Welcome to the Tigray Plateau, in the northern Highlands of Ethiopia

After sleeping 7-8 hours today- suffering from two nights  without sleep, I woke to new time zone, and it felt closer to a 3000-year-difference than a 9 hour difference. The hotel in Addis Abbaba smelled and creaked like an old world dwelling, but comfortable and safe once you navigate the dirt and bugs.

Gas stations were a rarity, but many talented Farriers around

I've been reading about local custom and tradition, and it seems like I will learn a ton over the next two weeks.  Most everyone speaks some English (more-so than France) in addition to Amharic or Tigrian. I ordered my 1st meal- spaghetti varada - which is a tomato-meat sauce based dish that came with two bread rolls.  I've been warned to stay away from meat as much as possible.

This is the Ethiopian Wattled Ibis

My plan is to visit the national museum tomorrow, Saturday, and a few markets before meeting members of the research team in Adigrat on Sunday.  I'll fly to Mekelle and Team members will meet me at the airport and drive 3 hours north through windy mountain roads to Adigrat. The Tigray ecoregion supports many rare animal species that we will be watching for, including the Ethiopian wolf, ibex, bushbuck, and about 200 bird species.  I'm also looking for the Gelada, an Ethiopian monkey that congregates in large groups of several hundred and live on cliff faces.

The Ethiopian sitting next to me on plane asked if had been here before, I told him "not in 2 million years" this area of course being the origin of hominid evolution.  Maybe we'll find an ancient skull when we sample the river terraces...

Today was interesting. I walked outside the hotel and flagged a taxi- it turned out to be George, Cathy D'Andrea's friend, and he drove me around for about four hours. We stopped at the holy trinity church for a private tour including a small museum shed in the back. Christianity dominates here and many people were lingering around outside, some praying, some leaning with their heads against the church, but mostly women and all were wearing a thin white shall over their head and shoulders. The Ethiopian calendar is different from our calendar by about 8 years, so the timeline and events have to be adjusted, but the church was completed in 1944 after the war (Italy invaded Addis Ababa), the church is surrounded by graves and monuments of the resistance. I also saw the grave of the most recent prime minister of Ethiopia, Meles Zenawi, who passed away in 2012. An armed military guard sits at his grave (on his iPhone). In fact, armed military guards are everywhere, and about 50% of the time, they are on their iPhones).

Fortunately, these gems of early writing (probably in Ge'ez) on goat parchment, this one from the Temple of Yeha, are being digitized by a team of German scientist

The church was nice inside, a bit dirty on the outside, but over 4000 people come every day for morning prayer, men sit on the left and women on the right. Lots of biblical significance and clearly a destination for Christians of Ethiopia.

Next stop was the National Museum in Addis. The highlight was the skeleton of Lucy, one of the most important Australopithecines ever found, demonstrating our transition from arboreal primates to bipedal hominids. I teach about Lucy in my classes, and we have a replica of her pelvis in the museum in Utah, but amazing to see the original and complete assemblage of her skeleton. She was only about 3 feet tall, and you can estimate her age by the amount of wear on her molars. 

Acheulean tools: dating to about 1.8 million years ago, these tools were found in the vicinity of Lake Turkana (Lake Konso to Ethiopians).  These are bifacially shaped hand axes and is linked in time to the expansion of Homo species out of Africa, the first "globalization" occurred with this stone tool technology in what is today Africa, Asia and Europe.

The exhibits were well done, but a massive difference between the state-of-the-art, climate controlled museum I'm fortunate to work at. Most exhibits were behind glass cases, hung up on the wall by nails. All descriptions were written in Amarhic and English. There were dozens of artifacts from the Tigray highlands, mostly ceramic (earthenware) cooking vessels. There were also bronze daggers, sickles and axes, suggesting agricultural activity (relevant for my research) by the Aksumite and pre- and proto- Aksumite periods - beginning about 3000 yrs ago (1000 BC) Apparently, archaeologist have found charred plant remains of Tef, Eragrostris tef, a cereal grain that has amazing nutrition properties, and is a primary food today used in the national dish "injera" - which I had for breakfast. The grass crop grows in drought and wet conditions and is only now catching on as a key form of nutrition in other parts of the world (including western US). I look forward to seeing it around Adigrat. There were several other plants discussed that were first domesticated in the Ethiopian highlands, including linseed, lentils and chickpeas. Turns out, this is also one of the regions cattle and donkeys were first domesticated.

Lucy, a Australopithecus afarenesis discovered in the Afar region of Ethiopia in 1974, she stands 105 cm tall, and was probably very comfortable walking long distances on the ground based on pelvic metrics.

I also saw agricultural tools, wooden spades, plows and digging sticks.  A nice primer for my trip to the north, where subsistence agriculture has been going on for several millennia.

My cabby, George, waited for me, then dropped me to a restaurant in the piazza district for lunch. I ordered a margarita pizza, a popular restaurant treat in Ethiopia, and relatively simple ingredients. It came with a side dish of green paste. It was a hot and spicy paste for dipping, called Berbere, and taste similar to a green chili paste. It was absolutely delicious and will join my domestic menu.

One of our sediment profiles we are studying.  Notice the interest from the local children.
We were the most exciting (and exotic) thing in this remote village of Mezbir (no vehicles) for a long time.

George came to find me- I guess he had an appointment, so we drove back to the hotel, with him constantly teaching me new words on Amarhic. I've learned about 7 or 8 words, the best is "yeulleum", which means "there isn't". So when the hoards of kids (mostly young men) come begging, I say Yeulleum, and they walk away. George says they will think I am a local and not a tourist.  I'm looking forward to leaving Addis, primarily because of the acrid smell and taste of pollution in the air.  It seems to be ever-present and the locals hardly notice.  As I headed down to the hotel lobby I met a wedding procession heading into the hotel, singing (high pitched shrills like "ya ya ya ya...."), drums, priests in white robes and the bride in a white wedding gown - what a sight.