Bono (26 page)

. . . fairly white.

Actually, yes.

Let's go further. The Irish aren't white. We're more rosy pink.
[laughs]

Peter Gabriel was too. But he started collaborating with African musicians early on.

Yes. In Ireland, there were only three black people in the seventies: one of them sang for Thin Lizzy; one of them a best friend, Sharon Blankson, now runs U2's wardrobe; and the other one ate some people. There was a
famous incident in the seventies where a medical student at the College of Surgeons ate a couple of people.

Really?

I'm not messing. I think his name was Mohangi. He ate his girlfriend and served her up in a restaurant where he was working.
Mohangi
entered the language at the time.

You're pulling my leg?

It's better than eating it! But you know, there were very few immigrants who wanted to come to Ireland at the time.

I can understand African music wasn't on Irish radio, but why should that have prevented you from trying if you wanted to?

We'd listen to the music, but it wasn't really what we were into at that time. You're trying to find your own voice. I like African music, as it happens, an awful lot. But the concept of world music didn't really do it for me. I felt lifted by Youssou n'Dour and Angélique Kidjo. My favorite African singer is that Egyptian singer Oum Kalthoum. And then Salif Keita, King Sunny Ade: these were all on our record label—Island Records. I loved them. But it turns out that the groove-based music isn't our strength. My voice doesn't sound great singing over a groove. My voice seems to prefer chord changes in the more Western sense. It's finally that. I remember that we were coming up with some pretty good grooves, but the songs weren't very good. With Brian Eno at the helm, we were experimenting with a lot of grooves, but I remember saying to Edge: “I think my voice might need a few chord changes.” I am not black. I am white. Might as well accept it.
[laughs]

But the idea of a rock star who goes over to Africa only when a big catastrophe happens there, and is not passionate about its music, or its people—it's a bit upsetting.

What I'm telling you is, being Irish, I wasn't exposed to Africa as a cultural force, more as a moral dilemma. Yeah, it's a shame. Because Africa's next door to Europe. It's as close to go from where I am now in France to Africa as it is going from Toronto to Jamaica.

You could have swum over there this morning.

I think I was trying . . . to get away from you.
[laughs]
I ran out of air, actually. The truth of it is that Africa did not feel like a next-door neighbor to Europe. We grew up thinking of Africa as farther than Australia, which is a pity, because I would have loved to go as a tourist, and Africa needs our tourism. I'm trying to bring my children there now. But, no, I went there as part of a relief agency, an aid worker, and that's not a great way to see Africa.

Still you traveled there, and I'm sure that seeing it for the first time was a shock to you. I would love to hear you talk about your experiences there the same way you discussed your first time in New York. So you are in Africa for the first time in your life. You've just landed and passed through customs. What is your first impression? What do you see? What do you smell? What do you feel? And where are you exactly?

It's Addis Ababa. There's heat, intense heat, and the noise of a busy airport . . .

Ali's with you.

It's just Ali and myself. We're trying to meet someone. His name is Steve Reynolds, and he's the guy who's put this together for us. I think I'm enjoying the feeling of mild fear.

What is it that feels threatening?

Well, just because I don't know what's around the corner or where we're going. I don't know. Will there be people at the airport to meet us? Will it work out? It's not unlike New York, actually. It's that same kind of high-pitched chatter, and people shouting across each other. There is a certain molecular excitement in Africa, which you do pick up. It feels like the molecules are vibrating a little faster. So then, we go out onto the streets, and it's the chaos of Addis Ababa.

I've never been there. How big a city is it?

It's a big city. I've been there a few times now. I can't remember where we stayed, that's kind of gone. But before we went off, someone asked us if we wanted to see around Addis Ababa. They said the best way to do was by horse. So I said: “Horses?” And they said: “Yeah.”

Can you ride?

No, I didn't tell them I couldn't ride. You should know that about me now.

It's true.
[laughs]

Mengistu.

No, I didn't say anything about not riding. Ali can ride. So, they said: “We can take Haile Selassie's horses.” I said: “You're joking!” They said: “Yeah. Now Haile Selassie's gone, the palace has been taken by the Communists.”
That's right. But he's not interested, as it turns out, in Haile Selassie's horses. So somebody has them, and you can take them out for the day. They're giant stallions.

What color? Black?

Black. And I had to get up on this horse. When I was a kid in Northside Dublin, the gypsy horses, they used to let them out in the winters. They'd come into our neighborhood, and we used to ride them bareback. But this is a very different thing. They're about twice as tall.

It's a double-decker.

[laughs]
It's a double-decker. You got it. I'm trying my very best not to show our hosts that I can't ride. I've told them I can. So we go through the back streets, and I remember one vivid picture of the people who are with World Vision, which is an American aid agency. One of the women was breast-feeding a child on the horse.
[laughs]
She was so comfortable. She didn't mean to be insensitive. But the Muslim women did not like this and came out and started throwing stones at her because she was showing her breasts. I love it when other people make such a faux pas. It's usually me. But it was incredible to go through the back streets of this ancient capital by horse.

And when the people in the streets saw this white man looking a little funny riding that huge horse,
[Bono laughs]
how did they react? Did they wave at you or did they stone you?

They waved and laughed. Boys with big pearly grins just laughing their head off at the Irish people.

You toured the city, but I remember a couple of years ago you mentioned a story about visiting the countryside, where you saw a treasure in some holy place. Do you remember that?

Yes. The area of Ethiopia where we were working was in the north: a place called Ajibar, near Wollo. The local Communist commander took an interest in myself and Ali, I think just out of boredom. And he befriended us, would ask us questions about where we lived, and even our address. I got the impression he was going to bolt to get the hell out of Dodge, as the Americans say. We were in the hills, where you could see other hills way in the distance. At the top of one of those hills on a large flat mesa, you could just about make out a monastery. We asked “Comrade Gorma” about it and one day he took us there.

On horseback?

No, we went on jeep. Then we got out of the jeep, and then we took, I think, some donkeys. Maybe it was horses. I can't exactly remember how we got up there. But when we got to the monastery, an extraordinary thing happened. All the monks started to panic and got down on their knees in front of this military man, and kind of begged him.

. . . not to harm them.

. . . not to harm them. And it was so shocking to see this. Then they all started bringing him in, and showing him around. He was not that scary a man, but it will show you the memory of the revolution had left these monks terrorized. The monks brought him and those following behind to this silo—I guess that would have been for grain, or something like that. There was a ladder. We climbed up the ladder, and then climbed down another ladder into the middle of the silo where, wrapped in sacks, was a treasure that they'd been hiding. There were crowns, gold crowns, and
religious artifacts. I couldn't believe my eyes. I photographed them. I still have the photographs. But the monk offered up the crown to “Comrade Gorma.” He put it on Ali's head, and I have pictures of them. I really don't know how priceless they were. I'm not qualified enough to figure out whether they were nineteenth- or eleventh-century. But as we left, we were so sad because we had the feeling these beautiful treasures wouldn't be there the next day. I don't know where this man went. Maybe now he's an antiques dealer. But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe he handed it over and they're in a museum somewhere. But it was Emperor Menelik's retreat. Menelik was in direct line from King David. Ethiopia . . . it's a mystic country. People are so royal looking. You read about Solomon coming to meet and indeed fall in love with the Queen of Sheba. It's like Bob Marley on every corner. They say it's where the Garden of Eden was. They say it's where the Ark of the Covenant is. It's a remarkable, beautiful country. It is bewildering to see the kind of poverty that lives there now.

There is something unexpected in your amazement at the beauty of the place. The experience you have just described is not particularly sad. There is an element of drama, but you are conveying a real sense of beauty. But each time I have heard you talk about Africa before today, it was only to remind people of how tragic and dreadful a place it is.

Whenever I visit developing countries, the thing that strikes me the most is the happiness in the midst of misery. I mean, you read about war and dismal poverty, but when you're there, you see smiles, you hear laughter, you feel kindness, even joy.

I can't agree with that. I always try to talk about the potential of the people and the place. As I say, it's a place of rare beauty. In fact, my book of photographs,
A String of Pearls
, taken when I was working there, was not of the sick and the hungry. They were of the recovering and the well. Because I wanted to convey how beautiful and how noble these people were. Yes, I think it's very important to describe Africa in terms other than tragedy. You have to find a way of describing its myriad of possibilities, its thick jungle and rocky terrains. The Serengeti, the shining temples and calls to prayer . . . Their holy cities, where they play their car horns like musical instruments. Big bloody suns, that's another one. When you see the sun setting, you duck.
Oh yeah, the absence of self-pity, which is a quality I wish I possessed. It's a quality I admire in people the most: lack of self-pity. It's one of the marks of some of my favorite people. But, oh yeah, the giddiness and the laughter. You know, I used to have earrings, when the two of us were in charge of this orphanage for a short while. I was called “The Girl with the Beard,” because I couldn't shave.

I think that just by accident, you've come up with the title of this chapter.

That's what it was, I was called “The Girl with the Beard.” Myself and Ali worked on a program where you could teach children through songs or one-act plays. It is still operating, I'm told. We would teach them the things they needed to know in order to not be sick. So I wrote songs and they were translated into Amharic. Somewhere, these songs exist, and one of the plays was about giving birth. We worked with the local nurse. Stuff like how to cut the umbilical cord. There were some bad practices. They would use cow dung, and things like that, which would cause infection. These people are a captive audience. The children would then go around, singing these songs and so teach their parents. It was a three-week program: a song, a play, and a story, and then repeated. That's all we did there.

So your work was about the spirit of the people. It was not just distributing food.

The camp was about feeding, but myself and Ali were in charge of the orphanage. We slept in a tent. In the morning, as the mist would lift, we
would see thousands of people walking in lines toward the camp, people who had been walking for great distances through the night—men, women, children, families who'd lost everything, taking few possessions on a voyage to meet mercy. Some, as they got to the camp, would collapse. Some would leave their children at the gates, and some would leave dead children at the fences to be buried. There was barbed wire all around the camp. I always thought this was so upsetting that we should have barbed wire. I thought the place looked like a concentration camp.

But why did they put up the barbed wire?

Unlike the concentration camps, it was to keep people out. It really brought home the problem. There was not enough to go around. Wouldn't you steal food for your family? I would. And again, these people are so royal, they're so elegant, so upright, these women and men. To have their dignity robbed from them, to arrive at a feeding station where it's Auschwitz in reverse . . .

Were people from the outside threatening to loot the camp?

No, I don't remember any feeling of aggression. The barbed wire was precautionary. I do remember a man coming to me with his child—his son. He was so clearly proud of his son. Giving me his son, and saying to me: “Please, take my boy, because if he stays with me, he will surely die. If he goes with you, he will live.” Having to say no, and having to turn away, is a very . . . very, very, very, very hard thing to do. One part of me did and, you know, one part of me didn't. That's the part of me that still goes back there. It's a more than uneasy feeling. If you just put it into your own world, and think about your own child, and what it took for that man to say that, it's . . . bewildering.

You did that right after Live Aid, right?

Yes. Having got caught up in Live Aid, I said to Ali: “I just can't get these people I'm seeing on television out of my head. We have to try and do something. In a quiet way.” We didn't tell anyone we were going. We just went out, as it were, under the radar.