The addictive stimulant khat continues to have a huge influence on peoples across

A Russian-built Antonov takes off every day from the runway of Dire Dawa, in eastern Ethiopia. The VIP carried on this specially chartered plane is eagerly expected in Djibouti, like some august personage, and tremors of suppressed pleasure flutter through the arteries of the town. A hush of expectation descends as the place awaits the cargo with a dry mouth and a glint in its dusty eye. When the chartered plane lands, disgorging its precious cargo, a green wave surges out. First, there is a noisy hubbub, then – as mouths fill with cud – calm descends in the guise of an emerald veil on that torrid city.

Khat (Catha edulis) is Ethiopia’s fourth biggest export (after coffee, leather and oil seeds) and one that is growing every year. A traditional narcotic, it is exported mainly to Somalia and Djibouti, but also to the UK (73 tons last year). Indeed, a recent article in The Times pointed out rising concern about the consumption of khat among the youth of… Birmingham.

Closer to its origins, the leader of the new sharia courts in Somalia has banned the leaf in recent months. But as Mohammed Seyid, a Somali shop owner in Addis Ababa, told me: ‘That will be the end of the government! Siad Barre [the president of Somalia before the country’s descent into anarchy] tried the same. He quickly went back on that decision. So, how about chewing a little, my friend? Nothing wrong with a few green leaves.’

Seyid grinned as he spoke, gesturing towards the herbal wares that hung from the roof of his minuscule shop.

Khat is a narcotic with calming effects that is widely believed to be a tool in thehands of politicians. As Abdi Mohammed – not his real name – a Djiboutian health professional told me: ‘The damn thing keeps everybody complacent. They talk, and then they talk some more. They chew, then they chew some more. They make revolutions in the afternoon, forget them in the evening, sleep fitfully and get up to wait for the next plane.’

The first time I chewed khat was on the deck of a dhow bound for Tadjoura. We had left the port of Djibouti in the late afternoon, and as we sailed across the gulf, dolphins dived into the surf and the sun set on the high black mountains at the bottom of the Ghoubbet el Kharab. A fisherman kept pulling silver-coloured fish out of the water with nothing but a hook decorated with a piece of crimson rag, and clouds hung in a sky as blue and motionless as a photographer’s studio background. The khat leaves were reddish green, bitter and chewy. ‘The best from Harrar, especially for you,’ Ali Suleiman had said at the market in Djibouti. But he would say that. He was selling the stuff, and chewing it too. He had an intent gaze and dragged determinedly on his contraband cigarette, a large wad of khat filling his cheek.

As I gingerly sampled the tough little leaves, the Djibouti gulf became a great mouth that swallowed the half walnut of our boat whole, chewing on us and swirling us around before spitting the dhow out onto the shore of Tadjoura. I had seen the green eye of the typhoon for the first time. Suleiman had referred to the intoxicating leaf as ‘Her Majesty’ without a trace of irony. Now I understood why.

The plan to follow the khat trail had taken shape during a leaf-chewing session in the company of my friend Sammy Asfaw, chewer extraordinaire – dreamer, visionary and sometime writer. It must have been some very good khat, because within a few bunches we had decided to take a trip in the footsteps of Rimbaud, as Asfaw was to put it later. The strange thing was that, for once, a khat dream was actually executed, and Asfaw and I soon found ourselves gazing out across the escarpment from the ancient imperial seat of Ankobar, in central Ethiopia, towards what might have been Tadjoura in the distance – with a little imagination.

The French poet Arthur Rimbaud (aka Rambo in Ethiopia) travelled from Tadjoura to Ankobar in 1886. He was running guns to the Negus Menelik, King of Kings of Ethiopia. The symbolist poet wrote his best poems before the age of 18, stopped writing altogether by the age of 20, and escaped to the ends of the earth – Scandinavia, Java, Cyprus, Yemen, then, finally, Abyssinia – where he was to seek his fortune for 12 long years, only giving up in the face of death.

Asfaw and I had decided to follow in the poet’s footsteps, from Ankobar to Harrar, where the best khat fields of Ethiopia are found. ‘Why do you chew, Sammy?’ I asked my friend, as we sat in the bus from Addis to Harrar. ‘I chew because I chew because I chew because I… ’ I stopped him there and gave up on my question, which I now realised had probably been faintly ridiculous anyway.

‘The Ethiopian youth of today chew because khat is sold on every street corner, and because there are no jobs, and it whiles away time and it makes you feel good. You can be a genius for the afternoon before you go back to sleep in your tin hut.’ Asfaw added. Musing on the thought for a while before saying: ‘You can be anybody, even Rimbaud, if you like.’

In Harrar, the hills were covered in khat and corn in alternate lines, and Asfaw smacked his lips in anticipation. Rimbaud lived in the walled city for many years, trading goods with local tribes, making money by selling guns and dreaming of finding limitless supplies of ivory.

The one-time absinthe drinker and hashish smoker talked disdainfully of khat as ‘a mild stimulant that the locals use’. Those words have been paraphrased countless times, although they probably say more about Rimbaud than they do about khat.

We encountered proof of the poet’s understatement in the Harrar khat market, in the shape of an old chewer who looked as though he had devoted his life to the drug. His toothless mouth was full of leaves he had crushed with a mortar, his eyes were blank and his clothes torn. He insulted a man, who duly picked up a stone and threw it at him, hitting him in the small of the back. The old man ran away.

There did not seem to be a creature in town that was not chewing and the atmosphere was volatile. I watched as some men loaded an Isuzu truck, talking vehemently, pushing and fighting. Goats stepped in daintily and licked up twigs that formed a green carpet on the muddy floor.

Here, these Isuzu trucks are known by the name al-Qaeda on account of the way they are driven furiously around the local roads, leaving in their wake twisted wreckage and the occasional tragedy. They depart at midnight from the walled city as there is a premium on arriving early in Addis Ababa – khat depreciates fast and only the fresh leaves have the desired effect. The drivers chew themselves and occasionally end up buried under the truck and load at the side of the road.

My driver drove with extreme concentration, as if our very lives depended on it – which they did. He considered bends and calculated the optimum speed to come out of them, whizzing on the edge of his wheels, as if he was in some action movie. He boasted that he had never hit even a bird, and I chose to believe him. He only took his eyes off the road to check how he was doing with his khat supply, perhaps gauging whether it would see him through the night.

We were stopped at rain-soaked checkpoints, where soldiers with dripping helmets looked at our cargo and let us go. We saw hyenas caught in our headlights bounding off back into the darkness. We saw, finally, a sliver of light towards the horizon in a sky that was grey and full of rain as we entered the suburbs of Addis Ababa.

When we arrived in the city, the driver nodded to me, and as I slipped out of my seat I caught a glimpse of myself in the wing mirror. My mouth was green, my face was grey – I was punch drunk from my travels with Rambo. The khat dream was coming back to haunt me. My face offered the living proof that there could be, in fact, something very wrong with a few green leaves.

KHAT FACTS

ORIGINS
Khat (Catha edulis) is a mildly intoxicating bush occurring in the wild in east Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, Afghanistan and Turkmenistan. It is largely cultivated in Ethiopia and Yemen, where it has been consumed for centuries. It is widely believed to have originated in Ethiopia, although there is a mention of it in a manuscript of the Persian physician al-Samarqandi dating back to 1237. However the veracity of this manuscript is doubted by some scholars. The oldest verifiable account of the plant is found in the chronicle of the Ethiopian Emperor Amda Seyon (1314-1344), written during his reign.

HISTORY
A Harrari legend recounts that khat was revealed by an angel to two saintly men who complained of falling asleep during their devotions.
Of the use of khat in the Ethiopian Muslim kingdom of Ifat in the 14th century, historian Ibn Fadlallah al-Umari wrote: ‘It excites intelligence and gives joy; it enables one to abstain in part from food, drink and sexual relations. Everybody eats it… especially those who seek knowledge, who have a serious occupation, who desire to prolong their days in order to travel or finish a work.’ For a long time, khat was used for ceremonial purposes by Muslim devotees; it is only in recent years that it has become a recreational drug used by many segments of the population.

SOCIAL IMPACT
Long confined to certain geographical areas and well-defined social groups, where its use was codified and regulated, khat has become incredibly popular in Ethiopia and Djibouti. The production of khat brings in enormous revenues, both for the government and farmers suffering from the drop of coffee prices on the world market.

KHAT HANGOVER
The unregulated use of khat is proving to be a social ill. It has been mentioned as a cause of divorce, crime, work and school absenteeism, and stands accused of being a factor in the spread of the Aids pandemic. The City Council of Addis Ababa recently passed an edict forbidding the consumption of the leaf in public places.

PHYSICAL EFFECTS
Khat, perhaps thanks to Rimbaud, is often described as ‘a mild stimulant’. Its effects can be separated into three stages. For the first two to three hours, chewers are in a relaxed and alert state. People talk a lot and experience a feeling of enhanced mental agility. For the next couple of hours, users become more introspective and meander off into obscure trains of thought. This state of intoxication is called mirkana. Depending on the quantities and quality of khat chewed, and on individual reactions, the mood then changes to despondency. Grandiose plans crumble and the chewer teeters on the verge of depression. Insomnia and impotence are widespread and many turn to the calming effects of alcohol.