Whenever we think about holidays, the first thought that comes to our mind is how fast time passes. It may be an illusion, a false impression, or something wrong going on in the universe we cannot fully understand. Are the Easter holidays already upon us? Hardly believable. Are we in the rainy season after a couple of months? But when was the last time the raindrops wetted our shoes? Eight months ago? Unbelievable! We check the calendar to see whether time is playing tricks on us, or we are playing tricks on time. Yes, eight months have passed since the last rain, but our memory may be misleading us. The feeling of time may vary from person to person. I have the impression that the last rainy season is only three or four months old.
These days, time seems to be running or walking fast. Real fast. Yeah, fast. These days, we wake up on Tuesday morning and we often ask ourselves, “What day is it today? Is it Friday?” Not because we have suddenly lost our memory, but because time is running so fast that it leaves us confused, that we have lost count of the day. They tell you that today is Monday, and after two days, you think about the weekend, and have the impression that it is already Friday. The same goes for public holidays or anniversaries. When was that were we talking about the New Ethiopian year? Meskerem or Enkutatash? Seven months back? Are we in our seven months or seventy days? Shocking! Isn’t it?
This is the time to seek Einstein’s help and read about his theory of relativity to deal not with space and time but with the speed of time and how and why it often passes so fast that it leaves us with the sad impression that it is running faster and leaves us behind. It reminds us how our time is passing faster, our age is advancing, and we are getting older than usual. I remember that the notion of aging has changed with the speed of time. Fifty years ago, someone who was forty was considered “an old man,” maybe because time passed relatively slowly.
At forty, people began to think about two things. First, their retirement and second, their mortality. Nowadays, many people reach their seventies or eighties without losing their appetite for life. At least this is real progress. In the past, time caught up with us relatively late, and aging became a light weight to carry. Nowadays, with life being so expensive that the average monthly retirement income cannot pay for a good meal for two.
Our parents mostly lived on a retirement allowance in the environs of twenty birr per month. No, time was not passing slowly even at that time. We simply had the impression that time was stagnant simply because people did not much to do with their time other than sitting for hours in drink joints or sitting somewhere near their homes, bathing under the morning sun, and getting back home to sleep and wake up at lunch. Easy life! Wasn’t it? Easy and long life in poverty! It felt lighter, sleep was coming easily because minds were less crowded, and thoughts were uncomplicated. The ideal life! Not these days. Poverty is always around, but the simple life with fewer worries and fewer needs has left us never to return.
Life was easier then, and it created the impression that we were living longer, although forty sounded old. That was why holidays like Easter, or the famous Fasika, are awaited with great expectations for great fun, which mainly consisted of eating and drinking rather abundantly. How about Easter in the time of high food prices, shortages and lack? Let’s not talk about it because we are living it and feeling its cold bites.
What makes Ethiopian holidays rather special is the fact that every holiday comes with its fixations. Enkutatash or New Year? Time to worry about buying new clothes and shoes. The new school year: so many expenses, new clothes and shoes for children, academic expenses…etc. It was rather cheaper to raise children in the old days. Nowadays, it is cheaper to have children, but more expensive to raise them. And holidays gave not headaches but real anxieties to parents.
The only common denominator is their collective obsessions with food, drinks, and the tendency to try to forget our miseries in too much drinking and overeating, because the opportunity presents itself rarely, and we try to make the most out of it. Even then, holidays captured our attention for a few days, before the post-holiday headaches set in. Unpaid debts, the distance between one payday to the other, bad memories of holiday overspending, and its bad consequences.
Another reason why great holidays are welcomed with great enthusiasm is the way they are celebrated with a variety of rites and rituals. Food is one of, or maybe the biggest, of holiday rituals for many reasons. Foods served on holidays like Easter in Ethiopia are diverse, special, tasty, and consumed after two months of abstinence. Speaking of abstinence as part of the two-month rituals, meat, butter, milk and even fish are prohibited in most communities, although fish eating remains controversial because some Christians are consuming it while others consider it as belonging to the list of prohibited food items.
Fasting foods in Ethiopia are popular during at least two months of the Ethiopian year in addition to the twice-weekly fasting days. The Ethiopian year is therefore balanced in terms of food diversity by providing times of indulgence in fatty foods and times of restraint or abstinence from such foods that are universally considered unhealthy eating habits. In a way, Ethiopia’s food culture is not only fully based on a robust organic base but also on natural and temporal restrictions or prohibitions, although they are based on religious practices.
Given the present fasting season for both Christians and Muslims, it would not be out of place here to share our reflections on Ethiopian food culture and the changes that it is undergoing nowadays. To begin with, let us look at how the big fasting times were welcomed and endured in older times, and how they shaped societies’ attitudes about life and religion in general, and how they have changed nowadays.
Forty or fifty years ago, fasting in general and the main fasting season was considered by Orthodox Christians in Ethiopia as a big occasion not only for proving one’s piousness but also their relationship to God. Although the orthodox church does not prohibit the faithful from abstaining from food all days long for 60 days, Ethiopians are so spiritual that many of them would voluntarily refrain from eating meat, butter, and other related food items.
On the first day of the fasting season, all utensils used the day or evening before are washed thoroughly until they are free from non-fasting food remains that could stay stuck to the dishes and cooking pots, or knives. The end of the fasting season is another story of passionate indulgence in all kinds of foods as if to make up for the two months of voluntary abstinence. The current fasting time in Ethiopia could therefore be used to promote food tourism based on the scientific evidence that Ethiopian fasting foods are not only varied but rich in non-fat and healthy nutrients. Many Western tourists are naturally fond of Ethiopian fasting dishes that reflect the scientific evidence that going vegetarian is good for our health.
One of the fascinating things about Ethiopian holidays is also the fact that Ramadan, or the holiday at the end of the Muslim fasting month, and the Christian Easter, often fall in the same month. Speaking of the fast passage of time, several Muslim brothers and sisters were equally shocked as the month-long fast left the weird impression that it only lasted for a couple of weeks. This impression is also felt by many Christians who break their fast a couple of weeks after Ramadan. It is as if time is shrinking and the days are passing faster than usual.
Meanwhile, time will continue its forward movement irrespective of our subjective impressions or our interpretations of the passage of time. Holidays often trigger memories in many of us. This is the appropriate time to ask questions about the different facets of our lives. We remember those who have departed, and recall the ages of our children. Many children born on Easter day, or Fassika as we call it here, are given the same name. Thus, we have many people called Fassika simply because they are born on Easter day, which is a day of happiness both in the religious and secular sense.
Many girls born on New Year’s Day or Enkutatash are called Meskerem, after the first month of a new Ethiopian year. This is interpreted in many ways. The newborn children come to this world with new hopes for a happier life and represent a fresh beginning. These names are considered archaic these days, and parents take great pains to give their children names that sound ‘modern’, or a little bit foreign, or more religious.
Anyway, time continues its journey to infinite time, and we often worry about our age. Some people are said to be hiding their real age and replacing it with their preferred age. Some people may tell you the same age year after year, while the inevitable signs of advancing age are visible on their faces and bodies. This may be the reflection of fear of aging or dying that we try to repress until we stop counting it.
BY MULUGETA GUDETA
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD SATURDAY 19 APRIL 2025
