Thursday night, happily enjoying some quiet time to reflect and relax alone at home with some music on my laptop, the telephone jarred my peaceful reverie.
Z:Marian are you fine?
M:Yes Zelalem I am fine.
Z: What about Christmas – what are you doing?
M: I am going to Freywin’s and then to Hanok’s family and also Asrebab’s too and Zerefa is back from Canada now so I will see her also.
Z: Ishi, good, Yirga and I were checking to see if you were alone because we would want to invite you.
M: Thank you so much, maybe later on this weekend we can meet.
Such is Ethiopian hospitality – thoughtful, inclusive and generous. Thursday night was Ethiopian Christmas eve and I had more invitations than I could juggle for the next day.
Shelagh was off to Addis to meet up with her husband Steve, here for a 2-week visit from the UK, and no one in Woldia was about to leave me unattended!
Thursday evening I walked home past flocks of doomed sheep and noticed an attractive chicken in the backyard, secured by one foot with a string to a pile of firewood. “Doro wat?” I said to Dirib, pointing to it and patting my stomach. “Eow” she confirmed, the chicken would soon to be stewed up with plenty of hot chilies. Crabby mother cat and fluffy black and white “Baby”, the one surviving kitten, had adopted a detached approach to the chicken and I decided it was wise to follow suit.
While Friday is normally a fasting day (no meat, eggs, dairy) for Ethiopian Orthodox Christians, because Christmas fell on a Friday this year, an exception was made. Of course cats never follow any rules and these two were treated to the juice from a tin of Canadian sockeye salmon that had arrived in one of my Christmas parcels from home!
Religion is infused in all aspects of Ethiopian life. Often we are asked our religion and challenged to explain our perplexing beliefs. Here in this little house in Woldia, I listen to the call to prayer five times a day from the nearby mosque. Other times I hear what sounds like Christian singing and chanting going on gently all night long. It is hard to get an accurate read on the religious breakdown in Woldia as the figures quoted vary widely. There certainly are many mosques and churches and a large Muslim Salem School that I have visited with some of the teachers who have chosen to their school observation project there. A while back was Eid al Adha (the “small Eid” which signifies the culmination of the Hajj) for the Muslim population. Apart from a day off at short notice (due to the need to have it declared by the moon sighting) we were not involved as it is a more private religious event. Consulting my Bradt guide was not much help: “ It is difficult to find reliable figures for the relative distribution and proportion of Muslims and Christians in Ethiopia. Some sources suggest that 50-60% of Ethiopia is Muslim. The 1994 census suggested that 33% of Ethiopians are Muslim…the main concentrations are in the eastern part of the country. Whatever the statistics, Ethiopia feels like a predominantly Christian country.” Bradt Guide to Ethiopia 2009
Certainly this was Christmas weekend for many here in Woldia and luckily I was invited to join in!
Commercialization of anything is blessedly non-existent – the sign above was the only Christmas message I saw!
The Ethiopian Orthodox Christian Church was founded in Axum in northern Ethiopia in the 4th century and while it originally had some links with the Egyptian Coptic church, since 1955 it has been self-governing and has its own seat on the World Council of Churches. “It developed in isolation until the arrival of the Portuguese Jesuits in the 15th century and although its fundamentals are indisputably Christian, the rituals are infused with all sorts of archaic Jewish influences, acquired, one imagines, from Falasha and other ancient Jewish sects that lived in pre-Christian Ethiopia.” Bradt Guide to Ethiopia 2009.
Hanok in front of his church.
I confess I was relieved not to have been invited to church as my understanding is that the services last all night and most people stand. The ancient Ge’ez language, now only understood by priests and some scholars is used for church services much like Latin in the Catholic Church.
Painting above the church door.
So for me it was a festival of feasting and family visiting.
By 9 am Friday there was a knock on my door urging me to join Asrebab our landlady for breakfast. Sure enough a piece of the chicken was on my plate in a spicy sauce with injera bread! I spent the next hour with Asrebab, her three beautiful daughters and Dirib all the while catching up on news with my friend Zerefa who had just returned from a two-month visit to Canada. After several small cups of buna (coffee) I went inside to get properly dressed and ready to set off to visit Freywin. Freywin works in the administration office and like most of the women who work at the college speaks very little English. Still we managed to communicate in broken Amharic and English, and with the help of her oldest child, a boy named Kidist (meaning saint) who was very keen to try out his English.
The first thing I saw as I entered her yard was her brother cutting up the recently butchered sheep.
Then we passed her sister preparing tibs – fried small pieces of sheep with onion and hot peppers.
I was ushered into the sitting room and met her three children
After eating some tibs on injera bread I watched Freywin roast coffee beans over charcoal and then enjoyed a delicious cup before I had to leave for my next event…
My day of feasting ended at Hanok’s home, further up the hillside, where he lives with his mother, father and younger brother (grade 9). His sister has been attending Addis Ababa University but has had to drop out for the moment due to illness. Hanok is in grade 12 at the Preparatory school and hopes to attend university next September in Addis to study to be a doctor. He has been patiently teaching us Amharic twice a week for the past few months, helping us to learn basic words and phrases and to practice the letters so we can read signs. This win-win situation enables him to practice his English; we have some very interesting conversations learning about each other’s cultures. When I asked him what Christmas meant to him, he immediately replied “why, the birth of Jesus of course” and explained how this is celebrated in the church service.
Hanok’s father also speaks excellent English so we whiled away a few hours chatting about a range of topics as his mother prepared the requisite 3 tiny cups of coffee over the charcoal burner accompanied by the lovely scent of frankincense. Traditional bread was served, followed by a plate of tibs (fried sheep meat cut in small pieces), kai wat (spicy red stew), injera and soft drinks. Thankfully our Amharic lessons had included the word tagabialo (I am full) as she kept offering more!
Lucky sheep who didn’t “make the cut” this time!
And here is one that wasn’t so fortunate…seen in our back yard when I got home!
Stuffed to the gills, I headed home in a bajaj, my head dancing, not with sugarplums, but with sweet Christmas memories of Ethiopian hospitality. Next up on January 19th is one of the biggest festivals of the year – Timkat – stay tuned!
Wow, what an interesting time you had! It does us good to see where our food comes from, especially animal food. I always feel better eating meat if I think it had a happy life and was killed quickly. The matter of religion is very interesting. It is not a black and white issue at all and is so tied in with all kinds of cultural practices. Where would any of us be without our cultural practices, old and new? Here in Vancouver, Christmas was the usual round of dinners, socializing, connecting with family and friends even if we only do it once a year. Hmm, sounds a bit like Woldia!
Indeed, universal socializing over food makes the world a better place!
WOW! Marian! What a fascinating account of Christmas in Ethiopia. I really liked how you started out with dialogue…I keep envisioning your blurbs as a potential published book. For me your inserting historical & demographic info is also intriguing…& so helpful for someone like me who is ignorant re that part of the world. You sound mellow & I am glad of that. Did you get my Christmas card? Wishing you well for the New Year!
Thanks Nora. No card yet but the mails have been very slow lately…
I’ve been enjoying reading your posts very much. You bring your life there, and the people and culture, into sharp relief. Sometimes I feel as though I am there. Not really, but you know what I mean. Your descriptions are so vivid.
I’m sorry to hear that all the other kittens died. The two cats look so forlorn. What happened? I’m such a cat lover that I’m worried about them!
Thank you for your comments Val. I am not sure what happened to the three other kittens. While Shelagh and I were away in Addis Ababa a month ago they disappeared. Our questions were met with ” the mother cat ate them”. Hmm. She is a loud and crabby cat but I find that hard to imagine. There really are not “pets” as such here. Cats are kept for mousing and survive on scraps. These cats would love to move in with us and every time the back door is open they charge in! But they are full of fleas that could carry disease and getting too attached would not benefit them or us. So we stick to feeding them our leftover oatmeal, etc and enjoy watching their antics in the back yard.
Those sheep are really interesting. They don’t look like the ones we have here in BC. They probably taste much the same though! I so look forward to your updates and living in Ethiopia through you.
Cheers – Carol
Hi Marian,
Ethiopian Christmas rituals sound like they too is centered around food and fellowship, much like here. I am looking forward to you roasting a cup of coffee for me when you come home – I hope you have seen it often enough to give it a try (though I am sure it is not likely to become a regular part of the day once you are back!) I have been making chicken with berbere spice that I picked up at the Salt Spring market – and think of you every time. Thank goodness I don’t have to prepare the chicken the same way the cooks there do it. I am so glad you are so welcome in Woldiya but not at all surprised.
Take care my friend,
Ulla
Hi Marian,
What an adventure you’re having and what a good turn you are providing by sharing your energy and knowledge with the Ethiopians. Kudos to you.
The blog with photos is wonderfully interesting! I eagerly await the next installment.
Hello. It’s good news !
So nice to read your experience. Our culture is full of interesting phenomena.