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I have visited Africa numerous times before my first visit to Ethiopia. I was to find here the most poverty-stricken areas that I had ever experienced anywhere.
A beautiful country, rich in natural resources but unable to support the richest resource of all, its people. From the nearly 8,000-foot high capital city of Addis Ababa to the lowlands I was to witness for the first time in my life people on the verge of death from starvation. Yet, the resilience of those people and the positive attitude of the children in the rural villages prove the strength of the human spirit despite all the adversities.
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia's capital city, is a bustling city, full of people carrying on the business of local commerce. In the Mercato, a sprawling market and the major trading center in the city, you can find blocks and blocks of stalls trading everything from traditional clothing to locally grown foods. Brightly clad people move effortlessly through the dirt street with labyrinthine alleys, looking for and bargaining for everything. If you're spotted as a tourist, be prepared to be followed around by hordes of children. Unfortunately, this part of the city is teeming with young children begging for handouts for survival.
The Mercato is the main place for selling chat (quat or khat), a narcotic leaf chewed by many. I tried it while sitting in my jeep as I traveled throughout Ethiopia. My drivers offered me some while we drove and I wondered how they even saw the roads. My drivers passed their time between trips chewing on the leaf. Although they spoke little English and never told me so, they seemed to enjoy the sensations achieved from their chews!
Colorful, busy, and simply the meeting place for many of the city's people, the Mercado is a place where any photographer will find plenty of unique photo ops.
Ethiopian food is some of the best I have experienced anywhere in the world. Using local spices, vegetables, meats, and cheese there are few places that I have traveled where the food could compare.
The foods are usually brought to you in clay bowls and spooned on a flatbread called Injera. Injera is a sourdough-risen flatbread with a slightly spongy texture and is traditionally made out of teff flour.
The foods are served on the Injera and you simply tear off a piece and grab the bite that you may be interested in at that moment. Everyone shares common foods which makes the meal a very social occasion. The local Ethiopian coffee served with your meal is known as some of the finest in the world.
What a great experience to have the local foods cooked right in front of you. The tastes were indescribably good!
Injera, sort of like an Ethiopian crepe.
The city is vibrant and filled with a very good assortment of restaurants. On any given night you can stroll the main area and find not only great foods but plenty to see and do.
You are surrounded by poverty, yet the people are friendly and go out of their way to make you feel comfortable. Unlike many places I have visited, the shop owners and children know when to stop haggling and pushing. The Ethiopian people are genuine and beautiful, and proud of their ancient heritage. As I walked the streets, obviously an outsider, I was always welcomed by the people.
Many of the shop owners invited me into their stores, but were polite and not pushy.
I loved walking in the Mercato area. I enjoyed the opportunity to bargain with the merchants and purchase several items. One of my prize finds was a set of traditional cooking pots called a shakla dist. Some Ethiopians will swear that the food tastes better when it simmers in earthenware. The word shakla means “clay” in Amharic, and shakla dist is the name for a clay pot used for cooking stews (spicy wots and milder alichas).
At one Muslim restaurant, the cooks invited me to take their photos through the open front window as they prepared the meal for the diners inside. Expert butchers proudly demonstrated their art.
As I took several posed photos, I noticed something that, although common, was a bit dangerous. Notice the fellow sitting down .... he is chewing on the narcotic leaf chat (Quat), and the fellow on the right has a full branch of it next to the meat. Coupled with very sharp knives, I wondered about how safe the vocation of butchering was.
I had the opportunity to travel well outside the capital to several rural villages.
I stopped and spent the evening in a small town named Ziway, south of Addis. I had arrived at dusk, and the villagers were teeming about, drinking coffee and mingling with each other as the day's work had ended.
Off the main road were small shops where people were buying potatoes and corn for dinner. A few teen boys were busy playing Fussball outside a small cafe. Ziway had an interesting feel of a small town where everyone seems to know one another. One interesting observation I had was the transportation used by the locals. Everywhere I looked, I saw small wooden carts drawn by donkeys. This seemed to be an efficient and preferred means of transportation for many.
Not far from Ziway in the small rural village of Abni-Garmama, I visited with the local farmers who were having a very difficult time providing for themselves and their families. Here, I witnessed firsthand villages suffering from starvation due to drought and politics. The Ethiopian government seems oblivious to the plight of these villages just three kilometers from Ziway and several freshwater lakes. The people of this small village struggle day to day to survive by eating weeds for meals. Their animals were dying from thirst and starvation, and yet the people welcomed me into their homes and seemed proud of their meager belongings.
The woman invited me into her family's small mud hut. Inside was bare, as I visited with them, the children peering in from the opening that served as the door, I only felt the pride and happiness the owner had for the surroundings, family, and life.
A small firepit, several tin cups, and a few wild birds greeted me inside the spartan mud hut.
With each small house I passed, I was to find a new and often more devastating example of poverty and hunger.
These small children were sitting outside their home, chewing on straw to ease their hunger pains. It was difficult to point the camera at them, but after making a connection, they seemed as comfortable as they were going to be, and I snapped this one of two children suffering from the ills of poverty. Too weak to cry yet, if you look closely the trail of tears on their dusty faces is evident. This was one of the most difficult photographs I have ever taken.
These children greeted me on a dirt path as I wandered through the small village. Children are curious everywhere I go, and these were no different, except their village was suffering from severe poverty and imminent starvation. Lacking food and clean water, their fate was ominous.
The villagers went out of their way to meet with me and to help share their stories the best they could. The elders were so open and positive thinking, one wonders how they stayed this way considering the conditions they have endured. Never did I feel that they considered me anything other than a person who wanted to learn from them and a guest in their village. It would have been easy for most people to have given up or expected something from me. These are very proud and humble people who deserve much better.
Spending time here, knowing the future would not be kind to them I left dejected knowing that politics, money, and religion would play the role in eventually destroying this village and its people.
While visiting the small village of Abni Garmama, I witnessed a traditional Ethiopian coffee ceremony.
Ethiopia's coffee ceremony is an integral part of its social and cultural life. An invitation to attend a coffee ceremony is considered a mark of friendship or respect and is an example of Ethiopian hospitality. There is a routine of serving coffee daily, mainly to get together with relatives, neighbors, or other visitors. Loose grass is spread on the floor where the coffee ceremony is held, often decorated with small yellow flowers.
The ceremony is typically performed by the woman of the household and is considered an honor. The coffee is brewed by first roasting the green coffee beans over an open flame in a pan. This is followed by the grinding of the beans, traditionally in a wooden mortar and pestle. The coffee grounds are then put into a clay pot called a jebena, which contains boiled water and will be left on an open flame for a couple of minutes until it is well mixed with the hot water. After grinding, the coffee is put through a sieve several times.
Woman pouring coffee from a traditional jebena in a Addis restaurant.
The host pours the coffee for all participants by moving the tilted jebena over a tray with small cups from a height of one foot without stopping until each cup is full. It is impolite to leave until you have consumed at least three cups, as the third round is considered to bestow a blessing. Transformation of the spirit is said to take place during the coffee ceremony through the completion of 'Abol' (the first round), 'Tona' (the second round), and 'Baraka' (the third round).
People add sugar to their coffee, or in the countryside, sometimes salt or traditional butter.
4 - minute slideshow of my travels through Ethiopia.
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