Working as a journalist in Ethiopia has brought me to the most remarkable places and has allowed me to meet incredible people. I have reported from various parts of the country, most memorably so in Benishangul-Gumuz and the Wollo Highlands near Lalibela. It has been a joy and I have gained a lot from it.
While I have relished the opportunity to write and travel almost without restriction, I have been unable to decide if a career in journalism is something for me. If I were a journalist, I feel that I would have to be some sort of travel columnist or commentator on the opinion pages.
What has irritated me in the past few months has been the overwhelming independence and the lack of knowledge/experience of what I am supposed to be doing anyways. First of all, as a journalist you have no schedule; there is only the deadline for your articles and any appointments you have made. This makes it difficult to find motivation to go out and do things, which brings me to my second point. While the aim of a journalist is quite straight forward (find stories and write about them), without any training or contacts it is difficult to find good things to write about.
A lot of the time I relied on my creativity to put together my impressions and observations into a readable story. This is most evident in my last article, which may or may not be published tomorrow. Originally, I planned to meet my friend Julius so that he could show me the work his NGO has done. This would have made a relatively easy article to write as all I must do is put facts into sentences. However, fate would have it different when some internal problems in the NGO would make it inadvisable for me to write about them. Since two other stories I had as back up didn’t work out either, I was forced to create something out of what I had observed on Entoto. However, as it turns out, the article might actually be better than anything I could have written purely about Julius’ NGO. As it happens, to turn something that is at first sight bland into something of interest to the reader is quite a stimulating challenge. It is in fact what I prefer to do over a more generic, explanation-of-fact based article.
Only today did I meet Yacob Wolde-Mariam, a veteran journalist and editor of practically every English speaking Ethiopian newspaper since the early 50’s. He is 85 years old and and has lived through Italian occupation, Selassie’s Empire, the Dergue dictatorship and the current more democratic and development oriented regime. He speaks 5 languages (Oromo, Amharic, English, French and Italian) and has travelled to various parts of the world, including Germany, as a correspondent to international conferences and events.
He still works passionately as ever as an editor of articles by coming to The Reporter every Friday to proof read all the articles that pass the preliminary check. He sits by the window on the desk diagonally across from me listening to music and in deep thought while he awaits the next article. Once he has gone through them, he goes over the corrections with the respective journalist and then brings it to the next person responsible. He also corrected my article and was pleased with it only giving a correction on Ethiopian history.
Yacob actually gave me a signed copy of his own book, “Brief Autobiography and Selected Articles”. Judging from the preface and one of those articles, I quickly determined some similarities between him and myself although he naturally claims a vastly superior wealth of experience and knowledge. Rather than articles about restaurant openings or reports on events (which I am sure he wrote plenty of), they are what he calls “timeless”. This means that they can be read at any time without any reference to a specific moment in history such as an event. They are first person and generally criticize some point in society. For example, the article I read was called, “Man, the inferior sex” which spoke against rampant sexism in the city of Asmara (current capital of Eritrea) and praised women.
Interestingly enough, Yacob began by studying engineering in Imperial College in London. Yet he spoke of how German and French philosophy along with his love of literature overcame him and brought him to pursue a career in writing instead. It seems to have worked out!
With or without the guidance of this new mentor, I feel quite ready for my early morning departure tomorrow. Although I now feel settled in this city and sad to leave yet another great group of friends, I am content and prepared to return to a land of reliable convenience. Of course, that is not to say that I would skip what is to come first.
The climax, or quite literally the ‘summit’, of my gap year is still to come. Tomorrow I leave Ethiopia to fly further south to Nairobi, Kenya where I will meet my cousin Jacob and stay for one night. Then it is off to Northern Tanzania where the wilds of Serengeti, Ngorongoro and Tarangire await with the finish on Uhuru Peak, Mt. Kilimanjaro.
Full list of my published articles:
From Misery to Self-sufficiency
Ring in Addis' Shared Taxis
Down in Langano
The Historical Turnaround of the Gumuz
TESFA for Ethiopia
Where will you watch the World Cup Finals?
The Forgotten Mountain
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