By Markan Zelalem, age 14
I was born in Hawassa, a sunny town with a lake, in south-central Ethiopia. Ethiopia is a country in East Africa and has many special things about it. The first is that it has its own calendar, with special names of months and an extra five-day month. The calendar is also eight years behind the Gregorian calendar that most places use. Ethiopia has its own cultures and more than 86 languages.
One part of being Ethiopian is knowing how to eat the cuisine, which is full of flavors. It’s normally eaten by hand, using the edible utensil injera as a kind of holder for the semi-liquid wat, or Ethiopian stew. Injera is kind of like a pancake, but more sour and spongy, made from teff, a millet grown in the country’s farmlands. My favourite food is injera with doro wot, which is a spicy chicken stew.
In Ethiopia, there are indigenous sports like Yegenna Chewata, a type of field hockey only played when Ethiopian Christmas is coming. It is played with a slightly curved stick as a kind of bat and a tiny, round ball, mostly by boys.
The different religions in the country have their own kinds of worship music. Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity has deep, soft music, often accompanied with traditional musical instruments like washint, a type of flute made from bamboo, and kirar, a kind of harp about the size of a toddler that has six strings. The Protestant Christians are more known for their use of modern instruments, like piano and drums, in their religious songs. People here use music for enjoyment and dancing, like at a wedding.
Ethiopia has a culture of warm hospitality toward people. When you meet older people or strangers, it’s best to greet them with two hands extended. You normally greet with your right hand while your left holds your right. However, when you meet older family members, you lower yourself and kiss their knees. Both hands are used to show gratitude.
I study in Bonafide International School, a beautiful private school in Hawassa, Ethiopia. It follows a dual-education system, teaching both local education and the Cambridge Assessment International Education, which is an education system provided by the University of Cambridge. The teachers at my school are helpful.
“Ethiopia has not only tangible heritages registered by UNESCO, but also cultural and natural ones,” Bethlehem Anteneh, an Ethiopian game developer who often works on projects related to Ethiopia, told me. Some of the tangible—or physical—heritages are the Lalibela rock-hewn churches, made from only one gigantic rock, and the Axum ruins. Intangible, or more cultural, heritages include the Meskel Festival, which celebrates the discovery of the True Cross, where it is believed Jesus was crucified, and the Gadaa governing system. One example of a natural heritage site is the Bale Mountains National Park.
Ethiopia is also called the cradle of mankind. “One of the best-known fossil remains is a partially complete female skeleton of Australopithecus afarensis, popularly known as Lucy,” says Encyclopedia Britannica. This fossil has helped researchers know more about primordial human beings and their connection to present-day people.
To conclude, Ethiopia is one country you’d definitely want to know more about and visit one day!
