Yes, Heidi and Melia were interviewed during the Timkat ceremonies.  They were so full of grace and smartly dressed in traditional Ethiopian clothes that they must have been irresistible to the English language news editors who put them on the air that night.  Yemi’s friend called her at the restaurant to tell her but it was after we had returned back to our apartment.  Everywhere we went in Ethiopia later people recognized Melia and Heidi.

The traditional spiced meat at Yod Abyssinia did finally do me in.  In front of us there were four musicians – one played a kind of guitar/harp connected to an amplifier (that we saw and heard amplified beyond the loudness level appropriate for any instrument the next day at Timkat), another played a kind of violin/cello with a bow on his lap.  The next played wonderfully resonant drums (a more complicated set up than the drums we see carried and used to regulate the liturgical dance).  The last one played a kind of flute into a microphone.  I loved this music.  I tried to imagine King David in the Old Testament playing and listening to music like this.  The dancers were wonderful too and sang in the various languages in Ethiopia.  As I said we left early and missed a skit in Amharic.  The skit wasn’t a source of joy to Yemi, who thought that it was inappropriate to have so much in Amharic in a presentation to an audience that included so many foreigners.  She is trying so hard to make our experience here perfect, despite our sometimes inappropriate expectations and demands.

I hear the house beginning to stir.  I write listening to a distant priest chanting over a distant loudspeaker.  We hear this so often and it has become a reassuring part of our life in Ethiopia.

Let me try to write about yesterday.  In order to be back at the Polo Fields for Timakat at dawn I had to rise at 5:30 a.m.  I heard the knock on the door and sprang into action putting on my special Timkat clothes and collecting what I needed for the day.  We thought that this early morning worship would be too much for the children so they had a leisurely morning at home.  I wanted so badly to stay with them but my pilgrimage wouldn’t permit this kind of laziness and indulgence.  I wanted to stay home in part because I simply didn’t feel well.  As you probably realize traditional Ethiopian food and its spiced meat has been having an adverse effect on my digestive health and overall well-being.

Perhaps one of the most powerful moments of the trip happened as I came down the stairs.  The housing development was completed in 1992.  The communists built these hollow-sounding concrete blocks for visiting diplomats.  So coming down the stairs at night, I turned the corner and the Southern Cross was perfectly lined up with the alley.  There it was a great symbol of religious yearning and a sign of what drew us to this place.  We came to Africa precisely because we want to experience something new.

Because Daniel our driver arrived about an hour earlier than I was told to expect him we were very early arriving at the Axum Hotel where everyone else is staying.  I tried to sleep stretched out on one of the bench seats in the van.  In an hour the others joined me and we set off along the streets crowded with pilgrims or rather with worshipers on their way to celebrate the Feast of the Epiphany.  Then we were at dawn with thousands of people seeking out the place where the church.  It is impossible to be devout in this society if you are not an early riser.

The last time we were in our enclosure at the Polo Fields, our chairs faced outward past the wrought iron gate to the raised stage.  This time they faced a large blue-painted pool with steps down into it on the other side.  I sat 5 chairs away from Abuna and thought how Melia would have loved this seat assignment.  After long chanting and prayers he went in procession around the pool stopping at each side to say a blessing.  Then Abuna took a large gardening hose and began walking around the pool hosing down the church officials and the visiting dignitaries.  Large sprinklers set on high poles pumped water out onto the masses outside the enclosure.  These people began throwing thousands of empty water bottles over the fence.  Deacons collected these, filled them with holy water, and then returned them to the people through the fence.

I had a sense that something like this was coming when in the middle of the liturgy the ushers took all the chairs away and began rolling up the oriental carpets beneath us.  Since I didn’t get hosed down, I went up to the fountain pool to receive a blessing from the priest.  He vigorously splashed water on my face three times (like at the hermit cave).  Again the suddenness of the water got my attention.  I felt connected to those people through the waters of baptism.

We went back to the chairs which had been moved to the same position they were in the day before.  We listened to the chanted prayers, watched the dancers, looked out for the tablets (the arks that were returning to the churches).  I should have gotten up and watched from the ladder or the gate, but instead I sat there in my seat dozing.

Among the other honored guests were a group of German tourists, the Archbishop of the Ukraine and the young priests with him, diplomats, the Anglican priests of the city who we had met the day before.  We were interviewed for radio and television.  I was also interviewed by a Seminarian who was writing his thesis on “family planning” and the attitudes of various churches to “artificial methods” of birth control.  The TV and radio interviewers asked the same kind of questions that you will find on the agricultural declaration forms when you go to Hawaii.  “Are you enjoying your stay, would you recommend Ethiopia as a tourist destination to others, what is the quality of service (accommodations, etc.).”  In other words, all their questions were about how to make Ethiopia more attractive to tourists.  Even the abuna gave a short speech in English thanking us for being there, grateful that we are interested in the practices of the Ethiopian church.  I guess this is a persistent element in Ethiopian history.  Despite (or perhaps because of) the richness of their culture, they are deeply interested in hearing and learning from others.

At the very end the arks began their procession back to the various churches of the city.  As we were leaving the enclosure, there was a slight surge as people tried to get in to receive holy water.  Police with batons prevented them from entering and we made our way out uneventfully.  I wasn’t feeling well at all by this time and was wondering how I could get home without inconveniencing everyone.

We ate lunch at another branch of the restaurant where we had lunch our first or second day.  Fortunately, heavy crowds made it impossible to get up the hill to the Imperial Museum so the rest of the group decided to return to their hotel.  A few fellow travelers went antique shopping.  Our family returned to our apartment for a family night, eating a light supper and watching “Just Married,” a movie from America.

Now we’re having a quiet morning at home, waiting for our fellow travelers to arrive in order to store their extra luggage here during our travels around the country this week.

We’re leaving Addis Ababa after spending more time here than anywhere else in Africa.  It is a city with rubble everywhere and dust all over the place.  There are huge construction projects all over the city with huge scaffolding built out of thin broken trees about the diameter of my arm or thigh.  We’ve seen scores of these building projects and not a single sheet of plywood anywhere.  This is another big African city and we are not sorry to leave.  We’ll be traveling at a much brisker pace than we did before meeting everyone here in Ethiopia.

Flying out we see the vast extent of what is being constructed here.  For me, I will remember it as a city filled with rubble and a place focused on building.  I was blessed by the faith of the people here and remember the patriarch’s words about the richness of spirit that accompanies the piety which is so obvious to a Californian.

 

 

Bahir Dar, Ethiopia

 

We flew in a propeller plane here to the shores of Lake Tana.  We feel a little more warmth now that we have come down from the heights of Addis Ababa and Nairobi.  Still it is far cooler than Zanzibar.  I hear prayers chanted far off in the distance as we did in Addis.  Our group must decide whether to get to the monastery at 4:00 a.m. in time for the liturgy.  I vote for the 8:00 a.m. departure option.  I am glad that the churches are on islands.  It may mean that I can get a little sleep tonight.  All four of us will share a very dirty run-down hotel room tonight.  We’ve already been counting mosquitoes although local people tell us that it is not the season for malaria.  Our initial walk around the hotel and the road which connects it to the airport was beautiful.  Canary Island Palm trees along the road and majestic, weird banyan trees at the hotel make us feel at home here.

I am writing so much about this town that we haven’t seen in daylight and our departures because I am on watch over our hotel room as the porter brings in extra beds and assembles them.  He was muttering in Amharic to Yemi.  I asked her what he said and she told me that he expects a big tip for this.  The mosquito net that they brought out of the closet is tiny and has bout 12 band-aids holding it together.  He’s going to look for another.  There was no hook in the ceiling to hang it from so he went outside, came back with a rusty nail and a rock and then pounded the nail into the middle of a square ceiling tile.