Epiphany and Stardom

Today was Epiphany (Timket in Amharic), which is a big religious holiday here. Ethiopians claim that the original Arc of the Covenant is here, and each Orthodox Church has its own smaller arc as well (they're not unlike the arcs that hold the torah at synagogues). For Timket, each church takes its arc out and parades it to a park or a field in town, where it meets with the arcs from all of the other churches in the area. There's a blessing of the arcs (and everyone there) with holy water, a huge celebration, and then the arcs are each paraded back to their homes.

The whole town has been full of energy this weekend. Even now (I'm writing this at home, around 8pm, and the festivities are mostly over), I can hear horns blowing and people clapping somewhere along my road. I went to the park where the arcs had assembled around 10:30 this morning. When I stepped out of my gate, my whole street was bustling with families dressed in their finest coming from and heading towards the various festivals and to family and friends' houses. Ethiopian traditional dress is almost entirely white. Women wear "habesha kemis" (Ethiopian dresses), which are made from a lightweight white crepe material, with beautiful colored hems or embroidery, and "netela"—scarves or wraps made from the same material—over their heads and shoulders. Men wear white pants and a long white tunic, sometimes with a white sweater vest over it, and some wear white turbans. Because it's starting to get hot out this time of year, almost everyone had an umbrella as well. The church officials didn't just carry umbrellas to shield the arcs and themselves, but elaborately decorated parasols, some of them gleaming with glitter and velvet. Most of them also had tassels and iconography.

The park had a total party atmosphere. I could hear people singing, horns blowing, and drums beating from several blocks away, and the field was just full of people dancing and clapping. We joined in the procession wholeheartedly, and paraded the first arc back to Kidus Georgis church, in the center of town, which took a good two hours, because we stopped to sing and dance every fifty meters or so. Beth has mastered the Ethiopian traditional dance moves, complete with epileptic shoulder movements, and she got a huge amount of attention for her dancing prowess. I meanwhile, befriended the world's cutest old women, and learned to ululate wildly in appreciation for a good dance. We also saw a man in a fabulous bike-turned-wheelchair play a beautiful tune on a small harp, singing his heart out for everyone who could hear. From time to time a gang of young men and boys carrying huge stalks of sugar cane would run by, thrusting the sugar cane up and down in their hands almost like war spears, dancing wildly and pushing people out of the way.

People were in a fantastic mood, and were incredibly welcoming and kind. We each had a couple of kids by the hand at one point, and several people told me never to forget them. An unbelievably wrinkled old woman with a small fez on her head and a cane made from old re-bar (who had exactly 2 teeth) was just absolutely smitten with us, patting our shoulders and cheeks, and encouraging us to dance.

The whole thing was pretty magical although I've almost never been as hot and sunburned as I was at the end of the parade. The closest thing I could compare it to is a street fair—or maybe the May Day protest in San Francisco for immigrants' rights a couple of years ago, which was more of a party than a protest march, at least among the crowd I was walking with. It was overwhelming, exhausting, and just fabulous. I'm really glad we got to experience this. Maybe next year I'll go to Gondar (a city about 3 hours North of here by bus), where 22 churches apparently all gather together to celebrate (here it was 7).

            What else is new around here? Oh! Guess who was on Ethiopian National TV yesterday afternoon?

 

That's right: I was, with Levi. Last weekend, we attended an event thrown by the Regional AIDS Prevention and Control Office. It was the launch of a short documentary about World AIDS Day, and a thank you celebration for all of the local partners who had helped with AIDS Day programming back in December. For some reason, Beth's boss, who was one of the people planning the event, felt that the three of us needed to be sitting at the table of honor, up front, with the director of the office. At some point, Beth's parents called from the States, so she was off talking to them when Levi and I noticed a camera trained on us.

"I bet that's ETV," I told Levi.

"You know, I don't want it to be, but look at how nice that camera is," he said.

Well, it was. We didn't make our debut until today, but debut we did. Lake, our friend and one of the trainers from back in Wolisso (who lives here in Bahir Dar) told us yesterday that he had seen us on the afternoon news. "Levi was wearing shorts," he reported.

Other than the holiday and the new stardom, things are beginning to settle into a routine. Work is beginning to pick up as I start to get to know people and systems at the hospital. I did get to see a really neat use of technology this week. Every month or so, ITECH provides distance education seminars for its providers around the world. I sat in with Dr. Manuel (my supervisor) and a couple of others on a session on HIV dermatology. They use a real time web cam so that the participants can see the presenter, and also broadcast his PowerPoint, complete with a pointer. The participants can then write to him using some sort of instant messaging, so that it's actually a dynamic, live interaction. While HIV dermatology isn't really my thing (a photo of a fungus-covered toenail cemented for me the fact that I don't actually want to be a doctor), I was really impressed with the technology. I didn't catch the name of the software, but will be sure to next time. Neat stuff.

I went to the post office on Tuesday to find my box filled with letters and cards (a lot of the Christmas/New Year's cards didn't make it through until now). THANK YOU to everyone who wrote! I'll start writing back, but it may take me a little while. Meanwhile, keep the letters coming! I love that feeling of reaching up into my PO Box (it's higher than I can even see!) and finding good stuff from people I miss.