I’ll blog about our adventures soon, but for the moment the pictures are available here
Browsing Posts in Ethiopian experiences
Today is Timkat (or Timket, depending how you pronounce your as and es). Ethiopian Epiphany. In western christendom, this marks the time when the wise men visited Jesus, and the day when you’re supposed to get rid of your Christmas tree. In eastern christendom it seems to be about the baptism of john (not sure what his name was before he became john the baptist).
I’ve had a busy week, what with being dressed up as a Tigrayan shepherd, seeing a leopard, and making some good progress on various things that I am working on (I am actually working, it’s just that I’ve decided that it’s best not to go on about that on this blog – suffice to say, major steps have been taken in ensuring that Ethiopia continues its democratising journey and that UK aid is spent effectively. Ahem). So, today I had planned a day out of Addis, to Bishoftu and the Crater Lakes.
Thursday night – Christmas Day – was the night of the long-awaited Teddy Afro concert in the grounds of the Ghion Hotel. I went with a bunch of people from the Embassy. There were big crowds. To explain … Teddy Afro is very popular in Ethiopia (Addis?) in part because of his music and in part because at the time of the last elections he released some songs that became the focus of anti-government and pro-democracy sentiment.
Spot the Teddy?
It’s Christmas Eve here in Ethiopia. In this deeply religious country Christmas is a very big deal, but a big deal in a rather different way than in the UK.
I was pleased to manage to get out of Addis this morning, a little bit at least. Shimeles, one of the DFID drivers, picked me up at 9am and we drove north past Arat Kilo and Siddist Kilo through Shiro Meda – where there are countless stalls selling textiles – up into the hills of Entoto.
Work has begun to get busy this week, after last week’s easing in to things. Lots of interesting stuff. Other than work … thursday night I went out with a couple of folks from DFID and the Foreign Office in London, for some Lebanese food and then friday night went out with the bloke from DFID. He used to live in Ethiopia in the earlyish 1980s, at the time of the Derg, so was excited to be here. continue reading…
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