I got an email from a friend last week that lives in Addis Ababa. “Saw your book at the Hilton,” she wrote, “next to Time Magazine’s Africa Addition. Does this mean you’ve finally arrived?”
    Nope. But my book has.
After almost three months, Vertical Ethiopia finally landed in Addis for distribution. The first print run happened all at the same time (that’s what makes it a print run) and on February 14th, half of the books were loaded onto a plane from Dubai to Amsterdam to New York to Chicago, where some got on a truck to me in Denver and the rest on to my distributor in Houston. I had them in hand on the 21st. The other half was going to go by sea to Addis. Addis is less than 1600 miles from Dubai. It took the books eighty days to travel that distance, the majority of which time they were hanging out in Djibouti, waiting to be cleared for import and export. It took that long. It should not have. But that’s what happens these days in that part of the world sometimes.  
    The plan behind this project was to work on a book that would communicate about Ethiopia both to foreigners and to locals. Now the locals can finally see the result. My book is all over Addis, in Bookstores, hotels, and hopefully soon, a few coffee shops. The Ethiopian Birr price on the back is finally coming in handy.
    On the other side of the Atlantic, I had a television interview a few weeks ago for NECN in Boston. Over three million people in six states got to see me talk about Ethiopia. And for those who missed it, it was posted online. Check it out HERE. But be warned. You will first have to watch a Porsche Add.
    The clip comes on fast and loud and before you know it the sleek 90K car is zipping into your visual field. And then they cut to Ethiopia. It’s perfect. It’s Porsche’s in Ethiopia—almost.
When I was living in Addis, the arrival of any new car was announced through the community faster than news of a food shortage or political event. Taxi drivers, waiters, government officials and foreigners would all say the same thing.
    “Did you see the new BMW? That makes eight.”
    “Nine.” Another person would clarify, “The black 750 as number 8.”
    “I thought it was the yellow three series…”
    And so conversation would continue until all of the BMW’s in Ethiopia were accounted for. And then they would start with the Audis.
In Ethiopia, the government still taxes vehicles at 100%.  Before my team came to Ethiopia to climb I told them how much it would be to rent our vehicles. “But that’s expensive,” one teammate said, “Isn’t it supposed to be cheap in Ethiopia?”
No, it isn’t. Not when the system imposes those taxes. Not when it takes 3 months for a book to get from Dubai to Addis—even when the book was produced in Addis in the first place.
    In the US, we get everything immediately. I had a television interview and fifteen minutes later it was up on line. My friends recently climbed a big peak in Alaska and it was on another website before they’d even flown out of the mountains. It’s fast and now. So fast and now that maybe the irony of a Porsche add before a piece on Ethiopia goes unnoticed. I didn’t see it the first time I watched it. But I did see the emails from my friends in Ethiopia when they saw my book. I’m trying to catch more things in my life. Really. But then again, I still didn’t notice the new beemer in Addis last March. It was a five-series, I think.

Guest Blog for The Conversation, the blog for Telluride Mountain Film, where Majka will be this May with her book tour.

"And so we begin. Away from images of an aching population continually subject to drought and famine made worse by human hands. Toward something deeper. For me, this depth includes adventure—climbing this time—in a landscape and culture that is known only for everything that is the opposite." read more

There’s the retired schoolteacher who spent four year, or two stints, in the Peace Corps in southern Ethiopia. He remembers the people. The food. The peace.

The young woman who traveled overland from Kenya and to the Red Sea, across the contested boarder in the back of jeep, just to see if she could. She wants to know how to buy coffee directly from the source. She cannot seem to shake the taste of the thick Ethiopian brew.

The Ethiopian man from Wollo. He’s been here in the US longer than he was in Ethiopia. He says his children are American, he is not.

The 18-year old boy, a ski bum for the winter with hopes of African intrigue with a woman who called him from Egypt. They’re meeting in Addis.

The consummate traveler whose never tried to climb but grasps my book with both hands and asks if I know how she could start.

They all turn the pages of my book and stop on different images and stories so that the entire sea of my life and work for the past year is laid out before me. I had not understood how my extroversion could work as a writer. Maybe it’s like this.

As of January 2nd, 345 Ethiopian Birr (ETB) was the equivalent to $37.99. On that day my publisher set the price for my book and now, a month and a half later, my book is stamped with both prices on the back. The ETB price comes first and this, and the very fact it is on my book, makes me giddy each time I see it.

How many books are sold in the US with prices in ETB? This may be the first. What does it mean? To me it's a reminder of the process, all of the irony, the work, the daily 5:30 am phone calls to Addis Ababa, through a phone card that required 18 -digits just to get to the actual Ethiopian number, back further to taxi rides across Addis, through the slaughter house, confusion intersection where no less than 12 major roads converse in some semblance of a traffic circle, past guava and bananas and Rastafarians and young boys with a different limb missing on each corner.

My books are traveling now. By sea to Addis from Dubai. Then they too will travel the Ethiopian streets. 345 ETB suddenly seems worth quite a bit.

The call comes in the middle of my third cup of coffee. I load into the car and wonder just how much space 500 books will take up in my wagon. It’s industrial where I am going; gray buildings of concrete and steel compete with each other for light. Is this the part of life that makes you an adult? Driving yourself, alone, to sign forms, shake hands, stare at 23 boxes shipped straight from Dubai?
    Matt is the man in receiving. I back up my car onto an L-shaped ramp and impress him, and I think to myself, you should see my book. Because this is suddenly possible. I can see my book. It’s everywhere. I feel big and small all at once as I heft box after cardboard box from the pallet into my trunk. I drive home, almost a full ton heavier and feel like I’m flying.