The Year Without Christmas or New Years

This holiday season as you all were enjoying turkey, eggnog, hot chocolate, presents under the tree, family, balls dropping on new years and everything else that goes along with that season, I was lucky enough to be able to travel to Ethiopia. Ethiopia the land of delicious food and drink, beautiful environment, ancient churches and castles, wonderful music, vibrant culture and the place where, at least Ethiopians believe, great religious leaders and artifacts are or came from and of course 13 months of sunshine (Ethiopia follows a different calendar so I technically wasn't even there for Christmas).

I cant say that I didn't have a little twinge of homesickness throughout the trip but luckily I was surrounded by GHC friends and friends met along the way. I could just look around and see how lucky I am. Who else gets the chance to look at rock hewn churches built in the 12^th and 13^th centuries where in the 16^th century a pillar inscribed with the ten commandments glowed the entire century, on Christmas day.

Juice Spritz (mix of juices).

The first thing, and perhaps the most important thing, is that this was always going to be a good holiday. I planned on eating my fair share of injeera. Little did I know how many other wonderful things there were to eat. I had fruit juices layered on top of each other, peanut chai, essentially peanut butter heated with sugar, delicious breads, beets, a million kinds of sauces for the injeera that I had never heard of before. Don't worry, I remembered to bring some of the spices back to Uganda with me. I thought that after eating all this delicious food I would be ready, and possibly even excited, to go back to Uganda and accept that matooke (mashed plantains) posho (thick grits) and beans. Boy, was I wrong. I haven't been back for a week and I still crave the smell of burbery, the sour taste of injeera, the variety. Ordering food wasn't always smooth. We asked for 1 plate of injeera and ended up with 3. You definitely need to share these plates. The last few days were especially difficult, when unfortunately the group that I had been traveling with split up and I was with 2 other non Amharic speakers, English is not as widely spoken as you may think. We tried to order injeera with vegetables thinking that it was safe. For some reason the waitress decided that we had ordered spaghetti noodles covered in butter with some vegetables, it wasn’t exactly what we were looking for the last few meals in country. Or when we tried to order some boneless meat in a pot and instead got butter soup with a piece of a goat leg we think. I suppose that is just part of the adventure.  

Injeera and tegabeano

Home made grape wine

 

I could keep talking about the food but that just makes me hungry and sad that I can't be eating it everyday. Perhaps I should talk about the 3 day trek in the Siemien mountains where the views were spectacular and the altitude did a number on my endurance. We definitely were glamping. We slept in small dorm style buildings along the way, where I may have picked up a few flea bites, donkeys carried our bags, every which way you turned was another amazing view.

A tribute to Mary at one of the 2 Christian Churches in the Ciy

Or maybe Harar would be better to tell you about. A walled city that was founded between the 7^th and 11^th century and where many different religions have lived peacefully. You get the chance to meander through small alleys that all the sudden open up to courtyard where someone is setting up for a wedding or a small market. The women are dressed so beautifully in colorful outfits that match the colorful doors, houses and alleyways. If the city isn’t what you are looking for why not head to the camel market where you can get extremely close to camels, sometimes in my opinion frighteningly close to a heard moving your direction.

An alley way within the old city

one of the gates to enter the old city

Camels EVERYWHERE!  Watch out for the drool!

Then there is Lalibela, as I mentioned earlier with the rockhewn churches. These ancient churches were literally carved from the ground. There is 11 of them all together all pretty close together. Just to imagine how these were built in the ancient times without machinery is inspiring. The best part, I think, is that you can still see Ethiopians coming to these churches to practice their religion.

 

Then there is Gondar where there are ancient castles both restored and in ruins. You cant help but think of knights and princess and yes even dragons. Their are old baths that are only filled for a festival called Timkat, Jan 19^th. There also happens to be a Peace Corps volunteer that shares all of her american food with you. What a great surprise!

Then there is Bahar Dar a city right on Lake Tana. The boat cruise takes you to old monasteries on the church...the one that I went into was unimpressive but apparently some of the books the monks were touching were from the 9^th century. The hippos are also right where the lake turns into the Blue Nile. The sunsets were amazing. It is also the place that you need to buy your bus ticket more than 15 hours before you want to leave the next day. But if you weren't aware of that fact it is an extra day meandering the market eating at a local joint where you pay 50 cents for a meal and of course drinking more juice.

And of course there is Addis Ababa, a capital city with way less traffic then I expected, delicious ice cream and cookies and much more I am sure.

So, although Christmas in Ethiopia isn’t until January 7^th and new years happens in September. And even though, there were no real Christmas trees there were plenty of fake ones, even some with strawberry lights. And there was no turkey, meat stuffing, or pies there was injeera, peanut chai and fruit juices. And I may have not been surrounded by my family at least I had a group of friends to travel with (and even one who would sleep in the airport with me!). This year without a Christmas will still be a memorable one.