Chapter 5
African Countryside
The central place of Ethiopia is a plateau of a height about 8,000 feet above sea level. For this reason, the country is called the Switzerland of Africa, and its people, as they have never been colonized and are clever and hard-working, with a hard character, are called the Germans of Africa. This plato has various hills, and landscape is beautiful. Around the capital and in the northern part of the country, eucalyptus trees introduced from Australia in the last century are dominating, but to the south, the more arid climate prefers acacia trees. The country is so vast that its then 30 million inhabitants could not fill it completely, and we were driving dozens of miles without seeing anyone. However, it was only appearance, as soon as we stopped the car to take a walk or our breakfast, a small boy was growing out of the ground and was looking at us.
Our first significant excursion led us into the national park on the Awash river. The national park is situated at the deep gorges the river has made in millions of years. The park itself is a stretch of plain, a typical piece of African savanna. The river Awash has a waterfall, and on its banks from Grant’s gazelles to Greater Kudus you can find herbivorous wild beasts. Giraffes and other corpulent beasts are not found there, but in the night you could be aroused by the voice of a lion. They live in the other side of the park over the highway, and almost never can be seen. During the night, especially if there was an international holiday, other voices could also be heard: the cries and laughter of (East-)German experts having drunk their beer quantum.
Our best amusement was in the park to drive slowly by lanes and stop at sighting something, photographing, looking around with binoculars and listen to the almost complete silence. We have seen oryx antelopes, they are my favourite beasts, their beauty represents me the limitless abilities of nature to create wonderful creatures.
Alas, on the road home we had an accident. I was driving at about 50 miles per hour and the road was level, when suddenly I felt my car raise its right-side wheels into the air. We have been in a right curve, steering wheel slightly turned to the right, but neither speed nor sharpness of the turn would prove this reaction of the vehicle. Fortunately, no other car was in our vicinity at that instant. At last, near the right side of the road, the car hit a big stone with its bumper and stopped. But, as the right wheels ran off, the car turned on its right side, all the glasses on that side went out, and it stopped above 8 feet of nothing, supported only by a bush of wild roses.
We were very fortunate, as in some minutes trucks emerged above the hump of the road. It was a military convoy of at least twenty trucks laden with soldiers and ware. They were East-Germans and Ethiopians. They stopped opposite us and a couple of men put the car up by hand. Before we could say a sentence, they sat in their trucks and drove on. We could only wave them off in gratitude.
This accident would slightly change our relationship to driving. My wife would not sit in for about four months. I would have this experience repeated in my dreams for even longer. Later we would drive that stretch of the road again, and I would solve that riddle: the curve has been sloped to the outside. Roadbed might have sunk down and so, geometry of the road has changed. Anyway, my speed never surpassed 40 miles per hour at that road again.