Memories from long ago - Ethiopia, autumn 1973

I purchased an inexpensive slide scanner to convert my 1700 slides to digital images!

These are the sweet next door neighbour children. Their grass hut leaned on the eight foot high stone compound security wall that surrounded my home in Bahar Dar, Ethiopia.

Tesfa, aged five, in the foreground was drumming on a goat skin over gourd drum. The children are clapping and singing in Amharic, the official Ethiopian language. They are wearing the only clothes they own. Notice the beautiful silver cross Aelu (on the left) is wearing. Her jewelery is several hundred years old. Most Ethiopians are Coptic Christian people.
I employed their dad as my night guard. The compound was guarded 24/7.

Their mom's name was Ethiopia - which means fertile one. Ethiopia is the bread basket of East Africa harvesting up to three crops of nutritious tef per year. Unfortunately most of the crop is exported, leaving the poor with no food. When I arrived, they were starving. I would buy a baby goat to slaughter every week. I would keep the loin and the rest went to the neighbours. They used everything - and I mean everything. After a few weeks, their skin glowed. They were so appreciative and lovely. The children entertained me with singing and games. I loved them.

I took this photo out in the countryside. For a hungry young man he sure has a ready smile!


Most of Ethiopia is at 6,000 feet elevation, so it's not a hot country like Kenya located just to the south. Even during the warmth of the day you would see people wearing warm hides.

Here is Aelu cutting her mom's hair with a sharp piece of glass. They are sitting in front of their house. Very young children handled very sharp knives! I didn't ever see any of them with a cut.

 Here is my wonderful servant Negiste. I made all her clothes on my trusty White sewing machine. She was the most perfect house and personal helper you could ever want. After she worked for me for a few months, I found out she was fourteen years old and had an eight month old baby girl named Astere. Her mom Wezero Worku looked after Astere while Negiste was at work. I moved the three of them into the empty servant quarters at the back of my compound. Negiste could then breast feed her hungry baby at lunch time. Worku made the most wonderful injera bread for all of us and the arrangement worked well.

 Here I am tramping about with Dr Fiseha who worked on the CIDA project. He was always good fun. Once he took me on a five day trip to Axum and Eritrea. It was a good trip except he kept a handgun between the front seats of my Fiat 127. I am really afraid of guns or other weapons of aggression or war.

The Queen of Sheba is said to have come from Axum. Fis' father was the Governor of the province to the north of where I lived in Bahar Dar. Bahar Dar is 300 km north of the capital Addis Ababa. Look it up on Google Earth. 

 My home was right across the road from Lake Tana where a lot of the world's supply of papyrus grows. Lake Tana is the source of the Blue Nile. I used to paddle around the lake in my papyrus canoe. It cost  two US dollars.I brought this wonderful treasure back to Canada, but it was thrown out by mistake when I built the Couch House twelve years ago.

The Blue Nile Falls, tumbling through a 6,000 foot gorge was 20 km from my house. The scenery was spectacular but the people are my favourite memory of living there.