The Good, the Bad and the Holy

I saw red. The man stood there, rock raised above his head in self-defense, face a little wet from where Lise Dog threw her bottle of water into it, shirt in tatters from where Lise Dog ripped it from his retreating body. I went for him - my express purpose to slam his head into the rock beside him. He dashed behind a tree and I followed. What ensued was like something out of a Looney Tunes cartoon with Elma Fudd chasing Bugs Bunny round and round a tree. This was ridiculous – so I gave up and did the manly thing. I began to imitate his bad English in an annoying baby-voice.  More confused than anything else he disappeared down the cliff-face, the sound of my nasal imitation-voice screaming “I am an official guide! I am an official guide!” trailing behind him.

This is what the region of Tigray has done to us. Happy-go-lucky attitudes towards the locals have hardened to raw hatred. Turn-the-other-cheek has hardened to eye-for-an-eye. And it all happened surprisingly quickly. Our skins, supposedly thickened by four months on the road, were shredded to confetti in days. The children here swarm like a Biblical plague of locusts, consuming any white man in sight. But, unlike locusts, evolution has bestowed upon them opposable thumbs and rotator-cuff muscles and which they then make use of to pelt you with stones. Their mothers – crucifixes tattooed on their foreheads – watch on and laugh. Perhaps their concentration waned over certain parts of their Biblical education. Like the New Testament section. The men happily give up their menial work of tilling fields for their families’ food to follow you for hours then forcefully demand a ‘tip’ for the privilege of having them stare at your bottom for the whole ascent. And then there are the priests – their right hands bearing a wooden crucifix like a burning sword of self-righteousness, their left nursing the entrance key to the church. All the better to blackmail you with, my dear.

 And probably the most frustrating thing is that what they are ruining in this area is truly special. Dozens of churches literally chiselled into the sides of sheer cliff-faces over a thousand years ago, perfectly preserved by their obscurity over the ages. Most predate their big brother Lalibela and – in my opinion – for their rawness and imperfection, are more affecting. In these churches its difficult to imagine a world where religious miracles are not an everyday occurrence. Where angels and humans boogie together, where demons are smite down, where visions result in the creation of the worlds most improbable places of worship, where the impossible is somehow possible.

So the fact that these churches sit in an area literally dripping with greed among every other deadly sin and are tended by hypocrites who piss on the Ten Commandments and tourists in equal measure, is even harder to stomach. Far from a sense of ethereal peace this place will bring out the very worst in you. Just ask Lise Dog. She still has a piece of the vagabonds shirt.

These churches deserve so much better.