Ethiopia

You know how when people visit a certain place, they sometimes say, “I felt like I stepped back in time”? Well, when we visited Ethiopia we literally did step back in time because Ethiopia is the only country in the world that still follows the Julian Calendar as opposed to the Gregorian Calendar, which means they are officially 7 and a ½ years and 6hrs behind the rest of the world. It’s no joke, you have to make sure, when making plans with a local, that you ask whether you are meeting at 2pm local time or farenji (foreigner) time because they probably mean 8pm. It’s very odd, but then again Ethiopia seems to have spent their entire history choosing the road less traveled.















We arrived in the Capitol of Addis Ababa after an amazing trip to Egypt, unfortunately though, Lynn had just heard that her grandmother had passed away so the next day she flew to Scotland while I hopped a flight to Gondar in the Ethiopian Highlands. Just before we left Egypt I began reading a new book called ‘The Chains of Heaven: an Ethiopian Romance’ by Philip Marsden, which is an extraordinary account of how he walked from the famous city of Lalibela to the even more famous city of Aksum. Along the way he enjoyed many tales from locals and visited more than thirty monasteries, of which Ethiopia is famous for. Ethiopia actually has over 130 monasteries each one distinct in its own way. In Lalibela they are carved right into the mountains and in other places they are perched high on cliff tops that require hand over hand climbing of chains or ropes with no safety mechanisms and hundreds of feet of nothing but air below, hence the name of the book. I did not make it to Lalibela or the mountain top monasteries, but I was able to visit several monasteries in Gondar and on the Islands of Lake Tana some of which were built in the 13th century and still have original paintings inside that look like they were just painted.


















I think the combination of being away from a big city, reading this book and visiting monasteries gave me a unique perspective of how genuinely faithful Ethiopians are to their respective religions, especially the Christians who make up 45% of the population. Being someone quite cynical of religious faith, I found it interesting that I was very much aware of their devoutness even the subtleties of it, such as a priest blessing random people on the street as he walks to the store. And, although I am a cynic, at the same time, I love history and the history of Christianity in Ethiopia is fascinating.


















Christianity arrived in Ethiopia in the early 4th century right around the time Constantine had declared the Roman Empire to be Christian. The powerful Aksumite Kingdom took to it right away and it became the state religion. Here is where things begin to differ from the rest of the religious world, because as Europe and the Middle East fought religious wars for the next 1000yrs, Ethiopia isolated itself and practiced its own form of Orthodox Christianity for a millennium. One ruler, who was clearly a bit crazy, even introduced the branding of crosses on peoples foreheads and wrists and to this day certain groups of faithful still tattoo crosses on their foreheads and wrists using ash from sacred fires. The biggest celebration in Ethiopia is called Timkat and is celebrated every January 19th. This wildly popular festival commemorates the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist. In every city, every church elects a group of priests to guide the chosen monk, who carries a piece of the Ark of the Covenant on his head, on a long procession typically to some pool of water where the entire town parties all night and then, at dawn, jumps in the water to baptize themselves. The next day they proceed back to their respective churches. I was able to witness this celebration in the tiny village of Gorgora where they only have one church and, hence, only one parade, but that allowed me to get an up close and personal introduction to this great event.

















I spent a day and a half in Gondar visiting some old ruins and monasteries and then took a short drive to the beginning of the Simien Mts. to see some gorgeous views and the famous Gelada baboons before heading south to Gorgora on the north shore of Lake Tana (refer to previous blog entry for bus ride story). My plan was to check this place out for a day or two and then continue south to Bahir Dar, but I had missed the weeks only boat and was not about to get on another bus just yet. I hired a boat to visit some monasteries on the local islands. The monasteries were built in the 16th century and some of the monks who live there have been on the islands for 30-40 years. They subsist by growing their own food and fishing and I was able to sit down with some of them and eat injera while they boiled pumpkins for a later meal. On my second day I was lucky to meet a guy from Addis who turned out to be a building contractor working on a traveler’s lodge being built by a Dutch couple about a 20min walk down the coast. We chatted for a while and then he asked if I wanted to see the jobsite so we walked over to Tim and Kim’s Village.