Kathy goes to Ethiopia

January 7, 2012  Arrived in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia ... I realize that more than thirty (!) years have elapsed since my only other visit to the African continent. So what was I doing in Ethiopia? I was invited to attend a workshop held by a consortium who have been studying an unusual geologic episode in northern Ethiopia, where the Red Sea rift is extending into the continent (a form of sub-aerial sea floor spreading, for the geologists!). We arrived only to realize that Ethiopia, which is on a Julian (Orthodox) calendar (in contrast to our Gregorian calendar), was celebrating Christmas that day... moveover, in Ethiopia the year is 2004 [an instantaneous gift of 8 years!].  In the Julian calendar there are 13 months - twelve months of 30 days each, plus an additional month of 5 or 6 days (depending on whether or not it’s a leap year). The year starts in September. Apparently the 8 year discrepancy between the Julian and Gregorian calendar derives from differences in determining the date of the Annunciation of Jesus. Ethiopia (like most of equatorial Africa) also uses a different clock. They have a 24 hour day, but their midnight is our 6am. It’s actually quite logical - one o’clock (7am) is when the sun has been up for one hour (and so on). Makes sense when the days are approximately 12 hours long throughout the year...

The biggest consequence of Christmas for us was that most tourist places were closed - including the National Museum, which is supposed to be excellent. The most famous exhibit at the museum is a cast of Lucy, the 3.2 million year old Australopithecus fossil, which was found in Ethiopia’s Awash Valley in 1974. However, the museum also covers Ethiopia’s long and rich history, as well as its current diversity - 79 different tribes (each with its own language)!  So Jon Blundy and I went on a tour of the tourist hotels (which WERE open so that we could find some lunch) and part of the city center. Of particular note was the coffee ceremony at one of the hotels... the traditional coffee ceremony includes incense, popcorn (not sure why), and freshly roasted and ground coffee beans. The coffee was incredibly good, with an aroma and complex flavor unlike any other coffee I’ve had. Perhaps its not surprising that the birthplace of man is also the birthplace of coffee. We also walked past the UN Economic Commission for Africa, with its ceremonial circle of flags representing all of the countries of Africa. When I realized how few flags I recognized, it really hit me how little I know about the entire continent!

The next day we left on a three-day field trip around part of the Main Ethiopian Rift Valley. For those of you who know as little about Ethiopia as I did, here’s a quick overview. The country sits at the northern end of the East African Rift. The highlands reach elevations > 4000 m (some of the highest mountains in Africa), while the Danakil depression extends to 100 m below sea level. The country is land-locked, separated from the Red Sea by Eritrea (which was part of Ethiopia from 1952 to 1993), and from the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean by Djibouti and Somalia. The capital Addis Ababa is at an elevation of about 2300 m... the official language is Amharic, which is written using the Ge’ez script (see the Merry Christmas sign for an example!). The food is also distinctive - most characteristic is the injera, a fermented reticulated slightly sour pancake made of the native grain teff, and used like a tortilla to scoop up the rest of the meal - mostly tasty spicy meat stews.

From Addis we drove south, gradually making our way down the margin of the rift valley, dropping to the valley floor at Lake Zwai - the lake has several small islands, one of which, according to local legend, housed the Arc of the Covenant (the chest containing the tablets with the Ten Commandments) after the destruction of Aksum in the 9th century (they claim to still possess the Arc, which has now been returned to Aksum/Axum). The former kingdom of Aksum (now northern Ethiopia and Eritrea) was an important trading center during the first millenium; it also was an early convert to Christianity, which remains the dominant religion. The Ethiopians also proudly trace their history back to the Queen of Sheba (who made a famous visit to King Solomon and may be the object of many of the Biblical Song of Songs) - according to the Ethiopians, Solomon and Sheba had a son - Menelik I - who was crowned the first King of Ethiopia (and who brought the Arc of the Convenant to the country).

SO - the rift valley. It’s the dry (Bega) season, so my overwhelming impression of the landscape was arid. However, the rift valley is dotted with lakes (some fairly large), which draw people and animals to their shores. In fact, the birds were amazing... but perhaps the most notable critters are the hippos that live in some of the lakes (I heard one one morning when I went out to look at the birds... but I didn’t quite believe that it was a hippo so I didn’t look for it!). Much of the rift valley floor is inhabited - mostly scattered clusters of small round wood-framed thatched huts (I think they are called “iss”) in neat compounds. Depending on elevation, the compounds were surrounded by bananas, or fenced by eucalyptus, or prickly pear cactus... a few sported motorcycles in the yard. There are also some towns, crowded with people and vehicles (including dozens of little 3-wheeled taxis) and donkey carts and bicycles and... smaller towns had small shops concentrated along the single main street - typically every little town had a mosque on one side of the street and a Christian church on the other side, the two structures distinguished by both the icon on the steeple and the shape of the building... the mosques are typically painted in bright colors and have a very skinny tall tower that boasts a loudspeaker for the 5-times-a-day call to prayer. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to get any pictures of the mosques (just admired them out of the bus window). There was also constant traffic along the side of the road: kids, kids herding cattle, kids herding goats, kids herding donkeys, donkeys pulling carts laden with wood, or water, or.. More people emerged with the setting sun - like Italy, where the evening cool is the social time of the day.

Most notable about our field trip stops are the children, who seem to spring giggling from the very soil wherever we stop... even when the landscape appeared empty initially, within seconds there would be kids running toward us from all directions - no wonder Ethiopia rakes in Olympic medals in distance running! They formed a curious audience... clustered behind us, mimicking our cluster around our field trip leaders. 

And then of course there were the volcanoes... the entire rift valley is volcanic, starting with the eruption of flood basalts about 30 million years ago (which are now exposed in the rift valley scarps). The volcanoes in the southern rift valley aren't very active, although there are a few historic accounts of eruptions, mostly of cinder cones, although it is the central volcanoes that are most striking (like Fentale volcano, shown below).