Timket!

 When you travel to Ethiopia, you automatically become seven years and some odd days younger! In Ethiopia, the year is 2004, due to the difference between the Gregorian and Ethiopian calendars. Hence, Ethiopia celebrated Epiphany on January 20^th. Ethiopians gave little thought to Christmas itself, however, Timket (Epiphany) literally stopped traffic. The streets were closed and people flocked to every city center. Each church's respective cross was marched in procession, returning it to “his” church, as Gudisa, one of the athletes, explained. Women wore traditional garb, white gauzy fabric draped over layers of other white fabrics. Hair was extravagantly dyed and braided for for occasion. As the crowd slowly moved down the street, people chanted and danced, their exuberance uncontainable. Gudisa told me repeatedly, “See, they are very happy. This is our culture.”

Men holding sticks circled up with more chanting, singing and jumping. Two men wore lion's manes on their heads, the fur framing their faces as they chanted and banged their sticks along with the rest. The group took turns sending two men into the center to “fight,” hopping around and clashing their sticks together as all of the men surrounding them continued to sing and hold their sticks triumphantly, as if they were guarding the unfolding battle.

After prayers were blasted over a loudspeaker, the cross was processed onward. The men closest to the cross looked like they themselves were adorned alters, dressed in heavy, gilded robes. And surrounding them were men dressed like bishops, too many to count, with peaked hats and incense swinging. Following them, men in T-shirts walked behind, slunched-over, rolling up carpets and passing them forward to be laid on the ground in front of the cross. More men in T-shirts managed the crowd, pushing onlookers (including me) aside to make way for the cross. Everyone stood in the intense mid-day heat for hours, watching and advancing slowly with the procession.

 

  

Though a significant holiday for Ethiopians, Timket means additional work for the maids; Tigist, Ababa, and Yevtu have been cooking and cleaning furiously, yet merrily, for over a week! The large carpets that cover the entirety of the living room floor were removed and scrubbed by hand, then returned, then taken back outside to repeat the cleaning process, as Baz claimed that they smelled, though my sensitive nose was unaware. The same was done with the curtains and tablecloths. It is spring cleaning in overdrive.

Tigist, Ababa & Yevtu working away

The walkway between the house and the maids' quarters in the backyard has become an extended kitchen. One or all of the three girls is usually squatting there, cutting up sheep stomach, an Ethiopian delicacy, chopping onions, or cleaning chicken and two large pots are perpetually bubbling away on two new stoves. The fridge overflows with fresh, raw meat. Removing or returning anything to the fridge has become a puzzle, a serious, potentially messy puzzle, with dire consequences of a spilled tupperware of doro wat or a tumble of three dozen eggs that have been carefully, though precariously, stacked on the door. Considering the exorbitant amount of meat sitting in buckets in the backyard and chilling in the fridge, and the hours of cooking that have gone on, it comes as no surprise that the maids slaughtered no fewer than two goats and eight chickens!