#1: An Ethiopian Holiday Celebration:
Sunday, January 23, 2011. St. Kirkos Day, Addis Ababa.
Ato (Mr.) Zewge (Zo’-guh) Gebre-Mariam kindly arranged to have my Ethiopian-Danish friend, Dawit Zekiros, and me invited to the holiday feast at his family home. Zewge explained that this festival is celebrated at several St. Kirkos churches across the country. One is an island-monastery in Lake Tana that Zewge once visited. Since there are over 75 patron saints in Ethiopia, there are that many holidays, each on the particular Saint’s day. Of course, each celebration is primarily for the members of that particular church, but others may choose to attend. The celebration in Zewge’s family has been an annual event for at least two decades.
At the Kirkos church today, which we visited before the feast, there seemed to be thousands of closely packed worshippers, mostly women, mostly wearing white, but who knows how many were actual congregants? We got close to the church, but, like many others, we could not get in. (See photo.) While a priest regaled the crowd with stories of martyrology from Diocletian’s reign (2nd century) and with stories of miracle cures, the crowd prayed, held candles, sang, clapped, and ululated.
After Dawit became separated from us in the throng, another friend, a retired local botanist/taxonomist, Dr. Getachew (Geh-tah’-chew) Aweke, and I were taken in hand by a lovely woman with dark shades and silver-painted toenails, also dressed in white. In excellent English (fairly rare in Amharic-speaking Addis), she explained what was going on. A while later, reunited, Dawit, Dr. Getachew and I sat outside a café next to a market near the church grounds, listening as someone regaled the crowd to buy the CD of the singing and drumming that was by then going on. In this small market, women were selling clothes and men were chopping firewood.
Afterward, we took a taxi to the party. In addition to the host, Zewge’s brother, Moges (Mo’-gus), who is in the import-export business, the party comprised an interesting group of people. A former ambassador was there, but mostly it was a few priests (including a relative), quite a number of retired scientists, many from the diaspora, and one quite old man in the company of a younger woman. (See photo.) He had worked as a journalist, writing about agriculture.
In a bower behind the house, we enjoyed a lovely meal and a great deal of lively conversation. The culture, oddly enough, reminds me of cultured Jewish culture (pace the spurious connection with King Solomon, a piece of myth-making by a wanna-be Emperor). I had a conversation with Moges’ nice teen-aged daughter and the ambassador’s bright, spirited son. Both youngsters having lived in L.A., the talk ranged from Rodney King to, well, Einstein. I also talked with a young father about what makes a marriage work and how one decides how many children to have. Our views seemed very similar, perhaps because his wife is German.
Zewge told me more about the background to the festival. He agreed with me that it might be hard for Americans to believe how much of Ethiopian history has turned on religion, even theology. The devotion today is startling to a secular American. Islam is said to be even more fervent in Ethiopia. During one taxi ride, we passed a spanking new green and white building with a gilded minaret, very rare in shabby Addis: a gift of the Saudis, of course.
The Chinese are also very present, from earnest suits glued to cell phones in my own hotel, to rich ladies in the Hilton lobby. The latter are a simulacrum of rich western ladies, their attire ranging from hippy-like expensive “natural” fabrics and dyes, to the usual flat-out ostentation, including high-end bling and some notable dye jobs.
At one point, the journalist told a story. (His relationship with the younger woman, who is married, was said by Dawit to be platonic, although someone cracked a joke that he was her grandfather.) Told in Amharic, the story was hilarious to those who understood it, but lost almost everything in translation. After a while, time-out was called while Dr. Getachew translated the first half for me. At that point, the journalist, who turned out to have attended the U. of Wisconsin, told me the rest. (I sensed he would have preferred to finish in Amharic.) The gist was how a very noisy new restaurant was made to behave itself. The journalist took it on himself to represent the neighbors, and his first request to lower the volume was made to an assistant manager. (He had asked for the manager.) His request was acknowledged and ignored. The second time, they did respond, closing the windows on the side where people resided, and the problem was solved. Had it not been, a complaint could have been lodged with the municipality, and either, a. the place would have been shut down (the journalist’s version); or b. they would have bribed their way to permanent impunity (Dawit’s).
The food came in two widely-separate stages, first a buffet consisting of plates of the national dish, injera (sour, spongy bread) and watt (peppery meat stew), brown and white rice, and overcooked vegetables in a vinaigrette; and the second course, a national delicacy, big chunks of raw beef, served with a lethal-looking pepper sauce, to which was added a fiery liquor, poured from a jerry can. (I had a sip: it was like rough brandy.) The raw meat looked good, but … . Each guest was supplied with a razor-sharp knife with which they removed the fat from a huge chunk, then cut it into smaller pieces, which they ate with their hands and the pepper sauce. For that matter, all the food was eaten by hand –I barely remembered in time not to ask for silverware—and hand-washing bowls were brought round.
There was a clear caste system here. Younger relatives, for instance, served the drinks and carried the wash bowls. When we had initially been entering the compound, we were led through a frightening throng of the destitute, who were waiting, mostly with amazing patience –resignation—until, later on in the party, when they would be fed. As we made our way through a very narrow file toward the locked gate of the compound, several hands reached out to me, and one man asked for money for food. I was glad to learn that these people, too, would be fed that day.
Ron Singer
Ron Singer’s writings on Africa have appeared in Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, democracy now, The Georgia Review, The Wall Street Journal, and many other publications. He also writes poetry, prose ...
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