Hiyaw Yetibeb Guzo which literally means ‘Everlasting Art Tour’ is a nation crisscrossing art expedition that has been undertaken by Ethiopian artists and media partners in recent years in a bid to goad society to have a deep understanding of its languages, cultures and norms. An author is one who has a profound knowledge about what he pens down. Most of the time writers borrow ideas from personal experience or from what they acquired through reading. However, every art piece is the reflection of the real world. Therefore, a writer must fathom the life s/he is going to capture on a blank sheet. To this end,understanding the public ways of thought, language and dialects,naming cultures and others allows the writer to delineate a clear line between the real life and the imaginative aspects of life. This way s/hecould come up with a palatable art piece in his/her writings, believes, Abere Adamu,President of Ethiopian Writers Association(EWA),who is an author himself.
Therefore, writer,in person, ought to visit places and the dwelling place of people in daily routines.Accordingly, EWAhas been organizing various tours to writers to help them achieve their goals, he stated. Such localart tours being held across the country with the active participation of various writers are bearing fruits as the authors are improving their knowledge about dialects and others in art pieces. Stakeholders are helping in installing things that would help to recall settings and characters, he said. The tours have proved helpful to promote local tourism and unity, as it allows people to better know each other via the authors’ art pieces.The tours are helpful in facilitating opportunities to the writers to have a firsthand knowledge about the cultures, norms and daily routines of people so that they can come up with literary works worth to crow about without missing basic reflections of the society, he noted. On the other hand, the writers also reflected that the tours conducted so far have afforded them windows into the real culture and dialects of the society they visited. Previously, the dialect usage and settings in TVdramas were mostly expressed incorrectly, therefore, the facilitation of such programs has helped the writers to adopt the right dialects of peoples in the setting of a certain art pieces, he underlined. In the first round, the EWAhas made a tour to Gojam, Amhara state, making its focus on the settings of Fikir Eske Mekabir novel written by Hadis Alemayehu.
The second tour was to Hamer, SNNPs state.It focused on the Hamer tribe which was portrayed in detail in the book called Kebuska Bestejerba, written by Fikremarkos Desta. The third art tour was to Tigray, the location where St. Yared and Philosopher Zara Yakob were born.St. Yared is well known for his timeless art of melody and profound theological Kine or pun. Similarly, Zara Yakob is the leading philosopher of the country and even the continent. These two giants have written various books that opened the faucets of their minds. Cities like Harar and Dire Dawa,where the sun rises first, were the writers’ destinations in the fourth round art tour. Here, they had visited the birth places of writers such as Gebrekirstos Desta and Mengistu Lemma. The fifth ‘Everlasting Art Tour’was made last year to Gojam and Gondar, Amhara state.
This part of the country is known most for its natural gifts. It is famed for being the source of the world longest river Nile apart being the founding place to country’s largest lake, Tana. However, the area’s being a source to various writers, whose names the country recall proudly, is what fans of art mostly conjure up in their mind. And the fifth round tour was intended to commemorate such authors from the area. The compass of the 6th round tour will point its fingers towards northern Shewa, the land where author Dagnachew Worku and another author King Zara Yakob were born. The visit includes the settings listed in Dagnachew’s book of ‘Adefrs’ and the old palace of the royal family, he said.
The tours are significant in terms of promoting local tourism by maintaining and upgrading the places cited in art pieces. There is a plan to make them tourism destinations. They could generate foreign currency, he said.“After the tour, some places in Gojam from the setting of the novel Fikir Eske Mekabir were upgraded. They have become recreational places named after Bezabih and Seblewengel,the main characters in the book.” Expanding its route, the tour would be held in neighboring countries.The association has drafted a proposal to facilitate a tour to Eritrea with a theme of Voyage to Eritrea in search of Fiyameta this budget year. The tour would allow writers to visit the places cited in the novel Oromay,written by Bealu Girma. The plan includes visiting the Peak Point 7,Nakfa and Massawa melting pots mentioned in the book. Authors will stand a chance to feel the reflection of the people in the book and observe the reality on the ground so that they can examine the book depending on the fact, according to Abere.
The tour is also intended to strengthen the recent rapprochement of the two people who have the same blood and history.EWA is working with its Eritrean counterpart and individual writers to realize the tour, he noted. “In concert with stakeholders, EWA is also preparing to organize the Nile Basin Countries Writers International Conference the coming March. Paying homage to the GERD is also part of the program,”Such conference will help to strengthen the diplomatic and people-topeople relation among the countries through notable features from the authors who visit the dam in person. Such a tour will be significant to build images as the invited writers are allowed to visit various selected parts of the country. The local tours and cross-border travels of the writers are crucial to improve peoples’ relations by promoting critical cultures of the people including traditional democratic power transition and conflict resolution mechanisms. It will also be key in reflecting the right image of the country and spearheading the cultural integration of the horn.
The Ethiopian Herald February 17/2019
BY YOHANES JEMANEH
