The rains had fallen heavy. The sun squinted through a thick haze, a low sky; grey in most places but darker where the rain was falling. It struggled through but found it hard going. It failed to glisten on the shiny rocks near the stream, and the red earth; dry and spare, failed to take on that deep red ochre when it rains. But you could smell it though – that raw earthiness. The clouds, the dull tones, the earthly smell, my armpits, it all felt oppressive. Where was the horizon? Usually it stretched forever, but today it was gone. And with it, it seemed, the possibilities that life offered. Dreams and thoughts require space. Space to stretch and loosen and run around in, with arms splayed screaming ‘Woooooweeeeeee!’
But not today. No 'Woooooweeeee!' today. Today space has shrunk and with it the world and the universe of possibilities. Do forest dwellers dream less than desert peoples? Does seeing the horizon make you wander and wonder more? These are thoughtful questions. Here the land and people are ancient. That is why I've come. Not very far from here, a few hundred kilometres to the north-west, near Assal Lake in Afar, they found Lucy: Australopithecus afarensis. She lived 3.2 million years ago. But I prefer to call her by her more charming Amharic name ‘Dinkenesh’ which means ‘You are beautiful’. I shuffle about on my haunches looking for bits of chalky white bone that may belong to a long lost ancestor – but no luck! I sit on the earth, with my notebook and my trusty pen and do a sketch of the landscape. A written sketch. I can't draw remember. It's feels good to get out of the quagmire that is Harar – for all it’s lugubrious charms it can jangle the nerves a little bit. Out here it is nice. I can see the walled city from here; a clutter of dwellings rising like a sore in the surrounding flatness. I imagine, once upon a time, it would have been a compact city. But today it is a straggling and clogged bureaucracy. The cradle of mankind. So this is where it all began. Doesn’t look like much.
But not today. No 'Woooooweeeee!' today. Today space has shrunk and with it the world and the universe of possibilities. Do forest dwellers dream less than desert peoples? Does seeing the horizon make you wander and wonder more? These are thoughtful questions. Here the land and people are ancient. That is why I've come. Not very far from here, a few hundred kilometres to the north-west, near Assal Lake in Afar, they found Lucy: Australopithecus afarensis. She lived 3.2 million years ago. But I prefer to call her by her more charming Amharic name ‘Dinkenesh’ which means ‘You are beautiful’. I shuffle about on my haunches looking for bits of chalky white bone that may belong to a long lost ancestor – but no luck! I sit on the earth, with my notebook and my trusty pen and do a sketch of the landscape. A written sketch. I can't draw remember. It's feels good to get out of the quagmire that is Harar – for all it’s lugubrious charms it can jangle the nerves a little bit. Out here it is nice. I can see the walled city from here; a clutter of dwellings rising like a sore in the surrounding flatness. I imagine, once upon a time, it would have been a compact city. But today it is a straggling and clogged bureaucracy. The cradle of mankind. So this is where it all began. Doesn’t look like much.
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