January is the beginning of the coldest season in the Western world while here in Africa or in Ethiopia, it is business as usual: sunshine, festivities and weddings are the order of the day. And now when March knocks at our doors, we close one chapter of the year and start another chapter. It is a time of transition from the quest for carnal pleasures to the quest for spirituality, so to say.
The last few months allowed tens of thousands of couples across the country to tie the knots and start new chapters in their individual lives. That was also a transition from a life of chastity or loneliness to that of forming a family and joining the community as full-grown adults with responsibilities and duties that can only be addressed in matrimonial relationships.
Addis Ababa as the capital of Ethiopia and the biggest city in the country has been the scene of tens of thousands of weddings and religious festivities and cultural or traditional rituals. Addis is not only a big city and the economic and political throbbing heart of the country. It is also the hub of cultures and the melting pot of diverse nationalities and their traditional practices. When you live in Addis, you also live in ‘little Ethiopia’ without travelling elsewhere in the country.
Addis is also the macrocosm African cultures and traditions where African food cultures, from western, eastern, southern and north Africa and dressing codes, hairstyles, modern fashions and traditional costumes are found either merged with local manners or surviving side by side. Addis is not only the biggest airlines hub and connecting point, but also the capital that welcomes and sends of thousands of travelers every day and night.
Addis Ababa is slowly but certainly becoming the fashion capital of Africa, the centre of African culinary delights and hub of modernity and the continuity of tradition. Addis is the face of Africa and the reflection of its future in its present. Restaurants catering for an African clientele and foreign in general are popping up in the capital. It is indeed amazing to live in or visit Addis and at the same time to be served with Nigerian or Senegalese traditional foods and beverages.
It is also astonishing to go to nightclubs in Addis and dance to the tunes of African music from Afro-beat to Afro-jazz and Afro-punk as well as Afro-pop. Addis has everything it takes to become an African metropolis. It has color, vibrancy, creativity and generosity in every way possible; from its climate to its foods, hospitality, love and the modesty of its local residents. It is also fast becoming the capital that is attracting its Diaspora citizens during the wedding seasons when thousands of Ethiopians flock in for weddings or other traditional festivities in the last two or three months in particular.
It is generally assumed more economical and more colorful to launch wedding parties in Addis than elsewhere in the world for the simple reason that you can have more happy time in Addis than say in New York at relatively lower costs. You must be a tycoon to have extravagant wedding parties in New York while here in Addis you can have the same level of enjoyment at a lesser cost simply because of the power of the dollar over the local currency. That’s why thousands of Diaspora Ethiopians are flocking home each year to buy residential apartments or stylish residential villas or acquire a piece of real estate to set up a firm or a big mall.
The other amazing aspect of Ethiopian cultural life in general is that you have a season for hard work, mainly from July to September, a season for rest, mainly from September to December and a season for fun that falls between January and March. Weddings are also held according to the seasons.
You cannot have weddings in the middle of the Ethiopian rainy season because, in addition to bad weather, people are also busy tilling or preparing the land for the next harvesting season. Plus you don’t have the necessary financial resources for throwing wedding parties because the next harvest is from October to December. Farmers have to sell their harvests in order to have enough money for their daughters’ or sons’ weddings.
In the Ethiopian calendar, there is also a time for turning our attention from earthly life or from the temptations of the flesh to that of the heart, mind or spirit. Starting from March all through the two months of Lent (April and May), people focus on the hereafter and their spiritual quests find expression in fasting, praying, reading the scriptures and doing all the church rituals with more devotion than ever because there is no diversion, no festivity and no wedding party to steal their attention at this time of the year. This may also be the time for confessing our sins and communicating with the divine realm to make requests and offer gratitude to the Creator for making the year a bountiful one or for enjoying a healthy and wealthy life.
The two-month fasting season of Lent is most probably the healthier period of the year for those of us who have been indulging in and suffering from too much food and too much drinks. The wedding season is generally a time of overindulgence. And this is difficult for people who suffer from many ailments ranging from high blood pressure, diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. The popular thinking regarding indulgence is far from being based on scientific assumptions. Most people think and believe that a little fun once in a while is good for their health. Unfortunately, they often start with a little fun and end up with crazy eating and crazy drinking and self-control is thrown out of the window for the sake of mother pleasure.
That is why hospitals and clinics are busier during the season of indulgence and medical bills are bound to rise sharply while the cost of special drugs for all types of chronic illnesses even become untouchable or beyond the financial means of most of our poorer folks. In this way, high pleasure is followed by high suffering and high medical costs although it may be worth it to indulge in the good things of life now and then. Those of us who sail safely through the turbulent two months of weddings and festivities must be the luckier ones who were either moderate in their consumption or naturally endowed with good health or follow healthy lifestyles. They are not only well-protected from illnesses but also from unnecessary or heavy spending in these difficult times.
On the other hand, the two months of fasting are considered good for saving money because people consume less food and drinks due to the religious prohibitions. A guy who gets intoxicated in the middle of the fasting season is not of course considered a good Christian. Yet, there are factors that frustrate the hope for saving on food expenditures such as the galloping inflation that is pushing prices of simple consumer items towards the brink of catastrophe.
Thus the opportunity for saving some money by cutting on our food consumptions during the fasting season is cancelled by the high cost of living and the net result is but more stress and more frustration. Unfortunately you cannot fight inflation by asking God in your prayers to lower the prices of consumer goods because He is not responsible for these things. He has given us everything we need for free but we are unable to fix our lives due to our human frailties or failures.
March does not only usher in a fasting season for Christians alone. This is also Ramadan time for tens of millions of Muslims in Ethiopia, who are firm believers in Allah and have faith in the holy month when evil is defeated and men and women find solace in giving away to the poor and in restraining their carnal appetite by sharing what they have with the wretched of the earth. This is also a great time for showing compassion and humility or humanity towards less fortunate folks and achieve spiritual peace through prayers.
Ramadan, like the Christian fasting season of Lent, does not come without costs. Food consumption attains a record time high because we have to make up for lost energies during the long fasting hours that take the entire daytime and come to an end almost at dawn next day. The fact that Lent and Ramadan start on the same day is no mere coincidence. It is a reflection of the peaceful coexistence of the two biggest religions in the country and the love and mutual respect adherents of both faiths show to one another. This is a phenomenon that is unique to Ethiopia and will remain so in the future too.
BY MULUGETA GUDETA
The Ethiopian Herald March 14 /2024
