To tide you over until I finish my post about The South Omo Valley here are a few fun facts about Ethiopia that I’ve noticed:
Ethiopians have a different calendar and the current year is 1999. The year 2000 hits this September and I’ve seen a handful of places named “millennium cafe.” Some stores are having millennium sales.
Time is also counted differently, with Ethiopian time running six hours behind international time. So when it’s 7:30 in the morning in Ethiopia it’s really 1:30 in the afternoon. This makes things difficult sometimes and leads to the inevitable “your time or my time?” conversation.
The Orthodox Christian majority of Ethiopia is much more visible than the sizable Muslim population here. Many women, even in Addis, tattoo their foreheads with crosses and their jawbones and necks with geometric designs.
Most of Ethiopia’s religious treasures have been stolen or sold off in the past. Churches still have tall crosses left, some made of gold and others of brass or silver. A gold cross weighing 7 kilos was stolen from a Lalibella church in 1997 and then recovered.
The ark of the covenant is supposedly housed in St. Mary of Zion Church up in Aksum. It is not on display to the public. Many monasteries around the north claim to have once been the resting place of the ark or possible the intended resting place based on murals and decorations. Many monasteries do not allow women tourists to enter.
The most popular American TV show here, based on posters, is Prison Break. Rental shops also have 24, Lost and sometimes Alias. I was most surprised to see the entire series of Dark Angel, which was not popular in the US. The shopgirl told me that it’s very popular in Ethiopia. It costs 5 bir to rent a DVD and 3 bir to rent a VCD.
Outside of Addis I rarely saw any women with relaxed hair, most wore their hair in tight braids.
The most popular “sport” is foozeball. Local men and boys stand around in the middle of small towns playing on the dilapidated tables.
No one is proud of the Italian occupation during WWII, but most people say “chow” when saying good bye and the macchiato is the national drink.
One of the more strange, but often repeated, comments I got from over-eager English speakers was “where are you from” followed by “is that a developed nation? Ethiopia is a developing nation.” Sometimes “developed nation” was replaced with “first world.”
Prostitution is not as socially forbidden here as in the West. Cheating (by men and women) is common. As much as 50% of prostitutes are HIV positive. Outside of Addis Ababa a women in a bar is almost always a prostitute.