We have returned from Axum to Mekelle, and from murderously slow and expensive internet to cheap and plentiful (yet still agonizingly slow) internet access.

Axum was very interesting- it is the holy city of Ethiopia, so much so that when a group of Muslims requested to build a mosque there, they were told the day there would be a mosque in Axum was the day they would allow a church to be built in Mecca.

There are many fascinating historical sites (an archeologist's daydream!) perhaps most notably the towering obelisks which pepper the landscape. There was one in particular that I liked, the Ezana stone, which amounts to an Ethiopian version of the Rosetta Stone- a tablet inscribed with Greek, Ge'ez, and Sabaeab. Inscribed on a stone is a prayer to God giving thanks- and also a warning that any one who attempts to remove the stone will die instantly! Needless to say, the stone has stayed quite put :)

My meetings with Fisseha, the director of tourism there, were not as fruitful as I had hoped as he was very busy and was also dealing with a recent death of the mother of a friend of his. I was actually walking with him when a trumpet sounded, and I got a little bit excited hearing a new instrument, until he informed me that the trumpet signified that someone had just died- he walked over to a person standing nearby and asked who it was, and it was someone he knew, and so our interview was cut short. Now that sound is quite haunting.

However, before all of this he did take me early one morning for a saint's day and I managed a short interview. The next day was a candle ceremony, which happens every 7 days in Axum to give thanks and to ask for a good harvest. The streets are packed at four thirty in the morning, lit only by the candles held by the worshippers. The priests come out from the church of the four animals (human, sheep, lamb, and bird) burning incense and ringing bells, and people gather at one of the 5 sycamore trees there (each designated with a specific purpose for different types of meetings). Prayers are said, and then the entire body of people began to sing and then proceed to walk around in a circle, singing the entire time. This lasts until just after sunrise, and it was quite mesmerizing walking through the city, surrounded by singing people (shrouded in white as always). In my recording there is also the sound of the cane that the woman next to me was using, which I think is quite beautiful, that even someone with a great difficulty walking rises early to sing and give praise.

Axum is also rumored to be home of the biblical Arc of the Covenant, which remains jealously guarded and hidden inside the St. Mary of Zion Church. Unfortunately, women aren't allowed in the chappel, and no one is allowed to actually see the Arc, except during the St. Mary of Zion Festival (which were are incredibly sadly missing by about 2 weeks) when the monk comes out and shows it to a sea of white robed pilgrims who have come for St. Mary's day.

On the downside, the city of Axum was quite a bit more 'touristy' and things were quite expensive (comparatively) and I am tired of being called faranje (foreigner) and asked for money. And the food I'm sad to say is pretty awful, especially for someone who doesn't much care for meat.

The medical students benifited from meeting a Canadian doctor from the organization Doctors of the World, and it was very interesting hearing about his initial naivity about coming to this part of the world and being able to change things, and diffifult to hear that since his arrival (he is the only surgeon in Axum, a pretty major city and a major hospital that serves hundreds of thousands of people) not much has changed or improved. As he put it, 'Ethiopians have a severe tendency towards inertia'. I don't quite understand why this is so, but it does seem to be true, not only with the hospitals, but also with the schools. It is difficult to improve things without basic items of need (like basic chemistry in the hospitals, or books in the schools- so that in the Axum hospital a doctor can't order the most basic of bloodtests and children in the schools can't read their lessons or even write notes for lack of pens).

It seems that after the first couple of weeks, when everything is so new and so different, and so amazing, and the people so heartwarming and kind, the magnitude of so many of the problems here were somehow not fully realized by myself, but as I stay here longer they become more apparent and real. There are children here Lilly's age carrying infants Abby's age on their backs. I don't really know what quite I'm trying to say, just mostly that the poverty is so deep here I don't know where one would begin to fix it- espcecially after talking with the Canadian doctor, who lived here for two years and felt nothing got any better despite his best efforts.

On a brighter note, I'm looking forward to tracking down Tamrat and Kibron and completing some more interviews, and to one last Sunda Service at the Tekla Haimonut church (where Tamrat is a deacon).

After that, it's off to Addis Ababa, where the national archives as well as a private library are located (and hopefully a few English books on Orthodox Church music if I'm lucky, but if not I'm sure I'll be able to find some interesting things, including zuchini and assorted other vegetables, thus finally replenishing my rapidly increasing vitamin defeciency.
\
I hope all is well at home, and I am going to be posting new notes on Facebook right after I finish this email (thanks for all of the new friend invitations!)
Take Care