Thursday 17 January 2019

Dire Dawa: In Praise of the Boring - Nothing to See Here

I spent a miserable three days in Harar, "Islam's fourth holy city" according to locals, the first circle of Hell according to me.

Pursued by cries of "Faranjo! faranjo!", latched on to by guide after guide, harrassed by urchins, heckled, pinched, grabbed. The city is full of intriguing alleyways, tiny tree-shaded shrines, brightly painted houses - but I was almost afraid to go anywhere. My heart sank. My energy disappeared. I sat for long hours in the patio of my guesthouse, where a hog-tied sheep awaited the slaughter and cats crouched on the roofs avidly waited their chance of what they knew was coming.

And then I went to Dire Dawa.

Dire Dawa is boring. It's a town that owes its existence to the old Addis-Djibouti Railway, and now, it's been bypassed completely by the new Addis-Djibouti railway (the station is 11km out of town). The settlement is a bare hundred years old. There's nothing much to see here; some markets, old railway sidings. There are no cute guesthouses, though there's a street full of modern five star hotels.

But I loved Dire Dawa. Here I could wander round town, sit in a cafe, order mango juice, drink a few beers. Here I could sit at a local tea stall, chat with people, enjoy life. Here I could go shopping in the market, and as soon as people realised I was buying spice and coffee as well as looking around and taking photos, I'd made friends.

At the church, I found the Nativity Play, episode seven, about to start; the Wise Men visit Herod. Herod in his velvet robes and golden crown was an Ethiopian prince, a young Ras Tafari, a bass-baritone who stamped his part with authority and malice; his chancellor stammered in falsetto, limped, and cringed, and the congregation roared with laughter. (Later, when I met the young man who had played the chancellor, he turned out to have a melodious tenor voice and a firm handshake - nothing like his character.) I was invited to sit with the congregation and share bread, under a huge acacia, as evening shade approached.

Later, there were hymns - but this isn't Hymns Ancient and Modern, this is Hymns Dub and Bass. Out came the big drums, blam, blam, blam, Full-throated, raucous singing. A huge syncopation of the bass drum announced every chorus - ker-dum dum ker-dum. A girl slung one of the drums round her neck, started the beat again, and began to lead her friends round, dancing in a tight circle. Everyone was smiling, grinning, laughing. Their joy was palpable - a vibrant, active joy.

And then to the Samrat Hotel, where the chef prepares authentically Indian meals. For me, pure veg - chana masala, then the next night dal tarka, with curds and rice - in impressively large portions, for a total of about six quid. Authentic deshi food served up by charming Ethiopian waitresses, with iced tea. Happy and full I retired to bed in the rather ancient, but clean, Hotel Mekonnen, to the wails of its resident, very noisy cat.

Next day I found Dini Paradise, a lovely garden by the wadi where its friendly proprietoress mixed me up fresh durian juice and gave me the wifi password, and I watched little yellow birds, and blue starlings, and sacred ibises in the palm trees next door. "There's a pond," she told me, "where the birds fish," though I never got round to finding it.

On the road from the Kefira market running north past Mezjid Alezi, I found a tea stall with two gaily coloured umbrellas under a huge spreading tree, nicely shaded, with a dozen bright yellow and pink stools, half of them already taken by customers. I had tea, tasting of cloves and cinnamon and richly sugared, and when I got up to go, my neighbour had already paid for it. I became a regular at the tea stall; I paid for my own tea now, but the welcome was as warm as the first time.

All the houses here are brightly coloured; pink, lime green, purple, red. One was chequered in black and white; another with purple walls and a bright green door frame. There are buildings redolent of nineteenth century France, but in colours no French architect would ever countenance; one like a town hall, but with a star and crescent where the letters RF would normally be, and an arabic inscription instead of Liberté; Egalité, Fraternité. The streets are wide, shaded by trees; tiny shops like Al-Hashimi Sweets (2 slices of baklava and a Coke for less than half a euro) and Bashanfer Trading (big bags of Harar coffee) have dim interiors, where you think you're stepping back in time, even though in fact Al-Hashimi had a makeover five or six years back.

In Mekonnen Hotel, I was introduced to the proprietor, a slight and charming man who, it turned out, had worked in India for many years, in Delhi and in Agra. We traded stories of India over cups of tea in the corner of the Mekonnen Bar, and laughed at the cat's importuning the customers for scraps.

Dire Dawa brought me luck; I met a British train driver who was visiting the yards here, and tagged along. Huge metalworking lathes gleam in the dim train shed - they make all their own spares here - and the old locos with their wagons wait in the sidings. We saw the blueprints for all the locos back to 1901, saw the civil engineering diagrams for the bridges on the line, jumped in the carriages and cabs. French is still the working language of this railway, though nowadays Amharic is increasingly used; and the trains, discontinued in 2007, have started again, though they only run to the border, and not to Djibouti any longer.

At four in the morning, I heard the long sad moan of the train's klaxon from my hotel room and thought of the passengers setting out for their villages in the bush.

Dire Dawa then; move along now, nothing at all to see. Which is, perhaps, why I loved it so much.

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