Pleasantly Medieval

I think it may well be a tautological expression but “pleasantly medieval” is how I would describe most of Ethiopia J

Ive ridden through a good chunk of it now and in general that’s the feeling I get. There are a few reasons and Ill describe the most significant factors:

First thing to note is that the vast majority of the country is farm land… Its rainy season now and the whole country is bright green with new crops growing in the fields. (For some reason I had it in my mind that Ethiopia was a largely desert country. Its certainly not! It’s a pastoral country… Its green in the wet and becomes brown in the dry season though only small areas of the country are what Id call arid or desert.

Second point is that there are a LOT of people here, and most of the people are simple farmers… They have a few head of cattle and sheep and goats and they grow relatively small plots of several sorts of grains (wheat, rice, corn, sorghum etc). And they are very poor people who have no means of transport other than to walk everywhere so that means that rather than a few larger towns, there are many many tiny little farming villages.

The third point is very significant in that there are virtually no fences at all in the entire country… It sounds like a minor point but it means that the livestock cant be left alone for very long… cos they will get straight into the growing crops and destroy them. No, the livestock need to be constantly attended and every day all over the country there are millions of people just watching and directing their small herds,,, But you cant leave the animals alone at night either so you keep them next to your house in a small yard over-night… And that means that every morning and every evening the herds are being driven out of and back into the villages… and the routes they use are the same ones that cars and trucks use… So there is a massive country-wide traffic jam every day where cars and trucks and cows and sheep and goats and people all try to move through each other on the same narrow roads… And I tell you, the livestock have been specifically bred to be pretty docile and stupid (easy to control by people) and they don’t have a lot of “traffic skills”. Needless to say, driving anywhere during these “commuting” hours is apt to cause “frustration” in anyone used to organized traffic flow! J

And a final point is that, much like Rwanda, there are very few private vehicles in Ethiopia. The usual hoard of motorbikes in the towns are absent as are any larger private vehicles… All traffic is commercial in nature being in the form of trucks with goods or vans and buses with passengers… So the paved roads in the country are for the most part unoccupied… And it’s a mountainous country so again like Rwanda there are some magnificent rides to be had for motorbike riders… though you need to try to avoid the livestock “commute” hours.

 

Putting all those factors together means you end up with the vast majority of the countryside resembling what I imagine Europe in the middle ages would have looked like… Even the stone bridges over the little creeks fit the same general feel…

 

 

There seems to be no Plague or Black Death killing people off, and likewise no oppressive feudal landlords. And the Ethiopians themselves seem generally very happy and friendly to a fault,

,,, so like I say,  “pleasantly medieval”.