Origins in Ethiopia: Religion

Before you start reading this post, I want to preface this post by saying that I personally do not subscribe to one faith tradition and I believe that all religions have different aspects we each can learn from. This is just my person account of religion in Ethiopia based on my own experience living here. I write this to give some insight of the cultural background of Ethiopia with certain religions and how it impacts Ethiopian culture.

One question I get asked almost on a daily basis since moving to Ethiopia is: “Do you believe in God?” Now where I am from in the United States, this question falls under the category of themes not talked about, along with politics and sex. So, when I came here and so many teachers were just casually asking me about my beliefs, at first it took me by surprise. The first time I was asked, I answered, the long version, because in most ways I am an open book. I do not mind telling people my opinions and (I feel) respect other people’s. I think that when people come together with differing views or opinions, you learn and grow as a person. However, since I’ve been asked about 100 times since I’ve been here over the last month I just answer, “I’m spiritual not religious”. At this I get a look that seems to say, “what does that even mean” or “you’re basically going to hell if you don’t believe” or occasionally I’ll get a response like, “ok so you believe- good” even if I said no such thing.

Before coming to Ethiopia, I knew a lot of society is based off of Christianity, specifically Christian Orthodox, due to the large part Ethiopia has played its history. For those of you who might not be familiar, here are some quick facts about the connection between religion and Ethiopia:

1. Christianity and Islam both originated from Ethiopia
2. Ethiopia is mentioned 45 times throughout the Bible
3. The Ark of the Covenant, where the 10 commandments are sealed in, is said to be in Axum, Ethiopia
4. The cross that Jesus died on is said to be found here. On September 26 there is a whole holiday dedicated to this called Meskel, where people will light huge bonfires in the shape of crosses while they sing, dance and play drums around it. It’s truly beautiful to see them all lit up at night and hear the chanting. It was one of the first holidays that took place when I first arrived in Addis.
5. Ethiopia is often highlighted as an example for the world as to how multiple different religions (Christianity and Islam) all coexist happily and without any conflict or competition over territory. For example, on one street 3 different religions may be represented and they all act neighborly without any issues. Truly inspiring.
6. Rastafarianism started in Ethiopia

Some locals on my street celebrating the Meskel holiday

As more people asked, I became more curious about to what extent religion plays in the Ethiopian society, or at least in the capital of Addis Ababa, where I live. The main quality of the culture influenced by Christianity is eating “Yet-som” or fasting food, which is available everywhere on Wednesdays and Fridays. This basically means that rarely a restaurant, that’s not like a fast food chain (yes, they do have Pizza Hut- but strangely not McDonalds), will only serve vegan or meat free food.

So while it’s perfect for me, as a person in transition from changing their lifestyle from vegetarian to vegan, it can be difficult and frustrating for those who enjoy chicken, beef, or, more commonly, goat. During fasting days, it is also unlikely to find food made with animal products such a milk or cheese and even if you ask for it, you’ll probably get a funny look from the waiter who will NOT be serving you these items.

Even if you are not vegan or vegetarian, I would still recommend ordering a vegetable “baeyentu”, a huge plate of injera with different dishes made out of lentils, chick peas, spices, and cabbage (I have it too many times at work).

Vegetarian Baeyentu

So, although it does sometimes get frustrating to be asked my religion constantly, I understand how deep the roots of religion in Ethiopia and find it fascinating. For those who are close to me know that I have had a rocky past with religion and although my past has given me many Christian values, I have a lot of issues with labeling myself to belong to a certain faith tradition. However, having conversations, true and meaningful conversations where both sides are learning from each other, I am beginning to further appreciate the traditions and the way Ethiopian’s view and practice their preferred religion. I do hope to visit the sacred city of Axum at one point in my time here to try to further understand and add to my own views on faith traditions.

Happy travels,

Cynthia

Living Abroad: The First 24 Hours of My New Reality in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

It has been almost three weeks since I’ve landed in my Ethiopia, my new home, 26^th country, and start of a new experience. When I first accepted the job offer to teach in Addis Ababa with School of Tomorrow, I never knew how different it would turn out to be. But let’s back track, shall we?

After saying goodbye after goodbye, I became less and less sure of myself in regard to the decision I made to move 1,000’s of miles away. With the countless goodbyes and multiple parties celebrating my graduation, birthdays, and leaving home, I was becoming more anxious about the unknown in a way I had never experienced before. I was unsure of myself and the decision to do this all on my own. In other words, I lost trust in myself. Despite this, on September 11^th I boarded my first one-way flight, flight 906 to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. 19 hours later I landed in the city that I would become my home over the next year. It was almost 10pm when I arrived in an airport that was bustling with livestock and passengers from all over the world. It took a while to find my driver, Hailu, so that he could show me to the house provided for me by School of Tomorrow.

Upon my arrival to the house, I was shocked and overwhelmed by the size of the house. Although not on a compound like I was originally told, it towered the houses on the street and reminded me of a townhouse in Philadelphia (except without the beautiful curb appeal or the paved streets or the clean smell). The housekeeper, Symbata, greeted me with her very limited English as she led me up a marble staircase and into my room. My room features a basic desk, walk through bathroom, and built in closets into the one wall. It has beautiful windows that lets the African sun cast over my bed in the middle of the room. Before I could put my bag down, I was quickly shown the kitchen with my own refrigerator, and basic (and I mean basic) electric stove.

As Symbata gave me a quick tour of the kitchen and showing me how to use the tv in the living room, my housemate and soon to be my lifeline here in Addis, Joanne came down the stairs with her huge personality in toe. Her British accent boomed through the house as she emerged from the staircase with a beautiful smile, but to my surprise she was older than I expected her to be, about my parents age. Symbata had put a kettle on for tea and Joanne sat with me. We chatted for a little bit to get to know one another and so we could both feel a little more comfortable with my presence in the home.

As I sat down, the weight of the flight and the new atmosphere hit me like a freight train and I felt drained. Once I had let my family know I was safe in my new home, I let my head fall on my rock-hard bed as my new reality began to take shape.

The next morning, I was picked up by Hailu around 1pm (even though he said that he would get me at 11:30 but I would soon get used to Ethiopian time) and taken to meet one of the directors of School of Tomorrow for the first time in person, Abnet. It was my first look at not only my neighborhood of Gurd Shola, but also the craziness of Addis roadways. First off, for anyone who thinks that driving in New York City is bad, being here makes driving in NYC a piece of cake. Although there are road dashes to signal where the lanes are supposed to be, they are not followed IN THE SLIGHTEST. There will be four cars fit width wise in an only two-lane space. Cars will cut in front of each of other and swerve to make sure that the car does not get hit. Needless to say, my car anxiety which has been bad over the last few years (much to my family’s annoyance) is now virtually nonexistent after being here for three weeks.

Abnet gave me a quick rundown of how School of Tomorrow runs and gave me a small birr loan so that I could buy the essentials, since I had only eaten 2 granola bars since arriving at the airport the previous day. I was feeling overwhelmed but confident in the work that was to be done and what was expected of me. One thing that was noticeably left out was when I would be shown the school I’d be working in or about training/ orientation. Turns out there would be none of that and soon my confidence dwindled as my anxiety rose at the thought that I would be just thrown into the first day of school within 3 days to teach 5 classes of 2^nd and 1^st graders.

When Hailu dropped me back off, I was feeling overwhelmed and mentally exhausted. As I laid on my bed contemplating how I would create my lesson plans for the following week, my stomach started to scream for food. I quickly enlisted Symbata to show me where the local market is for me to get some food. Over 500 birr later, I had some makings for my first proper meal since I arrived in the city. 500 birr is like the equivalent of 17 USD, but seeing 500 with a currency sign after it still shocks me. But with some comfort food in my stomach and a few more conversations with Joanne, my new home on Yeka street started to feel like home.

Little did I know at the time how much different my new normal was going to become and how quickly I would learn a language spoken halfway across the world.

Side note: My assumptions had been right. I had no orientation or training on how my school day or lessons would go. I would be thrown into class 1E on Tuesday morning to teach the children the words: play, rainbow, mask, and eyes. I hoped for the best and mustered every amount of lessons I had learned from teaching badge-work at a girl scout camp for the last 2 summers.

But that’s all part of the adventure right?

Happy travels,

Cynthia

The Highs and Lows of Living Abroad No One Tells You: Addis Ababa

One aspect of living abroad that is not talked about often, if at all, are the continuous ups and downs that happen on not a weekly or monthly basis, but on a daily basis. So here is my truth of living abroad in Addis Ababa.

Before coming here, I knew there would be some ups and downs due to my experience living abroad in France for seven months in 2017. I was also aware that moving to a third world country like Ethiopia would have a very different set of challenges. However, unexpectedly, the challenges are more different than I could ever imagine. Simple things like, going to get groceries or gaining a social life, became a harder and harder task. To give you some perspective: going to the supermarket for my basic items requires me to go to three different stores about a mile away and the only way to get there reasonably is to walk. Now, the first time I did this, I thought I was going to shit my pants, because although I went with someone the first 2 times, it would be my first time venturing into the city by myself as a white foreigner in Ethiopia. The constant staring and the points with the locals calling “ferenji” or “Hello, how are you” at me every 300 feet, is the most draining part of my daily existence.

The even more annoying part about going to the market and being white, is that all the locals are not aware that it IS possible that I could cross a crazy Addis street by myself. Each time, still 3 weeks later, someone will walk up next to me and hold my hand or motion for me to follow them as they basically walk me across the street. It is just the Ethiopian way to be so amazingly helpful and friendly but the sideways look and laugh as they walk me across the street only adds to the fact that they don’t believe I could walk alone. Little do they know, that after years of going into NYC and maneuvering the way the drivers stop so short in front of the person walking across the street, or may not even stop at all, has only led up to this moment of walking across the street where the Addis drivers will LEGIT take you out without another thought. Each time I handle myself across the street well, I always get one look from someone seeming to say “Wow, I’m impressed”, to which I just nod and laugh to myself.

Then, once I actually cross the street and endure more stares and shouts, I walk the mile to the first supermarket to get long term items like cans of beans, pasta peanut butter, and date bars (my addiction since arriving). Next, I continue to get the stares and shouts until I reach my next destination a little further down, Fresh Corner, which is where I get all my weekly veggies and fruits. For those of you who don’t know, at home I followed a vegetarian lifestyle, but here, I’m following a vegan lifestyle mainly because milk comes in powered forms and the cheese looks like lumpy yogurt, so I steer clear of dairy and eggs here. With that being said, Fresh Corner is where I get a bulk of my items and now my bag is 20 pounds as I walk to my final store about a mile away from home where I get a few basic items like toilet paper (they call it soft here which I find interesting because there is NOTHING soft about it), nuts- which are so expensive I almost always suffer a heart palpitations and have to close my eyes to force myself to spend the money, and chocolate.

With my bag weighting over 30 pounds by this point with the week’s groceries, I walk the mile back to my home with the continuous stares and points until I reach the comforts of my gate.Now some of you may be thinking, “Cynthia that’s so bad since you only do it once a week” and I would agree with you. But when I’ve had a week full of its own ups and downs, it can be draining, and I have to force myself out of the house to have any aspect of a social life.

When I first looked into moving abroad and specifically teaching English, I read blog after blog about how much fun it is to be with the kids, to get to travel on the weekends, to settle roots in a new country, and to go on a different adventure every day. But my reality is nothing like this. My days are filled with getting up at 5:30am (something I’ve never had to do before, up until this point I thought 7am was early), driving an hour to school every morning and arrive at my school in Bole, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to teach 24 classes, YES 24 CLASSES A WEEK, and teach more than 200 students when half of them don’t want to learn. My days are also filled with assistants who do not want to assistant at all what’s so ever in the classroom and correcting the student’s English homework with a star, when the child really deserved an “x”.

On a daily basis, I’m dealing 1^st and 2^nd graders who say their letters using the sounds and saying “Teacher! Teacher! TEACHER, I FINISHED” every five seconds. I’m also constantly surrounded by other teachers speaking only Amharic to one another and who don’t think I realize when they’re talking about me, even when all of a sudden 5 of them will turn in my direction and laugh. These are the lows of my days and weeks of living here so far for 3 weeks.

But when a small group of teachers ask me to share their breakfast and lunch of injera with spices and vegetables; or when I’m asked to join them for coffee; or when a fellow teacher invites me to a charity fashion show; or when one of my first-grade students, Natihan, gives me the biggest hug with the brightest smile and hands me a picture of a multicolored cat and giraffe saying, “it’s your cat Gatsby (a fun fact I told them about myself the first day of classes)” as he pointed to the blue, brown, and white cat, it makes all the downs worth it.

Getting used to living in a new city is not as easy as the blogs or stories I read made it seem. But coming here and experiencing the highest of highs, even when the day before was filled with the lowest of lows, I feel full of love and laughter in my new home on the other side of the world.  I am surrounded by people every day who make me laugh until I cry and who have become my family away from home, and students who come up to give me hugs and kisses all throughout my day at school, and that is what makes living here worth it for me. Those are the moments I hold onto when I feel as though I want to give in the towel and book a ticket home. These are the moments I am going to cherish 20, 30, 50 years from now and remember as some of the best times of my life.

Even though I hope to see more of Ethiopia soon, with all the ups and downs, Addis is becoming home.

So, if you’re thinking about moving abroad, be prepared for all the emotions, because they are going to hit you and the feeling of wanting to pull out of your hair. Not only a weekly basis, but on a daily basis, but I promise you, you’ll love every minute of it.

Happy travels,

Cynthia