On entering Ethiopia I am reminded of that scene in 'Alice in Wonderland'; the one in the beginning where she's chasing the white rabbit down the black hole and her surroundings gradually become more and more bizarre. To say that Ethiopia is an island in Africa is by no means an exaggeration and it is a transition which is felt almost immediately; the dusty Kenyan sand-bowl, littered with thorn trees and termite mounds is replaced by rolling green hills, in which tiny houses are neatly embedded. In these rural areas English also seems to completely disappear and is replaced with Amharic, a language which probably most closely resembles elvish and seems to have striven throughout history to produce some of the most difficult words to pronounce. This is a fact the locals know all to well and so take great pleasure in listening to our, obviously comical, Durbanite attempts.
Food takes on a slightly more exotic form, breaking from the South-East African tradition of 'Nshima with everything' to assortments of various interestingly shaped pastries and meats, the origins of which one can never quite distinguish. Other peculiarities of Ethiopia include the incessant munching on copious amounts of 'Kat', said "chat", (a leafy plant) which will "remove all bad feeling" and apparently, if chewed consistently, "make world better place for everyone" or so say it's many admirers.
10 Birr (R5) pints of beer are also consumed from morning till night, with an enthusiasm and verve that would rival even the proudest Irish bar rat. The pubs and clubs are thus often a hive of social activity where Ethiopians gather in their masses. Although this may seem like a pretty normal social activity to engage in, the manner in which the Ethiopians undertake it can only be described as 'Classic Ethiopian'. Arriving at one pub to watch a football game, for example, we were met with the sight of hundreds of avid fans watching Tom and Jerry instead.
Aside from the complete disregard for social norms, Ethiopians seemed to have boycotted the rest of the worlds notions of time and space; when asking anybody the time, it is always imperative to distinguish between 'European time' or 'Ethiopian time' (GMT-6), the basis of which has no correlation geographically. jumping between these two times zones is commonly used as a tool by bus drivers to make their journeys seem shorter, providing a European departure time and an Ethiopian arrival time. Moreover when inquiring of the date we discovered that it is apparently still 2005. I'm not sure how the rest of the world missed that one, but nonetheless, sitting drinking a beer, watching Tom and Jerry with Robs and Luke, I realized that if a policeman were to come and ask for ID's we would most definitely all get locked up for underage drinking.
Time traveling aside, Ethiopia remains somewhat of an oasis in the heart of Africa. Having never been colonized, it seems the country has taken on a very different path of development, creating a uniquely different culture along with it's own set of rules and regulations as well as ideas. We have thoroughly enjoyed the experience and Ethiopian peoples casual and contagious contentment with life.
(Some photos will be up in the next post, but for those of you who can't read anything without pictures, here's a shot of one of the Kat junkies we found in Addis.)
.
Food takes on a slightly more exotic form, breaking from the South-East African tradition of 'Nshima with everything' to assortments of various interestingly shaped pastries and meats, the origins of which one can never quite distinguish. Other peculiarities of Ethiopia include the incessant munching on copious amounts of 'Kat', said "chat", (a leafy plant) which will "remove all bad feeling" and apparently, if chewed consistently, "make world better place for everyone" or so say it's many admirers.
10 Birr (R5) pints of beer are also consumed from morning till night, with an enthusiasm and verve that would rival even the proudest Irish bar rat. The pubs and clubs are thus often a hive of social activity where Ethiopians gather in their masses. Although this may seem like a pretty normal social activity to engage in, the manner in which the Ethiopians undertake it can only be described as 'Classic Ethiopian'. Arriving at one pub to watch a football game, for example, we were met with the sight of hundreds of avid fans watching Tom and Jerry instead.
Aside from the complete disregard for social norms, Ethiopians seemed to have boycotted the rest of the worlds notions of time and space; when asking anybody the time, it is always imperative to distinguish between 'European time' or 'Ethiopian time' (GMT-6), the basis of which has no correlation geographically. jumping between these two times zones is commonly used as a tool by bus drivers to make their journeys seem shorter, providing a European departure time and an Ethiopian arrival time. Moreover when inquiring of the date we discovered that it is apparently still 2005. I'm not sure how the rest of the world missed that one, but nonetheless, sitting drinking a beer, watching Tom and Jerry with Robs and Luke, I realized that if a policeman were to come and ask for ID's we would most definitely all get locked up for underage drinking.
Time traveling aside, Ethiopia remains somewhat of an oasis in the heart of Africa. Having never been colonized, it seems the country has taken on a very different path of development, creating a uniquely different culture along with it's own set of rules and regulations as well as ideas. We have thoroughly enjoyed the experience and Ethiopian peoples casual and contagious contentment with life.
(Some photos will be up in the next post, but for those of you who can't read anything without pictures, here's a shot of one of the Kat junkies we found in Addis.)
 |
| This was his response when we tried to take his Kat off him. |
.
No comments:
Post a Comment