Six Degrees
Welcome to my random musings about the world, on a weekly-to-occasional basis.
Where we are: Bangkok, Thailand. This past week, I’ve been pondering the accident of birth that made me ME, instead of anyone else. It has been a heavy week.
Six degrees
When I first started writing this newsletter in 2019, back when there were about four people reading it, I wrote about a tour guide we met in Axum, Ethiopia (as a matter of fact, it was my second installment). Mula was his name. That essay is here; please go read it (or reread it) before you go any further.
Okay. Did you read it? I just wanted to point out my complicated feelings regarding Mula.
The town of Axum is a dusty, bedraggled backwater in the far north of Ethiopia. Like the rest of the country, it is stunningly impoverished. It also happens to be one of the holiest sites of Orthodox Ethiopian Christianity. Many believe that the Ark of the Covenant is in the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion, in Axum. The chapel where it’s kept is off limits, of course, but we saw some amazing illuminated manuscripts in the main church. The town is also the location of some beautiful pre-Christian ruins and graves, including what is thought by Ethiopians to be the Queen of Sheba’s palace.
Now, if you listen to NPR, or the BBC, or maybe you read the Christian Science Monitor, you’re probably vaguely aware that there’s conflict happening in Ethiopia. We heard about it back in the fall, but hadn’t paid a whole lot of attention. Apparently there’s fighting in the Tigray region, between local groups and government forces. Troops from the neighboring country (Eritrea, with whom Ethiopia had only recently signed a ceasefire) have apparently gotten involved as well. Honestly, this all boiled over just before the US election, and I really thought (off the top of my head, without checking a map) that Tigray was the part of Ethiopia we didn’t get to see, so I hadn’t paid much attention at all.
But last weekend, Lee stumbled across an article that rocked us both back on our heels. Communications with the Tigray area have been pretty much cut off, but in late January, word started trickling about atrocities. It’s an old story, right? Rage and violence beget more rage and violence.
Well, it turns out Axum is smack in the middle of the Tigray region, and all that rage and violence resulted in a massacre in the middle of town. As far as we can figure out, it’s still impossible for journalists or international authorities to get into the area, but reports indicate that in late November, at least seven or eight hundred people were killed in the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion and the surrounding streets. It sounds horrific.
The last time we heard from Mula was in late October. He talked about the pandemic, and sent pictures of the locusts that had invaded—remember hearing about those?
He hasn’t used his WhatsApp since November 3.
He hasn’t posted anything on his social media since November 4.
He isn’t responding to messages or emails.
In our travels, we’ve visited the the sites of many massacres. Genocides, pogroms, killing fields—the human capacity for cruelty, unfortunately, seems to be global. But—and maybe it’s only because we haven’t been traveling long enough—up until now, the worst inhumanity was always a relic of the past. Massacres happen in history books & novels. Not to someone I’ve had coffee with.
Even when I visit the places where wars were fought and atrocities committed, my American optimism buoys me. Those things don’t happen any more. We look backward, we commemorate them and learn from them, but the future will be better. The moral arc of the universe, and all that. Right?
Last Friday evening, I read the article about the massacre, then pulled up my photos from our visit to Axum. There was Mula, in his freshly pressed shirt, standing in the middle of a farm field, showing me how teff is grown. There he was, grinning at us from behind his sunglasses. There was his mother, kneeling on the dirt floor, roasting coffee beans to welcome me to her home. And there was Mula again, showing off the list of all the sights he was going to show us, laughing at his own ambitious plans.
We don’t know for sure whether Mula is still alive, but we fear the worst. I’m not sure what to do with my feelings about this. I have these incredibly vivid memories of Axum—the sky, the dust, the lobby of our hotel, the huge tree in the middle of town that seemed to be the center of life and commerce. I’m having trouble reconciling those memories with the reports I’ve read.
You know the idea of six degrees of separation? That any given person is only six ‘handshakes’ away from any other person? That has always been a game in my head—can I figure out how to get in touch with a leader/actor/athlete/musician/author?
But those six degrees of separation work in the other direction, as well. I have a number in my phone that rings through to silence. None of us is ever more than a degree or two away from the inconceivable.
Take care,
Lisa
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