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Dorothy Rankin on trip to Guraferda, Ethiopia, 1973, side 1.
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- speaker[Rankin, Dorothy L., speaking] [Rankin, a foreign missionary from Xenia, OH, First United Presbyterian Church] You
- speakerknow i'm from it looks like that.
- speakerI never get caught up on correspondence with you
- speakerfolks. So much has happened that i can't remember it very
- speakerwell. And would never get it all written down so i'll try this and wish you a
- speakerMerry
- speakerChristmas and a happy wedding day. Mal [Vandevort, Malcolm S., Jr.] wants to give you his greetings. You could
- speakershout them over, Mal. Hi!. [Rankin speaking]
- speakerMal and i are at a place called Guraferda. Which
- speakeris west southwest of Gech'a,
- speakersome miles. We're not sure but it is at least sixty kilometers
- speakerby air. And we've done it on foot. We've come with
- speakertwo mule men and Otto Tatose and Otto Esiaqua, the evangelists.
- speakerAnd with four mules.
- speakerEverything is gone quite alright so far and we're very thankful for it.
- speakerWe traveled three and a half days to get here. And this is the longest trip that I have ever
- speakermade. And, I'm enjoying
- speakerit rather much, though it is tiring. By the end of the day
- speakerit seems like we are having trouble putting one foot ahead of the other. Our
- speakerlast days travel yesterday was uphill for about two
- speakerthousand
- speakerfeet. And, that took a lot of the umphh out of us and
- speakersome out of the mules too. But today we have taken a day off and
- speakerare resting and getting really refreshed. And all
- speakerof us have decided that this was very much in
- speakerorder. Guraferda is
- speakeris fairly high up on the mountain about five thousand
- speakerfeet. And it is a government headquarters for
- speakerone of the western parts of Kaffa province.
- speakerThere's a governor here. And.
- speakerThere's another man who has a big man in this
- speakerarea and. There are two government teachers.
- speakerA school of four
- speakergrades with grass roof and poles.
- speakerHere it's
- speakeralmost entirely out of the question to have a
- speakertin roof because everything has to be carried in.
- speakerAnd I'll describe the route a little bit later. The government police
- speakerpost and governor's office has tin roof. And, I think there's about one other tin roof in the town.
- speakerPeople were very surprised to see us.
- speakerAnd, we were received very graciously by the teachers and
- speakerby the governor himself who's been sick. He's had a bad nosebleed
- speakerand we gave him what we could in the way of aspirin and vitamin
- speakerc. He seems to be better today. Rather young man.
- speakerWe came, went to call on him last night and
- speakerin the course of that had supper with him in general and
- speakerwhat. We're camping on the
- speakerschool ground or in the playing field which is a lovely place for the animals
- speakerto pasture.
- speakerIt's a bit chilly at night, but
- speakerwe sort of double up in the tents and that keeps everybody warm.
- speakerI'd better go back and give you a little description of the journey over here
- speakerwith our party of four mules and six of us.
- speakerWe left Gech'a about noon on Monday and went as far as
- speakerthe other end of the Mizan E.l. airport.
- speakerAnd stopped to see the Canadian mineralogical team that are
- speakerserving, I suppose, its Kaffa province and
- speakersome other areas in the vicinity
- speakerto try to find out whether there's any mineral wealth in this part of
- speakerEthiopia or not.
- speakerThey work with helicopters. And they dropped in to Gech'a [or possibly Gojja]
- speakerto
- speakera couple days earlier in the week. I think on monday and wednesday again
- speakerthey came. Monday just to visit and the other time to bring a
- speakerrabies vaccine up from the airport for us. They're most
- speakercongenial folks and we enjoy contacts with them.
- speakerWe stopped in there particularly to have a chance to look at the map that they are making of the area.
- speakerThey've taken the photographic maps made several years
- speakerago and are plotting
- speakerthem on a smaller scale. Or do you call it a larger scale?
- speakerI'm not sure
- speakerwhich. On one map
- speakerand putting in all the water courses. Course that's rather definitive when you
- speakerget to
- speakerlooking at the map from the air. On so we could see a little bit of
- speakerwhere we were going and try to mark out our course in
- speakerour minds that way.
- speakerThe first day we traveled. I mean the next day we travelled was largely through
- speakerplantation. There is one plantation Atano,
- speakera group that have very very large holdings in the area. We travelled
- speakermost of the day through their plantation. And then there's coffee
- speakeralong the
- speakerroads. And, somewhat back from the roads, there is a
- speakerlarge coffee cleaning and shipping center in the middle of the
- speakerplantation there. We stopped and just gave our greetings to the
- speakerItalian manager of that. And we went on and camped about
- speakerthe end of that area. At a place called Bendera, just under the forest trees.
- speakerIt was nice, cool and refreshing place with water
- speakernearby. And the only animals that we had
- speakerany awareness of were the Calabash monkeys that make a
- speakertremendous noise, but it's a pleasant noise when you know what it
- speakeris. We spent the night very
- speakerhappily there and moved on the next day.
- speakerKeeping on a kind of a road that is suitable for a car in some seasons.
- speakerTherefore it was rather an open
- speakerpath. When we left Bendera
- speakerwe got into a bit of rather closed path, but not too
- speakerdifficult for a while. We got to a
- speakerplace called Biftu, which means "baboon." More plantation
- speakerthere and.
- speakerWe also got some oranges. Bought oranges there. Most welcome on the trip.
- speakerAfter Biftu, then we began to get into a real forest.
- speakerClosed in on us some of
- speakerit rather narrow. Actually if the forest is not cut.
- speakerWe have a better path than if it has cut back because
- speakerthe grass grows up very quickly and closes in
- speakerthe path when it is opened up to the sun.
- speakerThe forest is beautiful. Huge trees. Massive trees in many
- speakerareas. And, the contours, and the shapes, the
- speakerlight and shadow of the bright sun coming through are fascinating.
- speakerFerns of various kinds.
- speakerNot many flowers with color, but the shapes and the forms are
- speakerthe delightful thing along there. The going was not very
- speakerdifficult. It's not a great deal of up and down, though we had some hills to
- speakerdo. That whole day we traveled through forest and
- speakerall of the forest area in there and some of what we had the next day are elephant country.
- speakerWe saw elephant footprints and dung and paths
- speakeralong the way. I suppose they use that road a good deal because it is open and
- speakermakes it easy for them to move around. We saw no
- speakerelephant at all. They say that is the usual thing. You see the signs but very seldom
- speakerdoes anyone coming along the road see the animals themselves.
- speakerComing through the plantation area, we met a few people, workers on the plantation.
- speakerBut there. It's rather sad to see them because they
- speakerare more or less drifters who come and go. They are
- speakerdisplaced persons in a way. And, they are a mixed lot without any
- speakerhome ties particularly in the area in which they're working. At
- speakerleast some of them come from east of the the Gamaro Mountains. Some come
- speakerfrom other far places. So that they are
- speakernot a homogenous group that would be easy to work with.
- speakerAnd when we get on to the forest, there are very few people there.
- speakerWhen we came out of the forest at the end of our
- speakersecond and a half day, we came to a grassland and pitched our
- speakercamp near a small water course. Grassland
- speakeris made up of sanballet, which is very high grass,
- speakerwell over our head when we're riding and can be rather
- speakersticky. It wasn't really too bad this
- speakertime. After we spent the night, we started
- speakerout and found that we went from grassland, "bettaha" they call it,
- speakertranslated "desert," which isn't desert at all,
- speakerbut the grassland. We go for a patch of that with its own particular kind of tree.
- speakerLike camels foot tree and occasionally big gardenia
- speakertree and then other things called "combretum and terminalia" [bushwillow plants]
- speakerwith the grass. Those are fire resistant trees. Then.
- speakerFrom those patches we get back into the real forest trees in ravines and glades
- speakerwith sunlight filtering through
- speakeragain. And, we were quite refreshed. I was surprised
- speakerhow many trees of one kind or the other there are along this path, which is said to be through the grass.
- speakerWe had a good deal of respite, even though the those fire-resistant
- speakertrees don't give a great deal of shade.
- speakerThis last day, the third day. That is, the third full day,
- speakerwas traveling up and down small inclines
- speakeruntil about the middle of the day. Well,
- speakerpast the middle of the day. Because we didn't start until ten,
- speakerNine thirty or ten. I guess, nine thirty
- speakermaybe. And then we began the ascent
- speakerup to Guraferda
- speakerMountain, Guraferda we could see from Gech'a. And, I've wondered about it and
- speakerlooked at it and tried
- speakerto think what it might be like over here. And, therefore i was glad to get this chance.
- speakerBut on the edge of the for. Real big forest we came to the Shenna
- speakerpeople and, as we crossed this
- speakergrass area, we didn't find very many people at all.
- speakerIt's not an inhabited area. Coming up the hill
- speakerwas a real pull and hard. And even the mules were tired and.
- speakerWe were pretty well hanged. The men with us weren't near as tired as we were.
- speakerBut by putting one foot down and picking up the other one, we made it up the hill
- speakerby about three o'clock.
- speakerI was quite
- speakersurprised to be arriving because we get estimates of how much time there
- speakeris. And, we can't
- speakerreally be sure who is right. Sometimes they give estimates
- speakeras three hours, and it takes us four. Sometimes they say it's eight hours and that
- speakermeans that you will arrive at eight
- speakero'clock in the day which is our two o'clock. And so. I was almost
- speakersurprised when we leveled off on the top of the plateau in which this town
- speakeris. It was a good relief and.
- speakerAfter I got back on the level, I was
- speakerok. So we got into the town and
- speakerwent to the police post, registered and let them know that we were there and planned to see
- speakerthe governor the next day. And people met us. School teachers
- speakercame out. And, one of them is a cousin of the dresser at Mazanne. and he
- speakerhas helped us out a great deal and made us feel very welcome. I think
- speakerthat some of the children of this area have never seen a white person. And, I certainly
- speakerhaven't seen one here. They just don't come very
- speakeroften.
- speakerPeople gave us bitterje, which is honey water, offered us edge, which
- speakerthey call
- speakerwine. And then. We had coffee a couple times
- speakerand then finally after we had pitched camp and
- speakergone back up to see if we could give the governor any medical help,
- speakerwe had supper with him.
- speakerThe reason for the trip is to find out what people are in this area. And, we
- speakerhave learned a lot. Mal was here fifteen years
- speakerago and has found one or two people who were
- speakerhere at the time and remembered that people had come through. Other people
- speakerhave memories of
- speakerDr Reed [Reed, Glenn Patterson] and Donnie [McClure, William Donald] coming, Donnie McClure coming through this area.
- speakerOh, I don't know. It must have been ten years ago. On a long
- speakerwalk, which Dr. Reed [Reed, Glenn Patterson] wrote up in quite detail. And,
- speakerwe must get out and read it again. They found people up here they said that they
- speakerdidn't know. Donnie took to the. Talked in Anuak, but they weren't that.
- speakerAnd so we were trying to find out where those people are and who they are. The area in which we are
- speakeron the east side of Guraferda Mountains seems to be Sheko people entirely.
- speakerWell they reach over from
- speakerhere along to the north of here, I believe, and on
- speakerright up to Gamira area. And there are two
- speakerschools this year in Sheko over there. But there are none over here.
- speakerIn fact this one government school is the only school in the very large area over
- speakerhere. We just took time out to go to the
- speakerschool to play a tape in their language, in Sheko
- speakerlanguage and made an effort
- speakerto teach them a new song in Amharic. It was a lot of fun anyway; whether it was very
- speakersuccessful or not, I don't know. But, one of the teachers here knows the song himself.
- speakerand so it won't be hard for him to follow up with it.
- speakerHe comes from Sadamo, which, I think.
- speakerWhere I think he must have had some contact with S I M Mission and church.
- speakerHe seems to be quite willing to teach bible in the school if we send
- speakerhim some help for teaching, which I hope to
- speakerdo. There's no teaching at all out
- speakerhere in this area.
- speakerAnd, the only reason that we can see for having a government post out here is to
- speakercollect taxes.
- speakerThe main product of the country is some grain, enough to sustain them here.
- speakerNot for export. And honey.