Sorry for not updating for two months. I’ve been super busy
here with holidays, trainings, and a large report for Peace Corps called a
Community Needs Assessment (CNA). And then, when I FINALLY had time, we had a
week-long power outage! As a result I’ll put this update out in sections. First
up: “Holidays and Celebrations”. I'll start by telling you of the holidays
which I have recently been witness to.
NOTE: The Ethiopians do not follow the Gregorian calendar
like Americans do. (More information when I talk about the Ethiopian New Year.)
Ashenda
(Late Aug.)
Ashenda is a
festival that originated in Tigray (the region of Ethiopia directly above
Amhara), but is now celebrated in all of Ethiopia, as well as the neighbor
country of Eritrea. The Ashenda
festival in Amhara (where my town is located) is not nearly as elaborately
celebrated as in Tigray.
The holiday takes place in late August and marks the end of
a two-week fast known as Filseta. In
Ethiopia, fasting of meat and dairy products is done regularly for two days of
every week, as well as fasting before certain holidays such as Ashenda (for two weeks) and Easter (for
55 days).
The Ashenda festival
is dedicated to celebrating the Virgin Mary and as such is mainly a female
holiday. The word “Ashenda” references
a tall grass from which the little girls make a partial skirt of and wear
around their waist as they go door to door, singing and dancing for money. For
most of the week, anytime I left the safety of my compound I was swarmed by
little girls wanting to dance for me. But since I usually had no money on me,
they often went away to find another person.
Despite the main holiday being for girls, there was a small
part dedicated to boys… the whip battle!!! And it’s just what it sounds like.
For about two weeks leading up to Ashenda,
every afternoon I'd hear a “pop, pop, pop”. Reminded me of kids stomping on the
packaging bubble wrap, except much louder! Upon going outside I saw boys
practicing their "whip skills", making a crack! Finally the day
before Ashenda I was dragged out of
my home (because I need to learn the “culture”), and lo and behold, the street
had been converted to a battle of whips in front of my home: the boys against
the men, literally trying to whip each other. Supposedly the winning team received
the award of bread.
The 13th
Month and New Year (Mid Sept.)
The Ethiopians follow what is known as the Julian calendar.
In this calendar they are7
years behind our Gregorian calendar, making up
till this recent september 2007. The Ethiopians also follow a strict 30 days in
each calendar month. The excess days are accumulated in a "13th
Month", called Pagume, consisting of 5 days (6 on leap year). Pagume is located mid-September, with the end of the month
heralding in the Ethiopian New Year, sometimes called “Enkutatash”.
This holiday is marked as the end of the Rainy Season. In my
mind the American New Year marks the turn of Winter and promise of a coming
Spring, as denoted by the Winter Solstice. The Ethiopian New Year heralds the
end of the Rains and the coming of Spring. I say “Spring”, despite it being
mid-September, because this is the Ethiopian flower season. In fact, flowers
are the main celebratory feature of the holiday. On TV and commercials, you’ll
have these bright yellow flowers everywhere as well as being handed out to each
household and scattered about the room.
On the morning of the New Year I was intending to go to the
New Year’s sunrise service. My brother Binium knocked on the door (waking me
up) and said, “Get up, we are going NOW!” Now it was like 5:30am and barely a
crack of sunlight, but I dragged myself out of bed and flew into my cultural
outfit. For those of you who have lived with me, you know I can fly when I need
to. I wasn’t more than 5 minutes in getting ready, but they had left without me
- and I have trouble finding the church without them. As a result, I was left behind with the
younger sister Chichu, who was preparing the coffee for when they got back. Since
I had time I thought I’d wash up, and was washing my hair in the back yard,
when three young boys came into my backyard and each handed me a small bouquet
of wild yellow and red flowers, saying: “Malkam
Ba’al” (happy/welcome holiday),
“Malkam Addis Amet” (happy/welcome New Year). It was a bit awkward for the
boys to come while I had shampoo in my hair, with my skirts hiked up over my
knees, but I rolled with it and accepted the flowers as gracefully as possible
in my condition. Afterwards, I had Chichu braid my hair and received more
flowers from more boys. I was able to decorate my hair with the yellow
blossoms, which everyone thought was cute.
For the big holiday we had family come by from different
towns, had coffee, and slaughtered our sheep. I was asked if I wanted to help
skin it, but I politely declined - maybe next time. Later I went to my
Counterpart's house, sat and talked with people, had more meat, was offered
lots of Tella (local beer) and
bottled beer, which I tried to decline as much as was polite. I was asked to
dance the Iskita a few times and
drank a bunch of soda. After a few hours, I started heading home and was
invited with my brother to a big gathering in someone’s front yard, where they
insisted I drink Tella and would not
take no for an answer. They finally conceded to give me soda instead, along
with more food (which I had no room for either). When I finally got home, we
had some MORE coffee and the extended family all crashed at our house, leaving
the next morning.
Meskel
(Early Oct.)
Meskel means
“Finding of the True Cross” and occurs in early October. From what I've heard,
back in the Crusades when people were trying to find holy relics, one person
was given a dream of where to find Jesus’ cross. The next day they went out and
dug where the dream revealed, and sure enough there was a cross. It was then
divided into four pieces and given to different nations to safeguard. The right
arm piece was supposedly given to Ethiopia, and the day is celebrated on Meskel.
On this day, I was woken up early and people were giving out
bundles of twigs to burn. Every family’s house had little bonfires at dawn in
celebration, followed by roasting corn on the fires. The streets were filled
with smoke, and afterwards we had our Bunna
ceremony outside (usually done inside), followed by killing a chicken for
making Doro Wat, a favorite meal.
As usual, the Tigray region has a much bigger celebration
(near Axum City). A huge celebration is held in Addis Abeba, the country's
capital, in Meskel Square, so named for this very celebration. In these two
locations, people get up before first light and have a bundle of branches TWO
STORIES HIGH, shaped like a cross, and set aflame just as the sun begins to
rise. I wish I could have seen it!
Birthdays
I have attended two birthdays in the last few months. The
first was for my “cousin” who just turned two. The second was my own. As far as
I can tell birthdays are celebrated mostly when you are young, especially 1st
and 2nd year. However due to western influence, it is becoming more common to
celebrate later birthdays (such as mine).
The two year old's birthday consisted of popcorn (fandisha) or roasted nuts and grains (kollo), coffee (Bunna), a local beer (Tella),
and habisha dabo (a large brown bread
as big as a pizza, and 4 inches thick, cut like cake). No other food is
provided, just snacks. Decorations include “Happy
# Birthday” in the local language pasted to the walls. Family and friends
are invited. Gifts are not a focal point of this day, though the birthday boy
or girl often will get soda or plastic flowers… at least, that’s what happened
in the two I attended.
For my personal birthday I tried to share a bit of American
culture. We decorated with balloons and toilet paper hung like streamers from
the roof, and I took it upon myself to make a chocolate cake (on a stove top,
no less). There were a few trials and errors, and it ended up looking more like
the cake Hagrid gave Harry on his 11th birthday. Despite claims
otherwise, most of the Ethiopians didn’t like the cake. I saw a few people give
their slice to their neighbor, and no one wanted seconds! Afterwards, they
asked me to dance for them, but they just wanted to watch me. So I had to drag
my brother and English teacher up with me because I was too shy. As far as gifts
go, I got like 5 bottles of soda and two gift from home. From my family I got a
passport wallet and I got a necklace from Francis Erickson. Thank you for the
gifts!
Christening
As many of you know, a christening ceremony is for a newborn
child shortly after its birth, where the child is dedicated to the Christian
church. Not much to report on the event. Mostly it was a gathering with music
and food. They constructed a makeshift shade structure of eucalyptus poles and
random pieces of plastic in order to have an outside party. I was convinced to
dance/perform one song. I was asked to take photos with a number of people,
which people got very excited about (local "celebrity", remember?).
The food was all meatless, not a nice enough event for slaughter, but we did
have yogurt to accompany our lentil and potato sauces. I left after a few
hours, but I heard music playing most of the night.
Halloween
This was a holiday which I thought I would not celebrate
here in Ethiopia. The thing is Halloween is a favorite holiday of mine (I love
to dress up), and I was really sad about it... until the day before, when my
mom mentioned how the year before I did her leopard makeup, completing the
costume with a scarf. Luckily I also had such a scarf; so after I returned from
market, I did my leopard make-up (I wasn’t confident to just walk around town
like that). I did however meet quite a few people in my compound, who kept
asking “Why?” Some even thought the dots on my face meant I was sick. When I
explained that it was a holiday they were still confused, but did want photos.
To be honest, Halloween is the hardest American holiday to
explain. When I explained that everyone dressed up, they thought I meant
everyone looked like a leopard. So I had to find photos online of Halloween
costumes to show that there were many different kinds. “WHY?”. Well… I didn’t
have an answer at first, so I started researching Halloween. Turns out
Halloween used to be a pagan Holiday harvest feast, and Halloween was its
Christianized form. Which is funny with how many Christians think Halloween is
evil. Halloween is actually celebrated in over 30 Countries with the most
well-known (to those of us living on the border) is Mexico’s Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead).
The day following Halloween is supposed to be known as All Saints Day (the
saints known also as Hallows) and "Hallow's
evening" known as Halloween. Different people celebrate differently,
such on candles on graves, going to church services, and some fasting from meat
and animal products. The costumes came about with the belief that the night
before, the spirits of the dead could walk on earth and be with loved ones. The
costumes were supposed to be a disguise of some sort, either to make sure the
spirits didn’t take you back with them or something (not entirely clear on this
point). Now days mostly it’s a fun holiday, dedicated to scaring each other,
watching scary movies, elaborate costumes, pumpkins, and lots and lots of
candy.
To wrap the day up, I found I had exactly one movie that had
anything to do with Halloween: “The
Nightmare Before Christmas”. Yep, leave it to me to turn Tim Burton's
animated classic into an educational video. Even so, they were very confused.
Technically the movie focuses more on the distortion of Christmas than about
Halloween itself. Kind of wish I had “Halloween
Town”, or one of the other classic Halloween movies.
Well, that’s it for this update. I’ll try to post about my
trainings and work soon too.
No comments:
Post a Comment