Since there has been a request for more food commentary, I’m trying to appease my audience with this post. While I was in Ethiopia, I was lucky enough to get a couple of lessons in Ethiopian cooking.

Home Cooking

The first lesson came unexpectedly near the end of my first couple weeks in the country. I was staying with Tselate at her uncle’s house when we realized that I needed food for my 13-hour train journey to Djibouti. After some ridiculous discussions, it was decided that Ejigayehu (her uncle’s exquisite chef and maid) and I would make some lentil sambusas. Basically, this means making misir wot and sticking them inside some dough and frying them. The filling is quite a bit different than Indian samosas, but the process is almost exactly the same.

Cooking School

After my friends departed early from Lalibela, I had a day to myself in the beautiful city. I signed up for Lalibela Cooking School at Sisko’s Unique Restaurant on the other side of town. Sisko is an absolute gem of a human being and she has her daughter and nieces helping her run her cooking classes.

Before we started, they had to do a special repair of the injera stove. The solid metal plate doesn’t really need any fixing up, but the structure holding it does. They use a mixture of cow poop and ashes to smooth out any part that is crumbling. This apparently doesn’t have to be done all that often, but I happened to show up on stove repair day.

Anyways, for the class, I was supposed to learn how to make a yetsom beyaynetu, basically the veggie combination plate you get at any Ethiopian restaurant in the states. Wednesdays and Fridays are fasting days in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, which means eating only vegan food. As you can imagine, fasting beyaynetu is particularly popular on these two days of the week. We made seven different dishes and I got to try my hand at making one injera on the stove.

Injera is made out of teff flour. It’s basically teff combined with water and then has a fermented starter added to it. Injera has a sour taste and is full of holes from the fermentation process. Some say it’s an acquired taste, but I think it’s delicious. It’s allowed to rise for 3 days and then that batter is pour into a small container. From there, it is poured in circles (from the outside in) until the entire pan is covered in batter and then the lid is placed on top. After 4-5 minutes of cooking it’s ready. You can see from my photo that there are lots of bumps on mine. That means I didn’t pour too evenly and those bulges are places where I poured too much batter on the stove.

We were cooking over two fires that were constantly being fed by small logs. The room was smoky, so please forgive my not so brilliant photos.

Most of these dishes aren’t very involved and you can make them easily if you can get your hands on the ingredients. Here’s a brief overview of what we made:

• qey kik wot – split peas and berbere
• key sir alicha – beets and carrots
• kik alicha – split peas, onions, and garlic
• tikel gomen – cabbage and carrots
• shiro – chickpea powder and berbere
• gomen – spinach (can also refer to a dish made of collard greens)
• misir wot – lentils and berbere (the brownish green dish pictured only in the photo with Sisko above)

Tigrayan Food

One area of the country where the food is substantially different is in the north. The Tigrays share a lot in common with their Eritrean neighbors to the north, including language and some food traditions. I have a good Eritrean friend who has made some delicious food for me, so I was looking forward to food in this region.

Tigrayan shiro is just better than shiro everywhere else in the country. That’s because they add tomatoes and it just makes the whole thing delicious. Sometimes shiro is watery or has a terrible aftertaste, but the photo above shows the best shiro I ate during my entire time in Ethiopia. Tegamino shiro is a special kind of shiro that has been cooked for longer, so it’s thicker. Yum!

Other fun Tigrayan food specialties involves putting yogurt in breakfast foods. In the middle is ful (beans), mixed with eggs and yogurt. Other parts of the country have ful and it’s relatively common, but nobody else adds yogurt. The last photo is of a dish called fata which is bread fir-fir (bread soaked in berbere sauce) mixed with egg and yogurt. It may not look that appetizing, but it was delicious!

Lalibela

Lalibela is a former capital of Ethiopia and these churches were legendarily inspired by a trip that King Lalibela took to Jerusalem. Like many legends, there are some doubts to the truthfulness of this. There are many churches at Lalibela, and most of them are monolithic, carved out of one giant piece of rock. The workers started at the top and once they created windows, they removed all of the rock that had been inside through them until they made the doors. Archeologists say these churches date from the seventh to thirteenth centuries. King Lalibela is revered as a saint and there are all kinds of legends about him, including the story that he built one of these churches in less than a month with only the help of angels.

The details of these churches are really cool. Check out these windows and pillars.

I rerouted my trip to travel with Yun who came as a package deal along with Dan and Joey. All of us served in the Peace Corps at various points and it’s incredible how many things we had in common from that experience. I’m so grateful for the friendships that developed from traveling together.  The poster church of Lalibela is St. George’s Church because of its shape and fantastic preservation. Looking down on the church really shows the massive amount of carving required to create such a masterpiece.

Aksum

Aksum was the first capital of Ethiopia from about 100 AD-960 AD. During this time, stelae were most likely built as gravestones. They were all carved from one huge piece of rock. (Technical note: an obelisk, although similar in shape, is carved from multiple pieces and then assembled.) The Great Stele weighed over 520 tons and probably broke during construction. The Rome Stele had been split into three pieces and stolen by the Italians, but was returned in 2007. At the top of each of the steles, there probably would have been a metal plate, although their purpose is unknown. The one they have found has a face surrounded by an illegible inscription.

Aksum also holds a lot of religious significance for Ethiopians. From the legends, Queen of Sheba supposedly had a son with King Solomon named Menelik I. (There is a rock palace in Aksum attributed to Queen of Sheba, but again, most historians are unclear if she actually existed.) Menelik I was raised by King Solomon and apparently when he left Jerusalem, he brought the Ark of the Covenant, which contains the original ten commandments with him back to Ethiopia for safekeeping. It has been housed in the Church of Mary of Zion ever since and only one guardian is ever allowed to see it. When Haile Selassie returned from exile, he built the largest church in all of Ethiopia in the 1950’s.

Abuna Yemata Guh

Less than a year ago, a friend sent me this BBC video about a hardcore baptism. When I decided to come to Ethiopia, I immediately put in on my list of places to visit. It is definitely an intense climb, although it can be done with ropes for those more fearful of heights). There are over 120 rock churches in this area of the Tigray province, some on flat ground and some with significant hikes up hilltops.

Danakil Depression

This place is certainly one of the most unique places in the world. It is controlled by the Afar and after some violence a few years back, tourists are required to visit in giant convoys with varying amounts of military support along the way.  The first stop is the salt flats and the very shallow salty lake. Locals still harvest the salt (backbreaking work) and sell it in the bigger cities nearby. The roads in the area have recently been improved because potash is again being mined in the area.

Most people go to Danakil to see Erta Ale, a volcano that has been continuously erupting for years and at certain times looks like a giant lava lake. Unfortunately, it is mostly just smoking right now, so I opted instead to head only for Dallol, the site of some of the most surreal landscapes I have ever seen. The colors do not seem to belong to this world.

This entire area is incredibly hot, being over 100 meters below sea level and in the middle of the desert. It is also volcanically active, full of vents and fumaroles spewing toxic chemicals into the air. Some of these include ferrous chloride, iron hydroxide, and sulfuric compounds that create the stunning colors that blanket the area. In some places, those gases are still released in such high quantities that they choke off the oxygen, making it difficult to breathe. This place is definitely like nothing else I have ever seen.

Bonus Panoramas from Dallol

Bahir Dar

This town is known for being a beautiful, calm city sitting on the shores of Lake Tana. The lake itself is huge, covering over 832 square miles, and is full of tilapia and even a few hippos. The lake has two major claims to fame. The first is that it is the source of the Blue Nile which eventually joins the White Nile to become the much bigger Nile River that eventually empties out into the Mediterranean Sea. The second is the large number of monasteries and churches that are located on the peninsulas and islands in the lake. Monks and nuns live in these remote places and practice their spiritual beliefs, while greeting tourists from time to time. The only way to get to many of these monasteries is by boat.

Gonder

Ethiopia has a few different historical periods and the city of Gonder was the center of the Solomonic dynasty (around 1632-1755). Before this time, the capital moved from place to place, but Emperor Fasiladas rooted the capital in Gonder. The emperor traced his family tree to Menelik I, the legendary offspring of an encounter between the Queen of Sheba and King Solomon. There is much discussion about who the Queen of Sheba was and whether or not she actually existed, but many Ethiopians take this story as fact. Regardless, the castle complex of Gonder holds six different royal buildings constructed by the Emperor and his descendants and is definitely deserving of its UNESCO world heritage site designation.

Gonder is also home to Fasilidas’ baths which are beautiful to behold and are the center gathering spot for Epiphany (called Timkat in Amharic), which celebrates the baptism of Jesus in the River Jordan. Many people enter the baths fully clothed to commemorate the event.

Also in Gonder is the Debre Berhan Selassie church, which has one of the coolest painted ceilings I’ve ever seen. It is entirely covered in angelic cherubs and almost every square inch of the walls are blanketed with murals depicting events from the Bible including Daniel and the lions’ den, Mary Magdalene, Jesus’ crucifixion, and of course, St. George and the dragon.

Simien Mountains

The Simien plateau is mostly composed of basalt that was then uplifted due to volcanic activity. There’s a strong haze that persists from sand and dust blowing in from the Sahara, but the views are still jaw-dropping. One of the best parts of my three-day hike was reuniting with my old friend Yun who I met during my second Peace Corps rotation in Morocco. She randomly got in touch after she saw that we were going to be in Ethiopia at the same time, so I moved my plans around so I could meet up with her and her crew (which coincidentally included a friend of a friend – small world).

The Simiens are also a UNESCO world heritage site, partially designated such because it is the home to several endemic species. Gelada monkeys are the only members of their genus that are still alive today. They are endemic to the highlands of Ethiopia and don’t live anywhere else in the world. They are known for the red “bleeding-heart” shape on their chest. In females, this becomes enlarged when they are ready for mating. Geladas are vegetarians and they are the only primates that get almost all of their energy from just eating grass. Although Bale Mountains has a larger population of endangered, endemic Ethiopian wolves, we were also lucky enough to spot a few from a distance on this trip as well.

This is certainly not the easiest trek I’ve ever walked, since altitude still tends to kick my butt if I’m not acclimatized. It was also colder than I expected at nights, and even after putting on all my clothes, I didn’t sleep well. However, the chance to see incredibly rare wildlife and the always spectacular Milky Way completely made up for any discomfort I may have felt. (Note to self: Next time bring more clothes and gloves.)

Bonus Panoramas

 

Warning, this post is outrageously long because nature is awesome. Also, I have things to say about Addis Ababa, but I’ll be passing through a few more times, so I’ll add my thoughts about the capital to a later post.

Bale Mountains

The reason I’m here in Ethiopia at all is because my amazing neighbor Tselate decided to take a trip back home. For as long as we’ve lived next to each other, I’d been telling her that I was going to come with her the next time she went. She booked her flight, so I booked mine. In spite of growing up in Addis Ababa, she never really got to see a lot of the country and she told me she really wanted to see the Bale (pronounced bah-lay) Mountains, so off we went.

The star of the show in the Bale Mountains is one of the most endangered mammals in the world: the Ethiopian wolf. There are less than 500 of these creatures left on the earth and about 50% of them live in the Bale Mountains. We were lucky enough to see two of them, one of them crossed the road right in front of our car! They are threatened not only by rabies and canine distemper, but also climate change. They live at a particularly high altitude and as the climate gets warmer, they’ll move higher up the mountain until they run out of mountain to go up. I’d recently read the book Inheritors of the Earth, that mentions their plight and some possible solutions.

We were also able to see the mountain nyala, another Ethiopian endemic. There were large groups of females and babies along with a few lone males loitering around nearby.

I have a special fondness for primates, and although I’ve seen lots of baboons and vervet monkeys in my life, the colobus monkey is stunning. Their long black and white fur and long shaggy tails make them extremely distinctive.

Totally unscientific and very subjective comment: warthogs are really cute when they run with their tails wagging. I am aware that the photo of the giant forest hog below is a bit lacking, but apparently it was a rare find (our guide Ahmed had only seen it three times).

The flora is the high afro-alpine environment is quite unique as well.

In the Harenna forest, there’s a couple of beautiful waterfalls that we hiked to.

One of the days we drove three hours (each way) to see a natural limestone cave, known as Sof Omar because of the religious Muslim who lived in the caves for many years along with his daughter. The cave actually continues on for a couple kilometers, but it is full of water at this time of year. The outside was particularly beautiful and it was Tselate’s first time spelunking.

Lake Hawassa

On our way back we stopped at Lake Hawassa and took a short boat ride around the lake. It’s not very hard to see why this place is beloved among birders and fishermen.

Beneath its calm exterior lurks some pretty dangerous animals. There are a few groups of hippopotamuses that call the lake their home.

Pictures can never fully capture the whole experience. Being trapped in a car for five days means getting to know people in different ways. Ahmed (our guide from Bale Mountain Tours) is from the Oromo tribe, which is the largest ethnic majority in Ethiopia. He taught us some really basic greetings in Oromiffa.

Hello.	Ah-kem.
Response to hello.	Na-ga-ha.
Good morning.	Ah-kem bul-ten.
Good afternoon.	Ah-kem ol-ten.
Good night.	Hal-kan-ga-ri.

In addition, Tselate, Mohammed (our driver) and Ahmed all helped me learn how to count in Amharic. I still can’t always hear the numbers people say to me, but I can stumble through saying them. Speaking and listening are such different skills.

One of my favorite moments of the trip had nothing to do with nature at all. On the way back from the cave, we got a flat tire and the guys put on the spare. We drove onwards to a small town and while stopping for a coffee break, they realized that we had another flat tire, so Mohammed took the car to get the tires fixed at a shop down the road. Next to the tire shop, there was a small shaded area outside of a restaurant where we perched on benches out of the sun. We watched as the tire guys took apart the hubs using giant hammers and crowbars to get to the tubes inside. Once the tubes were out they had to be taken to a different shop down the street to be patched. A faranji (foreigner) like myself attracts quite a bit of attention in small towns and pretty soon there were a group of young people peering at us.

Tselate asked them about themselves and then encouraged them to practice their English with me, but after a few introductory phrases the kids and I were all stuck. I looked over the woven reed wall separating us from the tire guys and the guy who left with the tubes was nowhere to be seen, so we still had to pass a bit of time. At that moment, I realized we could continue to sit there awkwardly gawking at each other or we could actually interact with each other. The teacher in me took over, and I started teaching the girls how to play Slide, the hand clapping game that one of my campers taught me twenty years ago in Los Angeles. If you’re not familiar with Slide, it’s a simple pattern of hand claps that gets repeated based on the number of turns you’ve completed. The first time, the pattern is repeated once and then the second time, twice, the third time, three times, etc. I’d just learned Amharic numbers, so this was perfect practice. Ahnd, hu-let, sost. One, two, three. As I showed one of the girls the pattern, she started to catch on and count with me. Then Tselate got in on the fun and clarified my instructions in Amharic with the first girl and I started teaching another girl. Just as Ahmed told us the car was fixed, we had gotten the two girls to play Slide with each other. As we walked away, we heard them counting and clapping.

I am so deeply appreciative of Tselate for all the hospitality she and her family have shown me. We’ve lived next to each other for years, but nothing brings you together like sharing the same space. I am deeply grateful for everything she has shared and the depth of our friendship that has developed because of this time. Am-se-ge-ne-she-a-le-hu, Tselate. May we have more exciting adventures in the years to come. 🙂