. . . Chahr Shanbeh Souri five times superfast?

Just kidding. Seriously, this is cool, give it a read. Cool pictures, eh? Some aspects of traditional religion never die, even in Islam.

. . . on Noah, whose blog is a must read, but we made a similar observation two days ago.

. . . is it good public policy to have mercenaries running peacekeeping missions? Sounds more like a very unpleasant self-fulfilling prophecy to me.

. . . in not posting about my experience in Ethiopia and for that I am very sorry. Life threw me a series of curve balls when I arrived home and I've been trying to bat them out of the park since.

Regardless, this article I just read, which describes how the US has now added Eritrea to it's "blacklist," including countries like Belarus, China, Cuba, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea and Zimbabwe is an outrage. Is Eritrea perfect? Not by a long shot, but it's no different than Ethiopia. Ethiopian behavior along the armistice line is just as arbitrary and abusive as that of Eritrea. The reason it's more noticed in Eritrea is that the whole country is virtually a war-zone, unlike Ethiopia, which is twice the size of Texas.

This is so stupid and counter-productive I don't even know where to begin. All this will do is inflame tensions and make Eritrea's president Isaias Afwerki even more recklessly paranoid than he already is. Do we want a war between Ethiopia and Eritrea? Adding Eritrea to that list might just get us one.

The Wife and I spent the day at two of San Antonio's five missions (if you included the Alamo, which was once originally a mission too).

Sometimes I forget, or take for granted, how much culture, or rather, cultura, San Antonio has.

I'm as hard as the next person on my hometown and yet we have some real gems here in town, some of which are almost older than any other building on the continent.

I should take advantage of what home has to offer more often, especially on a day like today.

Foreign aid is not just some ephemeral number politicians pull out of thin air. It really means something; a small increase can save thousands of lives, and a smaller decrease can wreck even more. It matters most in the poorest countries on the planet, like Ethiopia, which I was able to visit early this year.

Having visited and seen the crushing poverty I can imagine, quite easily, the story Nicholas Kristof tells today in the Times. So that you and I can save a buck-fifteen in taxes this year means that women like Simeesh Segaye will continue to live in shame simply because she got pregnant and had complications.

Perhaps she lived in a village like this or a place like this or perhaps she was once like this girl.

Meanwhile, most of our foreign aid goes to Egypt and Israel so they can engorge themselves on arms that we sell. Some foreign aid, yeah?

And Simeesh's family has to sell everything it owns just to pay for her ride to the hospital.

Michael Gordon works his stenographic magic today to the tune of Somalia, Sweet Somalia. The whole article is nothing but a paean to PWNs^*. For instance:

Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, declined to discuss details of the American operation, but some officials agreed to provide specifics because they saw it as a relative success story.

It hasn't been a success story. Not remotely. Somalia is rapidly returning to its pre-ICU disorder. Puntland and Somaliland are still de facto independent, the US cannot decisively prove it killed even one important 'al Qaeda' terrorist and violence in Mogadishu increases daily. Lastly, the task of putting together a 'Peacekeeping Force' for Somalia is a bad joke.

However, if judged by Iraqi standards, well then, Somalia is a success story. We don't need any more of those, do we?

^* PWN: people without names.

Justin Bergman on Thursday wrote an article for the AP about Eritrea and Ethiopia and the possibilities of a new war between the two. In the article he cites a report put out by new UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon that says, "that another war could break out between feuding neighbors Ethiopia and Eritrea if progress is not urgently made on a stalled peace process."

I cannot find the report on the UN website. Can someone help?

I've been working on a deadline. All will return to normal tomorrow.

I managed to save the photos, all 791 of them. (Thanks Jimbo!)

If you wish to view them, click here. Some have comments, most do not. The trip I made was the northern historical circuit.

I wish I had made it to the south, also Eritrea and Djibouti; but time and distance are totally relative in Ethiopia, as I assume they are in the rest of Africa.

Next time.

Nota bene: If you can identify any of the multiple bird species I have photographed, please feel free to leave a comment, or email me. Also, if you have a favorite, let me know. I'm always curious to know what moves others, as opposed to what moves me. And with 791 pics, there should be something for everyone.

( ~click on photo for full size~) As I drove further north into the Tigray region, closer and closer to Axum I saw more and more Soviet equipment lying on the roadside. Some tanks had their turrets blown off, as far as 30 yards away. Others were riddled with bullet holes. I asked several people, "which war were they from, the rebellion against the Derg (communists) or the civil war with the Eritreans?"

They usually replied, "both, they were largely the same."

I still don't know enough to say with any degree of certainty. But, what I do know is that millions of dollars sit on the roadsides of Ethiopia, the rusted hulls of BMPs and tanks everywhere. They represent an opportunity cost almost incalculable for Ethiopians. Then again, for the men missing legs, arms and hands that I saw they represent a loss of a different kind.

( ~click on photo for full size~)

I know there has been a huge debate about Jesus Christ's true nature in the past. Wars have been waged. Purges have been conducted.

I've often wondered myself.

No, I am not talking about whether Jesus was all Divine, or part Divine, or part man, part Spirit or part Divine.

Just in case you were wondering, I have proof now that Jesus was black.

See the photo?

Crapola. I use a memory stick when I travel and somehow the stick I use got infected with a particularly nasty little virus that has disabled my laptop. It's a variant of the VB virus. Hopefully I won't lose all my photos from Ethiopia. Lesson leared: be careful where you put your memory stick!

So, being that I cannot use my computer, but in SAFE MODE, that post I promised will have to wait until I am at home in front of my desktop. Suggestions as to how to remove the photos from this computer to my desktop without getting the virus on it are most welcome.

Yes, I confess it. I totally underestimated the difficulties I would encounter with communications in Africa. Hell, I'd never been to Africa and had no idea what to expect, which is a large part of the fun. Furthermore, I must confess that it was actually nice to not worry, and I mean REALLY not worry, about my email, or the site, or the internet as a whole for five days at a time. It's been at least four years (since I started the site) that I've had a vacation, yes, that is what it was, from the site.

Alas, all things come to an end, as I sit here and type in the Dubai Airport, where wi-fi is free.

So, I'll try and type up a post bring everyone up to at least day 5 before I catch my flight. How's that sound?

And about the political situation between Ethiopia and Eritrea and how it plays out in Somalia, well, that will come in due time as well.

Sorry all, been way, way, way, way out in the boondocks the last several days and there has been no internet. Also, a bridge was out on a main road so we had to take a detour that took two days! That should give you an idea of where I am and where I am not. But, I hope to have a new post up soon now that I am back in Addis Ababa.

I fly home on the 15th.

More soon.

American food
New Orleans, 4pm, Christmas Day. My brother drives down from our hometown to meet me with my 84-year-old mother riding shotgun. It’s gray but not too cold. We plan to have a Louisiana Christmas dinner on the road and cook a turkey at home the next day. Yes, flying on Christmas is strange. The flight attendant reads the airline safety rules in the style of “T’was the Night Before Christmas,” but the young mom near me tells her child it’s Dr. Seuss.

As we leave the airport, I call Mosca's, a venerable and highly recommended Italian, oysters, steak, seafood and gangster hangout west of the city. Mosca's man answers: "No ma'am, we're closed till January 2..." So, we wander the damp gray dusk with my irritable brother and famished mother, heading west on Hwy 61. EVERYTHING is closed. The old stand-by Airline Motors in LaPlace is closed. The other old standby, Roussell's, is defunct. We head back to Interstate-land and I notice all the fast food places are also closed. Well, it is Christmas.

The drive to Zege and the Monastery Ura Kidane Meret was like a time warp. I had no idea how tribal Ethiopia still was, and after each bend in the road we got deeper and deeper into a tribal culture that clearly had not changed in a thousand years. The first surprise awaiting me on the road, just past the airport, a dirt strip that Ethiopian twin props land on, was a Hoopoe Bird. Granted, the Hoopoe Bird isn’t the Holy Grail of Birding, but it was certainly a bird my father and I both had an itch to see. An orange blur buzzed across the windshield and settled into a tree to my right. I had just enough time to identify the bird. He had a gorgeous orange crest, with a black and white spotted tail. His breast was a bright orange as well, and he had a long beak, perfect for catching large insects. Sadly his crest wasn’t extended.

Days 1-2 The Road To Debre Markos

“Why am I short of breath,” I kept asking myself my first few hours in Ethiopia, especially the first night. The next morning over breakfast I looked closely inside my Lonely Planet and realized why: Ethiopia’s capitol, Addis Ababa’s elevation is 7,700 feet. Now, that hardly approaches the elevation of Lhasa, Tibet (11,000 feet) but it’s enough to make me short of breath. No wonder Ethiopian runners hold 31 long distance records. This country is a giant mountain, often called the roof of Africa. I would become intimately acquainted with mountains in the next few days.

It's a Birr a minute internet access (about ten dollars an hour) where I am right now so I'll post more tomorrow when I arrive in Axum. Needless to say communications are far, far, far from easy to maintain here. Apologies.

I'm here. All is well. The weather is fantastic! I'm trying to figure out what to do tomorrow. I prefer to visit the capital city at the end of my trip, but travel is slow here in Ethiopia, taking two days to go the distance between San Antonio and Dallas. (And no, I'm not making that up.)

I'll head north into the old part of Ethiopia. Maybe to Axum first, maybe to Lalibela. I'll write more later. Hopefully I will be meeting with an Ethiopian blogger or two later today and quite possibly be on the Trey Ware Show in an hour or two.

And yes, I had a bath.

Dubai means I am two-thirds of the way there. I need sleep.

Not to mention a bath.

Amsterdam means I am halfway.

More when I get to Dubai.

Then even more when I arrive in Addis Abeba on Wednesday.

Yeah, tell me about it, 3 days.

I leave for Ethiopia tomorrow. I'm very excited. There is so much to see and do there I can hardly believe I've never thought to go until now. Intellectual curiosity works on its own time.

Speaking of curiosities, some people believe that the lost Ark of the Convenant is in Ethiopia. I recall seeing a book several years ago in which the author said he had found it.

A former writer for the Economist wrote a book called The Sign and the Seal about his search in Ethiopia for the Ark as well.

While I will certainly keep my eyes open for anything that looks like this don't get your hopes up, ok?

My editor at the San Antonio Express-News is taking a road trip from San Antonio to Vera Cruz. Right now she's somewhere in coastal Tamaulipas and she's blogging it. Give it a read.

( ~click on photo for full size~)

Of all that we saw in Iran, even after seeing the Gohar Shad and the Sheikh Lutfollah, it was the serene and sober dignity of the Achaemenid Tombs adjacent the Marv Dasht plain that stay with me the most.

I don’t know why.

I can’t explain why these old, weathered and empty tombs, carved on the side of a mountain resonated so deeply within me.

Perhaps, as I have written before, the feeling is similar to my love of mountains, a yearning for permanence that colors my emotions and inspires me to visit inexplicably strange places.

Alas, there, at Naqsh-i-Rustam, hewn from stone, the spirits of a few kings remain.