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Five large cardboard storage boxes, stacked a few feet behind Charles McClellan’s desk, seem out of place among the new file cabinets and bookshelves of his office in RU’s International Education Building. Nothing, however, could be more appropriate in this history professor’s office.
The boxes are filled with the story of a particular people in a specific place and time. Their story, about a war McClellan went to Ethiopia to study on a 1990 Fulbright research award, rests for now on scores of pages in English, Italian, German and French.
When McClellan received the Fulbright award, he anticipated a “sentimental
journey” to the country where he had spent three years as a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer. From 1967 to 1970, McClellan had made friends and developed an abiding interest in Ethiopia.
He also felt a little anxious and unprepared. “I had heard that most people don’t get a Fulbright the first time they apply,” he explains. “It usually takes several tries. So I thought if I did get an award it would be two or three years down the road and I’d have time to do my preliminary research while applying and re-applying.”
Nevertheless, when the award came on his first try, he gladly took off for the country he hadn’t seen since 1975, when he did field work for his doctoral dissertation. Now his interest was in the Italo-Ethiopian War, which occurred between 1935 and 1941; his main goal was to interview eyewitnesses to the war, to learn about its day-to-day impact on the ordinary people of the countryside. The advancing age of those who remembered the war added urgency to his task. He arrived in the capital, Addis Ababa, eager to begin and especially looking forward to heading north toward Debre Markos, the town where he had taught while in the Peace Corps.
At the time, however, guerrilla fighters -- tightening the noose around a military government that had been in power since 1974 -- were occupying much of the north; that kept him close to the capital until near the end of his eight-month stay. When he and a native Ethiopian friend were finally able to board a bus for Debre Markos, the trip took hours longer than usual because at every stop, passengers had to disembark and open their luggage for security checks. In each village, says McClellan, people were amazed to see a foreigner get off the bus. Although foreign visitors sometimes “whizzed through in their private cars or landrovers,” he says, few rode the buses any more, and these small villages had experienced little recent intimate contact with them.
Those who first saw McClellan arrive in Debre Markos were likewise surprised and curious, but after word spread of who he was, people began coming to the hotel where he was staying to introduce themselves as his former students. “Children would approach me on the street and say, ‘My father was your student,’ or ‘my uncle was your student.’” It reminded him of how the people of the area valued education. When he was teaching there, parents from miles away would send their children to the school where he taught. Sometimes they would walk the distance each day, but if it was too far, they would stay with relatives or friends. “These were people who had little means and who had families of their own to feed,” says McClellan, “but education was so important that they would take in their friends’ and relatives’ children too.” Although the town had electricity, many couldn’t afford it, he says. “Some of my students had to do their homework by candlelight, or outside under a dim street light, but they got it done.”
With the assistance of his friend, McClellan, who speaks the Amharic language of the Ethiopians, listened to and recorded the memories of people who had lived through the Italo-Ethiopian War. Although surprised that anyone would be interested in their memories, the people were pleased at the opportunity to tell their stories. McClellan heard about how Italian troops as well as Ethiopian guerrillas appropriated food and livestock from peoples’ farms. He talked with women whose children were abducted or killed and women who went to the front to fight, or to find their husbands and take care of them. Some of his 100 interviews lasted a total of six to eight hours, conducted in shorter blocks of time over several days.
Although he has published articles and made presentations based on his research, McClellan has yet to write the book that will release the full story from his boxes. While teaching full course loads, he waits for the time when he can complete his task and hopes it won’t be too late, that someone else won’t write the story before he does.
Meanwhile, he relishes the memories of his travels, which have included stays in England, India, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand, and he encourages others to expand their cultural horizons through foreign travel. “You don’t have to go somewhere as different as Ethiopia,” says McClellan. “Even in England, there are differences in language and culture.” Regardless of where you go, he says, “It will change your life.”
[BACK]
Five large cardboard storage boxes, stacked a few feet behind Charles McClellan’s desk, seem out of place among the new file cabinets and bookshelves of his office in RU’s International Education Building. Nothing, however, could be more appropriate in this history professor’s office.
The boxes are filled with the story of a particular people in a specific place and time. Their story, about a war McClellan went to Ethiopia to study on a 1990 Fulbright research award, rests for now on scores of pages in English, Italian, German and French.
When McClellan received the Fulbright award, he anticipated a “sentimental
journey” to the country where he had spent three years as a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer. From 1967 to 1970, McClellan had made friends and developed an abiding interest in Ethiopia.He also felt a little anxious and unprepared. “I had heard that most people don’t get a Fulbright the first time they apply,” he explains. “It usually takes several tries. So I thought if I did get an award it would be two or three years down the road and I’d have time to do my preliminary research while applying and re-applying.”
Nevertheless, when the award came on his first try, he gladly took off for the country he hadn’t seen since 1975, when he did field work for his doctoral dissertation. Now his interest was in the Italo-Ethiopian War, which occurred between 1935 and 1941; his main goal was to interview eyewitnesses to the war, to learn about its day-to-day impact on the ordinary people of the countryside. The advancing age of those who remembered the war added urgency to his task. He arrived in the capital, Addis Ababa, eager to begin and especially looking forward to heading north toward Debre Markos, the town where he had taught while in the Peace Corps.
At the time, however, guerrilla fighters -- tightening the noose around a military government that had been in power since 1974 -- were occupying much of the north; that kept him close to the capital until near the end of his eight-month stay. When he and a native Ethiopian friend were finally able to board a bus for Debre Markos, the trip took hours longer than usual because at every stop, passengers had to disembark and open their luggage for security checks. In each village, says McClellan, people were amazed to see a foreigner get off the bus. Although foreign visitors sometimes “whizzed through in their private cars or landrovers,” he says, few rode the buses any more, and these small villages had experienced little recent intimate contact with them.
Those who first saw McClellan arrive in Debre Markos were likewise surprised and curious, but after word spread of who he was, people began coming to the hotel where he was staying to introduce themselves as his former students. “Children would approach me on the street and say, ‘My father was your student,’ or ‘my uncle was your student.’” It reminded him of how the people of the area valued education. When he was teaching there, parents from miles away would send their children to the school where he taught. Sometimes they would walk the distance each day, but if it was too far, they would stay with relatives or friends. “These were people who had little means and who had families of their own to feed,” says McClellan, “but education was so important that they would take in their friends’ and relatives’ children too.” Although the town had electricity, many couldn’t afford it, he says. “Some of my students had to do their homework by candlelight, or outside under a dim street light, but they got it done.”
With the assistance of his friend, McClellan, who speaks the Amharic language of the Ethiopians, listened to and recorded the memories of people who had lived through the Italo-Ethiopian War. Although surprised that anyone would be interested in their memories, the people were pleased at the opportunity to tell their stories. McClellan heard about how Italian troops as well as Ethiopian guerrillas appropriated food and livestock from peoples’ farms. He talked with women whose children were abducted or killed and women who went to the front to fight, or to find their husbands and take care of them. Some of his 100 interviews lasted a total of six to eight hours, conducted in shorter blocks of time over several days.
Although he has published articles and made presentations based on his research, McClellan has yet to write the book that will release the full story from his boxes. While teaching full course loads, he waits for the time when he can complete his task and hopes it won’t be too late, that someone else won’t write the story before he does.
Meanwhile, he relishes the memories of his travels, which have included stays in England, India, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand, and he encourages others to expand their cultural horizons through foreign travel. “You don’t have to go somewhere as different as Ethiopia,” says McClellan. “Even in England, there are differences in language and culture.” Regardless of where you go, he says, “It will change your life.”
[BACK]