On Sunday, Sisay, the 17-year-old cousin of Zebachew, took me to Lion Park and the National Museum. The first was his idea, the second mine. To get there we took one of the truck taxis. Forty-five cents each. It wasn’t crowded and the streets were almost empty. Ethiopians take their days off seriously.

Running one of those taxis takes coordination not just between the driver and the conductor but between taxis. Both the driver and conductor keep an eye out for passengers. The conductor determines if the potential passenger wants to go where their taxi is going or if a passenger wants to get off. To signal a stop, he raps sharply on the roof with a steel bolt dangling from a string.

Throughout the city, there were designated spots where these taxis met. A couple dozen of them can be stacked up against the curb honking their horns, pushing and fighting to get free when their vehicle is full, like bumper cars gone mad. Passengers are transferred there if necessary and half the cash fare is handed over with them.

Lion Park was only a short distance away and in the centre of the city. It was more like a petting zoo than a park, though petting would have to be at your own risk. Getting in with a “white man” was a complicated business as usual. Foreigners generally pay more and face more restrictions. Plus various security guards like to invent special charges if they can get away with it. Sisay just waved them aside. A favourite ploy was to institute a camera charge. If you aren’t willing to pay the fee then they ask you to deposit your camera at the gate.

Lions, of course, are the national symbol of Ethiopia, embodying courage and nobility. There were perhaps a dozen lions plus two lion cubs. The cages and habitats weren’t wonderful, but neither were they heartbreaking, as in so many zoos. Most of the lions seemed healthy and well-fed. They romped around and wrestled amongst themselves to the enjoyment of the crowd.

The Amharic word for lion is ‘Anbessa’ and when you heard the word anbessa, the name of Ethiopia’s beloved emperor Haile Selassie, the Lion of Judea, was never far behind. No Ethiopian could speak his name without praise. They expressed respect, admiration, awe and even love in a manner impossible to imagine in Canada.

The cost to enter the National Museum was ten birr for foreigners and two birr for Ethiopians. I also had to leave my camera at the door and submit to an intense security check. The stocky security guard passed a handheld metal detector over me and then physically patted me down. Then every bag had to be opened and searched. I carried a money pouch on my belt and this was opened and searched item by item. I also carried one of my pannier bags and it practically screamed with pockets, zippers, velcro, and pockets within pockets. Inside was a separate bag for my walkman, another for my camera and a third for my maps and correspondence. I assumed that faced with such an imposing array of bags and a “white man” that the guard would skimp on the search, but like the guards at every public building I’d entered he took it very seriously and methodically went through every compartment regardless of how long it took.

I assumed the reason for this was the tension on the border with Eritrea. Hostilities had broken out in June with territory changing hands. Then they had adjourned for the rainy season, traditionally a time for the cessation of military activity when the land is too wet for armies to move. Since then, they had been holding their breath waiting for the rain to stop. In the meantime, both sides had been engaging in a tit for tat series of expulsions, seizure of property and harassment. Dawit’s girlfriend was Eritrean and she had been expelled three months earlier. The newspapers were filled with the worst kind of rhetoric, propaganda and name calling.

The National Museum interested me because it housed the bones of “Lucy” our 3.5-million-year-old ancestor discovered in the Danakil depression in Ethiopia. (Her Ethiopian name was “Denquanesh”, which meant “thou are beautiful.”) She was lying in a glass case right at the front of the museum. They’d filled the bottom of the case with stone and sand to simulate how the bones were discovered. A piece of bristle board pinned to the wall with a few typed words was the entire display. I had expected an artefact of such world importance to be given a grander setting, at least her own room with some photographs showing the excavation site. I mean, every museum in the world has their pots and baskets and chipped stone tools, but Lucy was one of a kind.

I felt sorry for her. She looked rather forlorn and cold. I stood there till Sisay’s patience was at an end. “Look here,” he said pointing to a placard at the next display. I looked.

“Read this,” he barked and pointed to the next sign. “Look here.”

Room after room, display after display it went like that. I was reminded of those airport dogs trained to sniff out drugs by trainers touching each suitcase in turn. “Here girl. Now this. What’s in here? Find it girl. Find it. Good girl.”

“This room,” Sisay said.

“Look this.”

“Read.”

My protests (“I AM reading!”) fell on deaf ears. I was fighting the deeply ingrained Ethiopian style of hospitality.

I didn’t go into the museum intending to study and learn, but I did come away with an impression of all the varied influences at work in Ethiopia. It occupies a special geographical position, with Egypt and Europe to the north and northwest, Arabia and the Middle East to the northeast, and Africa to the south. Its most powerful historical kingdom, Axum, was based on trade throughout the world. It developed its own brand of Christianity in the 4th Century AD. Legend has it that the Queen of Sheba came from Ethiopia and her visit to King Solomon produced a dynastic line that was to exist for thousands of years. They established their own relationship with Islam. This variety can be seen in all aspects of their culture, including language.

I hadn’t been here long enough to know how the Ethiopians viewed themselves, but there had been many intriguing hints that they tended to denigrate their tribal black African side while elevating their Semitic side.

One room at the museum contained mannequins draped with various clothing styles. Most wore royal robes. But one case contained a different type of display. The clothing was colourful and strung with beads in a style we might think of as typically African. This mannequin was also the only one with facial features and they were distinctly African.

“Not good,” pronounced Sisay. “Look here.” And he directed me to the next royal costume.

“Why not good?” I asked.

“Too black,” he said.

A large painting in the next room showed the meeting of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. Dozens of very black men carried gifts and a platform on which sat the very regal and decidedly white Queen of Sheba.

On the museum grounds there was a cafe housed in an immense replica of a thatch house. This was no hut but a building soaring 30 feet or more and perhaps 100 feet across. I convinced Sisay we should look inside and I was glad I did. After the deadly dull and colourless museum this place was a feast for the eyes. The outside was simple thatch gone dark with exposure. But the inside surface of the beehive shaped roof was elaborately woven. A hundred concentric rings rose to the centre, each ring a different colour and a different weave pattern. Holding up this colossal roof was a single tree trunk based in stone.

Dozens of people sat in groups drinking and talking. Sisay and I took a seat beside a pile of burning coal onto which they’d throw some water laced with incense. Clouds of lightly perfumed steam rose and filled the room. Traditional music played over a superb sound system. I couldn’t get over the beauty of the place, but Sisay didn’t respond to my admiring comments. His only reply was to reach down and pick up a bowl of popcorn.

“Why don’t you eat?”

Tags: conductor, Ethiopia, Ethiopia Bike Trip, King Solomon, museum