Beautiful Bishoftu is a resort town and like all resorts towns across the country its fame or reputation is based not only on its lovely climate and dense vegetations, its lakes and different species of birds, but on its festivals like Irreechaa that attract millions from various corners of the country, including foreigners who are eager to live and experience this unique opportunity. Ethiopians are excellent hosts but they are not good tourists themselves despite the availability amazing outlets for domestic tourism. Even the saying in our language is making this point clear when it says that, “Gold in one’s hand is like copper”.
I have seen the public festivals in Debre Zeit or Bishoftu on a number of occasions. And the experiences are still fresh in my mind. They are simply unforgettable. What makes them unforgettable is the massive public turnout and the enthusiasm and passion at work before, during and on the days following the festivals.
Preparations for the festivals start a few months earlier when the rains are still in full swing and the September sun is still invisible, when rivers are full and lakes and farmlands are soaked with too much water. I was told that the celebration of water, rain, fertility and abundance are the themes around which the quasi-religious festivals are organized. Yet, you have to wait until the dawn of September, which is the beginning of the Ethiopian summer, to celebrate those gifts of nature.
A few weeks down the road, preparations enter their critical phase. Roads and neighborhoods in Bishoftu are cleaned. The roads and alleys leading to the central places where the festivals take place are renovated. Flags are hoisted and banners hang from building, road signs and electric poles. The mood starts to change from one day to the other.
Passions rise and people parade in the streets wearing traditional dresses and holding cultural items like carved and painted sticks. The green Oda tree, which is the symbol of Oromo fertility is visible everywhere. During those days, politics leaves the place for culture, traditional songs and dances. Beautiful Oromo girls are more active and more visible on those occasions flashing their sparkling teeth and smiling to people around them. The excitement is unbelievable and the emotional temperature reaches its highest point on the afternoon before the actual day of celebration.
What makes Bishoftu unique on the days prior to the Irreechaa celebration is the bustling in the streets as if the population of Bishoftu town has double or tripled overnight. Practically every hotel, resort, cafe, restaurant and recreational facility in Bishoftu is packed with visitors, tourists, and people coming from all over Oromia region. These people are in the town not only to display their celebratory ardor but also to spend money on hotel rooms, eateries and similar facilities. It is time for big business activities.
There is no statistics to base my estimation on but it is quite clear from simple observation that catering and recreation facilities in Bishoftu town are making a lot of money on those occasions. My hope is that the town’s finance and tourism bureaus might in the future compile the statistics on spending and earnings in order to compare the revenues from one year to the other and see whether they are rising or declining. Anyway, the occasion is not only worth celebrating but also worth spending and worth enjoying.
The actual day of Irreechaa is simply fantastic, to say the least. There is not only plenty of music and dance in the streets. There is also plenty to eat and drink and enjoy the amazing climate of the town as the rainy season leaves its place to the warm summer. From the center of the town one can see the gentle and rolling green hills of Arsedi beneath which lies the place on the shores of Lake Hora where tens of thousands of people gather amid the din of songs and ritual dances and thanksgiving to Waaka or God who makes such an occasion possible.
In the celebrations of thanksgiving, Waaqa, the god of nature and water and everything that gives life, occupies a central place and Hora Arsedi is the place where man and God speak to one another in a symbolic meeting of the spirits when hope of peace, abundance, plenty and love override all other human concerns.
As the annual spiritual events at Hora Arsedi come to an end the more human aspects of the celebrations start to manifest themselves loud music, songs and dances continue everywhere and all afternoon. The most prominent colors are the yellow of Adey Abeba or the flower that sprouts around Meskel celebrations.
The other color is green from the fresh grasses that are sprinkled everywhere in the houses, verandas and in all recreational facilities from big hotels to small outlets. White is still the dominant color as the traditional clothing donned both by men and women is basically made of white cotton or while clothes. Then come the multicolored beads hanging from girls’ and women’s necks, the painted sticks held by adults and the food and drink on display in the streets and hotels.
Traditional Oromo cuisine is replete with white butter, cheese and the drinks are mainly colored yellow from the Tej or the honey mead that is consumed abundantly on these occasions. You can see a great abundance of colors, smells and bright lights and that make you shiver with a rare feeling of happiness and fulfillment. Music is in the air all day long and there is hardly any human face that is not shining with a smile. This is simply a festival of colors and sounds.
Bishoftu is a resort town that is usually coming alive particularly on Saturdays and Sundays even under normal conditions. On these days, the streets of Bishoftu, and particularly those leading to the superb recreational facilities, are crowded with vehicles and cars of all description, from SUVs to modest ones that are driven by members of the tiny middle class in Addis Ababa, whose most preferred hobbies on weekends are swimming, sunbathing, eating and drinking around the lakeside facilities. However, seen from the vantage point of festival days, the weekend events pale by comparison.
Most of the recreational facilities in Bishoftu seem to be built with an eye to the wealthier clients that descend on the town on weekends and spend a lot of money. And they are usually doing good business as the facilities are first class even compared to those in the capital Addis Ababa. The weather in Bishoftu town is another factor of attraction. Addis Ababa is often cold, dusty, crowded and polluted when we compare it to Bishoftu which is less crowded, cleaner and noiseless. That is also why many conferences take place in Bishoftu where serious matters can be discussed in a relaxed and clean environment.
The festival fever is not always confined to Bishoftu. It is contagious and spreads to the smaller but thriving town of Dukem where the festivals are celebrated in a more modest and less crowded manner. Dukem is fast becoming an industrial town and the young working population of the town are the new clients that are crowding the recreational facilities and outlets. Every town has its unique characteristic and what is unique to Dukem is its location at the end of the long stretch of the highway that is linking the capital Addis Ababa to the major and minor towns in the Rift Valley and beyond. It is the last stopover before one reaches Addis Ababa and most people are tempted to spend a marry-making night or two before leaving for the capital.
If there are local tourists at all frequenting these places, we find them particularly on annual religious celebrations that bring many pilgrims to renowned churches and monasteries around Bishoftu, and Mojo towns. Zukwala Abo monastery is such a place that attracts tens of thousands of pilgrims and secular sightseers every year. These guests often drive from Zukwala down to Bishoftu and can be seen celebrating the rare moments of secular break at the famous beer and meat joints in Dukem town where the marry-making often ends with traditional songs and dances. This is often tempting many a religious soul to perform secular dances thanks to the irresistible music that come out of the enormous high decibel players.
Dukem is such a happy and peaceful town that once you set foot in it, you hardly decide to leave it whether you are an occasibonal traveler or a permanent resident. There is even a popular observation that says, “Once in Dukem, always in Dukem” The town has not yet aware of its tourism potentials but it will one day wake up to realize that the mighty Yerer mountain that looms in the distance might be an ideal weekend attraction for bird viewers and mountain hikers. These people might also find it an ideal place to spend the weekend away from the noise and chaos of Addis and recharge for the following work week.
To go back to the beginning, festival times in Bishoftu town and its younger and smaller counterpart Dukem town offer rare opportunities for doing business and promote tourism that could be a source of much more incomes not only to the towns but also to the country at large. But this has to be done in an organized, planned and consistent manner. The new jargon in Ethiopian tourism slang is ‘festival tourism’ or the promotion of tourism during festival times and prior to them with a view to securing maximum incomes to the towns and villages where these events take place.
Festival tourism will certainly become the wave of the future and a big money earner judging from past and present experiences. Festival tourism should not be a once a year phenomenon. It should be a year-long activity whose climax comes once a year when the fruits of all the efforts are reaped.
In the case of Bishoftu and the surrounding places, the mottos for festival tourism should be scaled up to reflect the spirit of festival tourism and motivate tourists to come and see not only the beautiful lakes and hills and enjoy themselves in the marvelous lakesides resorts in the sunshine. The mottos should also include something like inviting potential tourists to come and listen to traditional music, rock with traditional dancers, swagger in festival parades and taste the culinary marvels of traditional foods, and drinks and most of all, come back next year to explore the deepest and never-ending mysteries of those festivals.
The Ethiopian Herald Sunday Edition 6 October 2019
BY MYLUGETA GUDETA