All by Maureen Magee
Last spring, three young men - ancestors of hers - drifted into Maureen Magee’s head and took up residence, insisting that she pay attention to them. And because she is a writer, she decided to write about them - a book, a story? What followed was a journey, and a conclusion, she couldn’t have imagined.
Maureen Magee grew up as an only child. The word ‘family’ had no great, extended meaning for her. But now, after seven decades of life, she finds herself seized with a gripping kind of curiosity about her Dad’s family and has begun writing letters to the uncles she never knew.
Against all logic and advice, Maureen Magee was committed to her plan to travel the world alone. It hadn’t been easy to quit her job and sell her house. But, the hard part was behind her Or, so she thought...
Mageru pulls over to the side of the road, parks and idles the Land Cruiser. We are still a few hours away from arriving back in Addis Ababa. He looks over to me, pats the steering wheel and says “I am a little tired. You can drive.”
This does not strike me as a generosity I should accept. Although I am confident in Canada, Ethiopian driving doesn’t exactly rev my engines. “Oh…I don’t think so, honey. The driving here is very different from my experience back home.”
Hamer woman, Ethiopia. Photo by Michael Lorentz/Safarious.com
We pull up the Land Cruiser next to a petite man walking along the road. He is wearing a sarong-type skirt; his hair is coiffed in mud and feathers. He is distinguished.
“It is Wolle!” cries Mageru as he gets out from behind the wheel. “He is the Chief of Chiefs for the Hamer people.”
They greet each other in the traditional way for Ethiopian men – clasping each other’s backs with the left hand, shaking right hands while butting right shoulders three times. Wolle’s head feathers stroked Mageru’s mustache.
In the Hamer language, Mageru introduces me as his wife. Wolle looks me over and absent-mindedly undoes and reties his sarong. He wears nothing underneath.
“We should invite him to camp with us,” suggests Mageru. “It is a long way back to his village.”
Wolle is happy to do that but insists on supplying dinner and so we swing the car off the road and bump our way across the scrubby, dry savannah. A landscape so formless, I cannot gauge how many miles we have travelled before reaching Wolle’s family enclave, a few cone-shaped huts made of sticks and grass and encircled by thorn bushes.
As I get out of the car, I am immediately surrounded by dozens of naked children and, standing back, shy semi-naked women. The women and I smile uncertainly – not knowing what is expected of us.
Meanwhile, under Wolle’s direction, Mageru and a few other men are playing chase with a small goat. The goat loses, and is manipulated safely - but not quietly - into the back of the Land Cruiser. He is wedged in tight and I pray that he will not pee, poo or upchuck on our gear.
It surely is the goat’s first car ride and it will definitely be his last. And by the time he bleats all the way back to our campsite, I am not feeling even a smidge remorseful. Our cook hustles him off (out of sight of my tender ferenj sensitivities) and disposes of him quickly; within a few hours he has become a tasty stew called figel wot. It is a pleasant camping evening; the men’s Amharic/Hamer murmurings around the fire are like soft ambient music to ears that don’t understand.
by Maureen Elizabeth Magee
“No, Dad. I won’t do anything foolish. Yes, I will be sensible.”
My last conversation before leaving Canada.
I sank into the airplane seat with relief. The decision had been made, fears conquered, and all the loose ends of planning a solo traipse around the world were tied up. I was a sensible woman; middle-aged, newly divorced and quite practical. Although some argued that quitting a management job to travel for a year was not practical. And others added that selling my home in order to finance the trip did not fall into the category of judicious. And many, many people pointed out that attempting to give up my five-star princess habits to travel on a shoestring was just asking for trouble.
I buckled my seat belt. None of them could find me now. No more concerned pleas or pointed observations about my lack of travel experience. It was just me and this Air New Zealand jet - a magic carpet – about to rescue me. Rescue me from . . . from what? Just what did I need rescuing from? A normal life? A practical life? A sensible life. A ‘follow-the-rules’ life that had recently let me down.
A low rumble of power hummed through the plane and the flight attendant began to make her announcement, pulling me away from the past. The past didn’t matter anymore. The reasons for my break-away trip didn’t matter. Only the accelerating whine of the engines mattered. It was all out of my control right now. I was tethered to nothing and that was a surprisingly comforting thought.
I adore postcards. But I can’t remember the last time I received one – can you? Probably sometime around the mid-1990’s, just before email sucked the life out of stamps.
It seems that, while I wasn’t looking, sending postcards went out of style. Well, let’s face it – everything does, eventually. But it hit home this past holiday season, when assorted friends took off for Australia, New Zealand, Guatemala, Spain and Dubai – and the mailman never delivered a single card to me.
Am I the only one who loved to send them? Most people are quite happy to receive one in the mail, but a particular joy of mine while traveling has always been to spin those metal racks in the tourist shop and study various options in order to find the perfect photograph for each individual on my list. (Mount Fuji for the climbing buddy, Kyoto cherry blossoms for my gardening pal, the Uwa Jima Pornography Museum for….well, never mind.) I would send postcards to everyone; friends, co-workers and neighbors. Including some folks I would never consider writing to otherwise, but now wished to impress with my fabulous life exploring exotic places, while they never got farther than their mailboxes.
Since childhood, everything about Japan has enthralled me: food, traditional clothing, bonsai trees, ikebana floral arrangements and, of course, the people themselves. The poster in the window showed verdant, bucolic rice paddies being tended by women in traditional bonnets and straw hats. For dramatic relief, a snowcapped mountain hung in the background and the caption promised that I would “See the real Japan. Become immersed in the mysterious Orient by cycling the back roads of rural Shikoku – an island that outsiders rarely visit.”
It took about a nanosecond for me to walk into the travel agency and pay a deposit.
I tell lies when I travel. My mother would call them “little white lies” and I only tell them to spare the feelings of others.
Oh, alright. That wasn’t exactly honest. I tell lies when I travel in order to spare myself the piteous looks I receive when I tell the truth. A woman traveling alone is not as rare as it once was but, depending on where she goes, there is still a curiosity factor. The farther afield she wanders, the more curious the local folks will be.
“Where is your husband?” That is the first question.
Now, I never mind admitting that I am single – I am an optimist and the inquirer just might have some terrific friend I could meet. Of course, if I answer truthfully and admit to two divorces I could appear to be a poor risk. So I hang my head, and in a tragic voice, I whisper, “Gone.”
Which is not a lie, not really. They are all gone, those husbands.
words + photos by Maureen Magee
Time zones, the International Date Line and jet lag all contribute to my feeling disoriented when traveling. Date lines especially – leaving home on a Tuesday and arriving on the Monday before I left definitely throws me for a loop.
But what about when the traveler leaves home in 2011 and arrives in 2004?
It happens all the time – when traveling to Ethiopia. Once you disembark in Addis Ababa, you will be at least 7 years younger.
My first trip to this time-estranged nation was in September, 1999. The airport was festively decked out with banners proclaiming some kind of celebration, followed by “1993!” I couldn’t speak or read Amharic, so the actual celebration was a mystery – but I figured it must have been a heck of an important party, if Ethiopians left the banners up for 7 years.
My guide greeted me with a standard “Hello”, followed by a joyous “Happy New Year!” After 24 hours in transit, I was too tired to question this and thought, who knows – maybe in Ethiopia, everyone is welcomed with a New Years greeting – even if it is 9 months later. One never knows in other cultures…
