Project # 005 - Castanio Bridge

Location: Ethiopia; Blue Nile River, connecting Gojjam, Wolega, and Shewa Provinces.
Bridge name: Castanio Town Bridge

Bridge Story: Over one hundred years ago, at the turn of the century, a visionary sought to do what no one else had done before: to span the Blue Nile with a bridge that would connect the capital city of Addis Ababa and the major provinces to the north, Gojjam and Gonder. This visionary's name was Signor Castanio, an Ethiopian engineer of Italian decent, residing in Addis Ababa. He was an extremely determined man.

Castanio worked for the government of Ethiopia, probably as the chief engineer of public works. In this capacity, he received a commission from reigning Emperor Menelik to build the first modern bridge across the Nile, so as to connect the capital to the rich provinces to the north. While Castanio waited for the steel to arrive from Milan, Italy, he went to the river to oversee the construction of the huge granite stone abutments on either side. He chose a site in the famous "Black Gorge" of the Blue Nile (so named for its huge walls of black granite), one which would allow for a relatively narrow span of 279 feet.

Though the steel arrived safely in the French port city of Djibouti, the steel mysteriously disappeared while being transited over land between Djibouti and Addis Ababa. He then ordered the steel again, only to have the steel come up missing again. How do tons and tons of steel disappear? No one knows . . . and, it remains one of the fascinating historical mysteries of Ethiopia. Unfortunately, by this time, the Emperor would no longer entertain further expenditures of money.

Interviewed years later in Addis by one of the Nile's most famous explorers, Major Cheesman, Castanio had still not given up on his dream. In fact, Castanio returned to the crossing in 1933 and built a flying pontoon ferry (a 12 ft by 16 ft barge held against the current by an overhead cable), its cable connected to the same stone abutments he had previously built. The frayed ends of those cables protruding out of the stone abutments are the only evidence that can be seen today that such a ferry ever existed. After the engineer's death, the almost forgotten endeavor would be called "Castanio's Folly".

When the Italians later invaded Ethiopia and temporarily occupied much of the country in the 1930's, the Italians found it necessary to build a bridge across the Blue Nile to consolidate their grip on the country. For their crossing, now called the Abai Bridge at Shafartak, they chose a spot about 50 miles upstream from the stone abutments built by Castanio. However, Castanio's crossing was not forgotten. After the original flying pontoon ferry fell into disrepair, another was built 500 meters downstream to connect the large town of Debre Marcos in Gojjam to the province to the south, Wolega. The second ferry was a success, and was operated from approximately 1950 to 1974. In 1974, two years after the rebels violently overthrew the government of Emperor Haile Selassie, much of the country lay in ruins. Much of what was not destroyed by explosives was let decay to a point of ruin. Such was the case of the 2nd Castanio ferry crossing. It fell into disrepair shortly after 1974. Yet, its rusty cable still spans the Nile.

Zoe Keone, from Bridges to Prosperity, scouted the site in March, 2002. Her trek on foot started from Kork in Gojjam to the north, and was completed in the village of Kewo in Wolega to the south. In all, it was a journey of four days covering 30 miles. The journey started at an elevation of 7000 feet, then dropped down into the river gorge with an elevation of 3000 feet, and then finished back up to the plateau on the other side at 7200 feet.

The most difficult part of the journey was crossing the river. The Ethiopians have no boats, only Jindies, a raft made from cow hide and filled with straw. To cross, one must first shoot a gun to scare all the crocodiles away. Then one person rides prone on top of the Jindy, while a second has his lower body and feet in the water kicking as fast as possible for propulsion. It is an extremely dangerous way to cross, one of which has claimed many lives, not only to crocodiles, but also due to the fact that so few Ethiopian villagers can swim. Zoe was accurately told that the men that volunteered to guide her across on the Jindy had 'sacrificed themselves', knowing how important it was for the bridge to be repaired.

During the survey trip, Zoe met with the village elders and Kebele leaders on both sides of the Nile. Their support was overwhelming. She further found that the population of villagers that live directly on either side was 250,000, and that many people she met had family members on the other side that they had not seen in 30 years. Trade currently is virtually non-existent between these two sides, due to the fact that crossing is so dangerous, and the roundtrip to reach the other side by trail or road takes over 3 days by bus, and another 2 days by foot. Hence, the conclusion of the survey was that this was an ideal crossing location, one which would have huge potential for economic trade and social benefits.

Bridges to Prosperity is currently in the process of engineering this crossing. A decision has been tentatively made to build a flying pontoon ferry cable structure similar to the one that was there before. The combined barge and cable has been determined to be the most practicable and efficient way to use this crossing. Engineering should be completed in September, 2002, and construction will follow as donors funds are available.

Note: The historical information above came from Major R. E. Cheesman's book, "Lake Tana and the Blue Nile, an Abyssinian Quest" (1927-1933) and from interviews of elders on Zoe Keone's scouting trip in 2002.

Castiano's Folly
By Zoe Keone

Nervousness infected my thoughts as the miles fell away beneath our hired Land cruiser as Hussein (my translator) and I traveled towards Debre Markos where our search for Castiano's Folly, a bridge partially constructed in 1896 then abandoned, would begin. We had yet made no contact with the zone administrator Wubshet Atnafu, no-one knew we were coming, no arrangements had been made for donkeys or guides, I did not yet know if we could cross the river where the abutments of Castiano's Folly sat, nor did I know where Castiano's abutments exactly lay. It felt a bit like a needle in a haystack - except for the unnerving fact that my life lay in the hands of the outcome. I was diving into the deep end of a pool not knowing if water even existed there - and I and four days to get myself out onto the other side. As the miles fell away I swam hard against a tide of doubt and self recrimination.

Debre Markos is a zone city in the region of Gojjam in Amhara state. With a letter from Yusuf Abdullahi, the Ethiopian Tourism Commissioner, requesting cooperation from Government representatives across the land (the only thing of value that gave me hope for the project ), I was able to gain Wubshet's support, and the following day Hussein and I with another letter in hand to the Yejube Woreda, an 18 km drive from Debre Markos.

The Yejube officials, Melesachew Demalash and Yibre Esmael, found someone to identify an approximate location for the bridge abutments we were on a mission to find and soon we were on the road again to the town of Kork, another 18 km along a rough dirt track and through farmlands where the last vehicle to pass through had been seen a year before.

Dozens of children and adults alike gathered around the car like mosquitoes on a stagnant pond, all eager for a glimpse of the ferenji woman - my species an unseen phenomenon in these parts. Berhanu Asmare Asnes, the security officer for the area, scattered the onlookers with a quick snap of his stick and ushered us into his little police hut where we could discuss in relative peace why on earth we were in Kork!

Silence filled the air inside the hut, punctured only by the ruckus of those peeking through the rough bamboo fence at our impromptu meeting, as I described our mission to find the object of Castiano's Folly with the intention of finally building a crossing there. Four men in military greens, Kalashnikof guns resting at their sides, eyed me cautiously while Hussein translated my purpose. Finally I asked: "Would the people of the area be happy if we did such a thing (as build a bridge for them)?"

"We are smiling," Berhanu replied. On cue grins spread across the faces of the tight circle of men gathered.

In Kork we finally found a people for whom a crossing at Castiano's would make an enormous difference. There are places to cross, but only in the summer and most have never seen the river. If they could cross to Shewa or Wolega, the regions on the other side of the river, they would trade sugar, coffee, maize, tef, and even livestock. Villagers from Shewa and Wolega used to come to Gojjam to buy Geshu (a plant used to make liquor), and those from Gojjam would go to Shewa for the health center there because in Gojjam they have only clinics which are staffed by untrained personnel.

Marriage though, was at the top of their list of reasons why a crossing at Castiano's would be wonderful. This is the most curious of all the reasons as well. The people of Gojjam are Amharas, and the people across the river are Oromias. These two people groups are completely different - their customs, beliefs, and even their language are of a totally different language group.

The terrain in Gojjam is rocky and steep. Tilling the land to yield plentiful crops is a tedious job, but the people of the area are hard workers and use what they are given to its greatest potential. Still, it is not enough and the people of Gojjam would like to cross to Shewa and Wolega for work in the fields as the land there is a fertile plain.

After a long session in the small mud hut, Berhanu invited us to join him and some of the townsmen for a celebratory meal - our presence alone reason to feast. We had a lunch of Choma Wat (meat stew consisting primarily of rich yellow sheep fat - a sign of respect for their guests) and Injera (large sourdough pancake - staple food for all Ethiopians), followed by the highest offering known in the area - coffee with fat.

My stomach sufficiently lined with enough oils to last a lifetime we headed off towards the river at 4pm - perfect timing to miss the terrible heat of the midday sun. Berhanu joined us as our protector and escort and five donkeys joined us with our gear.

We traveled along a ridge that headed directly towards the black gorge, the gorge that took the Blue Nile into Sudan. The first 4 & 1/2 hours were relatively easy as we meandered along the top of the ridge. Thunderstorms hit us at 8:30, and though Berhanu kept insisting that the school at Kome Mikael was only a half hour walk away, after 2 hours we no longer trusted this estimate! With rain pelting us intermittently we pressed on down a narrow rocky path now slippery with the large drops that pestered us. We reached the school at 10:30. The teachers heard of our arrival and came to greet us with bananas and finally we fell into an exhausted slumber.

We awoke at 6:30 on Friday morning and by 7 we were on the trail again. An easy hour and a half walk brought us to the village of Zeme Mikael - a village of about a dozen tukuls (round mud huts). The last hut in the village, also the largest, belonged to the village leader. Here we sat upon hides and discussed the matter at hand. The men of Zeme Mikael expressed their great interest in the possibility of a crossing at Castiano's. They knew exactly where it was even though they had not been there for many years. Zeme Mikael is the last village before the river and the elders there spoke of the days when the cable crossing, built in 1946, took a barge that could hold up to four men safely across the river. The cable was broken in 1971 (this year is 1979 in the Ethiopian calendar) and since that time they have not been able to cross. Some have crossed by Gendy - a boat made by stuffing a cow skin with straw and using it as a float while the person swims. The problem with this method is the crocodiles. The elders told some stories:

A young man from Gojjam, named Amaru, was crossing one day 2 weeks before his wedding day. In order to cross he swam pushing forward his Gendy. The crocodile took him quickly.

Another man from Wolega swam across first with his cow to trade in Gojjam and then returned to bring his donkey. The crocodile took his penis first. Then "she" bit his neck and he was lost to the savages of the Abay.

Many such stories exist they say and so they have been too afraid to cross this way since. There is a place to cross several hours upstream in the summer only, but most do not do so. The majority of the villagers of Zeme Mikael have not ever seen the river - only a few hours walk away. But they all knew where to find the beginnings of the abandoned bridge and deliberated on which path to take us there by. They all agreed however, that a crossing there would make them "betam dessu" - very happy.

About a dozen and a half men joined our small party on our journey from Zeme Mikael. They led the way over boulders, through prickle bushes and past long unused fields along a path abandoned more than 20 years before. The trail was steep, rocky and long. After 5 hours and uncountable kilometers, with weak knees and using a cane gifted to me by one of the village men, we finally reached the Abay.

She flowed slow and muddy. A wide sand bank (approx. 100m) broke the black rock shoreline at the end of the trail. Only 200m downstream the wide mouth of the Guder spat its clear waters into the murk of the Abay creating circular eddies before forcing the flow to hasten its way towards Sudan. Fifty meters upstream from the tail of the path stood, solid like soldiers and strong like a hundred men, the abutments of Castiano's Folly.

Under a large tree, the only protection from the harsh Ethiopian sun, the men from Zeme Mikael labored to make a small platform, on which we could make camp, in the fine gray sand that dropped down to the river side. When I thanked them for joining me they protested stating that they felt "great gratitude" towards me and my interest in them and the bridge.

Shortly after our arrival two men, strong swimmers the group agreed, volunteered to brave the crossing to Shewa, continue on across the Guder, and walk up to the nearest village to find us some donkeys and guides to take us through Wolega to a place where our car could collect us. They crossed to the sound of gunfire - shot to scare any lurking beasts away, and pushing a gendy which they had made in the same way those who had crossed years before had done. "They sacrificed themselves for the sake of the bridge," an elder later voiced.

During the heat of the mid-afternoon our haphazard group enjoyed coffee (without fat) and discussed the finer points of the river crossing. The men of Zeme Mikael had hoped we would build a vehicle bridge and include a road from Kork to Shewa. In turn I explained that I was thinking more along the lines of a gondola or suspension bridge! A moment of silence followed this revelation during which I wondered how on earth a road would find its way here. Slowly the men came around to the idea and decided that, although it wasn't what they were thinking of, a foot bridge would suffice.

Though my safety was never in question, I had moments when I wondered if this time I'd really gone out on a limb. I do not consider the people of Ethiopia savages. From my experience they are...innocent - hospitable, and kind. But here I was in an area where Demikabat, painting with blood, continues to be a matter taken seriously. Demikabat is when a member of one family kills, either accidentally or on purpose, a member of another family. It is then the duty of the grieving family to take either the murderer or one of his family as payment for the loss of their family member. The cycle rarely sees an end. It is then the job of Berhanu to step in and settle the matter as often it can cause feuds that reach beyond 2 families to include entire villages. Berhanu claims that Demikabat has ceased in the area, but later I was to discover the reality behind the facade.

As the light of day turned golden with the approach of night we climbed the surrounding rocks to the base of Castiano's abutments. Twenty-two feet wide, forty feet high and six feet thick, the rock and cement face was imposing like the defenses of a medieval castle. With the tallest of the Zeme Mikael men standing straight and stoic before the abutment as an approximate six foot measure I took photos and measured with the string I brought for that purpose. The abutments stand in a v-shape backing their way into the rock wall of the mountainside with a platform opening towards the river like a deep bowl made of stone. Though over a hundred years old very little of the masonry's age shows. Only surface repair would be required to restore its tall walls to new.

Five hundred meters downstream, just past the wide mouth of the Guder, a cable built in 1946 runs high above the Nile's waters from Gojjam to Wolega. This cable was used, until 23 years ago during the time of the Dirg, to ferry on a floating barge nervous passengers from side to side.

At 8 am on Saturday morning our boys from Zeme Mikael returned with 4 donkeys and 2 men from a nearby village in Wolega. Shortly after 9 am we crossed by gendy to the sound of gunfire, waved goodbye to our new friends from Gojjam and headed across the Guder to travel up into Wolega on what was to be a long hard climb to the village of Chara. A lonely path took us directly up the hill, pestered by flies and thrashed by prickle bushes we pressed on uphill for 2 hours before reaching a large burnt plain. Blackened tree remnants and the distant prospect of a shot at a wild goat kept us going, stopping only when we found a large enough rock to provide shade. A distant mountain threatened us with the promise of another long climb. Heat exhaustion hit me like a lead weight as the hills fell upon us in mid afternoon. I was forced to stop every half hour to take copious quantities of water and rest my aching legs and lungs. Our donkey men however were anxious to press on unaffected by the heat and frustrated by the ferenji's inability to take the pain. "Chara is nearby," Tesfoo told me one of my interludes. I desperately wanted to believe his story and gratefully, as day turned once more to night and the air began to cool we reached the town of Chara - a small village overlooking the long plain and the Black gorge giving way to the Abay.

Like in Gojjam, the people of Chara had never before seen a foreigner. Most have heard that I exist, but they have no idea why or where I come from, or what America is, or pasta, or why I would carry a tent, or how I could talk on a black box held to my ear. But mostly they could not figure out why I was there - in Chara - nor could they understand how I, a foreign woman, came to be in Wolega surveying a bridge. No-one had ever before offered them a bridge - not a foreigner or an Ethiopian.

Though they greeted me with some of the wariness of Gojjam, the men of Chara were clearly pleased with the idea of a bridge where they could cross and visit family long lost but not forgotten, by way of which they could trade their good donkeys and marry their best women to the hard working men of Gojjam.

"It is possible to cross by foot," the men of Chara told me, "many miles downstream of the Guder. But this is only possible during the driest season - a four month window. In the rainy season we must travel all the way to Addis, then cross the Nile by way of the Gorge bridge and continue to Debre Markos to reach the villages on the other side." This can take many days, over one hundred miles of walking and several buses, but Ethiopian tradition says that when a member of the family dies, the remaining family must travel to the deceased's village to grieve.

One elder lamented: "If only I could see this bridge built in my lifetime, I could know my family would be together again."

Another stated more plainly: "This is good hope for us."

"We are in big problem," an old man with thinning stubble on a weathered chin said. "We are ready now so why don't you build it now? See these children?" With an expansive sweep of his arm he indicated the several boys standing nearby watching the proceedings, "This is for them. They will build your platforms and carry your bag and make the way safe for you and their future families. They are ready."

An old woman came to tell me her story and as she squatted down before me I realized that she had been the only woman other than me to be allowed into the inner circle of men. She told her story of crossing by the barge 30 years ago:

"I heard my brother was dead and that is why I crossed.
It was fasting time - in July.
I crossed with a white man.
I crossed on the cable.
When I heard the story of my brother's death I went to the river and asked to cross."
They (the men working the barge) said "why should you cross? Do you know someone there?" I told them my story but they did not believe me. They told me to buy them some tella (beer) and then I could cross. I could not.

At that time the Italians were there, taking some measurements, and they came and took me across.
I am a woman. I was very nervous.
I stayed there one day to cry with my family and came back.
I am glad you crossed today.

Since that time the village of Chara has lost many men to the crocodiles of the Abay. They told a story of a man whose penis was taken by the crocodile and the he fought her and he won. He returned to his village and was taken to the hospital, nearly dying of lost blood before he arrived there. He had an operation but his life no longer had meaning - he could not have children. He lived a long time before death took him from his pain.

Upstream from the Abay along the Guder hangs idle yet another cable crossing built at the same time as the one across the Abay. From Chara this crossing is a 2 1/2 hour walk away and afterwards it would be another hour to reach Castiano's. The Guder is also impassible during the rains, thus making the bridge at Castiano's unreachable for the people of Wolega. "Please consider our problem," they said.

And consider it I did. I considered all that I had learned those past four days. I had met people so lovely and giving, so delighted by the chance to see their families long lost that they walked hours upon hours and sacrificed their lives and their trust to hope that I would return.

I found an area with a problem so great and none to fill their need. A river so dangerous as to keep families apart for decades and to restrict trade so much as to force villagers, for whom money is scarce, to pay city prices for common items like sugar, and a region where 2 peoples, the Oromia and the Amharas, join in marriage and death, and celebrate their friendship and love for each other.

I found a region that needs a bridge.