke, leaving me stranded on the roadside with all my stuff. Then, as though the story had been written, a Peace Corps man drove by. He carried my gear on to Marsabit, a township on the way, where a blacksmith fixed it.
I slept on a floor in Isiola and then climbed up the side of Mount Kenya. The higher I rode the more like England it became. Then, on a farm gate, I saw a sign, “The Thompsons,” and turned in on a hunch.
The Thompsons, a slice of old England in the heart of Africa.
Arthur Thompson, Ruth & Charlton. 3000 acres, south of Isiola at Timau. On northern slopes of Mount Kenya. He, older, gray-haired, ulcers, from Northumberland. Came as a soldier after farming background in England. Traces of Geordie accent mixed with colonial. Places much emphasis on ‘classlessness’ of ‘White Highland’ community. She younger, plump, pretty, strong-natured. Small boy “Charlton” (his father’s name).
“One’s enough,” he said.
Ruth Thompson and son, Charlton.
Maize, wheat, barley, pyrethrum, 80 Jersey cattle, 1000 or so sheep. Fields of grass, Napier Grass (Elephant grass). Reclaiming the “Dongo’s” (Wash-outs – i.e. areas denuded by rain).
“Had a good life for 30 years, but it’s nearly over now.”
Where to go when Kenya government has bought the farm for African settlement? South Africa? Good prospect. “I can’t see Europe letting it go. If they do there’ll be no way round.” i.e. Shipping. Strategically important. “For the same reason I think they’ll leave Rhodesia alone.”
Africans: “You can’t trust them. Even if you want to, you can’t afford to. Because even if an African wants to be honest, trustworthy, there are others who can put pressure on him. After the six months I did screening (The Kikuyu during the Mau Mau emergency.) I learned that much.
Kenya government: “Every swindle goes right back to the top. There was a CID man brought here by the Govt. to help police. He resigned because every time he followed something through, it led to the top and was hushed up. Kenyatta has a farm with dairy cattle and wheat. The maximum moisture content was 14.5%. He put it up to 15.5% until he’d sold his wheat, because it was too wet. Then he put it back to 14.5%. The millers let it out, because they were paying more for water. Price of milk went up for the same reason.
“The self-help hospital is paid for through Kenyatta’s personal account. 3,000,000 has gone in – 70,000 has gone out.” (K.shillings, or £s ?)
Future: “Fifty per cent of population is under 14. What will happen when they leave school. There’s nothing for them to do. Once they’ve been to school, they can’t lift anything heavier than a pen.”
Aid? “All these tarmac roads don’t bring in a penny. The amount of money that’s come into Kenya in the last ten years is nobody’s business. Nothing to show for it.”
World Bank financed roads.
“If Europeans had been left here for the last ten years, Kenya would have advanced at a great rate.”
Saw the maize. Hardly a foot high. No irrigation. “They’ll get nothing off that this year.”
Settlement: “They get plots of dry land, one or two acres. Can’t survive. It’s not suitable for Kikuyu farming. Was much better used as it was, for grazing. The Kikuyu needs rain. Their method is to exhaust a patch, then move on and let it go back to brush. The Kikuyu goes round in circles. Round hut. The woman grows yams round the hut. Outside is a bigger circle, the man plants maize. And round that he hunts.”
“Was at the police station about some maize and a sheep stolen by one of his workers. Can’t get the police to take any initiative. When you’ve been used to something better, you miss it. There used to be only one police station at Nyuki, and one European to keep discipline over a huge area. But it was much better. The African cannot keep control over other Africans.”
Perfect lawn, flower beds – “You can grow almost anything here. Roses, etc.” Cooch grass, very spongy. Dove cot, like the Cotswolds.
“The European DC had a gardener, cook, houseboy, a kitchen wallah. The African DC moves in, his wife is gardener, cook, houseboy & kitchen wallah.”
[The Thompsons kept me for two nights, then I rode on to Nairobi and sought out the Lucas offices.]
Nairobi, January 6th
Total mileage, 7,500. Journey mileage (i.e. on the bike) 6,600.
The Delamere [A post-colonial club. I’m taken there by the Boss of Lucas, Nairobi. I made notes of conversation with members.]
Big game fishing. Marlin, off Kilifi (N. of Mombasa).
New Zealanders: “Aren’t allowed to boat a fish under 800lbs.”
How do you measure it?
“Calipers. Along and across. Doesn’t take long. They’re fighting all the time.”
The Mauritius. 1,100 lb fish. Talk of one at 3000 lb.”
They say, “Your boat’s in absolute shite order.”
Blue eyes all around. Dark, polished wood bar. Painted stone or cement pillars, mock Georgian, built in 1910’s. Parquet floors. Wine cellar below. Rooms broad, spacious, undivided, cool.
“Whatever they say, life is still pretty colonial here. The Africans pretend to object, but….”
Lambs kidneys Turbigo. Smoked Sailfish.
“It’s still a bloody good life here. Of all the emergent states it’s still the most stable.”
Publicity for Lucas – a sponsor.
[Lucas were generous. They paid for a hotel room.]
Two Africans sitting in hotel bar at lunchtime. Grey flannels. Short sleeved shirts. Swahili, punctuated by “Anyway,” or “Let us compare this thing” or “We must analyse this thing in detail,” or “ Is it better to make the wrong decision at the right time, or the right decision at the wrong . . “ As English parvenu used to lard their English with French.
Still there at nightfall. Beers coming at 3 or 4 an hour.
Africans are enjoying their freedom with ideas, split hairs with gusto, wear their education like tribal feathers, love to read out passages of official English – Customs Nairobi & document from Moyale.
[They] take refuge in nonsense where sense won’t win the game. But the Europeans can certainly work with them.
Overheard in hotel: Asian man (in turban) and African man replying to Asian woman.
She: “Look, can you see? One eye is higher than the other.”
Asian: “Well, your nose is crooked.”
She: “Yes I know. It was a bad accident I had. Very bad. Now I have the feeling when I look that one side is higher than the other.”
African: “You should take a hammer and straighten it.”
She: “You shouldn’t think it’s so funny.”
African: “It’s better to see something than nothing. But if you lie on the ground, I’ll give it a good kick.”
Next week: Flying into the past.
On my way south from Lake Hawassa, the first stop was Yavello where I had an extraordinary dinner with two drunken teachers who tried to stuff their food into my mouth. I recorded none of this. Happily, when I came to write the book I remembered every detail, but not with pleasure.
January 1st, 1974
New Year’s Day. Leave Yavello for Mega. Road is mostly very good. Instead of a hard day’s struggle I’m there by midday.
On the road to Mega.
Injera and Wat at small “hotel.” [Injera is a pancake made from a grain called Teff: Wat is a pepper stew of goat meat.]
The hotel at Mega. There were string-beds through the blue door, but I didn’t stay.
Now there’s a battle between two tribeswomen, with plaited hair, and silver beads and bangles, and the hotel women in neat dresses and bandannas. It’s all over two small enamel mugs, which appear to have contained butter. The tribes-ladies wear candy striped shawls, red and gray. Their necklaces, more than a dozen each, like chain mail on their necks. (When they say “yes” in conversations the voice swoops up.)
Now the policeman has been brought, and very neat he is too. Trying to arbitrate between the girls he just gets hopelessly tied up. In the end there’s a tug-of-war with girls pulling each of his arms, and he brushes them off and strides away to save his dignity. The TW’s have sticks with which they polish their teeth. Wear loose fronted garments, like a pinafore across their breasts, and a long shawl wrapped round and over one shoulder which falls to mid-calf. They are the Burani tribe – cattle, sheep, and camels. The battle was over a cup of butter, sold to the hotel for four cents which the Tribe woman says she was still owed. This butter is a waxy-looking paste, but which Bridget [my friend in Addis] says can be made very tasty with various herbs.
I coveted the embroidered wall hangings and could have had them for a song but thank goodness I realised they were much better left where they were.
[An Israeli construction company was in the early stages of building a road from Mega to the border at Moyale.]
Go for a walk to watch road construction. They’re filling in a “wadi” over a concrete spillway. Huge Caterpillar earth movers, swinging around like bumper cars. They grade as they tip. Back to hotel where Vassi Fissaha, the Ethiopian civil engineer working on the road, is waiting to leave for Moyale. He is very fat with a round face, becomes interested as we talk. Says I could get to Moyale that day, road isn’t so bad. He’s going in his VW Moke, expects to be there 5.30 to 6. Mega already seems exhausted for me. I accept the challenge. Meet American from Nairobi, Geoff Probitts, coming into Mega on a Honda 350. First encounter.
[It’s the first time since France that I’ve seen a motorcycle on the open road.]
He says there’s nothing very terrible on the road to Moyale. I tell him the worst is over for him. I think maybe we were both guilty of optimism. Road from Mega to Awasa has some pretty ropy bits. As for Mega to Moyale, it’s better than Metema, but only just.
First long section is red sand, brush and termite pillars which Vassi says are strong enough to winch on. This continues in the plain below Moyale but interrupted by areas of black earth (like asphalt) in which grass looks blue, and then a wide belt of white chalk.
Here the termite mounds are ghostly white, like unfinished Henry Moore’s, for miles. Lot’s Wife. Road is a 20mph average, 2nd and 3rd gear road full of pitfalls, ridges, heaped dust and sand-filled cavities. Some very big bumps probably fractured the pannier rack. Saw little Dick-dicks (many) and a big deer with thin white stripes down its side. Several times uncertain about road, but on the chalk plain the left fork was the proper one. However, without watch or speedometer, [I meant odometer. It had packed up further back, as had my watch] these journeys are a bit hair-raising. No chance of riding this country in dark, and as the sun plunges below hill tops you know you’re not going to make it. I stumbled into Moyale with half an hour’s daylight to spare, and about 20 minutes behind Vassi’s car.
Had contretemps with students at town entrance. They prevented me from entering main street and insisted I must check into police station first (which was untrue). The style of stopping you to do you a favour (real or imaginary, or even spurious) is very strange, involves the most threatening expressions or gestures.
Moyale on the Ethiopian side.
I was fascinated by these huge and apparently weightless Maribou storks.
Approximately 40 per cent of Kenyans were under the age of 15.
Both Mega and Moyale show some return to the more attractive house building styles of Sudan, with mud roofs (fringed with grass or weed) supported on wood poles, rather than tin. Long low rows of these houses – wooden doors, red earth. People in mixture of tribal and Western clothes. But the prize goes to the old village of Moyale in Kenya where a combination of the best of these styles has been brought to the highest point and decorated outside in ochre wash. with flower and animal drawings.
The tribal village at Moyale in 1974.
Vassi had the D.C. [District Commissioner] of Kenya Moyale in his car, and we were asked to drink to the New Year in Kenya with him. So after several beers we set off to breach the frontier in the VW. The soldier wouldn’t let us pass [even though we were carrying his DC. Speaks for the discipline at that time.] and there was much driving up and down in the dark to find the customs man to get a chitty.
People are very vague in their descriptions and instructions, leaving out important details. Their minds don’t seem to follow through the sequence of events predicated by the problem, so that much effort and time is spent fruitlessly.
Eventually we arrived at the New Bar on the Kenya side. Guiness ads, English signs everywhere, big bottles of beer, and noisy convivial atmosphere produce a pleasant illusion of friendliness and intimacy, rather pub like. It is a bit of an illusion though, and falls flat, just as the first impression in Metema [the border town of Ethiopia] led to disappointment. Presumably, after a hard ride, uncertain of what awaits me I have only to be given the merest token customary comfort – i.e. a beer, and a seat, and a little space in which to speak or listen – and I complete the rest of the picture in my imagination. There are enough people here anxious to imitate Western styles to provide a backdrop for this fancy, as banal as the Embassy [cigarette] advertisements used for ‘art pieces’ on the walls.
With William Wa (?) the DC and his friends we got merrily drunk and later returned to Ethiopia.
Next day I arrived, leisurely enough, at customs to find two busloads of Jehovah’s Witnesses being put through a fine mill. I’d known about them yesterday, since Vassi had an aunt and a cousin among them.
[They were treated like prisoners of war. All their goods were spread out on the earth, all their books, pamphlets and other religious materials were confiscated and burnt.]
Next week: The best of British on the equator.
PS: The other night I was wandering through the jumbly forest of my hippocampus when I came across a very wise old hippopotamus called Eisenhower who said BEWARE OF THE MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX.
But that was 65 years ago and nobody iin power paid attention. The arming of America took on a life of its own. The arms industry has been diligent and successful at buying political influence, their message has always played well to national pride, their factories provide jobs, their congressmen and senators have well-funded campaigns.
An arms race is very profitable and the fact that it sucks up the prosperity which might otherwise be used to improve living standards and provide health benefits to poorer Americans is not an issue – or, if it was, it’s well buried.
Speaking now as a European, one of the big talking points around our rupture with the USA has been the relative defencelessness of Europe: As though Europe has been negligent and self-indulgent whereas America has shouldered the burden of defending the free world.
As is well-known America’s military reach is vast and hugely equipped. There are at least 128 major bases in 55 or more countries (including 144 golf courses here and there) inevitably causing China to play the same game.
I wonder who might have already raised the possibility that America has itself invented the dragon we now face.
The five hundred or so miles from Gedaref to Gondar were the toughest five days of my entire journey – in part because I was still new to the game. When I returned 28 years later it was virtually unchanged. Then the Chinese came. Today, I’m told, it is paved.
December 17th
By the fourth day I was ready to contemplate the possibility that this journey will never end and to face each problem as part of my life. This is my life and I am surviving it. What else matters? So on the fifth day as I leave the camp I almost immediately find myself climbing steeply against an avalanche of loose boulders to the top of a peak, only to find that a box fell off at the bottom.
Park the bike and walk back down, contemplate the loss of what? Can’t even remember which box is lost, what’s gone? The cameras? Every potential or actual disaster finds me more philosophical. Hear distant voices and engine. Some people have found the box. What are they doing with it? What a way to put Ethiopian honesty to the test! A little further down meet the truck coming up. They are enormous lorries, climbing so slowly, loaded with sacks of grain or cotton. It stops. The driver points to his left. I assume he means he has seen the box. No, he has it there in the cab. I climb in, with helmet and goggles and ride back up to the bike. It is the box with food, torch, washbag, etc.
I am offloaded and settle down to repairing the damage. Bolt torn though the fibreglass. Botch it up with wire. Groups of young men come and admire – and return with a blackened kettle full of cold, clear water for me to drink.
So I set off again. Today the climb is intense. Up and down, and further up and down, and still further up. Always there is a mountain ahead. Loose rocks a constant challenge. Watching the road every minute. Eventually I go over again, sprawling across the middle of the road. Bike flat and my heel jammed under the left-hand box. What’s holding it there? The strap of the boot – there ”for when you come off.”
[Back in London when I was buying kit for the journey, the only items available were a helmet, goggles, a plastic tank bag, gloves and boots. The boots were very simple, but there was a strap and buckle across the arch which seemed to serve no purpose. I asked the kid serving me what it was for, and he said “It’s for when you come off” which made no sense at all. Now it was caught on the axle, trapping my foot under the wheel.]
My goggles have gone. I think they must be in the lorry, which has passed me just as I got the bike upright again. I have found a technique for lifting the bike now, by twisting the handlebar, but with my wrenched left arm it’s a big struggle. Drive on. Bike all the better for a rest. Now country changing radically. Many shrubs, green and red, grassy banks and slopes, with boys popping out naked but for a rag over their shoulders. Alpine country – 18th century Switzerland.
Stop for a rest. Boy of 14 or so pops up through hedge. And holds out his flute. Bamboo tube with holes and binding for mouthpiece. Can make nothing of it and ask him to play. He produces a thrilling and intricate music seeming to play on two registers simultaneously. With embellishments round a simple melody. Lightning finger work.
[I was so wrapped up in my own ordeal that I entirely failed to appreciate the situation. Probably he wanted to sell the flute. The music he played was astonishing – a virtuoso. I left without offering him anything in return. It hurt me later to recall it. A little further along, around midday, I came to a village.]
Chelga (now known as Aykel)
At lunch time. Village confirms Alpine sense. The way groups of people stand around. Less spontaneous excitement. People contained, though curious.
Find restaurant. Quiet. Six men at table. In suits, some with overcoats on. Dark clothes. Conferring discreetly. Much fuss made of them. Their faces shrewd, cunning in European way, but black. Exude power, influence. Mafia?
One of them instructs owner to get my passport. Examining it nonchalantly, with neighbours looking casually, then passes it back. No direct contact except smiles in my direction. Eventually they leave. Behind me, teacher who has kept silent, starts talking to me. The one who looked at my passport is police “general” he says.
He talks bitterly of regime, overthrow etc. Compares Ethiopia to France before revolution. Says I should talk to students in Addis. Warns of bad people on the road who will try to stop me. If I “joke” with them they will steal from me. I must “keep a good face. Don’t walk around Gondar alone.
“But you will have your own trick,” he says.
[I arrived in Ethiopia in the last years of Hailie Selassie’s reign, when it had become an oppressive state.]
On to Gondar. One more ford successfully crossed. Then came off again. The other box ripped away. Repair it with crowd looking on. No hostility. The “improved” road from Chelga is flatter but covered in loose stone. Just as hard. When I finally get on to main road, asphalt, it’s like flying. Feel very good. Triumphant. Deserving. Have all sorts of treats in mind for myself. Luxury hotel with beer, bath and good food.
Schoolboy directs me to Fusil Hotel. Room is $4Eth. Italian hotel. When I get there, boy is there too. Can’t bring myself to send him off but his company is cloying. He wants to please. When I suggest he’s expecting something from me he protests. But in the end, though he helps wash the bike and so on I refuse to give him anything. He gets $10 a month from an American who passed through one day – a Bill Rollafson, a chemist from California. Boy’s father is a priest.
Everything costs more here, and people come up for money. In the road there are some boys who throw stones, some men who look as though they might let go with their sticks. After Sudan the atmosphere is very troubled.
[I rode south to Addis Ababa where some friends, Alan and Bridget, were living. He was there on some UK Government mission. They had invited me to spend Christmas with them. We visited Lake Hawassa, south of Addis, famous among birdwatchers. Then I rode on south towards Kenya.]
A saddle back crane at Lake Hawassa, or so they told me. Not a great picture but it proves I was there.
I wake up every morning wondering what fresh outrage Trump has invoked. Like George Bush, he has looked into Putin’s eyes and presumably drawn inspiration from his soul. I shiver at the thought of what message those basilisk eyes project. Terrorise your own people, go out and bomb something, bask in admiration and gather up your trophies. A peace prize perhaps, a chunk of Palestine real estate. My life has turned full circle. It began in the shadow of Hitler. Will it really end in the shadow of Trump? What a farce.
From the desert to the mountains.
Those days crossing the desert in Sudan were among the most influential of my life, an apotheosis. After my abject performance on that first day, running out of fuel and water and burying myself in sand, the schoolteachers of Kinedra lifted me up and made a hero of me, and from that day on I was treated with the utmost generosity and respect.
My interlude at the tea house among tribesmen of various kinds simply reinforced my admiration. Like every westerner I had heard no end of stories about Arab deviousness and thievery. I took the accounts of their nobility by Lawrence, Thesiger and others with a pinch of salt. Now I had to concede that in their own element they were splendid. The simplicity and respect in our communication was balm for the soul.
Of course, it bothered me that I never caught even a glimpse of the headmaster’s wife. A world in which women were invisible would quickly become intolerable to me, but I was passing through their world and had to accept their customs. The fact that the Bescharyin were all huddled together in the same truck bed, men, women, chlldren, and a foreigner, was proof that custom can give way to necessity. As I was to learn during the following years, it is custom that rules the roost everywhere, however much it is attributed to religious belief or idealism. Arbitrary custom cements society, and it can only be broken by often painful necessity.
Look to Iran for grim proof, if it is needed.
Now the journey continues…
December 13th 1973
From Kassala. Along the railway line. Cracked dry mud. Much of it corrugated. Seemed bad at the time except for some flat stretches where a secondary track close to the line could be used. Before Kash’m-El Girbar, bridge and switchback road.
At a tea-house in Kashm-el Girbar I emulated this man and ate a large piece of delicious Nile Perch, while other customers gathered round my bike. “How quick? How fast?” they demanded. When I was ready to leave, someone had already paid my bill.
From K.G itself I was promised “queiss” track. It was terrible – true washboard all the way. Slept with camels 15km from Gedaref.
[In fact, I spread a sheet on the ground a little way from the track and slept on it, to be woken in the middle of the night by a small caravan of camels travelling over me. I looked up at their huge bodies as they daintily avoided stepping on me.]
December 14th
Next day crowds in Gedaref were oppressive. Left straightaway and found road now worse than ever. Some washboard, but mostly deep ruts – one or two feet, leg-breaking and bike-throwing.
Always having to choose a rut only to find it narrowing, unable to get out. Dropped bike three times, one very difficult– have picture.
So to Doka. Night with police.
[Someone had told me there was a police post on the road to the Ethiopian border town, Metema, and they could be trusted, so I slept on the ground inside their compound.]
December 15th
On to Metema, same road, plus rocks, dips etc.
Went to “best hotel in Metema.” Last night. Corrugated iron roof, rough plaster walls on wooden uprights, earth floor, bar with shelves of drink, owner at small table, upholstered chairs and sofa round another table. First upholstery seen since Egypt. Woman shakes my hand and it comes as a shock to me. I have forgotten about women in public – it’s over two months. At first the impression is charming. Dresses of cotton, knee length – a bit dirndlish. They smile, laugh, suggest that life is a light matter, but in the morning it’s less pretty.
December 16th
Morning in Ethiopia. Camel with small flock of birds on its back. Brillian red beaks, grey and white plumage. Another camel with two men sitting back to back, the rear passenger in bright red blanket (Peruvian?) Both smiling. Huts round, of brick, with conical straw roofs, some tied at top. “Hotels” and “bars”. – women with inviting smiles. The women nursing their illegitimate children and their tightly rolled wads of Ethiopian dollars. Later I notice that it’s the girls who are first to stretch out their hands, and it seems that in this country the women take onto themselves the stigma of sin, avarice and corruption. Leaving the men to enjoy a lofty nobility. It may become clearer but one thing is already clear. The relationships between the sexes, however they are customarily managed in different countries, produce rich and extraordinary phenomena.
I was overjoyed to arrive in Metema yesterday, because it marked a solid step forward. Today it rather disgusts me. I can think of no reason why anyone should want to be here except to cash in somehow. Is it a typical border town? Evey hut is a ‘bar.’ Every building bigger than a hut is automatically a “hotel,” with a rectangle of painted metal slung over the door to say so (usually blue or red).
Dawn breaks outside Metema
The customs say I must wait until 3pm. Thought overwhelms me with horror; The travelling is so hard I have to keep moving, just to keep up some sense of achievement to balance the hardship. I listen to a policeman who says I can do customs in Gondar and set off into Ethiopia.
Had a glass of something by mistake when I asked for bread. Yellow tea, with a familiar taste that I couldn’t place and didn’t much care for. (Although it was faintly reminiscent of Bovril.)
Following day, Metema to Gondar. Road vastly improved. i.e. like a normal cart track. Then fords – 1 and 2, terrifying – 3,4,5. Then very steep climbs, very hot. Bike stalls halfway up. Have to carry stuff to the top.
Sometimes the rock is black, sometimes pink which powders into dust. The light wipes out all contours when it hits the dust – can see nothing but a sheet of glowing pink and white. The improvement in the road was illusory. In its own way it was as bad as any. Steep rising and falling road, loose rocks, desperate dashes into fords and up the steep exits, overheating until engine fails. Twice on the ground within a minute. Near exhaustion at times. Back jolting is painful, left arm constantly wrenched when wheel spins on a stone.
Last big ford of the day is too much. Some men gathered to help and suggest I sleep there. They are building a bridge. I am about halfway between two main villages, have come about 100kms. Wash feet, body, socks in river. Drink some. Have tea with road gang; eat half tin of Sudan mackerel. Lie in bed listening to men talking round their fires. One man has voice that dominates with amazing range of expression. All the men, it seems, have two voices – a normal speaking voice and one that jests and mimics and plays on a higher register with very rapid, light consonants and cat-like vowels.
December 17th
Road continues. Leave the bridge builders early. This is the fifth day of my ride from Kassala. Every day the road has seemed just short of impossible _ and each day new difficulties.
[That night I recapitulated in my notebook what had happened in the last few days.]
I am feeling now as if I am being put to a series of ingeniously graded tests. First outside Kassala, the dust mud, cracked and ridged. – carburetor stuck at K.G. Then, after tea when the good road was promised, the washboard for seventy miles, a rattling and shaking that should have torn the machine apart. No relief – if anything becoming more severe. – until the sun moved into my eyes as the road swings to the south west and I dared not go on. Slept on the camel track. Next day washboard continues to Gedaref where I eat fish, drink tea, and get stared at, and escape on the road to Doka. Now the road is both washboard and rut. Sometimes the ruts are two feet deep and hardly that wide and one must ride through them with boots raised for fear of breaking legs against sides. Where the ruts are less serious the washboard becomes correspondingly more severe.
In Gedaref police station (why did I go there? Heaven knows) I met an African refugee from Rhodesia. He said the police at Doka were nice, so when I get to Doka after seven or eight hours driving, I accept the chance to stop honourably. From Doka next day, to all the other hazards are added steep inclines covered in loose rocks. It’s important to remember that these are not consistent hazards. Anything can happen at any moment. It is dangerous to take one’s eye off the road for an instant. I have gone over twice now, not through lack of attention but through taking the wrong line and being caught in converging ruts or in a bad bit of rock. So I am ready for anything and still dreading it. Even inventing impossible hazards for myself, only to see them realised. The impossible ford, the rocky path along a ravine, etc.
Why no puncture? Why don’t the tyres tear to shreds? I think that might finish me. I am full of admiration for the bike and tyres. Why doesn’t the Triumph just die? It has no need to go on, unlike me. It protests, chatters, faints, but always resumes its work like a faithful donkey. What havoc is being wrought inside those cylinders?
On the third day I passed this extraordinary pillar of rock. I saw it again, unremarked, when I went past 28 years later. I wonder if it’s been given a name yet.
It’s becoming more and more difficult to do “business as usual.” A lot of people ordered books from me before Christmas, and it was a little while before I discovered that Trump’s tariffs had thrown a spanner in the works, and all the books I sent to the USA began coming back to me.
I’ve refunded the majority of those who ordered them. The postage, which came to roughly 300 euros, is lost, of course. Fortunately, many of you responded to my “Subscription Offer” so I am certainly not complaining. I can’t resell the books because their all dedicated, but I’ll keep them, so if any of you happen to be passing by in the next year or two, you can drop in and pick yours up.
Cheers, Ted.
After two more days as a guest of the boys’ school in Kinedra the teachers finally gave me permission (because that’s what it felt like) to continue my journey. I was confided to the care of a government official on his way to Kassala, 200 miles away, from the neighbouring village, Sedon.
Wednesday, December 12th
From Kinedra in morning. Thermos flask of tea prepared. Headmaster’s wife has fed me throughout. Drive to Sedon. There is a Land Rover going to Kassala. Forest District Officer, Mohi el Din, needs brake fluid.
Mochi el Din, in the yellow shirt, asked me to follow his vehicle, but they drove too fast for me. They stopped until I caught up with them. I said I would go on alone. He told me of a tea house halfway to Kassala called Khor-el-fil (Crocodile’s Mouth)
Along the way I passed cattle travelling through a mirage.
I found the teahouse without difficulty, and spent some peaceful hours with tribesmen playing primitive music.
A home-made harp made with a wash basin.
A truck arrived and I wandered over to meet them, members of a tribe called Bescharyin.
When I told them I was going to Kassala they said the sand would be too soft and I should load the bike on the truck and travel with them.
Before we arrived one family got out. Behind them are the amazing mountains of Kassala.
In Kassala, Hotel Africa – 30 piastres a night for bed in room for 6. Slept on balcony. Tea boy had holes in feet. Wanted treatment. Gave him Septrin and stuff, through Egyptian teacher of chemistry. He gave me free tea.
After Kassala the route continued south-east past the huge Kashm El Girba dam to the Ethiopian frontier.
On December 5th the ferry from Aswan came ashore at Wadi Halfa or, more correctly, at a ramshackle assemblage still growing to replace the town, which now lay below the waters of the lake. I had hoped to get back on the bike but was refused permission and petrol, so I had to take the train.
My Dutch friend (hatless) dealing with his luggage. My bike was already in the wagon.
With the Dutch couple I had befriended, I travelled to Atbara, where apparently there was only one hotel. They took a taxi and I followed on the bike.
THE hotel. The rooms at the back were cubicles looking out over a verandah on to a courtyard.
December 6th
Atbara: Hotel courtyard. Pale green lime-wash. Green oil paint. Entered to be greeted by five Arabs with sherry and marijuana. A joint pushed straight into my hand. Played some music but they weren’t interested. Interest centered more on Anthony. Why not? He was suspicious, I think. Later, the southern Sudanese, Fabiano, said the chief Arab was a thief who pretended to be drunk to get others drunk. Used the word ‘teep’ but all his p’s are f’s and his f’s are p’s. i.e. pipty and fresident and feople, etc. We got into quasi conspiracy about Sudan’s internal problems and the Eritreans, but my own astounding ignorance left me unaware that the Eritreans were Moslems opposed to Selassie’s Christian regime, and the southern Sudanese, being Christian, are naturally opposed to the Eritreans. I had imagined it the other way round i.e. underdogs supporting each other. Naïve innocence.
Saturday, December 7th
Bent foot brake [lever] back into place by dropping bike on it. Cleaned Oil Filter. Distilled water – to be found. Tightened nuts and bolts. Some movement on barrel nuts. Tappets? Not yet. Chain tensions; primary all right. Rear chain loosened two turns.
In Atbara we met Thomas Taban Duku and then Fabiano Munduk. Both African Christians from the south of Sudan.
With Fabiano, an evening that started when he came to the hotel with his nephew Peter, a four-year-old boy in brightly striped jersey tunic and shorts. They had come from school sports day. All day I had heard martial music of the Empire drifting across. He explained they had been playing musical chairs. We drank two bottles of sherry between us in a bar, then took him by taxi to his brother’s house. Brother is in police (a captain, he said). Saw one room, open to yard, all in brown and over brick. Brother’s wife spoke no English. He got her to give small bottle of home distilled date liquor. (Like eau de vie)
Dates left in water for seven days, then container put over fire. Above it a lid perforated. On that a small bowl. Above it a bigger bowl as a lid and condenser, filled with cold water.
We took the bottle and walked across cultivated ground to look at the Nile. Fabiano said the White Nile was a day’s walk away. He obviously didn’t know the Blue Nile only joins the White Nile at Khartoum, 200 miles further south. We walked back to place where music had sounded. Fabian was dodging about looking into bushes, in the manner of Don Genero looking for cars.
[Carlos Castaneda, a popular writer at this time, described his apprenticeship in shamanism in The Teachings of Don Juan and other books.]
I think he was looking for animals or snakes. We had been hearing about his life in the bush – ‘bus’ – when he and his brothers were refugees from Sudan after his parents had been killed – he said – by the Moslem army of the time. He is proud of his brothers. They are twelve. Two are at Oxford, one doing economics, another librarianship, the others are mostly in the army – all officers He is the youngest and least qualified.
The music came from a wedding party in a community on the edge of Atbara. Large square clearing with canvas spread over large area, illuminated by bulbs strung out in a large rectangle. Rows of chairs all round. Many children jostling for good position, scrapping with each other, but although they pushed each other around quite hard there was no bitterness in their manner, and no crying. Fabiano says the children are allowed to be independent but this only works of course in a simple environment with large family structures.
The band arrived in an army truck. We were given favoured seats, and then plates of food were brought specially for us. Tarmeia, bits of meat, salad, sweet pastry, bread and water. Water in gilded aluminium bowls. When music started men would wander over casually, sometimes two together jigging to the beat, snapping the fingers of one outstretched arm, to indicate their pleasure, and reach over to touch one or more of the players. Then they would retire again just walking away slowly.
[Account of Atbara to Kassala in letter home.]
Monday 10th
[The whole of the following week’s experience is described in detail in Jupiter’s Travels.]
Left Atbara. Tried to find way from town. Took an hour. [Everyone said “the road to Kassala is queiss” – meaning good. But there was no road.]
The road to Kassala.
After three hours, in sand up to axles. No water. Too little petrol. Acid in bottle. No money. Come to Kinedra. School. Welcomed. Fed. Refused permission to leave. Headmaster said, must get more benzene first. From car? But car had none. From District Officer at Sedon. But he had none. By lorry from Atbara. But lorry broken down. By lorry next morning. But no lorry.
[After two days at the school I learned there was a bus back to Atbara. I was introduced to a merchant who was also taking the bus and with my five-gallon jerrycan I accompanied him to Sedon where the bus stopped in the night. He spoke no English at all. We lay on the sand in the smpty square to wait.]
“Sudan seňora queiss? You Sudan seňora? Sudan seňor queiss? You Sudan seňor?” Insistent, quiet, gentle. Just teeth in deep shadow framed by turban. Light touches between legs. Seductive, compelling, out of any moral context. Could imagine it.
At last, there was a bus. Bus arrived at 11.30pm. Ford chassis. Heavy riveted steel body built in Khartoum. Out tumbled horde of people. Many with swords. Scabbards shaped like paddles. Crucifix grips. They are a tribe called Bescharyin. From Sedon until Goz Regeb. Most are nomads. Their hair is long and the strands are glued together with oil, called oudak – animal grease, and wear an ornamental curved stick used as a comb, sticking out like an Indian feather, but horizontally. They wear a waistcoat, galabeia, and trousers with crutch below the knees and tied by cord. Three-tiered clothing. All fell to the ground and slept until 4am. I was happy to sleep too, but it got cold and I had no cover. At 4am the bus left for Atbara. Very bumpy. Much coughing. A sort of stale, damp smell. Two B in front of me, hair dangling before my eyes. No expression. Very stern. After dawn people began getting off. Outside Atbara, my companion, the merchant, vanished mysteriously [while I slept.] A family of B’s descended, a pathetic huddle of humanity set down on the sand, with their bundles of mats, sticks, pots and bags, still cold, kids bare chested. They appeared momentarily unable to cope at all.
In Atbara looked for Fabiano to recover cutting, and lost others in the process. Southern tailor’s shop had African flavour. Clear distinction between Arabs and Africans – each considers itself the elite. Tailors rather condescending about clothes they are making. Material from China, Egypt inferior. Suit costs £2.50 up. Got lorry back to Kinedra. Took road in a wide sweep across desert – the road I missed (or dared not find.) which would have got me here faster.
Lorry stopped about a kilometre from Kinedra. I started humping my jerry can across the sand but was soon met by a boy with a donkey, who relieved me of my burden immediately.
I had intended to go to Sedon to photograph the water pumps, but the teachers of Kinedra would not let me leave. They insisted I accompany them to the river bank to take pictures. Waded in the river. They said prayers. Each had orange-sized patch of sand on forehead. Then visits to the village shops, and the home of . . . . . . brother who has refrigerator. Little bags of flavoured ice. Shabby furniture, not worthy of Austin’s [a popular London warehouse of used furniture.]
[I was persuaded to stay two more days at the school.]
Goodbye, until next week.
PS: Like most people I come into this New Year with grave premonitions. I see absolutely no prospect of Putin stopping the war. Trump’s involvement is toxic. Europe must pull itself together. What can I do about it? What can AI do about it? Watch this empty space.
Thank You Very Much
First of all, I want to acknowledge the response to my offer of a One-time Subscription. It has released a small flood of generosity which makes it plain that over time I have established a place in many lives. Not just through this series of travel notes, but in some cases going back through decades. Although I deliberately avoided pinning my appeal to any future book, I do now also have the beginnings of an idea of how to use these notes as a truly valid companion to Jupiter’s Travels. I’ll be developing these thoughts as this series draws to an end this coming summer.
From My Notebooks In 1973: Aswan and Lake Nasser
Finally convinced that there was no hope of getting permission to ride up the Nile, I bought a train ticket to Aswan. I had become close to Amin, the hotel manager, and he confided in me that he was planning to escape from Egypt and go to Brazil, where he already had an older brother, a doctor, established in Campinas, near Sâo Paulo. Legally, he was supposed to do years of military service first, so he would have to leave only with what he could carry. He asked me if I would carry with me, on the bike, his father’s ceremonial sword and deliver it to his brother when I arrived there. I was touched by his confidence, and the sword, in its scabbard, took up residence alongside the umbrella.
I got to Campinas nine months later. Amin had already arrived. That’s him on the right.
And this was me, holding on to the umbrella.
Meanwhile, back in Cairo, Monday, December 3rd
The train to Aswan. Cairo station – traders, stalls, cattle, crowds of persons waiting to coagulate round any seed.
Two references from Faris Serafim [Proprietor of Golden Hotel, Amin’s uncle]
Moatassam Bereir, influential, Khartoum, Foreign Office.
Mohamad Abouleila, Khartoum, Good family, older brothers know Faris.
[I did what I could to secure the bike and, with serious misgivings, entrusted it to the baggage wagon. The train left at 8pm. I was in a compartment with two Egyptian families who spoke almost no English but they had quantities of food for the 16-hour journey which they shared generously with me. We slept in our seats. In the morning I got breakfast in a saloon car and watched the passing scene. The train travelled very slowly, stopping often.]
Company [of conscript soldiers] descends at Essna. [Reminded me of my own national service.]
Just like UK conscripts being shuttled about, showing no sign of anticipation. Wear heavy khaki like us, plus suitcases, etc.
[Looking out at villages.] Stuffed animals over doorways, lizard, a fox.
[I had thoughts about the evolution of pyramids. Why that particular angle.]
My pyramid theory. Natural form of erosion in Upper Egypt. Rocks have caves in them. Measure angles, etc. Maybe some corpse was found in a cave in goat milk. [What was I thinking?]
In front of some villages, stones stood on end, curious effect immediately noticeable, but why? Not big stones, and all shapes, six inches to a foot, but all unnaturally upright. Still don’t quite know how water wheel works. i.e. don’t know what it discharges into.
[The train stops.]
Three peasants working on a plot of earth beneath window of train. As usual earth divided up chessboard fashion with foot-high dykes around 3-metre squares. Two men were chopping vigorously at earth, one old, one young.
The old man was tough and skinny and wore absolutely nothing beneath his galabeia which became evident when he bent down towards the train. Standing by them, with a five-foot cane pointing at the earth was the most imperious lady I have seen. The mother of all the pharaohs. In black, with black headdress, old but refined, face as strong and vigorous as ever. Tall, straight, irrefutable authority. Head a perfect long oval, mouth in parentheses which seemed on the point of curling down in contempt.
Tuesday, December 4th
Train empties at Aswan and waits. Then on to lake. Unloading is easy enough, though the attendant stands studiously while I hump my bags, then solicits a tip (which I give him, salving my pride by halving it.) From the platform have to drive bike down some steep steps. I let go a bit soon and on the last bounce I lose control and fall into bushes. Malesh!! Short and ineffectual interrogation by soldier, and I follow my self-appointed guide (an Arab Merlin figure) to the stony shore where some people are gathered outside s group of shacks, milling about among bundles. I have a ticket but must pay for the motorcycle. There is one shrewd fat Arab sitting outside a cabin, surveying the mob, while his men work. I give them the correct weight of the bike. and they charge me E£5 without weighing it. Passport control is simple, and the vehicle control looks straightforward, but I’m beginning to wonder how I’m going to get my bulky objects through customs, which is besieged by camel drivers carrying huge canvas and leather bags which I presume they sling over their camels. The carnet man indicates that an amount of money will help me over their problems and I succumb, with half a pound. In fact, if I had known how useless my pounds were to be I’d have been less precise. However, I was through and down to the boat in a flash and forgot completely about changing money.
The problem at the boat then obliterated any other concerns. It was immediately clear that it would be [all but] impossible to get the bike on the boat because my boat was separated from me by another boat. [They were parked side by side on the embankment.]
The first problem was the conventional one – of lifting four cwt down three feet, then to manoeuver it through a narrow passage packed with camel drivers in a terrible hurry. While manoeuvering it round a sharp corner all I lost was one pannier. It was just a matter of persistence. But the final crossing [to the other boat] was inconceivable. Both ships had steel-sided gangways, with openings only wide enough for a person, and the openings did not coincide either with each other or with the end of the passage. The bike had to be manoeuvered through a Z-shaped path, in mid-air at an angle of 30 degrees pointing downwards across three feet of water.
But for the sky-hook that appeared halfway through I think the journey would have stopped there. Even so the bike was resting most of the time on the remaining pannier or the foot brake pedal, which assumed a distinctive slope. There were five people struggling, and I was least use since I couldn’t understand the others. Finally the project passed out of my control, and I had to hope for good luck as I saw the exhaust manifold within an ace of being ripped from the cylinders. The experience affected my view of the boat, which I saw as cramped, dangerous, expensive and inhospitable. The deck, which I had imagined open to the sky, with chairs, was below with no chairs, or indeed anything but refuse and bare steel. Some cars had been brought on from the other side when this boat had been against the bank, and filled most of one half. At the other end, behind some corrugated iron, was a man brewing tea. A desk in front sold chits (or scrip, or torn bits of used paper) but of course took no Egyptian money (except from Anthony because he’d paid for first class.)
[Anthony was a young Dutchman, travelling with his wife.]
Every other floor space, except for a narrow footpath, was resolutely occupied by camel drivers who had their bed bundles down while I was struggling [with the bike]. As the journey advanced it became increasingly difficult to distinguish the people from their luggage. The grimy galabeias merged and an occasional limb or head protruded here and there. Most of them stayed, scarcely moving, for three days and two nights, while drifts of scrap paper, cigarette ends, orange peel and dust, all bound together with spit, built up around them.
The sight of people letting loose a jet of spit on the floor where they sleep is so objectionable that it goes beyond disgust to sheer wonder. How can they? But if you consider the desert your natural home (where spitting is not only harmless but quite natural) then being inside a house or boat is scarcely significant. Considered alongside the meticulous and lengthy rituals of spiritual cleansing which these same drivers undergo every day, it is hard to say who comes cleaner out of the wash – they or the European.
Two nights and three days floating across Lake Nasser.
A view of the first class boat from the third class. I soon joined them, on the roof.
It became clear that there would be no room to sleep even in these conditions, but the other boat which was all but empty was said to be for first class only. However, Europeans obviously have a natural exemption to class restraints in Africa. Should I have stuck with the drivers? It was not a productive thought. Other Europeans would not have allowed me even a faint chance of an understanding with them on such a short journey. I smuggled myself instead on to the top deck of the first-class boat, and I slept out under the sky. Bright moon. Stars becoming familiar. Cold at 3 am but not too much so. Spent time talking to Australian Mike – Macdonald. Something about him remained alienating to the last. A conflict of styles? His funny hat – a Moslem cap – was aggressively incongruous. The forthright manner was not quite true – and concealed a complex and uneasy personality. Protestations of easy independence were contradicted by heavy point-scoring humour, and he lost few opportunities for self-congratulation. Yet there is a wistful, touching desire to find peace with himself (which he failed to find in his monastery.)
Although the Dutchman wielded an equally heavy sledgehammer, he seemed to have found more peace in his 26 years. He and his wife Alice were travelling to South Africa to visit her father (?) It was her idea. He had wanted to holiday in Norway but now he was finding much reward. His treatment of his wife was very masterful, and she was obviously devoted to him, even when he scolded her like a father. A big man, studying “marketing,” son of an old family, with a natural confidence which could make him boorish and pigheaded, but for the moderating influences [of his wife] which he is happily able to accept. He was taken by my idea of classifying people as “alive or dead” but said he would have to study it.
Train from Cairo 7E£n+ 6E£ for bike. Left Cairo 8pm. High Dam 1.30pm Boat from Aswan to Wadi Halfa 2E£ 3rd class + 5E£ for bike. Spent E£5 on boat. Train Wadi Halfa to Atbara 3.60 S£+ 3.61S£ for bike (200kg)
Total £24 sterling.
I’m taking a week off, so in two weeks: Atbara and the desert.
Merry Christmas.
To my readers…
My quixotic notion to offer you an opportunity to reward me for the pleasure you have already enjoyed has provoked some interesting confusion.
A few seem to feel it’s almost immoral. “If I’d known I was going to be asked for money I would never have started reading your pieces in the first place.” Well, nobody actually said that, but I got the hint.
Then others thought I must be asking you to subscribe to a future book – I wasn’t – and refrained because they don’t think the book’s a good idea. Anyway, to those who simply thought it would be nice to give me something for past pleasure, thank you very much. I am quite comfortable with it. I believe I have earned it. And if I DO decide to make a book of it, the money will help. It was also a valuable experiment. It helped me to find out where I float in this ethosphere. Now, back to Cairo.
From My Notebooks In 1973: Egypt
[I’m desperately hoping to ride the bike up the Nile – such a vital, rich seedbed of humanity: Luxor and the Valley of the Kings. There’s a lull in the war. Why shouldn’t it be possible? In the meanwhile, I tried as best I could to understand Cairo. At about that same time it struck me that Islamic countries, from Morocco to Indonesia, spanned the globe, rather like a scimitar, and would be a mighty force if they could unite. I put this to a high-ranking journalist, Denis Hamilton, who happened to be staying at the Hilton at that time. He thought a minute and said, “No. The Shah would never allow it.” He meant, of course, the Shah of Iran. We know what happened to him.]
Cairo, 17th to 22nd November
Waiting for permission to ride to Aswan.
Daily round begins. Groppi’s for coffee, etc. Reuter’s office. The Press office at the Information Building, lunch, a game of chess and then anything to get the evening over with. At first, I think it will be just a day or two. My piece went off to London, together with a message, on Thursday. There was no reply, but the bureau lady has convinced me that because of my faulty slugging they may have got scrambled or delayed. So I repeat my message. [“Slug” was the word used to identify a piece of copy.]
Meanwhile at the press office Frau Amin treats me pleasantly enough and I am lulled by her comfortable conversation (which is quite genuine and kind.) although nobody thinks there is any possibility of my being given permission to drive to Aswan.
Meanwhile there are also the first set of papers from Benghazi to expect. And with Amin’s help at the hotel, I try to grapple with Libya and Arab Airlines, but they are too slippery for any of us. On Sunday I decide to cable Kerim for the waybill number, but the cables are subject to several days’ delay. The telephones however are working properly so I book a call for Monday morning. The days pass. I develop a powerful reputation for chess, dodge nimbly across the frontlines of affection between Amin and Alan and learn what I can from Faris Serafim. [Alan was a pale young Englishman with an upper-class accent staying at the Golden. Amin and I both thought he was probably a spy. Faris was Amin’s uncle who owned the hotel.]
Faris was at Oxford in 1919. I gather he read theology. He is, in any event, a Christian, i.e. a Copt, Egypt’s original tribe. He was contemporary with Nehru and, he suggests without naming them, many other luminaries. He recalls that they founded the International Club and toured Britain (Cardiff, Bradford) to speak in halls and churches about their respective countries. He considers there were some whose qualities were greater than, say, Nehru’s but rejected power when it was offered and contented themselves with being obscurely good.
He himself was from a family which had built a considerable position in Egypt. He talks of his great grandfather, who was “keeper” of the village in the reign of Mohamed Ali, and whose citizens hatched a plot to murder him rather than pay taxes. He escaped but the villagers claimed he had run off with their boxes, and a price was put on his head. He, however, made his way down the Nile and finally contrived a personal encounter with Ali when the guards were some way off.
“Surely you know,” said Ali, “that I have put a price on your head?”
“You can have it for nothing,” was the reply, “if you don’t believe my story.”
The upshot was that he promised to double the tax returns if he were allowed to found his own village, and he did so. This then became El Minya and the Serafims became very wealthy – sufficiently, according to Alan, to give a visiting Cardinal dinner for forty off gold plate. By the same source he is said to have been Egypt’s most prominent businessman, who was intimately concerned in and with the political structure of the country.
He knew Strawblow and the two men who helped him to the right hand of Durante and recounts that those two men soon found themselves in jail (this was, of course, on the American side in the 30’s).
[This strange final comment was meant to defer suspicion lest officials came to read my notes. Egypt was effectively a police state. “Strawblow’ was Sadat, “Durante” was Nasser. The words in parentheses were just rubbish.]
The revolution in Egypt stripped Serafim of his wealth, and his true worth is now demonstrated by the ease and dignity with which he assumes his position behind the desk of the Golden Hotel, one of the properties that remains in the family. Land and cash were nationalised. Buildings were merely heavily taxed.
His reflection on the Aswan Dam, on the need to mechanise farming, on the ability of Arab culture to survive the machine age (he says it will – I, as usual, remain pessimistic.)
Menu at Riche [a local restaurant]:
Dorma (stuffed cabbage & marrow) 18 piastres
Awa (Zeiad, Marbut) 4 ½ piastres
Soup/spaghetti 5 piastres
[One piastre was worth one British penny, or 2.5 cents US]
Robes are called Galabeia in Egypt, Shuka in Turkey, Djellaba in Morocco/ Algiers.
Walking on the crowded catwalk across Tahir Square in Cairo I noticed that though the crush looked impenetrable, when you walked in it there was always space allowed you – provided that you didn’t move at your own pace.
[Tahir Square was a huge intersection in Cairo. To enable pedestrians to cross it an equally huge catwalk crossed over it. Thousands of poor Egyptian workers, all dressed alike in blue galabeias, crowded over it.]
Cairo is the first city (I presume I shall see others) in which fate as much as mortar seems to fix the fabric. In Tunis the poorest seemed to have some sense of social movement, could dream and hustle a bit. Perhaps it’s so here, but the impression is different. Cairo is intensely populated. 6 million in a relatively small space. Many of these (I don’t know how many) are newly arrived from the farms and are as completely uneducated and unskilled in city ways as can be. It is they who root the city in its ways.
In Cairo I can fill my stomach twice a day for ten British pence, and this is in the heart of Cairo and going no further than 100 yards from the hotel. At the same distance is a cake and coffee house [Groppi’s] where a light breakfast of eggs, coffee, toast and marmalade involves the waiter in bringing eleven separate items – a glass of water, a glass containing cutlery and napkins, two heavy hotel silver jugs of coffee and hot milk, a cup and saucer, plate of toast, slab of white butter, a silver pot of marmalade, another of sugar, salt and pepper, and the eggs. The cup comes from the kitchen full of boiling water which is poured out at the last minute. It takes the waiter an appreciable time to unload the tray. The price is 28 pence, about the most a citizen of Cairo could be asked to pay anywhere in the city.
Anyone living here within grasp of Western standards is plainly able to enjoy the best that the city can offer, while the poorest are able to subsist on the crumbs he sprinkles in his wake – a penny for guarding his car, two pence for polishing his shoes, a penny for simply being somewhere regularly on the off-chance of a service to perform, and so on. There is little evidence of resentment on the one side, or contempt on the other. Once the donor has evolved his routine, and his small area of patronage becomes familiar, the relationship is warm and benevolent on both sides.
This mutual respect is fostered by the clear duty imposed on the Moslem by his religion to donate a distinct fraction of his wealth or income to others in need (I think 10%) The other duties are: to pray five times a day, to keep himself clean – particularly the ‘private parts,’ to do to others as he would be done by, and to visit Mecca once (if he can afford it). The stability of this system depends on a general belief that it is right, good and practicable. Morale and morality go hand in hand. Where external forces seem to strike at the viability of Arab society they are easily seen as a threat to every Arab’s self-respect, without which he cannot be satisfied with his place in society. I am sure that Arab dislike and contempt for Israel is rooted in the view that the Jews, whose ethical system compares so closely to the Arab system, have betrayed themselves and God for personal gain. Israel is perhaps the Trojan horse of the West.
In the aftermath of the ’73 war, Cairo lives in a euphoria of vindication. Egyptians are convinced of a great victory. They have shown the world. Now they can negotiate honorably, and after a few weeks are ready to discuss their mistakes and weaknesses, to begin the process of dismantling their former idols. Other Arab countries who suffered defeat (the Syrians) or who could take no active part in the war (Libya, Saudi Arabia) are less willing to call it off. While Egyptians can joke about Quadaffi fighting to the last Egyptian, the Libyan feeling is that they too want their self-respect established in more dramatic terms. Thus the oil weapon is used not simply for its tactical value, but as a sword for Islam.
It now seems that a negotiated settlement is possible (no more) at considerable inconvenience to the West and given agonising re-appraisals by Israel. Such an outcome, now or later, presumably involves a general recognition that the Arabs are free to go it alone as a society united in its religion and ethical practice and financed by a realistic income from its resources. What then?
Mine is not a political reconnaissance. I have met no members of government, enjoyed no confidences from the wealthy or influential, but I will relate what happened among the people I did meet, experience always being more valuable than promises or advice.
Next week: Up the Nile without a paddle
It’s not too late to reward me for three years of wonderful story-telling with these notebook extracts, you can send me a one-time $100 subscription.
Before we get to the notebooks…
Listen, I know you’ve been enjoying these notes. At various times I’ve asked for feedback, and some of you have been very articulate. I don’t have a very large email list but it’s stayed fairly steady for the three years I’ve been doing this – and of course a lot more people have been reading me through social media.
Now I have to ask myself, why am I doing this? It’s work – quite a lot of work. I justified it originally by the books I was selling through the site, but the truth is you’re not buying them from me any more, probably because you’ve got them already – and I’m grateful for that, of course – but still I feel the need to be acknowledged in a practical way. The plain truth is it costs more to maintain the web site than I get from it in income.
I’ve heard from many of you over the years. I feel I know you. I think some of you would like to contribute, and it’s up to me to give you a way to do that.
Several of you have said you’d like to see the diaries as a book. It’s an interesting challenge – “The Real Motorcycle Diaries” perhaps – but much more difficult than my autobiography and probably more expensive. So here is what I propose (I’m trying to banish the word ”deal” from my vocabulary):
You send me $100 (or your local currency equivalent) to reward me for three years of wonderful story-telling. Let’s call it a One-time Subscription. That seems fair to me. You’ll find the offer on the books page of my web site.
If it all adds up to enough to finance a book, or some other solution, I’ll do my best to make it work. And if you have other ideas about what to do with these diaries, let’s talk about it.
Meanwhile, there’s all of Africa still to look forward to.
FROM MY NOTEBOOKS IN 1973: Alexandria and Cairo
November 14th
My day for sightseeing starts poorly. Showers spill fresh floods across the roads. Visit the tourist office and meet with bovine response from ladies assembled there. To garage first, to find a spanner and manual gone. They give me another spanner, but the manual! So easy to think STOLEN. Still brainwashed by tales of thieving Arabs. But the younger of the men – that charming, soft-spoken best of men who wears the khaki overalls reminds me that I took it to the petrol station to buy oil. Of course! My own stupidity, but on their faces only great relief and pleasure. We march off together in the rain and find not only the manual but the spanner also. Once again virtue triumphs and my Western paranoia put to shame.
Drive to Montasah Palace (King Farouk’s summer house). Fine marble staircase – with rooms arranged in tiers around space open to roof with cheap-looking stained-glass partitions off floors. But light is very good. Otherwise, expensive bad taste. Bathrooms lined with alabaster tiles, but sanitary equipment and design ugly. Foolish trinkets in cabinets. Empty house, empty lives.
Fascinated by the showers. Cage of hot water pipes, showers from above, jets from below. Perfect Edwardian plumbing miracle in that ‘chromed’ metal with dull sheen – was it nickel plating?
Gardens just an ostentatious display of date palms and small firs. Rough lawn. Best of a bad job. Back to hotel for lunch. News of discord between Israel and Egypt disturbs atmosphere. I decide to leave after lunch, rather than stay another night. Aat end of lunch a telegram arrives. It’s for Pacaud. He opens it and takes a sharp breath.
“Mon fils est mort! Je le savais. “ [My son is dead. I knew it.]
His grief is profound and inconsolable. There is a short story to be written about us four at the Normandie. (Mme Mellasse.)
Road to Cairo. Groups of mud houses, dripping hay from the roofs. What are the round cupolas? To collect water? Stables also. Some beautifully made of mud columns, spaced to exclude bigger animals. Huge sails of barges, tall as houses (sixty feet) rising out of the railway line must be road, fill with wind but still require two men pulling. Sail tattered. Many of them stretching out in line ahead. Hard to tell whether there’s room to pass, but must be.
Cairo and the road in blackout. With only my polaroid goggles to protect me from flying sand and diesel soot, it becomes difficult to see where the road is or what’s on it. Bullock carts, donkey carts, cyclists, all unlit, appear on the verge. I catch a lift behind a fast taxi and as an act of faith follow him blindly into Cairo. An hour at 50-55mph. Not comfortable. But Pacaud’s description of route serves me well. Only the one-way systems finally cause difficulty.
Golden Hotel is a bit intimidating at first. The upper floors resemble Alcatraz.
I don’t know now who recommended the Golden Hotel but it was an inspired choice, despite the cockroaches.
Thursday, November 15th
To Reuter Office. Dullforce is middle-aged, lean, grey-haired, unsympathetic. Wife likewise. Brisk, and busy.
Write about arrests. These bureau people are much like the police (in fact all daily newspaper people). Received the minimum of help, much disapproval. It’s the worst kind of arrogance, but I find myself largely immune to the consequences.
Pass on to the Cairo Information Centre, for permission to drive to Aswan.
Eat at Estoril Restaurant in alley off Tallaat Harb. Not very good.
Meet two young girls outside Suez Canal Co. offices. Birds are singing loudly in trees. Animated conversation with men through the bars. Egyptians always good for a laugh. Very warm people. After an attempt at lessons in Arabic, go for an endless walk through ‘garden city’ with Youssef, an accountant with Nile Transport Co. who described himself as “economist.” Earns 35 Egyptian pounds a month. (i.e. £6 a week). In five years’ time he will earn £8 a week. Says he likes the security. Went to East Berlin in Egyptian Youth delegation. Conversation oozing with emotion, empty of content. Leave girls and speed off in a taxi to something resembling an outdoor Peabody Building. Dodging from bloc to block until suddenly, without warning, into small flat bright with several hundred watts and solid with people. I counted over sixty with difficulty. Drums and tambours banging away. Two families celebrating the betrothal of two young people. Immense gaiety, no alcohol, ‘belly dancing’ by men and women (with scarf tied around hips). “Mucho Corazón”
Friday, November 16th
Gizeh pyramids. It’s a general holiday. Pyramids are at the edge of Cairo. West of Nile, on a raised area. A throng of guides, horses and camel drivers make an appreciation of the pyramids impossible. To have first stumbled upon them must have been marvelous but I can find no sense of awe for these lumps of stone. Less barbaric than Teohuacan, but still a monumental egoism. The marvels are all abstract – geometry, astronomy, etc.
I can’t resist the importunities of a guide who is clever enough to be less clamorous than the others, but he shows me very little. In a tent he gives me good tea made on a primus stove by a pretty wife dressed in pink. She boils the water and tea vigorously, decants it, boils it again, decants it again. How the sugar got in or where the tea leaves went I have no idea. Hard upholstered couches on two sides.
Walk away to pyramids. Into second pyramid (Queen Sharfeen?) One tomb with hardboard partitions. Graffiti early 19th Century. G.R.Hill and Scheistenberger etc.
To first pyramid. Meet two unintelligent lads, but girl with them is more aware. Into Cheops. Inside like something out of [the film] Metropolis. All scaffolding and duckboards.
Jack Hulbert was a much-loved actor and comedian in the prewar days – with a big chin and a twinkle in he eye – you can see the resemblance, though how Faris the camel driver knew about him remains a mystery.
Ready to leave when I give way to camel driver, and now my reward. Because he gives me a great ride, over an hour, into the sand dunes, on “Jack Hulbert” [that’s the name of the camel.]
He is bright, humorous, great fun. We take a roll of pictures. Him and his mate.
But what in God’s name does the average package tourist get out of it all?
I really rode that camel, rein, switch and heel. My thighs were aching from the unaccustomed movement. JH lurched and swayed and hobbled along, with brief bursts of crazy trotting. I crossed my legs, Arab style, over his shoulders. He is six and will go on probably until he’s twenty-five or so. Sacks of ‘clover ‘at his side under heavy embroidered cloth. Take two sets of pix. First roll failed to attach to spool. Drivers called Faris Hamse (No. 62) Mandor Shahat (77).
I’m disturbed by my failure to respond to the pyramids and question the quality of response in others. I know perfectly well that if I want I can whip up a storm of fancies and imaginings but I was determined to let the pyramids do the work. As props for a mind hungry for sensation they do very well, no doubt, but as objects to inspire pure awe or wonder I think they fail. Man has demeaned them in scale and industry. Rockets can be built taller than Cheops, more intricate, by more people, and sent to the moon. They have been surrounded by bric-a-brac, haggling, and petty detail.
I’ve been told that it’s better to see them first at night, through ‘son et lumière’ and that it’s a very good show. I quite believe it, but that’s a different matter. With sufficient skill at my command I believe it would be possible to illuminate the history of mankind by “son et lumière” in my kitchen.
The pyramids have an absolute virtue, but depend, like all other earthly things, on perspective. When the perspective is altered, whether by a persistent camel driver or a new catch-penny museum built up against the face of the pyramid itself, the pyramids fail and it is up to the individual to supply, by an act of imagination, what has been stolen. I refuse, because I feel I will become an accomplice of the despoilers.
[I seem to have gone through a rather arrogant phase. Perhaps it was the only way I could find to deal with such a short exposure to such an extraordinary phenomenon.]
If you’d like to reward me for three years of wonderful story-telling with these notebook extracts, you can send me a one-time $100 subscription.
