Chapter 4
Arrival of the Family
The car has been repaired, its price paid, and I managed to get my plate before the family arrived. My wife talked me later about their preparations for the trip. Besides, we have sent some letters to each other by travellers.
In the school it had been an everyday topic that Joe, my son, would go to Africa. Both sympathy and envy did their job, but at last the schoolyear would be finished and he was taken from the school. My wife purchased all the text-books he would have needed the next year at home and it would prove a very useful thing. He would sit an ordinary examination during our holiday, to be able to keep up with his school-mates.
My wife had also arranged her unpaid leave for the period of the mission. They both took their vaccinations, my son was said to be very brave at it for an 8-year-old boy.
During their last weeks she arranged the supervision of our flat by his brother. Alas, she would not suppose his actions to use our home for his dates. When I would suggest it during our holiday, she would name me a fool, but later she herself would find proofs.
A short time before they could leave, there was a visitor with them. The elder daughter of our German friends had applied for a study in the Szeged university and that autumn she would start it. She arrived in July and was to stay in a college in the capital for a briefing course, before going on to her place. They had no trouble with communication, as she had learned our language at home. She spent only one night with them and went to the college.
The arrival of the newcomers has been well arranged. My close colleague, Thomas, whose wife had come two weeks before, helped me with his car of the same make, only yellow, while mine has been white.
At furnishing the two rooms, I did not forget to secure a separate room for my child. Life abroad involved having guests frequently, and he must have had his place to be alone in those cases. We arranged things so that our bedroom has been simultaneously the sitting room with a sofa and arm-chairs, while in his room we could sit down with guests during day for a meal.
My wife’s next day was for introducing her to everybody. With my family there arrived also the doctors D., George and Elizabeth. He was a gynaecologist -- specialist for women’s diseases --, she a dermatologist, her specialty was leprosy. As our block of apartments was across the road to the hotel, where they stayed, they were frequent guests with us, even they behaved patronizingly to our direction. We helped them in many respects, e.g. getting acquainted with the town. As I knew every corner there, first they admired me, but later envy did its work well, and they avoided taking my advice when possible.
Beside them we had no friends-compatriots. Our best friends have been my Ethiopian boss and his family.
The rainy season has ended at the end of August and the weather began to cool down. During night temperature has not been much above freezing and the last precipitations of the rainy season has been snow on top of the surrounding mountains. In the clear thin air not only the colour turned blue on slides shot without a UV filter, the semicircle of the Entoto mountains looked 3 miles away, when they were actually in 15 miles. On top of the mountains snow remained for two days visible.
In our flat the temperature has always been around 62 degrees F and we were cold all the time. We could be warm only under our covers. Even that was hard for me, as we did not take too much rugs with us. Well, we had been heading for Africa. I gave the majority to my wife. My problem was solved in October, when we at last got our carpets. The eight-foot runner became my cover and at last I stopped being cold.
With the dry season there came another plague, fleas. Twice we have been attacked by a mass of them. Our defence method has been developed that time, to shake them off our cloths into the bathtub. From the sides of it they would always fall back at their jumps and then, what was needed, was only a hot shower.
The first days after the arrival of my family I spent by looking for a suitable school for my son. The English school had originally been a good school of the British system, with British teachers. It has been a British missionary school. After takeover the Menghistu regime nationalized it and by our time all its teachers were locals.
We wanted something better, if possible, something, that could have a continuity at home. The best choice seemed the French school. It has been owned by the French state. Alas, the schoolmaster of the lower section, although he accepted me friendly, convinced me about its senselessness in our case. He told me, as my son did not speak French, he would be pressed to learn the language in one year. By the hard style of his teachers he forecast that the boy would hate the language, and in the second year resistance of my son would make it necessary for me to begin from start somewhere else.
My next try has been the school of the West-German embassy. It fell out because of lack of his understanding German. Then I went to the Soviet embassy. Its first secretary received me with pleasure and accepted my son. I met his would-be form-master, a fascinating lady, wife of an officer, who had been a teacher for 20 years.
Alas, two circumstances made it impossible to let my son finish his studies there. First, he was sent into first grade, because he did not speak Russian, instead of third. In the third grade he could have learned their language as well. Second, after one month, his teacher left with her husband for a two-month holiday. Her replacement was a true Russian girl, conceited, aggressive and nationalist. My son was suffering and after a month, at the autumn school break for the Great October Revolution, I took him out and told both the teacher and the first secretary – the former was content to have got rid of my son, the latter actually sorry for losing a boy from a country of the Eastern Bloc – about my decision.
His short stay at that school saw him meet Soviet Prime Minister Mr Kosygin, who was on an official visit there. It was only one of his encounters of that kind. A year later our Head of State Mr Losonczy would take his wife on the visit there and my son would fall in the four children to hand over flower bunches to the two Hungarian and two Ethiopian celebrities. My son would be selected to hand his flower to the wife of Menghistu. The Ethiopian Head of State wanted to take his flower, but he put it behind himself, and waited, until the lady came near to give her the bunch.
Later, when his original teacher would come back, we would meet her in a shop, and they would visit us at home. I could see then, how great a pity her leaving had been. To ensure his correct education, my wife took her text-books and began to teach her son every day. At home he would sit for an examination all right.
The first three months after the arrival of my family was a transition period at my work. Both experts, assigned to the state company National Road Transport Corporation (NATRACOR) by the ministry, were a surprise gift for the firm. The General Manager -- as with all state companies and authorities -- was a military man. The military junta, also called The Supreme Council, would not let the country managed by technocrats, they seated their people to the top positions. The General Manager of NATRACOR was called the Colonel. He had got his education in the U.S.A., but still, he was considered reliable.
The biggest unit of the trust (FTO, Freight Transport Organization) operated about 1,000 trucks and trailers, a small minority of them tractors with semitrailers. Its maintenance plants at that time were insufficient, and the FIAT company had prepared a project to build a proper site beside the road to Dire Dawa, east of the capital.
We had heard about the project and convinced the director, a well educated technical man, that we could adapt it to the actual needs and possibilities of the company. We did it in three weeks. Also fulfilled a NATRACOR-task to prepare the tender for 50 new buses for the capital.
At that time another branch of NATRACOR, the Ambassa Bus Company (ambassa means lion in Amharic) did its job beside the few old FIAT, Mercedes and other buses by 50 Hungarian Ikarus ones. The Ikarus company kept a representative at the bus repair shop, and the vehicles were kept in a good condition. The company was keen to buy new Ikarus buses, but had to issue a tender. It was our task with Thomas to prepare it, and we would not cheat our national interests. The tender was written for Ikaruses in all parameters, but alas, in vain. Our embassy’s commercial counsellor went to make an excursion during the day, when the applications on the tender were opened. All of them contained a clause about third-country bank guarantee. On request of the Supreme Council, all competitors withdrew that clause, only our person in charge was not available. Thus, FIAT buses have been selected.
After completion of the above tasks, I went to the technical manager of FTO, Ato Bekele B., and convinced him to accept me for the preparation of common maintenance instructions for their trucks of four different makes. He liked my ideas at once, and I set myself on the task. For months I was doing it and when finished, I helped to publish it in a printed form.
On base of our contribution, construction work on the maintenance plant has been launched. A second repair plant in the port town of Assab came into account, and Bekele wanted me to come with him for a check of the site. It would realize in January.
With Bekele I had a very good connection, we appreciated each other. For this reason I became acquainted with the history of the country. I give a short account of it in the following together with some important local customs.
The area of the country is tremendous, it is nearly as large as the territory in the U.S. east of the Mississippi river. That means thirty time the area of Hungary. Its population then, when I was living there, was only three times as high as ours (thirty million people), but since that time, in spite of the war going on for twenty years, it has grown by fifty percent, not so the available food, for the same reason it went down sharply. The Ethiopian economy was counted the fifth bad one in the world twenty years ago, at present they are the last-but-one in that list. In spite of this sad truth, let me say something general about values: the present grade of importance of a country or a nation is not the same as their influence having made on human civilisation in the past.
When I was a child fifty years ago, the oldest ancient ancestor of man used to be considered the pre-hominid creature of Peking with his half a million years. It has become accepted theory since that those regions had meant a dead-end for the ancient man, although he had made a detour to Asia on route from Africa to Europe, but he originated in Africa and his main activities have been performed here. We could say, we have come from Ethiopia, as the finds there are nearly 4 million years old, only Kenya and South-Africa can boast with similar. We have visited one of those archaeological sites, it is not far from the capital at the settlement Melka Konture, on the bank of the river Awash. About a hundred places exist in the country, where you could find stone tools, made of obsidian, lava or quartz, or where you could search for drawings in caves and could photograph, if the infrastructure were satisfactory. During my stay there, there existed something like that, although because of the military government only "better people" could move around. Maybe, now anybody is allowed to do that, although I have doubts, but without means it is impossible in a wild country.
Let's make a step forward from ancient times to antiquity and see who the Amhara people are that are representing the core of Ethiopians, and how their language and script sprang into life. Everything began with Sheba, its probable place might have lain within the area of today's Yemen, somewhere around Sanaa. According to legend the King of Israel, who was at that time Solomon, was so famous for his wisdom that the Queen of Sheba went to see him with a large caravan. As the king solved the three riddles the queen put to him, he was considered worth for a nearer contact. The people of Sheba had already been looking across the Straits of Aden, and they crossed it actually, and began to populate the western side of the Red Sea. When the son of the queen was born, with the help of whom the ancient Ethiopian kings traced their origin back to King Solomon, he was one of them to leave the old home country. The ever growing Sheban population built several settlements, as they had had the knowledge to do that, and these had made the ground for the foundation of the Aksum (it isn't written to Axum) Empire. Their harbour has been Adoulis somewhere between today's Assab and Djibouti. Aksum has been the largest town, the country became an empire only 400 years after its populating, i.e. around 500 B.C. That first king stated to originate from King Solomon took the name of Menelik I. However Aksum today is no more than an archaeological digging site, the remains of buildings discovered there prove the vastness of its culture in its own time. Stelae (characteristic stone obelisques) have been erected, the highest of them is still upright, its height is 70 feet. Besides that ancient people has built churches and palaces with walls of solid stone, even today there are more than ten of them in the town. The place lies to the North-east from Addis Ababa.
People had originally spoken the Shaaba language that was a Semite tongue, the characters of its script are similar to Phoenician. With the passing of time the influence of Alexander the Great has found its way, the Greek language has also been widely spoken in the empire. The Shaaban language slowly turned into Ghahez, then the present Amharic. The country has not been isolated, they issued coins, traded, they have got as far as India. Aksum coins as recent as the 3rd century AD have been found in Asia. This trade has made its contribution to that Christianity began to spread in the second century already, whereas people has kept their old gods too. Christian belief became dominating only in the 4th century. The empire took only a small part of present day Ethiopia, the mountainous land to North-east of the present capital. At the same time, its influence has covered also the southern inhabitants, the language of those living around the southern lakes can also be traced back to Ghahez. As the Amharic language has been developing the letters having stood for an only consonant earlier fell into variants. Every one of them stands now not only for a sound, but a syllable. For this reason writing is more complicated than with Latin letters.
The fate of empires generally is that there are some people who don't like them, for this reason the two parties start a fight that finally destroys the bare living of their citizens, consequently the empire disintegrates. The monarchs of Aksum, beside fighting and conquering the peoples of territories that make up today Ethiopia, Sudan and Somalia, even crossed the Red Sea and ventured into Southern Arabia. That excursion happened during a king named Khaleb in the 6th century. Christianity has been taken to the country by two young Syrians, we know them by the names of Frumentius és Aedesius (Latin script). They were sailing on the Red Sea and their master was killed by locals when landed. The boys have been taken to Aksum, to the king. He must have been a clever man as the talented boys he placed in high offices. Frumentius became the young successor's teacher when his father, the king died, the young monarch has taken Christianity and founded the first Christian church in the country. After some more years later he was sent in mission to the official Coptic patriarch in Egypt, with the job to ask him to send a bishop to his country. The patriarch named him bishop and sent him back. He has become the Bishop of Aksum. The young monarch's name was Ezana, he is famous for his coins, the first ones to leave the traditional symbol of sun and moon, and introducing the cross instead.
I have mentioned that empires disintegrate because of wars. It happened with Aksum too. The country has still been able to survive that it took an active role in the creation of the Islam, the king gave refuge to people who were fleeing across the Red Sea from Arabic monarchs not very kind to the new belief that time yet. Among the refugees were the daughter of Muhammad and one of his would-be wives. The prophet sent them to King Armah being Aksum's monarch because Ethiopia "is the land of justice, where nobody is badly treated". The Arabic monarch demanded that the refugees be sent back to him, but the King of Aksum denied it, telling that he would have never gave it out for any price who had run to him. Later, when his principles had become victorious in Mecca, the prophet got back all his one hundred followers as well as his two relatives, and he gave the instruction to his believers that Abessinia they should always leave in peace.
But the empire has not been able to survive that it had to fight all the time the Beghas of Sudan and the Arabs invading its seashore. The country lost all its strength. The last two kings, Gharsem and Hataz corrupted even minting, their coins have not been worth their value. The weakening of the power has been mounted also by the inner discontented. There has lived a princess called Judith, who revolted against the Aksum ruler. She conquered and destroyed not only Aksum, but had the Princes of Aksum killed, although those young nobles had themselves been prisoners in a fortress at Debra Damo for a long time, preventing that way a counter-revolt from their part on their right of origin. The church had been able to take advantage of the downturn during the following period, as people turned to the spiritual world of religion. Wonderful churches have been built in large caves or hewn into facades of rocks. Very few other places of the world can boast with similar relics. But even more unique churches have been created. They have been hewn out of bedrock downward, then tunnels were bored for access. There are at least thirty places in the country with such churches, the number of churches is even higher.
Following the reign of this fighting amazon usurpers have had their way, who could only have occupied and ruled limited parts of the whole country. One of the families had been the Zagve dynasty, whose members had ruled to the South of Aksum, in Roha, that place is called Lalibela today after King Lalibela, the most famous monarch of them. As legend says, King Lalibela and his men had been helped by angels in his large work of carving out the temples. As much they did during day, the angels hewed twice as much during night. The period of rule of this dynasty had lasted almost three hundred years, its last member had resigned to hand over the rule to a prince that had once more been able to trace back his origin to King Solomon. The following period can be considered a great success from the point of view of religion and books, but just the opposite can be said about economy. Money had ceased to function, salt had taken its place in the trade. Construction of temples and palaces had had no sense, as the king had always been in motion, he hadn't built any capital for himself. Religion had another source of advantage at that time. As Bishop Tekla Haimanot had helped the king get the throne, the new king had been grateful and had let him everything do. A tremendous religious success had also been, when Sultan Saladin allowed for the Ethiopian Church to build a temple in Jerusalem. However, it could only come true during the reign of Menelik II, about 700 years later, in the 19th century.
Although Ibn Battuta, the well known Arab traveller made a trip to Ethiopia in the 14th century, and also an Italian had happened to get there, he had even seen the inside of the country, the new government moving slowly to the present capital's place could deal with its own matters, it had not been much bothered from abroad. The vacuum of power during the Middle Ages that made it possible even for the smallest European countries, such as Portugal, to grow into a colonising power, had not been unkind also to Abessinia. The problems started later, when the small countries turned into invaders, the country had had clashes with the Portugese. They stepped in the life of Ethiopia during the inside feud in the 16th century. In the15th century the central kingdom still could deal with the discontented. A hundred years later, however, the eastern Hararghe region with Harar as its seat just like today, had two successive rulers who made the authority of the central kings questionable. Gragn was the first of them, and he occupied the whole country. But the next central king defeated him, and here come the Portuguese in.
At the beginning of the 16th century Ethiopia and Portugal had established a contact, according to the desire of the Ethiopians even a Portuguese embassy had been existing for some years in their country, but it had passed. However, when King Galodewos attacked Gragn, the son of Vasco da Gama, Cristophoro landed in the country, stood beside the king with weapons and soldiers and helped him defeat the man of Harar around today's Gondar. His victory had not been a lasting one, the successor of Gragn destroyed him too. Nur emir, he was the successor, has made Harar great. The irony of fate is that in the 20th century once more a Harar ras, Tafari Makonnen acquired the leading of the country, I am to tell you more about that. Otherwise the attack of Gragn made again wrong to the country, it became quite poor. The Portuguese wanted to deploy their usual tactic of converting the population to the Catholic religion, but they haven't succeeded, King Galodewos has written his Declaration of Belief, in which he retained the Coptic Christianity. These attempts have been dragging until the second half of 17th century, when at last King Fasciladas ousted the Jeshuits. Anyway, you can see a lot of traces of the Portugese influence around Lake Tana even now.
Fasciladas has founded Gondar at the north side of Lake Tana. Until the 19th and 20th centuries it has been the most important centre in history. Numerous large stone buildings have been built, a large part of them can be seen today. Gondar has been the capital of the country for more than two hundred years. Its population at that time was over 100,000. But after the middle of the 18th century the central power has again become weak and there followed the "mesafint" period, the age of the princes. It is a very interesting epoch, and can be compared to the age of civil anarchy in France during Louis XIII. The three most powerful princes had been Ali of Godjam, Wube of Tigrai and Sahle Selassie of Shoa. The latter ruled the territory around the present capital, his seat had been Ancober that is to the North of Addis Ababa at about 60 miles. He made his country strong and accepted the missions of England and France around the middle of the 19th century. He imported firearms. His grandson was Menelik II, who has unified the country at the end of the same century. Of course, Sahle Selassie and his successor, Kassa has done theirs in this respect. Kassa has tried unification mainly by arms, but his results were partial. He has learned from missionaries how to produce guns, and he has sent people abroad with the job to learn everything about the manufacturing of firearms. He has reorganised military, so as soldiers have been able to live without plundering.
Kassa has been able to defeat his greatest competitor, Ali, and with it the age of the princes has ended, and he has been crowned king under the name of Thewodros II, but he lost at last. He made the British angry by the arrest of their consul. The British forces sent against him were led by a general, Sir Robert Napier, and when the British captured the mountain fortress of Maghdala, the monarch committed suicide. His successor became Yohannes IV in the job of uniting the country, who has come from Tigrai, with the seat of Makalle. He had other concerns beside unification too, such as outside enemy like the Mahdists from Sudan, as well as Italians, who put their foot inside Eritrea. As he didn't take part in the fight during his predecessor, the British helped him against the Italians by arms and training his men. The Italians were defeated by one of his commanders, against the Mahdists he fought himself and won, but in the fight he died too.
That was the beginning for the activity of Menelik II. His career hadn't started well, after his father's death he was unable to sit on the throne of Shoa, to that time Thewodros had seized the rule and had Menelik lock away in Magdala. The captive managed to escape and he declared himself King of Shoa. He liked the plans of Thewodros to unify the country, he went on the import of arms, and reorganised administration in his own territory. He revived diplomatic relations with the powerful partner countries. His job of keeping his country on the road of independence hasn't been simple, as he had to sign the Treaty of Wuchale with the Italians following his rising to the throne in 1889, after the death of Yohannes, and it also contained a clause about a de facto protectorate. The disputes led to war that ended with the victory of Ethiopians almost one and a half year later. The Italian have been better in artillery, and the Ethiopians have had six times as many people. The deciding battle has been fought at Adwa. Italy let the question of protectorate pass and permanent embassies have been established in the capital by Italy, France, Britain and Russia. These missions are at the same place today, on large sites, amid giant eucalyptus trees.
Rases (local monarchs) taking part in the Battle of Adwa lent their names to the streets and squares of today's Addis Ababa, the battle itself is included in the name of the shopping street. It was Menelik who founded the capital instead of his former seat at Ancober. Addis Ababa means new flower, it has been given by the queen, Taitu. Its first significant building was the Roman Catholic Mission founded in 1868, which had been situated where the hospital can be found at present. The spot had thermal springs at that time. Before finding the final place for his capital Menelik erected a palace and two temples at the height of the Entoto mountain, about six miles to the North. The churches are intact today and can be visited. The Entoto has not been an ideal place in spite of the fine strategic advantages, for this reason he moved to the present site in 1887. The old palace has been constructed on one of the two highest hills inside the capital, Menghistu built his new fortified residence on the place of it. The capital has reached the 100,000 inhabitants soon. In the palace a lot of fine works of foreign masters have been incorporated. The palace soon became surrounded by the mansions of the rases, who kept these residences in the royal court, while they spent most of their time at home in the provinces. The other hill gave the site for the most important church of the country, the Cathedral of St. George. It is still there in all its beauties, but another big building has been constructed nearby, the Municipality.
Menelik has succeeded in finishing the great job of unifying the country. He extended the territory of Shoa on several present regions already during the reign of his predecessor, Yohannes, to the West and East, as well as to the South. In 1889 he became the Emperor. His empire has reached its maximum size to 1898, but it didn't cover Eritrea being an Italian colony then. It goes without saying, the principal means of unification has been military might, but family connections have also been useful. Thus the vast cultural treasure, varied and different in many ways, which has been created in regions of identical religious and linguistic areas that all the same had so many deviations, has got into the borders of one country. The country, or you can say it was again an empire, became step-by-step the same as it had been before its disintegration: it could keep up with the development of the world. In place of the original forests thinned by people eucalyptus trees have been planted, the first tree have even got a name, it has been Bahar Zaf. A new money has been issued, these coins became known as Menelik dollars. The government has printed its own mail stamps. The first car reached Addis Ababa in 1907. Telegraph machines have been installed. The railway line between Addis Ababa and Dire Dawa has been laid, it has been functioning until now, only its outer end is at Djibouti for a long time. To build that line, it has been necessary to construct several bridges, it was then that the first bridge over the river Awash was built. The National Bank has been founded.
Menelik died in 1913. He was followed by his grandson on the throne, but only for a short time, because he had to resign for general discontent, and the new Emperor (or rather Empress) became princess Zauditu, Menelik's daughter in 1917. The following period is not completely transparent, as the next emperor began already make his road smooth. Tafari Makonnen has been the son of the Harar governor, who was 14 years old in 1906, when he followed his father at his death. Simultaneously with the crowning of princess Zauditu he has got the title Heir to the Throne. As the ras of Harar, he let the world already sense his importance, he developed the diplomatic relations with Europe, and it was he who achieved that Ethiopia joined the League of Nations in 1924. During his European trip he regained the Crown of Thewodros, which had been the booty of the British at Magdala. He signed a treaty with Italy and, although he has been no monarch yet, he has got the title Negus (king). He became emperor in 1930, after the death of Zauditu. What is more widely known is that he became emperor twice, first in 1930, then again during World War II, when he could return with the British-American assistance. But it is less known that in 1936 he was not running before the Italians, but he fled the uprising of his own people, the invading foreign troops reached the capital only 10 days after he left.
Of course, Italians have been no institution of mercy. They had signed the treaty only to have an excuse for the occupation of the country, beside Italian Somalia (the southern part of present Somalia) and Eritrea being already under their domination, they had invaded also Ogaden, even they had been demanding an apology from Ethiopia. The French and the British had only been covering up all this under the name of neutrality. The general prohibition on arms trade had been hard only for Ethiopia, Italy manufactured its own weapons. Even the League of Nations was adapting this practice, as the trade embargo against Italy, after his attack on Ethiopia, was not covering petrol, the only product in Italy's import list. Italians have used all means during their progress to the capital.
After the escape of the emperor people have not been too hostile to Italian occupying troops, but it has only been an unstable peace. During a celebrati