Gonder Diary: Haile and the Hatefuls

The legacy of Italy’s attempt at colonization in Ethiopia is pizza, pasta and macchiatos – a delightful diversion when one is fed up (literally and figuratively) with injera. I spot the only tourists I’ve seen while devouring a pizza of epic proportions in Gonder. Feeling expansive after several bottles of St. George beer, I invite them to join me to hear traditional music that night. I regret this decision when they begin a litany of complaints about various countries they’ve toured during their ten-month trip. The tirade includes schiesty guides, terrible weather and pepperoni pizzas gone wrong. I instantly hate them. They are appallingly rude and disrespectful to the locals and I wonder how they have made it this far in life without being eviscerated by a scimitar.

Later, I convince Haile, a lovely guide who has befriended me, to join me in taking the Hatefuls out on the town. Despite his deep dislike of the Hatefuls, Haile is too polite and too sweet to leave me stranded. When we arrive, the Hatefuls and I are the only faranji in a joint crowded with locals. In the center of the room, a man plays the masenko and is accompanied in song by a woman in a long, gauzy white dress. Like many of the Ethiopian women I’ve seen, she is lithe and bird-boned - effortlessly glamorous and stunningly beautiful. A boy drums a hypnotic beat and the woman begins to dance – a controlled and sensual shrugging of shoulders, a saucy toss of the head. She is singing a story and the crowd laughs and feeds her with lines, which she laces into her song. One by one, people come forward with an offering, placing a 10 birr note on her forehead to show their approval. Those who do not get a gentle (or not-so-gentle) ribbing.

I follow the others with my own offering, and the singer turns to me. Haile translates as she sings verse that could be lifted from a modern day Song of Songs:

You dance like a dove,
You walk like a British queen.
You are sweeter than French perfume.
Your radiant smile makes me long for America.
Your breasts are like oranges,
Why has no one plucked them?

Hell’s yeah! Finally – someone who understands me. Puffed up with $1.15 worth of compliments, I succumb to public humiliation by joining this lovely creature in dance. The crowd cheers in approval. Suddenly, I am shrugging my shoulders like a mad woman. The spell is broken – it turns out that I dance more like a pelican than a dove, but the singer is too lovely to weave that into her song.