The one and only Meskel

Finally the all so awaited Meskel Holiday arrived. This day is one of the biggest annual religious holidays in Ethiopian Orthodox, and it commemorates the discovery of the True Cross by Queen Elena (Saint Helena) during the fourth century.

Meskel usually occurs on 17 Meskrem which is equivalent to our 27th (or 28th) September.

Meskel celebrations start the preceding day, with the Damera, a symbolic ritual during which a bonfire is lit in the ancient tradition of Queen Eleni who, following the direction of the smoke from such a fire, is believed to have found the True Cross on which Jesus was crucified.

In Addis Ababa, the Damera celebrations, are conducted at Meskel Square in the center of the city. The event is usually attended by thousands of city residents, parliament officials, members of diplomatic Corps and other invited guests.

The activities for the Damera events usually start early in the afternoon with the arrival of Addis Ababa's EOC clergy, deacons and catholic youth organizations chanting various spiritual songs befitting the occasion.

The climax of the Demera is when, usually the Patriarch, assisted with the Guests of Honour (quite often the President of the country) lights the bonfire.....

Thus Jens, Sjoerd, a Mexican, a Zambian and I left our place of work 2 hours before and headed off to Meskel Square (round the corner from our offices) to catch the chanting, parading and excitement of Meskel.

We found our way to the top of Meskel Square and settled ourselves on the stairs overlooking the square. The celebration consisted of various colorful parades, singing and bands all showing off their little performance.

All went well, almost to a point of boredom, until the President stood up..... this is when the commotion started. The crowd stood up and started shouting something in Amharic. Usually, when this happens in my country, people would stand up for the President and clap as a sign of respect, but this case was different. The people around us seemed quite agitated...... I finally found someone who spoke English who told me that they are shouting insults to the President - the crowd was actually shouting out 'thief, thief'.

This was actually the first large gathering since the shooting incidents in June. Thus some commotion was expected and the security was immense..... that's we decided that it was fine venture in the middle of the crowd.

The crowd calmed down, sat in their places and watched while the Patriarch and President lit the massive symbolic fire in the middle of the square. All of a sudden about 10 big land cruisers drove in front of the Honoured Guests Pavillion, shoved the guests in the cars, and sped off.

This is when the trouble started.

The crowd got all excited and the 100s of 1000s of people there started jumping, singing against the president and calling him thief.... once again this was in Amharic so we didn't understand much. This is when we decided it was best if we get out of here and go somewhere safe... but it was too late.

The police had already started trying to separate the crowd which ended up in people running in all directions..... we started running or rather being pushed towards the exit. The crowd was pretty confused and the police started beating up some people with their batons... which did not look too good.

I was a little bit scared at that point cause we were squashed in the crowd not being able to move, and the police were running up towards us. I was scared that the crowd would do something and the police would start shoot just as June's incident where the police just shot randomly at civilians.

So we pushed our way against the crowd towards the police, the reasoning being that they would see us and maybe let us run out of the place.... the police didn't really do anything but kept on running towards the crowd with their batons. We then ran behind the police and ran down the stairs as fast as we could with a massive crowd running behind us until we jumped over the fence on to the safety of the big square next to the red cross and police.

It was pretty sad to see the people being beaten up or the injured police and crushed civilians being taken on stretchers to the red cross. I was very glad we managed to get out of there safely, I was definitely very scared........ But I'm glad there were no shootings.

This event brought memories of when Petra and I let our insanity take over, and attended the protests of anti-globalisation in Geneva during the 2003 G8 Summit, where tear gas was thrown, old women where handing us lemon soaked clothes to avoid the tear gas, and where people were burning things, waving peace flags, and police were using thier batons....

After a while the crowd then dispersed in different directions.... except for a pretty large portion of the crowd who stormed up to the top of the hill towards parliament.

We waited a bit until we thought it might be safe enough to start heading home.....

They are expecting some more protests later this week...... as this is when parliament will be sworn in......

Some pictures of the day........

The crowd in Meskel


The people right behind us attentively watching the show

A man selling leaflets of the event and a little girl proudly waving the Ethiopian flag

Some of the parades

The fire in the middle of Meskel Square

People confused and running down to the saftey of the square when all was ended

A walk around Merkato

After my weekly Saturday walk around Churchill and Bole, the boys called me asking me if I wanted to join them for an aimless walk around the biggest Market in East Africa - the Ethiopian Merkato.....

My last attempt of walking around Merkato was a big failure..... My excellent sense of direction (note the sarcasm) made me believe that I'll manage to find the way from Piazza to Merkato..... obviously it was not at all successful, instead of Merkato I found streets smelling of rotten food and drainage, got terribly lost, until I gave up and took a taxi home, to exhausted to bother asking the taxi to take me to Merkato.

So when this proposal came up I grabbed the opportunity and went....... You can never be bored of Merkato..... 1000s of people running errands, buying spices, pottery, clothes, shoes, electronics, furniture, cloth and anything else you can think of - mention it, Merkato has it!!!
We walked around aimlessly to the recurrent cry of 'faranji, faranji, money give me', or 'you, you' or the occasional 'tissue, tissue one birr, one birr'. Until the car fumes suffocated us and we decided to check out the new Kaldi's (Starbucks wannabe) in Old Bole...

Ahh I also managed to get the traditional clay coffee pot for an amazing non-faranji price (or so I think) of 11Birr, my Amharic was also the laughing stock of the day...

A glimpse of Merkato.....

The rope shop


A snack bar.... or rather Kitfo bar...

The box shop

A big church in the Merkato.... Merkato is one of the few places in Addis that has a Mosque and a Church next to eachother, and where both Church and Mosque compete in loudness when its prayer call time.......

The Day I left my Camera at home....

While on my adventures discovering the never ending surprises of the winding streets of Ethiopia...... My faithful trustworthy camera was always in my bag ready to capture what I see and in a way also what I feel.

The day that turns out to be a different Saturday from the others, I left my all so faithful metal box at home. Last Saturday was New Year's Eve. All the Ethiopians I spoke to told me nothing much usually happens for New Year, so when I woke up in the morning and headed out on my weekly exploration of the Addis Streets, I didn't expect to see much.

The first shock is when I entered a small grocer on Bole to get some breakfast. I was standing at the counter ready to pay when this very old woman walks in with loads of flower stems in her hand (only very few of the stems had little yellow flowers). The cashier goes to the woman, says a couple of things to her which obviously I didn't understand, exchanged some money between them, and all of a sudden this old woman starts mumbling things in Amharic and throwing the stems all over the shop.......... I started asking the people there - 'What's happening? What's happening? What is the woman doing?', I don't think they really understood me, but probably saw the confused and bewildered look and realized... the only reply I could get was 'ceremony, ceremony'.

The same thing happened in a couple of other shops... and the only thing the people could tell me was 'ceremony, ceremony'. Other shops I entered already had loads of grass on the floor, which made it a bit weird, walking around the shop and hearing the crunch of the flower stems under your feet....after a while I actually figured out that it is a ceremony to take away the evil spirits for a fresh new year. The people also burn twigs outside their house in the night so as to send the evil spirits away.

It was also quite funny walking in the street, rather than the usual sheep eating the grass at the side of the street or on the roundabouts, now the sheep where picked up and stuffed into boots of cars....... or even in the shared taxis together with the other people!!!! I got the honor of riding next to a woman who had a live chicken in a plastic bag - I'm glad no sheep came into my taxi...... Everyone was collecting their sheep and chicken for the Sunday morning slaughter.

How I wish I could have taken a picture of this..... cause it was quite a sight.

Our New Year Celebration was done in style over an Indian Dinner, wine and Champagne at Sher and Anna's place. The dinner party consisted of an Indian/Australian, 2 Germans, a Maltese, a Dutch, an Eritrean and an Ethiopian. We enjoyed Daal and Okra and conversations that ranged from Australian Aborigines and New Zealand Maoris to Indian Movies, Bollywood and Lollywood. - He he it was funny hearing the Aussie accent again.... I missed it!!!

We also got the see some of the Sheraton fireworks while enjoying a glass of champagne on the balcony.

The night finally ended with a trip to a newly opened Bavarian Beer Garden, which claims to be the only one in East Africa. The Germans where quite amused by the contents of the menu and the clothes of the waitresses. Though Jens was extremely happy to have gotten his one liter of Mass Beer!!!!

Jens, Sjoerd & Sher enjoying their beers

Happy New Year 1998 Continued.....

Cool, I also get to receive Happy New Year cards!!! Many of them are addressed to the employes of the company or more likely 'Ericsson Stuff', though i did get a couple of personal ones..... they all go on my window sill!!!

Btw, I found out that the real start of the New Year is at our 6am, which makes it Ethiopia's 12am...... No wonder there isn't much celebration, who would want to stay awake till 6am.... or wake up at 6am to open a bottle of champagne???

A couple of sheep slaughtering and chicken murdering is done on the day..... but unlike Egypt they keep the streets clean, so no rivers of blood flowing down the street...

I'll be celebrating my Ethiopian New Year with the UN ECA Faranji's over an Indian Dinner.... we were cordially invited to a dinner by Sjoerd/Jens colleague who turns out to be an Indian/Aussie married to a German.....

10,9,8....5,6....2,1 HAPPY NEW YEAR 1998

No I haven't gone mad yet, and no, I haven't gone back in time.....

I'm just living in Ethiopia, which boasts of 13 months of sunshine (not sure about the sunshine yet - haven't seen any!!).

Right now we are in the 13th Month of the Ethiopian year which, this year (1997) consists of 5 days..... that means that the 11th of September 2005 in the Gregorian Calendar, is the 1st of January 1998 in the Julian/Ethiopian Calendar.

I am not only celebrating new year 3 1/2 months before, but also 8years before.....
Its weird going round telling the employees happy new year, and seeing them all excited to buy their new clothes sheep and chickens!!!! But its good for me as I get to celebrate two new years in one year........

Lets see what's in store for me this weekend

Hmm I'm just wondering!!...would they celebrate the new year when the clock strikes our 12 o'clock (which is their 6pm) ? Or their 12 o'clock (which is our 6am)?....

I'll soon find out

ps - Today is Victory Day in Malta.... most commonly known as Il-Vittorija... Happy Victory day to all