Ethiopia!

This week I’m choosing to write about Ethiopian culture! Ethiopia is the second highest populated country in Africa. In my AP Human Geography class, for one of my projects, I had to try food from a different country and write about my experience. Through this experience I learned that I am not a big fan of Ethiopian food because they eat most their food with injera, and I wasn’t a fan of that. The national food of Ethiopia is wat. Wat is basically a spicy stew that is accompanied with injera, a spongy flat bread, and can be made with many different kinds of meats. The spice that makes the stew hot is called berbere.

Also in my class, we had a day in which we just tried coffee from different countries, and it so happened that we got to try coffee from Ethiopia. In Ethiopia, coffee is referred to as bunna and it is a very popular drink. There is a ceremony that is basically called the “coffee ceremony”. This is a very traditional and unique ceremony. The coffee gets roasted and grounded, then it is placed in a jebena (coffee pot) and served to the attendees of the ceremony.  

Modern clothing in Ethiopia is starting to take on a western feel. The people of Ethiopia wear many different types of clothing. The traditional dress consists of white cotton cloth. Men wear long, jodhpur-like pants, a tight-fitting shirt and a shamma (loose wrap). For women, wraps are also very popular but they are more colorful and bold. Much of the traditional clothing will be worn to festivals and fun events such as parades.

In Ethiopia the people still live under a caste system, in which there are 4 main levels. People of the higher levels have a life like you and I. The kids go off to school in the morning as the parents go to work. They come home, have dinner, and family time and do as they please. The people of the lower levels live more of a traditional life. The father works and the mothers tend to stay home and take care of the children and home. Schooling is free but to purchase the required materials can get costly, so many kids miss out on an education. But in all the different social and economic groups, religion plays a major role. Christianity and Islam are two of the major and oldest religions of Ethiopia. Prayer is incorporated into many lives.

Ethiopia, is a multi-ethnic state. Many aspects tend to get hidden by intermarriage over the years. But also many remain. An easy way to notice many of the differences is by recognizing the amount of languages that are spoken, 83. And on top of those many different languages there are over 200 different types of dialects.

Music plays an important role in Ethiopian culture, as it does with many cultures. Ethiopia has a rich variety of music, singing, and dancing, but when these come together they build an important part of Ethiopian cultural life. Singing accompanies many agricultural activities, as well as religious festivals and ceremonies surround important live events such as birth, marriage and death.

Overall, Ethiopian culture is built with sincerity. Their way of life may seem like a step back in time to us but it highlights the beauty of simplicity. Thanks for reading.