For the first time, at Plan H we have dubbed a story sent by El barco del arroz; we hope that our non-Ahmaric-speaking listeners will find it a good idea (the voice-over in the three languages is courtesy of our dear friend Alfons Claver). By the way: in this occasion, we recommend to use headphones so you don’t miss anything.

Once again, the aura of timelessness that envelops the broadcasts sent from the ship doesn’t make it easy for us to date the content. But we do believe that these fragments of personal experience were shared shortly before the outbreak of the conflict that, in successive waves, has been massacring Ethiopia for years while the rest of the world remains not too much disturbed by the noise.

The voice communicates a sense of relief and hope in times of peace. However, nowadays this serene account sounds unsettlingly oblivious to a subsonic presence that, at that very moment, was already threatening underground in the form of both geological and social tensions. And, in hindsight, it’s not difficult to link that premonitory sonic shadow to the low-frequency vibrations that literally opened wounds in the heart of Lalibela.

In November 2023, and to the utter astonishment of the devotees, thunders from heavy weaponry shook a holy place that was perceived as a spiritual bubble virtually detached from the physical world. In a new episode of the ubiquitous fight between a “peacekeeping” state and local guerrillas supported by much of the population in the area, the national army unloaded its imposing weight right at the limits of the temples within this New Jerusalem carved into stone (by angels, some say) almost 1000 years ago. The impacts created invisible waves that fissured in the same breath both the red basalt and the faith in the invulnerability of the sacred.

Now, in Lalibela they fear that this crevice carved by violence will continue to grow to the point of collapse. Nobody expected it; least of all, the priests who daily traverse its passageways wrapped in a protective mantle of prayer and liturgy inherited from ancient times. The contradiction is even more puzzling considering that the political leader of the country had previously been anointed with such a coveted distinction as the Nobel Peace Prize. As the transmitted text message concludes, the line between calmness and disaster can be as thin as a crack in the rock.