I rode
away from Lalibela on Sunday morning after mass was completed… Not that I
attended the services but I rode out of town as all the white clad people were
returning to their homes along the roadside. It took me a couple of hours to
negotiate the windy and muddy road (it had rained heavily during the night)
back to the paved road 65Km away… Along the way I had a few interactions with
some of the local kids…
There is
a bad reputation in Ethiopia for motorbike tourers being stoned… The kids throw
rocks at you for their own entertainment. I had so far pretty much avoided this
problem… Id found that in about 75% of cases I could disarm the situation
fairly easily. I found it was usually pretty easy to spot which kids along the
roadside were going to have a shot at you by watching their movements… I pretty
much always see them before they see me coming and when they do see me then
their first reactions are pretty telling… If they reach down to pick up a stone
or cock their wrist just so then you know you could have a problem… and its
usually about 30m before you get to them… I found that rather than getting
stoned and shaking my fist at them after the fact, that if I pre-emptively wave
my hand at them in a friendly interactive manner as soon as I see them starting
to make the wrong moves, that it tends to stop them mid-motion, and after about
a second (you can almost see their mental processes in motion J) they usually change their tune and
enthusiastically wave back as I ride by waving J… The only problem is that you end up with a very
tired arm from all the waving at all the kids
(and adults… though I never see them throwing stones) in all the little
towns along the way.
But its
almost never kids in towns that are the problem… there are adults around in the
towns and I get the distinct impression that they keep the kids pretty well in
line! No, its out in the countryside away from the towns where the kids are
spending their whole days just keeping the family herd of sheep or goats from
wandering away… The kids understandably get very bored and find ways to amuse
themselves… And passing cars are a definite source of entertainment. Many of
the kids see a car coming and do some sort of dance and pull silly faces at you
etc; looking for a response from the driver etc. Some of the kids pretend to
throw a rock or swing a stick at you but they are usually just pretending…
again looking for a reaction from the driver. But, out in the country on the
back roads where a few kids get together, and the road has a tight curve or a
high rise on one side overlooking the road and the cars have to really slow
down… That’s where the real problems are… And throwing rocks at cars with the
people all hidden and protected inside is far less entertaining than throwing
them at the exposed riders of motorbikes…
And so I
had a couple of incidents where there were a half dozen kids of age 7-14 who
had developed some bad group habits. The first group were on a corner and my
waving trick didn’t help much… Probably about 3 of the group decided to throw
their stones anyway… and two missed but one hit me right in the hip… It was a
good sized stone too (about 5cm in diameter) and though it didn’t really hurt
me through my riding gear it could well have caused a real accident if it hit a
different spot. So, I stopped the bike as quick as I could in the road… which
is pretty slow with the big bike and the slippery dirt road even though I was
going slowly. And of course as soon as I start doing this the kids know whats
going to happen and scatter off down the hillside and into the bushes… There
are of course no fences anywhere to slow them down or obstruct their escape. By
the time Im standing where they were throwing the stones, the last of them is disappearing
into bushes about 30m down the hill.
Now Im
pretty mad of course and there is not much I can do but I have a bit of a shout
(which Im sure they are used to J) and hang around for about a
minute trying to decide what to do… there are absolutely no adults anywhere
around and even if there were they don’t speak any English (in fact the kids
all speak it better than the adults because they learn some in school). And the
nearest town is several Km away… Shouting and raging is exactly what the kids
want from me too. I look at their goats and consider kidnapping (again excuse
the pun J) a little one and taking it to
the next village… but the goats can easily avoid me clumsily walking over the
ragged ground in my riding gear… So in the end I settle for taking their few
possessions that are laying around… one pair of sandals, three sticks, five
open sided tough plastic bags (used as rain hoods) and a couple of hand-made
nylon rope slings (for throwing the stones… actually quite the lethal weapon
when used well… ask Goliath of David and Goliath fame!). I shout at the kids
that Im taking their stuff and I get back on the bike and ride off again
slowly.
I ride
through the next village and stop in the one after that. I stop in the road
where there are a few adults and kids about (not close to me though) and I say
in a loud but not shouted voice, to no one in particular, that I took these
things from kids throwing stones at me back up the road. I dump the stuff on
the side of the road and then I resume my ride quietly out of town.
I hope
that the kids may have learned that there are some consequences, and I hope
that the adults do some disciplining… perhaps after the kids have to explain
why they don’t have their sandals or rain coats to their parents… But I think
what is actually the more likely lesson they learned is that when they throw
stones next time, they will make sure they have all their stuff in hand and
ready to take with them when they run!... Oh well, what can you do… I did the
best that I could.
Then I
had the problem again about 15 Km further down the road… This time there was a
steep cliff overlooking a tight bend in the road… and there were about 20 kids
and I could see it was going to be a real problem… So, I rode up very slowly
and waved very nicely and came to a stop right at the corner… And this was not
expected and many of the kids stopped and watched with interest… But of course
there were some of the kids that still wanted their fun and so they all backed
off from the road and a few threw their stones from a safe range… Again most
missed. I shouted up to them but not quite in the same ragingway as last time…
this time I tried a different tactic (since they could all just pelt me from
the high ground and there was literally nothing I could do about it… I hoped
that they might understand some English and I attempted to use shame and
ridicule and national pride and manly honour… I shouted Is this how brave you are
Where is the man here What cowards… What
shame for Ethiopia! What honour do you have What would your Fathers say etc…. I
didn’t rage and I diddnt shake my fists or throw stones back… I just used a
loud authoritative voice and simple words…And though it had little effect on
the smaller boys, I was surprised to see that a couple of the older boys (15yo
or so) had clearly heard and understood and they started shouting at the
younger boys to stop and threw the odd stone at them… Still a few more stones were
sailing my way and one hit me square on the helmet (didn’t hurt at all of
course). It wasn’t really going to stop and one of the older boys was telling
me to just go while he threw another rock at the boys and shouted at them, so I
did as asked and rode slowly off around the bend and out of range as the last
of the rocks missed their mark… I think I did better this time and I was amazed
that my remarks had made at least some difference…
But that
was the last of that problem for the day. I reached the highway and headed on
toward the next stop.
