THE FESTIVE SEASON IN ETHIOPIA
on My VSO Ethiopian Adventures (Ethiopia), 20/Jan/2011 12:31, 34 days ago
It is not easy to get into the festive mood when the sun is shining outside, its hot and everyone around you is working to a different calendar with Christmas and New Year. The Orthodox Christians celebrate Christmas on 7th January, and the Ethiopian New Year is always the 11th September. Thus the 25th December means little, if anything to the local population here and the 31st December/1st January only means something because most working people here out of necessity have to work with both the Gregorian and Ethiopian calendars, and so they are aware of the‘Ferenji’ New Year.The first indication that Christmas may have been approaching was when I was in Addis Ababa during the week of 13th December, where I saw a large billboard advertising Coca Cola with a big red Santa Claus holding a bottle of Coke, and wishing everyone a Happy Christmas. Quite incongruous, but a bit of a wake up call. Later when I walked into one of the bigger hotels in Addis, there, beside the reception desk was a massive, beautifully decorated Christmas tree. That was a little nostalgic!Several of the volunteers who were there that week were clearly determined to make something of Christmas and in one of the western type supermarkets selling a plentiful supply of Christmas accoutrements, they bought fairy lights, decorations and/or even a small artificial tree all to take back to their more rural placements as a little reminder of home. I returned with 3 tinsel type strands designed to drape across our outside grapevine. Indeed this looked very effective, but when our local home help lady saw it, the next day she came armed with a large bag full of typical western style decorations, including tree lights. So we had fun decorating all our outside shrubs with lights, tinsel and baubles. As these were her decorations, this told us that Ethiopians themselves have adopted some of the western styled Christmas traditions.The only reason that we were able to celebrate our Christmas was because it fell on a Saturday in 2010, otherwise it would have been a normal working day.We had made an arrangement to get together on Christmas Day with ex-pat and VSO colleagues from our neighbouring university. As Jenny and I are the only ferenjis that we know in Dire Dawa, it made sense for us to go to Hayamaya where the older and more established university supports a larger community of westerners– Americans, Dutch, French, Irish and British.Given that several colleagues had gone home for Christmas or were spending it in Addis, there were not a large number of us. However as the evening proceeded it became apparent that lots of Ethiopian colleagues, mainly from the Law Faculty at Haramaya had responded to an open invitation and although celebrating a western Christmas day, it soon became more of an Ethiopian party with local food dishes, local music and dancing. It turned out not to be a bunch of ferenjis nostalgic for a traditional western Christmas at all!A week later, it was New Year. Jenny was working late, doing a staff English class till 7.30pm on the Friday, so I agreed to meet her plus 2 colleagues for a drink. Before we reached a bar, we were invited to spend the Eve drinking beer in a local garden which is privately owned, beautifully cultivated with green grass and a wide variety of exotic plants and dotted throughout with payapa trees. We pass this little beautification enterprise project each morning on our way to work and have got to know the management of this precious little oasis in the semi-desert. They had decorated the garden with candles and had chairs and tables. We spent a lovely 2 hours talking about the sexual behaviour of the university students as several of the partners in this garden enterprise work for NGOs and one works with HIV/AIDS. Not how I had anticipated spending New Years Eve, and was absolutely delightful. However we were not up till 12midnight!We received a lot of Happy New Year wishes from our colleagues including the President of the university. I will read you one wonderful New Year text message from a colleague;‘I’ve opened a bank account for you in a bank called Lucky. Your account number is 2011. I’ve deposited 365 beautiful days full of success, joy, health and wealth. Wish you Happy New Year.’The third day of celebration in 2 weeks was the Ethiopian Christmas! As the week of Christmas approached, it was more and more evident that the population does indeed do decorations and Christmas trees, and likes to let their hair down on Christmas Day, although it is still very much a holy day. Children receive presents which are frequently clothes and indeed Christmas Day itself was a bit like a children’s fashion parade. Everyone is out and about, there was a lovely atmosphere and shops and small enterprises still go on as normal as people are always desperate to make money and a day like this can not be wasted.It has been interesting to compare and contrast this to the western Christmas with its mass commercialisation and gargantuan spending spree. Yes, it looks as if Ethiopia is adopting some of the more western traditions but it is very small scale and I’m still seeing it through the eyes of the 2 main urban centres of the country where people with more money and more links with the outside world are able to indulge. Essentially the similarities are there; it’s a time for families, for honouring its religious significance, for sharing and for eating and drinking. The differences are; Christmas dinner is doro wat (spicy chicken stew) not roast turkey. The chickens are sold alive in the days leading up the 7th and killed, prepared and cooked in the home, not bought ready plucked and trussed from the supermarket. Doro wat is eaten speciallyat festivals and holidays and otherwise chickens for sale are relatively unusual. Chicken feathers were everywhere in the air for several days! Gifts are only for children and very limited, and it’s a day to be out and about, helped of course by the weather and sociability of the people. The leadtime to the celebration of Christmas is about 4 days here, as opposed to 4 months at home and its only 1 day!As the day was obviously a public holiday here, in the morning we went for a lovely walk along one of the wide and sweeping dry river beds away from the town, got home and had been invited for a doro wat Christmas lunch by our home help, which, being homely and low key was lovely, and in the evening we were back to the garden enterprise for a massive Christmas party with candles and live music where the beer and the whiskey flowed!Well I think that’s the festive season over now.