ETHIOPIA!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!! IT’S 2003!

Ethiopia is like going back in time. Literally!! Ethiopia has its own ancient calendar. The Ethiopian Calendar has more in common with the Coptic Egyptian Calendar. Both calendars have 13 months, 12 months of 30 days each and an extra month at the end of the year with 5 or 6 days (depending whether the year is a leap year or not). So based on this, the Ethiopians are seven to eight years behind the Gregorian Calendar.  So when we got off the plane, we were suddenly back in 2003!! Crazy!!

*They also tell time differently too.  They consider the daytime to start when the sun comes up so if the sun rises at 6:00 a.m. then that is 12:00 a.m. for them! They have 12 hour cycles like we do, but the first cycle starts with 6:00 a.m. and the "one" at 7:a.m.  Yea, I was confused at first too. The concept is that you should not start the day at 12:00 a.m. when it is still dark outside, that is still the night before. (kinda makes sense when you think about it). The quickest way to translate that is to go ahead 6 hours to know what time they are really talking about.

We took a really early flight (or really late, if you look at it from their point of view) from Cairo, Egypt and landed in Addis Abba, Ethiopia. The flight was pretty quick and we landed in Addis Abba when it was still dark outside so we had to wait for a few hours to get a taxi.  Finally at about 7:00 a.m. (or 1:00 a.m.) we got a taxi to take us to our guesthouse hotel. The city itself is very similar to Cairo.  Both countries have a mix of a Muslim and Christian population, but Egypt is predominately Muslim with a few Christians and Ethiopia is predominately Christian with a few Muslims.  Right away you can tell by the clothes. They both wear their traditional clothes but in Cairo the women are in all black and in Ethiopia they are Orthodox Christians and both men and women wear all white.

Seer hanging with some of his friends

Beautiful view of the Simien Mountain cliffs

Us with our guards.

Ethiopia is the land that the bible refers to as Cush. It was founded by Noah's' grandson Cush.  They are rich in ancient traditions, myths and historical legends.  They also have many ethnic groups, languages and regions all with their own dialects, musical styles and dances, clothes and traditions. 

There is a call to prayer in the streets here too but it's different because they sing their prayers over a loud speaker. It’s kind of cool even though we don’t understand a word. (It is sung in their old language of Ge'ez.) It's a pretty cool language - sounds like Hebrew mixed with Arabic in a sort of a chant.

We went all over Ethiopia and my favorite has got to be the rural areas by far.  They have so many stories, myths and legends that has become part of their history as it has gotten passed down orally for generations. Some of them are in question if it is truth or a variation of the truth but we agree that it doesn’t matter because what is cool is that THEY all believe it to be true.  Here are the different accounts of the areas we were fortunate enough to visit:

ADDIS ABABA -
This is the capital and by far the most booming city. Lots of western influence but mixed in with a lot of traditional Coptic clothes.  The hotel we stayed at was one that is famous for people who are adopting children.  At first I thought this would be fun. I thought we would be able to meet some really interesting people and hear their stories about adoption.  There were a few cool stories, but really all it became was a sobering reality that there are a LOT of orphans in Ethiopia.  I sat and had lunch with a few adopting parents and the stories of these sweet babies brought tears to my eyes. The common theme for adoption was either the natural parents died (or were about to die) of AIDS or the natural parents just could not afford to care for their precious kids. Makes me so sad to think of having to make that decision. All of the adoptive parents seemed to be very loving though so that was nice to see.  One adoptive father (Jason) was there in Ethiopia simply to reach out to the natural parents/ or remaining relatives to bring them pictures and updates of their kids. He said the families said that NO ONE has ever thought to do that and the they were all so grateful to know that the kids were happy and healthy!

The best part of Addis, was the cool traditional restaurants they have there. They serve yummy food and they have live music from all over the country with dances and costumes and everything. It was such a blast!

GONDOR (by Seer)

Gonder is a city in Ethiopia that has several castles as its central theme. This is an amazing city due to its history. Falsalidas Castle, is the largest one in Gonder, and incredible. Gonder is an ex-capital and one of the head states in the African Medieval Empire. When we arrived by plane from Addis Ababa I immediately felt the difference between rural Ethiopia and the city. The people in Gonder dress in traditional Ethiopian clothing, herd livestock, and chill out. We checked into a cute hotel called Fegoras House. We then set up a tour of the Castle and the churches for the next day.

That night we went into town with a local guy who had become our friend. We walked into this bar that advertised traditional Ethiopian music. The vibe was incredible!!! They were a simple band, drums, African violin, and vocals. The singing was amazing with the pulsing rhythms and the shoulder dancing. One of the extraordinary things is you could tell them any line and they would incorporate it into their song. Very Cool!!! We had a wonderful time!! I even learned some of the shoulder dancing because they would pull us up to dance. I love Ethiopia!!!

The next day we woke up and headed for the Castles. The grounds were so nice. There were purple lavender trees everywhere shedding the flowers, it was beautiful. Then we started learning the history of the different kingdoms. Did you know that Ethiopia had four different kingdoms, and each kingdom is signified with a different Cross? I found this to be so interesting, especially with the stories that surround each kingdom. The castles were simple but elegant at the same time. Each castle also had a designated room for prayer. Awesome!!!

After we left the Castles we took a”tuk tuk” a little motorcycle car that has a carriage that holds 3 people to the churches. When we pulled up to the churches we were immediately astounded by the sincerity of the worship. People were on their knees outside of the church praying, and then we heard the singing of ancient psalms and the preaching of the word in song. I felt overwhelmed with the humility and simplicity of the worship. We then went inside and saw the paintings on the wall. What a contrast to the Vatican. These paintings were simple but very beautiful. No gold or silver, but the Gospel was proclaimed through art very clearly. We found out that people had been worshiping at this church for 1100 years. Incredible. One of the things that make Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity so different is the Hebrew influence. It’s a complete merger of Old Testament worship with the revelation of Christ being the Messiah. That makes them very different than Catholic, Reformed or Protestant Churches. We loved it.

SIMIEN MOUNTAINS (by Seer)

As most of you know I have been talking about this for months. I have always dreamed about climbing one of the African mountain ranges. This was truly a dream come true for me. The range was also grueling at 10 to 15 thousand feet, it was intense! We were there for 4 days and 3 nights. The first day we just hiked for 3 hours to Sankebar. The hike was beautiful!! We saw incredible birds and our first group of Gelada Baboons.
When we arrived at our campsite that night, our cook prepared a great meal. We ate dinner with our new found entourage of friends. We were a very diverse group; two students from Germany and Switzerland, and two British people teaching English in Egypt. We also two scouts with guns, a cook, and some mules. We acclimated some that night and then the next day ventured to our next campsite Geech.

Hiking to Geech was intense!! About 22 kilometers. The climb was steep and we all felt like we were going to die, minus the Swiss student of course, she was strolling right along. When we arrived at Gich it was like a scene right out of a movie. The village was awesome, with green pastures and animals everywhere. We were so tired, we went to sleep after dinner at 7:30pm. The next day we made are way to the summit of Imet GoGo at 13000 feet. It was great!!! Then we went to a higher peak called Ambiquo at 14530 feet!!! Yeah!! This is the highest I have ever been. And the 360 view was beautiful! Then we went from there down to Cheneck. On the way down Michelle fell and hurt her ankle. What a trooper, she still made the 6 mile hike down and didn't try to kill me!!! Then when we arrived at Cheneck finally and after dinner, a large group of about 150 Baboons ran right down a hill and right outside out tents. Incredible site!!! I suggest this trip to every hiker I know!!

LALIBELLA
We had to take a quick flight to Lalibella because the roads to get there would have taken 2 days! We only had one day there before we had to fly back to Addis.  This place is a historical landmark because of it's Rock Hewn Churches carved out of "living rocks" Also known to be called the monolithic churches. Lalibela is one of Ethiopia's holiest cities, second only to Aksum, and is a center of pilgrimages for much of the country.   There are 13 altogether and have been dated back to the 12th or 13th century.   They have been there for centuries and are still functioning churches.  We had to privilege of getting the history from a really cool priest in their museum. It had really old clothing and artifcats from their King Lalibella. (sorry we couldn't take pictures).
Once we had our museum tour we set out to visit these churches. There are about 13 in all. Some are smaller than others and others are big on the outside but really tiny on the inside. The biggest one on the inside was the Bete Medhane Alelm. We went in there in time to actually join a service going on. To this day, I can barely type /talk about it because it was thee most BEAUTIFUL thing I have ever witnessed!~   As soon as we took off our shoes to step inside, I have never felt more like I was on holy ground in my life! Before I knew it, tears were streaming down my face! I was so moved by the whole thing that I can't even really explain it except to give you a mental picture of the scene. Basically it is spectacular on the outside to see a very detailed building made out of pure rock. Here are some of the pictures:

On the inside, the place is very raw with a few hand drawn paintings on the walls that have been there for years.  It was pretty dark except for some dim lights.  There were a couple of large curtains that separated a certain room that the priests would enter and exit from. There was an inner circle that was made up of priest in all white robes along with just one drummer. There were some women also wearing all white but with their heads covered with sheer white cloths and they were either on their knees or on the floor worshipping. There was no band, no P.A. system, no overhead projector but their worship was the purest most sincere I've ever felt or heard.  The priest would chant/sing their prayers and scriptures and the people would respond singing their response in perfect harmony. It was surreal and  like going back in time because we knew these same prayers have been offered up for generations past and have been sang/prayed in this very church for centuries.  Just describing this scene does not do it justice, so all I can say is that if you come to Ethiopia, this is a MUST SEE!!   We were allowed to take pictures, but I felt it would have been too intrusive to interrupt them in their worship with flash photography. Plus I was too busy crying so the pictures probably wouldn't have come out well anyway. :-)

 

Michelle with one of the Lalibella priests.

Next we are off to Kenya~ Hope you are all well! Thanks for reading and for all of your kind comments!

XX,
Michelle and Seer

Travel Tip #18: In certain countries, you can definitely get a better price for flights by walking directly into the airline office instead of booking online. For instance, for our tickets within the country of Ethiopia, (which is highly recommended, instead of ground transportation) the only airlines that is available is Ethiopia Airlines.  Online prices were 40% higher than when we went into the office.