At the end of a muddy track, barely visible through the mist and
drizzle, a
knot of men paces anxiously, oblivious to the cold mountain rain.
Friday
prayers have just finished and Harar, the medieval cobblestone town of
mystics, mosques, drug addicts and smugglers in north-east Ethiopia,
is
impatiently awaiting a delivery.
A tall, dark man with a keffiyeh swung loosely over his bony shoulders
approaches, his black leather shoes rimmed with mud. For an Ethiopian,
he
has an uncommonly sharp voice. He snaps a question at Girma, my guide.
I
find myself being sized up by three young men, their thin chests
visible
through soaked T-shirts. I feel stupid for straying so far from home.
Then all eyes shoot over my shoulder at two teenagers slipping down the
hill,
good news cascading with them.
"The khat is coming," Girma explains apologetically. "Everybody
is a little crazy here when there is no khat." Smiles and reassuring
pats on my back follow.
When it rains the Oromo khat farmers delay the daily harvest and the
price of
the narcotic leaf, a mild stimulant containing cathinone, steeples.
But with
thousands of devoted khat chewers waiting, they always deliver.
Within an hour, Harar is high and the tense groups dissipate into quiet
collections of chewers, all wide-eyed, a telltale smear of green paste
from
the leaves on their lips and a cud-like ball lodged in their cheeks as
they
expertly pick through blue plastic bags full of khat.
Inside the 13th-century citadel, crumpled, thin men chew methodically.
Many
are beggars, limbless or blinded by bacterial infections, and they
chew to
stave off hunger and pass the time. It is a scene that would disturb
were it
not ubiquitous.
Khat is a boom trade rivalling coffee in the mountainous, rainy areas
where
the leaf grows. Harar's fortunes have grown in parallel. Drugs and God
also
seem to mix in this permissive corner of Ethiopia, strange perhaps for
a
town that has 82 mosques and is dubbed the fourth city of Islam. Some
of the
devout chew to focus their prayers, while khat-loosened tongues also
offer
tales of demons and spirits from local folklore. For the majority,
however,
chewing is simply about getting high. Sessions bring on incessant
chatter
and – or so the men say – an improvement in sexual prowess.
Girma, who earned the nickname "Lost and Found" from a propensity
for disappearing into khat-induced reveries, says it is even more
popular 60
miles away in Somaliland. Indeed, convoys of Toyota flatbed trucks
packed
with bundles of fresh khat streak towards the border, while smuggled
cars,
televisions, radios and even weapons head the other way.
"We used to sing for coffee," says one smiling khat dealer, counting
a shabby wad of notes. "But now we sing for khat. It makes you high
and
makes you rich. This is a poor country and nothing else does that."
Source: Telegraph Media
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