Ethiopian horse in the middle of the highway. Julia Hubbel

You Never Know What You’re Going to Get

On animals, showing love, and teaching gentility in a new country

I had to get out of the small, crowded Ethiopian restaurant. The spices were too strong. In seconds I was out on the busy street. Here out in the country, vans full of white tourists are common, and the kids gather daily to harangue us for gifts, toys, pens and money. The streets, as they are all over the country including in teeming Addis Ababa, are lined with animals. Mostly sheep and goats (which have largely replaced wildlife as they have all over this continent), domestic and feral donkeys, and the odd horse standing quietly in the middle of the road as traffic whizzes by, inches away.

Like most villages and small towns I’ve seen in developing countries all over the world, the ancient and the struggle towards the new coexist, not always easily.

Peering into the Danakil at night. Julia Hubbel

Our group was on its way to see the Danakil Depression. This small town was the midday point of a long, long drive through the country, dropping us to more than 100 feet below sea level as the road wound us past tiny stick and tin huts and broad, dry washes.