Three weeks with my brother - Nicholas Sparks [102]
We did, however, see a young boy around ten years of age, eight miles from Lalibela. Walking along the road, he was hauling a monstrously overstuffed burlap bag of charcoal that he intended to deliver to the city. The bag, both taller and wider than the child, had been strapped to his back and looked many times heavier than the child himself. When he saw our bus passing, he smiled and waved a greeting before continuing his slow march to the town.
Most of the town of Lalibela was situated off the main highway, along bumpy gravel roads. Its thatched-roof adobe homes featured few glass windows, but the town boasted numerous places to eat, small, family-owned businesses, and souvenir shops. Nearly everyone we saw wore western clothing. A number of tables lined the roads, offering various T-shirts, most emblazoned with American logos. For all intents and purposes, the town of Lalibela was an Ethiopian tourist trap.
Our buses parked near the carved rock churches, and as soon as we stepped off the bus, we were besieged by teens; unlike other places we’d visited, they had no trinkets for sale. Instead, they asked for money; every child who came up to us told us that he needed money either to attend school or to buy the books he needed at the school he was currently attending.
In the end, they were forced back by Ethiopian guards swinging sticks.
Lalibela was one of the least-known sites we would visit on the trip; few knew what to expect. We weren’t disappointed. The vast amount of labor needed for construction—literally carving through rock by hand—was evident as soon as we gazed upon the first church we would visit. It was far larger than we’d imagined; at least sixty feet long and forty feet wide, it was surrounded by modern scaffolding that supported a roof over the top.
“The roof is to prevent leaks,” the guide informed us, “and to keep the churches from decaying.”
We spent the next couple of hours wandering from one church to the next. The churches were dark inside. Few had windows, and though fluorescent lights had been strung inside, they barely permeated the blackness. The floors were slick, polished by eight hundred years of use to an almost icy smoothness. Because the churches are still in use today, throw rugs had been placed throughout. Unfortunately, they didn’t cover the floor in its entirety, and we moved slowly, like blind men in foreign surroundings, to prevent us from falling.
In all, we would spend three hours in Lalibela. Toward the end of our visit, Micah and I wandered off to take pictures; because the churches were so different from everything we’d seen up to that point—carved into stone, rather than built with stone—we tried to find vantage points that could capture how unique they were.
The visits to the churches had left Micah strangely silent, and as I was snapping away, he went to sit on one of the ledges overlooking the site. I eventually walked over to join him.
“So what did you think of this place?” Micah finally asked.
“It was worth seeing, if that’s what you mean.”
“They’re not exactly like the churches we have back home, are they?”
“I don’t think the kids would appreciate having to stand the whole time during the service.”
He smiled. “Are you glad you still go to Mass?”
“As opposed to what?”
“Going to another Christian church?”
I thought about it. “Yeah,” I said. “I am. But Cat is Catholic, too, so we’ve never considered changing.”
“I like the church I go to now. Or used to, anyway.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. I guess I just got bored that Mass always seemed the same. And I couldn’t relate the sermons to my life. I think church should make you feel close to God, but I wasn’t getting that. With the new church, I did for a while.”
“Do you think you’ll ever feel that way again?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t felt . . . close to God lately. I’m not even sure that I believe in God anymore.”
“Really?”
“Not God, per se. I think God exists,