The Madness of the Mercato

After four days of outfoxing Addis Ababa's pickpockets, I deemed myself mentally prepared for the Mercato. Perhaps dumb luck accounted for the integrity of my belongings, or perhaps the alarmist tone of the guidebooks had no basis in fact. Regardless, my tally of stolen goods had accrued to one mechanical pencil probably misplaced during a bout of peer pressure between me and a bottle of Scotch.

Gazetted by the Italians in 1938 as a 'Grand mercato indigeno,' this ill-defined area northwest of the city's center has since functioned as its commercial hub. It is said to be the largest outdoor market in Africa, one that suffers a nasty reputation for wallet-snatching and bag-slashing. Its literary status seems to depend on where a given author stands in respect to the wind: some describe it as an intoxicating confluence of exotic aromas, while others call it a stinking cesspool. All seem to agree that the Mercato sells anything and everything, from camels to chat, from silk finery to AK-47's. The time had arrived for me to form my own invalid opinion.

Averse to sparing myself the city's less appetizing sights and eager to let the sun work my doughy flesh into the hardened bronze of disgraced country club ladies, I walked the 6km from Churchill Avenue to the Mercato via the Piazza. It was an unusually hot day for Addis; so hot, in fact, that I considered resorting to disgraceful measures previously unknown to me, namely the wearing of shorts. Fortunately for my dignity, I had read that Ethiopians are modest dressers, and shorts fell outside the purview of propriety. I thus took to the streets attired in a two-tone blue outfit of rolled-up long underwear and jeans. Almost everyone else was better dressed. In my zeal to avoid appearing the Great White Colonizer, I instead looked like a pauper, or more accurately, someone with no self-respect. Like most of my attempts at cunning, my wardrobe betrayed an embarrassing core of malfunctioning self-consciousness. Oh well; it was a worthy effort.

Along Churchill Avenue, Addis' main artery, I grew sympathetic to the accounts of former travelers. Uniformly churlish in tone, they give the impression of a chronically unfinished city. I can't say that this view is wholly inaccurate: the growth of Menelik's 'New Flower' appears more a process of metastasis than blossoming. The sanitation system, at least, hasn't caught up with the population density, if such an amenity can be said to exist at all. At every river's bridge, people hurl sodden buckets of rubbish onto the banks below. Whether purposely, accidentally or inevitably, these piles set ablaze and befoul the air.

But there are other amusements: where else can you witness outdated minibuses, cars and donkeys vying for suzerainty of diesel-choked streets? Where else can you see children head-butting crude tetherballs amidst a backdrop of Armenian architecture and Marxist obelisks? Where else can you hear the amplified crooning of Orthodox Churches competing with the Mosques' muezzins for the souls of a city? However much Addis may shock the senses, it still evokes sensibility.

Somewhat inured to shock, it was nevertheless with some surprise that I walked into the Mercato only to see a naked man spreadeagled on the pavement as if it were his private beach. A broad, beatific grin stretched across his face; his dress--ornamental at best--was more typical of a San "bushman" than an urban Ethiopian. I took everything about him to be exceptional, although I haven't any idea what rule such an exception might prove.

The Mercato opens into an endless warren of ramshackle stalls struck together out of dilapidated buildings and corrugated metal. The further you tread, the more you disappear into a dusty jungle of hawkers shrilling their wares. Nearly one third of the men sweat beneath some tremendous burden on their backs, usually a sack of grain. Gaggles of women sing and dance from the waist up; glassy-eyed men sit splayed in the shade ruminating on chat; shifty characters flit across the streets; lumbering trucks drive in virtual assurance of pedestrian fatalities--all to the national soundtrack of florid caterwauling that is Ethiopop.

Keeping in mind Ethiopian piety and modest dress, I was surprised to see that urinating in the middle of the street was not only permissible, but popular as well. I decided not to follow suit despite a distended bladder. I didn't feel that such relief would blend in, even as a man five feet from me loosed a yellow lasso. Just then a boy in brown rags backed into me. I turned around to see him holding a rock with palpable menace. I backed away. A better-dressed boy ran up and kicked him. The ragged one cocked the rock as if to throw. His opponent laughed and ducked under a blow to kick him again, exciting an outburst of laughter. Bystanders began to hoot and holler. The aggressor jogged over to make a final attempt. The poor boy's knuckles whitened around the rock as the well-dressed boy trotted up to him to land a kick. He pretended to throw the rock, caught the foot of the kicker, shoved him away and hurled the rock at him. It landed on the assailant's back with a dull thud. The ragged boy preened for the jubilant crowd while his opponent squirmed groaning on the ground. Justice was served.

Elsewhere, my presence as the lone faranji was taken with amusement, curiosity or hostility depending on the person. Rounding the corner on to the chat street, an adolescent boy ran up to me and wailed, "Why? Why are you here?" He said it with the abject passion one normally associates with Christ's last words on the cross: "Father, why have you forsaken me?" Not much later, a muttering madman caught sight of me and crossed the street to scream spit-flecked words into my face. He stood a shrunken five feet tall and had to tilt his head back to lob saliva at me. My limited understanding of Amharic notwithstanding, his speech didn't conform to any discernible pattern and seemed more a loose concussion of improvised sounds. Then he began beating me with a switch. Naturally, I found this a bit vexing and objected to my shabby treatment.

"Yikarta!" I said, Amharic for "Excuse me!"

He continued beating me undeterred. I didn't exactly have Barry Bonds on my hands; the beating was aggravating but not very painful.

"Yikarta!" I repeated.

I moved away to little effect. I looked around in exasperation only to see the younger boys pointing giddily in my direction. A bemused crowd began to form around us as my assailant continued his anemic flogging. Finally, a soldier broke through the ranks and began waving what looked to be an AK-47 in the air. He yelled at the man and kicked him in the backside. As the loony scurried away, the soldier pointed to his head and said, "Ballagé."

Crazy.

It was a fitting epitaph to the day.