Washa Mikael Church

Woke up sick as a dog (again-boo!) but I wanted to do some shopping. Yesterday I asked Jemal, the health teacher who moonlights as a driver, if he was going to be free today and he said he would be available to drive me around but it turns out he was already committed to another family (Tammy, Brent and their new daughter, Helen) at 10:00 to go shopping and to others later. But I figured maybe I could just tag along with them since we both wanted to shop. They said that was fine but all they were really shopping for was a scarf to tie their little girl to their back which they did the hike up to Washa Mikael. I figured I could still buy something quickly and then relax at the base the hike site since I still wasn't feeling well. Yeah, right. No such luck. When they came to pick me up they had already shopped so we drove straight to Washa Mikael and parked. At the base there was another church where a funeral was in progress. All the women outside of the church had their heads wrapped in white scarves and were marching in a procession towards the church, wailing in sadness. After a few moments, we met up with a man who offered to be our guard. He was dressed in an official blue coat and had a rifle slung over his shoulder. Tammy, Brent and I were trying to decide if we should hire him or not. Tammy didn't think it was necessary but I thought if there were guards with guns we might need to be protected at some point. (scary!) But then I remembered this quote from my guide book: "…several tourists have been mugged along the road up, some of them by 'guides' they picked up at the base to avoid such a fate. For this reason, unless you have a 4x4 to drive up in, it would be advisable either to take a guide from town, or to carry nothing of worth stealing to you." So, we had a guard with a gun but was he going to protect us or mug us? And we certainly had items worth stealing- both money and cameras. I was nervous and the passage made Brent nervous so I convinced Jemal to come along. I don't know why having him there made me feel so much safer against a man with a gun but it did. (He really had to be persuaded though. Later I learned it was because he'd already done a 12 mile run that morning!)

So we started up the path and through a graveyard when I decided I better go to the bathroom first. Well the bathroom was located down past where we'd paid so the guard showed me where to go. Jemal followed us part of the way but at some point I didn't see him any longer so I followed the guard to the bathroom by myself. He led me to the 'bathroom' which was a cement building with a tin door. He opened it up and inside were about 10 stalls sectioned off by cement dividers about 5 ft. high. And no toilets. Just a hole in the ground with a small brown wicker basket beside it. It was very dark, with only a few small squares cut into the cement walls where slight slivers of sunlight struggled to shine through. When we stepped inside, aside from the dark, scary cave-like environment, I was hit with the most intense, rank odor of human excrement. Totally disgusting! "Go over there' the guard said to me expressionless as he motioned to one of the stalls. I eyed it as best I could in the dim light. I could see the floor was wet in the one he suggested so I searched the others on that side of the doorway not finding a better choice. It wasn't until that moment that I realized that there was a man in one of the other stalls on the other side. I decided I'd rather not go at all and told the guard, "No, forget it" and took a step backwards to head out the door when my foot landed in the most enormous pile of poop, right there in the middle of the floor! I screamed, completely horrified!!! He laughed at me told me, 'Go' and said he'd watch the door. The other man exited and the guard pulled the door shut behind him leaving me alone inside. It was just me and the foul smell but I realized I had probably suffered the worst of it so I decided to hurry up and finish the process so I could get out of there. When I was done I reached for the door handle and pulled but could not get it open. I yanked and pulled but it was shut tight. I momentarily started to panic. I was locked in and no one knew where I was. It was dark and scary and disgusting and I couldn't get out!!! After what seemed like an eternity, but was probably only about 15 seconds, the guard opened the door. He had in fact locked it from the outside to give me privacy and found my fear to be quite amusing. We rejoined the group where Tammy tied Helen to her back and the six of us headed up the mountain.

I wasn't feeling great to begin with and Ethiopia is already 8000 ft. above sea level, but couple that with a steep grade and the pace of people in better shape that I and let me tell you, it was brutal! My lungs were on fire and I thought my heart was going to beat out of my chest. Tammy's guide book said it should take about 20-25 min to reach the top so after about 30 minutes I asked the guard if we were lost. Jemal translated for him into Amharic and I was told it was taking us a long time because were slow and taking too many breaks! When it was all said and done, it took us about an hour! Here I am posing with Jemal. Tammy conceded that if not for safety's sake, we surely needed the guard for logistics; the path wasn't a path after about 5 minutes and there were no clear route markers. We walked through eucalyptus trees and past crudely constructed shacks, over rocky hills, through wide clearings, past curious children and donkeys with heavy loads on their backs and past women carrying jugs of water to their families. The scenery was beautiful. We finally reached Washa Mikael just as it was beginning to rain. It was hidden behind a fence which another guide pulled back a section of once he checked our ticket stubs to see if we had paid at the base. No one told us someone was going to check for these and both Brent and I had a bit of trouble locating it. Can you imagine if we hadn't found it!? That would have sucked! Anyway, all the effort and exertion was well worth it. Even though it's missing the roof and most of the walls and the interior, you could see where the windows once were and the guide pointed out where the congregation once sat, where the pulpit had been and where the baptismal font once stood.

Washa Mikael is a monolithic church created by the two Ethiopian kings, Ezana and Sayana around 320 A.D. It was excavated from one solid piece of rock and lost its roof in a bombing during the Ethiopia-Italy war. To reach the inside you have to crawl through a tunnel in the rock just slightly wider than the width of an MRI machine but it's only about 8 feet long. The rain added to the mystique and allure of standing inside a structure that has been around for centuries. Truly amazing! The walk down was a breeze (comparatively) and as we were walking down we saw 5 boys running up it past us. We were told that is also an Olympic trail training site. That just added to my feeling of inadequacy, but it was all good. I did it and it was amazing! :-)
Scenes from Washa Mikael