Museum, Handicrafts, and an Incredible Market

Tuesday, January 14, 2020

This was a remarkable day.  We began with a visit to the campus of the Addis Ababa University, which has beautiful gates, topped with Ethiopian lions:

The library here is named for JFK—a long story:

The Ethnographic Museum is on the campus, in Haile Selassie’s former palace:

The items on display are wonderful, but the displays and the lighting are terrible, making things hard to see.  We began with a talk on the history of Ethiopia, the fact that it is the only sub-Saharan country which never was colonized, although it was occupied by Italy from 1936 to 1941.  We heard of the multiple peoples who make up the country, the amalgamation of the tribal peoples into a nation, the splitting off of Eritrea, and more.  We learned of Haile Selassie, born Ras Tafari, who was crowned King Ras Tafari in 1928 and then Emperor Haile Selassie in 1930.  The country is still somewhat of a duality, being monotheistic in the north and animist in the south.  Here are some highlight photos from the south where we will not be going.  First, a Kaffa Kingdom crown:

A set of Konso grave markers:

A masingo—a one-stringed fiddle and the only Ethiopian bowed instrument:

A percussion instrument made to be tied around the waist while dancing:

There was a display on the “Holy of Holies,” the third, innermost portion of an Ethiopian church, which holds a replica of the Ark of the Covenant.  Each church brings out its replica twice a year, once on the name day of the saint for which the church is named, and once on Timkat, the festival we will see celebrated next week.

After our visit to the museum we went to the Trinity Cathedral:

The most remarkable feature of this church is the series of stained glass windows on both sides of the building.  One side has representations from the Hebrew Bible and the other from the New Testament.  Here are the Queen of Sheba and Solomon:

We stopped for lunch and then visited the Salom Handicraft Center where we saw men weaving the beautiful fabrics which are made into shawls, pillows and more:

We also saw women weaving baskets and mats:

We then had an incredible, amazing intense experience.  We went to the Merkato Market, a market unlike any we have ever walked through.  We love markets.  We go to them whenever we travel as it is possible to get a great feel for a place in a market, and we have been to many.  But we’ve never been to one like this.  We had been warned to leave anything of value on the van, and we did.  I only had the camera, and it was a good thing.  The crowds were astonishing, and there is no sense of personal space; everyone is on top of one another in a giant scrum.  People are shouting, the odors are pungent, and people push to go where they want to go.  I have no photos of the most crowded part—we had trouble just moving and trying to stay together.  Here’s a place where we could find a little space:

There were many men with foot-powered sewing machines:

Here’s a spice lady:

Periodically extremely heavily laden donkeys would go by in a parade:

There were many veggie sellers:

Here’s a chicken vendor:

Many men were carrying enormous loads, and just walked, banging into whomever was in the way:

It was exhausting and a bit threatening!  Back to the hotel for a shower, dinner, and packing up.  We fly in the morning to Bahir Dar, where it’s unclear if I’ll have any internet, and unlikely that I’ll have sufficient bandwith to upload photos.  I’ll try.