Another Voice

On the camel trail in Ethiopia: a story, a tragedy and a blessing

Being in from the start of an odyssey is one thing; being there only for the end is quite another. It seemed like joining a group of long-distance runners for the last mile of their marathon when, on a whim, my BBC producer and I baled out of our Toyota 4x4 and started plodding back the way we had come, along a dusty road over the rolling hills of the Tigray highlands in the midday heat. We wanted to walk alongside two Ethiopian tribesmen who had almost finished an epic journey.

They were too weary to inquire about our motives. They had been walking for eight days. So had their small train of camels, mules and donkeys plodding, exhausted, behind them; swaying beneath impossible loads. The animals’ backs were piled high with slabs of salt. I could see pricks of blood on the soft leather pads of one of the camels.

Our Ethiopian guide, Solomon Berhe, had asked where they were bound. The next village was their destination. Here they would unload their animals and sell their cargo to a salt merchant. Then they would rest and eat; they had had nothing but bread, sugar and tea throughout their journey, and the hard earth to lie on. The animals too would drink and graze; there had been little grazing for a week, and very little water. But in a few sweet, weary miles their trials would be over. Might we walk those miles with them? They nodded their reply.

My producer, Jeremy Grange, and I were in northern Ethiopia to follow and learn about a trade as ancient as the Athenians: the camel trains which go down from the highlands into the furnace of the Danakil Depression, fetch up the salt which cakes a dead lake down there, and thus supply the Horn of Africa with a precious commodity. We were making a programme about it for Radio Four (about to be broadcast) and were on our way down to the hellhole from which this small camel train was returning.

Many were the tales we were told along the way, and few have we had the space to include. The story we heard when, with camels, donkeys, mules and men, we trudged into the village of Agula half an hour later, was a radio programme in itself.

Agula was no more than a tiny roadside settlement of mud, straw and tin; but there was water nearby, cooling trees in its dusty little square, and an air of domesticity and order. What to us had seemed the middle of nowhere now impressed itself upon us as the centre of many lives — the only place some had ever known. Children ran out excitedly to see the camel train coming in. Mothers stood at their doors. The safe return of such expeditions to Hades was an event in itself and, besides, it was good news for the village. The captains of these ships of the desert, who could choose from many places where to dock, had chosen this small port. They would be paid for their salt, and spend money here. They would have adventures to recount.

But Agula had an adventure of its own to recount, a sad one. Even we noticed that something was untoward. When the camel-drivers banged at the tin gates of the village’s only salt merchant, only a small boy came out to open up, and then a woman: his mother. She was a slim, blue-robed woman in a white veil, but her face was uncovered. I guessed she might be in her late thirties. She had a certain command and a dignity, but she radiated anxiety and sadness. She spoke to us and to the camel-drivers who, as each camel obediently knelt, began to unload their beasts. It was odd that in so traditional and male-dominated a community there should be no husband taking the lead. Especially in matters of commerce, for these slabs would have to be cut and shaped here into smaller ingots, bound with leaves, and sent on by truck to be sold to the big distributors of Addis Ababa.

So where was the father of the house? When the mistress of the house herself began inspecting each block of salt, keeping a tally of numbers and quality, Solomon ventured to ask; and she told him everything. Her husband had indeed been in charge. Now, and at a young age, he was dead.

It had happened not long ago. One of their small sons had run into the yard to tell his father that their cow had been hit by a truck on the road and killed. His father had at once hitched up a horse and cart to fetch the carcass. As he rode back with his grisly cargo there had been a shot — it seemed from the blue. He had fallen dead from his mount. The bullet had been one of those awful, totally random accidents: a stray shot from the rifle of a recruit to the Ethiopian army on a training exercise behind the hill. The army had admitted responsibility.

The whole village had been shocked, for this region (like most of Ethiopia — despite impressions sometimes given in our news media) is an ordered, peaceful place. As the newly widowed mother recovered from the immediate shock, another nightmare unfolded. Her late husband had kept no proper accounts: it was all in his head — the camel-men to whom he owed money, the truckers and city salt merchants who owed him money; she had no way of knowing what debts must be claimed or repaid. She had a room full of valuable salt ingots but how could she take up the reins of the business? Most of her children were too small to help. The one son who might had won a place in college in the regional capital of Mekele.

Should he go? Should she try to carry on? There was local scepticism (Solomon said) whether she could, and for a woman it would have been extraordinary. But she was resolved to try. She told us her name but perhaps I shall not publish it, for she never asked for her sorrows to become a magazine story. We said a sad goodbye, and resumed our journey.

A week later we returned from the Danakil, adventures of our own behind us. We had taken a small collection among ourselves and called in to see her. I told her (Solomon translating) that we were sorry never to have had the honour of meeting her husband and wished, in his memory, to contribute to the continuation of his business. She told us that some of his colleagues and fellow traders had made a collection of their own for her; that she was blessed; and — in what was almost a song — she called down all the blessings of Allah on our heads.

And we headed again for the dusty road. What agonies and misadventures, what small tragedies and human triumphs too — what stories — lie around each bend of the road. Of every road.

Matthew Parris is a political columnist of the Times. Camel Train was broadcast on Radio Four at 11 a.m. on Friday 30 June and can be heard on www.bbc.co.uk/radio.