Ethiopia: They Do Things Differently There

We flew into Ethiopia with no clue as to what to expect. Thankfully, we realized a few days before arriving that Alisa has four Krista friends living in Addis Ababa. To our surprise, Josh was waiting for us at the airport when we finally got through customs (3 hours after Josh first arrived!). We were immediately welcomed into their home and with their help, we had an altogether incredible adventure in Ethiopia.

Left to Right: Sarah, Maren, Josh, and Bethany

These four are living in Addis for one year teaching English at the Hope Enterprise School. (Interesting bit about them...as we set off for our explorations, they took a 4x4 in the opposite direction where they met up with a hyena man. They each placed a stick of meat in their mouth and had a pack of hyenas run by and eat the meat off of the end of their stick! Only in Ethiopia!)

One of the many butcheries found on the streets of Ethiopia. They are all painted red and white and have either a cross or a crescent to tell you whether it is a Christian butcher or a Muslim butcher. For the most part, Ethiopians are either Muslims or Orthodox Christians. Mosques and churches are everywhere and there are almost constant calls to worship (or so it seems, at least, at 5am!) issuing forth from one or the other.

Ethiopia is unlike anywhere else. They are even on a different calendar. In Ethiopia, this year is in fact 2000 and the evidence of the new millenium, in the form of lights, streamers, and signs, is everywhere. In Ethiopia time is also told differently -- our 6 am is their 12 pm.

Ethiopia was interesting because while on the one hand it was sensory overload - colorful clothes and headscarves, intense smells, people everywhere, and crazy energy, there were many striking things about Ethiopia that just jumped out at us.

Everyone sits at streetside cafes and drinks coffee. Our favorites were the beautiful and tiny macchiatos. Every young man seems to play street foosball (no joke, foosball tables wherever you look). The fresh juice is like nowhere else and delicious. The streets are full of goats and donkeys. The paper currency is incredibly worn out. The electricity was working about half the time. The roads in the capital city abruptly changed from paved to dirt and throughout the areas we traveled most of the roads were under construction (apparently by Chinese companies). Also, more people asked things of us here than anywhere else - be it help getting to the United States, money, or the shirts off our backs. Part of the reason for this, and for the electricity being in and out, is that Ethiopia is in the middle of a drought. Nearly every river we passed was dry. Our ultimate impression of Ethiopia, however, was that the people are incredibly, incredibly kind and friendly.

In Ethiopia, they eat a bread called injera 3 times a day. Here we are at the Hope Feeding Center folding stacks upon stacks on injera.

We visited ALERT Hospital where people who have recovered from leprosy are hard at work making and selling Ethiopian handicrafts. Tessa is trying, and failing, to spin cotton.

We had great luck randomly meeting college students who showed us around their respective cities and taught us a lot about modern Ethiopian culture. We met Tilahun in Addis and he actually taught us a lot about Ethiopian history. He took us to a cultural museum and then showed us the traditional religious art he makes and sells at the Merkato, arguably Africa's largest market. One of our favorite pieces is of the Last Supper where everyone is dressed in traditional Ethiopian clothing and eating injera.

In Bahir Dar, we were walking down the street trying to find a cultural show. We asked two strangers for directions and couldn't have had better luck. The two university students broke curfew to take us to the show and then, since they couldn't get back into their dorms, stayed with us at our hotel. The cultural show involved men playing guitar-like instrument and women doing traditional dancing (lots of isolated shoulder movements - really hard to do), while both performers did improv comedy/rhyming that essentially consisted of making fun of the audience. Alisa and I, being the foreigners, of course got the brunt of it. Thankfully, Bethlehem and Encozar could translate so we at least knew why people were laughing at us. For an example of the type of jokes: the jokes directed to other audience members often had to do with balding heads, and one of the ones that was directed to us had to do with Mike Tyson biting ears and how, at least, Ethiopians had not stooped to that level . . .

We also had the fortune to meet this wonderful Indian-Ethiopian family on the streets of Bahir Dar. Together we visited the waterfall where the Blue Nile starts (it joins the White Nile in Khartoum and becomes the NILE) and also visited the Orthodox Christian monasteries hidden among the islands of Lake Tana. This was the family's first trip on a boat and they put safety first. Rightly so.

A priest at one of the monasteries showing us reeeeaaaally old religious texts. Just look at the pages. It was old.


The juice! This particular concoction is layered with papaya, avocado, guava, and mango. Heaven in a glass mug.

Lalibela is a city named after the King Lalibela (born 1101 AD). In the center of town are 10 rock-hewn churches, which according to legend or fact (you decide) were built by the chisel and hammer of Lalibela himself (with the help of God and angels) over a period of 23 years. Some "historians" say 2,000 other people helped . . . but let's not quibble over the details. These churches are awesome. Every one is very different from the next and all are connected by underground tunnels. The art on the outside and the paintings on the inside are stunning. All done by Lalibela himself.

The churches are all still in active use. Here is an orthodox priest showing us two examples of the many ornate crosses found in Ethiopia.


Tessa and Alisa mastering the church drums.

At a rock-hewn church outside the city we attended a ceremony. We had to wake up at 4:30am so we could make the 7 km walk in time for the event. After a couple hours of chanting and reading of sacred texts, hundreds crowded into the small space to collect into their plastic water bottles the holy water that drips from the ceiling of the church. At the end we received a beautiful blessing in which the priest touched his palm to our foreheads and then to our lips. Another common blessing is the touching of the cross to the forehead and the lips.

To get back to Addis from Lalibela we had two back to back days of 12+ hour bus riding. And these aren't just any bus rides. These are rides in hot, hot weather, on gravel roads that are mostly under construction, and in crowded buses in which no one opens the windows. Thankfully we met lots of good people and, despite our protests, found every meal and, even hotel rooms, paid for. Here we are with three of our bus buddies: the driver, the farmer, and the hotel owner.


No bus ride is complete, or even satisfying, without a few breakdowns. Luckily we had plenty. Here's Alisa doing her part to entertain the passengers with magic while the flat tire is repaired. (We discovered, a little too late in fact, that many Ethiopians don't actually like magic much because they associate it with black magic and the end of the world . . . oops)

The incredible bus staff of 3 brothers that eventually got us all home safely! One of our favorite moments was at lunch when we asked the driver, "How's the drive?" His response: "Danger." Hmm . . . perfect . . . Some things you just got to write off to language barriers :)