It seems that time is running faster these days. When was the last time we had a rainy season or a rainfall? Perhaps in September. Now we are almost halfway through the Ethiopian “new” year which is no longer new. Another new year will dawn after six months. The seasons likewise seem to be changing faster than usual. The reason may be that we are moving slower than usual and we get the impression that time is relatively moving faster. As usual, there are twenty-four hours in a day and three hundred days in a year and yet we have the impression that an invisible hand might be regulating the speed with which time is moving.
Albert Einstein was once asked to give the simplest explanation of his theory of relativity. He was quoted as saying something like, if you spend time with your lover, you will have the impression that time is moving faster than usual. However, if you stand at a long bread queue, you might feel that time does not move at all. In other words, time is constant while our perceptions might give the wrong impression that time may be moving faster or slower. And when the rains start to fall suddenly as they are doing these days, we start asking ourselves, whether it may be a mistake of nature or that something may be wrong with our perceptions of time.
The last two months were excruciatingly hot so much so that many people had started to think about climate change hitting us hard once again. They may probably forget that in Ethiopia, as anywhere in the world, nature faithfully responds to different seasons in different ways. There are times allocated for farming, sowing, and harvesting, according to many cultures around this country. Many of us are prone to entertain a kind of reductionist understanding of nature in general and the seasons in particular. It is either hot or cold and we tend to overlook or disregard the details or intricacies of the seasons that are often reflected in peoples’ way of living or their cultures.
According to an article in Wikipedia, “The seasons of Ethiopia consist of four phases. They are called Tesdey in Amharic, Arfaasaan in Afan Oromo (which is equivalent to spring.) and lasting from September to November. The second is called Belg in Amharic, Ganna in Afan Oromo, and which is equivalent to summer and lasts from December to February. The third is Belg in Amharic and Birraa in Afan Oromo, equivalent to fall and lasting from March to May and the third one is called Kiremt in Amharic and Bona in Afan Oromo (and equivalent to winter) and lasting from June to August. The driest and coldest season is Bega/Ganna while Kiremt/Bona is extremely rainy and when 85% to 95% of food crops are produced.
By the way, all cultures in Ethiopia must have different names for the seasons by their specific languages.
There is also another shorter categorization of the seasons that are reduced to three main phases. They are Bega (dry season), Belg (small rainy season) and Kiremt (main rainy season) which correspond roughly to October-January, February-May and June-September. So, according to this classification, we are now in the second season, which is the small rainy season or Belg in Amharic. No doubt that most of us stick to this reductionist categorization which is different from the more detailed one as quoted from the Wikipedia article above.
In the context of the present article, we may not be talking about Ethiopian culture but about Ethiopian cultures, in the plural, because there are many cultures in this country. There are 85 ethnic groups and there are as many cultures or more. They are there even if we do not know about many of them. In traditional communities, many people live in a state of nature and depend on it for their survival. They live in harmony with nature and their activities are regulated by the same nature that secures their survival.
What is the relationship between the seasons and culture? Everything in the world is interrelated and interdependent. Nothing exists in isolation. According to this assumption, it is obvious that what happens in nature has a positive or negative impact on human life. Culture, in its broadest definition, includes “the total way of life of a group of people, encompassing learned behaviors, beliefs, values, and material objects, including language, ideology customs, technology and government.” According to this definition, people’s way of life is also shaped or determined by nature, including the seasons that also contribute to their material existence.
Farming cultures vary from place to place and depending on their geographic locations and history. According to another definition, farming culture encompasses the beliefs, traditions, practices, and values that shape agricultural communities and their relationships with farming, including knowledge, landscapes, seeds, plants, animals, and culinary traditions.
We are now at the beginning of the Belg or small rainy season, which has more significance to life in the rural areas than in towns and cities. Without forgetting that around 80% of people in Ethiopia still depend on farming, we can safely say that the present small rainy season has an obvious significance to the farming communities that depend on rainfall. I am not sure about the statistics, but the Belg rains contribute to a very significant proportion of food production in the rural areas where farmers depend on this season’s output at least until the big rainy season sets in.
Unfortunately, urbanization and the expansion of industrial activities in many areas are discouraging substance farming and many farmers tend to sell their plots of land and engage in new activities such as trading in the hope of assimilating with the emerging urban culture that is fast displacing rural life. The vast areas south of the capital, Addis Ababa, used to be mainly populated by farming communities that were engaged in small-scale subsistence farming. Nowadays, the onset of urbanization is evicting many farming communities from many areas.
Small-scale industrial enterprises are changing both the landscape and peoples’ traditional dependency on farming. When smallholding agriculture is replaced by modern industries, it can result in food scarcity or sharp food price hikes. This may also be due to faster population growth in areas that are shifting from farming to industrial production. Former farmers or their children are now working in new enterprises that are drastically changing their ways of life, their culture, and their aspirations.
A couple of decades back, the small villages south of Addis, such as Gelan, Dukem, and other emerging towns have now become more vibrant and fast-growing urban centers with high population concentration. In former times these towns were the scenes of farming activities along the main highway leading to the south. Gone are now those days when the Belg rains had more relevance and significance to the farming communities that have now been displaced by the sudden advent of urbanization.
Fifteen or twenty years ago, the vast fields around Gelan town, which is now one of the fast-expanding towns around Addis Ababa, were largely covered with farmlands owned by individual farmers who had tiny plots and engaged in farming during the small and big farming seasons. Nowadays, Gelan town has become a teeming residential area as well as the site of many small industrial enterprises. The population has grown by leaps and bounds and the fact that the town is located a short distance from the capital has contributed to its expansion.
The same can be said about Dukem town which is located ten kilometers away from Gelan town. Once upon a time, Dukem was famous for its food grain and livestock production. It was also famous for its meat vending shops along what it used to be a narrow strip of road that was leading further to the south. Residents of Addis Ababa used to spend their weekends in Dukem enjoying its fantastic climate and its high quality and low-priced meat that was the food of choice for many of the visitors.
Dukem was also popular for its lush farmlands extending beneath the famous and breathtaking Yerer mountains in the distance. During the small rainy season, small farmers were busy in the fields preparing the land for the Belg rains that often lead to bumper harvests of teff, the staple food, and barley that were in high demand by both residents and visitors mainly due to the low price of farm products in general. Nowadays, Dukem is transformed beyond recognition. It has become a rising urban center.
The farmlands are almost gone and replaced with vast residential villas and buildings that came into being at a time when the price of land was at its lowest and building materials were cheaper. The Chinese-owned Eastern Industrial Zone has completely changed not only the landscape but also the demographic profile of the budding town that has recently become part of the bigger town of Bishoftu further to the south. Urbanization is changing the face of the town as well as the lifestyle and culture of its residents.
Urbanization is rightly associated with modernization or industrial development. Urban expansion has many advantages such as better food security, education, housing, and health care. Urban growth generates revenues that fund infrastructure projects, reducing congestion and improving public health. However, rapid urbanization also leads to problems like pollution, traffic issues shortage of resources waste management, and the growth of slums.
Urbanization also deeply affects cultures. The process of people migrating to and concentrating in cities “profoundly impacts culture, leading to both transformation and the emergence of new cultural forms while also potentially causing the erosion of traditional practices.” The old farms are gone, the land is occupied by house builders, and no one worries about rainfall or farming that was usually expected at this time of the year. Many people are left with the sweet memories of what used to be a bucolic landscape and welcome the Belg rains as antidotes against the scorching sun and the suffocating weather of the last two months.
BY MULUGETA GUDETA
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD SUNDAY EDITION 23 MARCH 2025
