Ethiopia

All people of Ethiopia, whether Christian or Muslim, tend to be somewhat complacent and passive, enduring adversity with stoicism unknown in the Western world. They also tend to be quite formal in their dealings, not only with strangers, but with each other. A strong sense of individualism pervades the Ethiopian personality. Individuals are expected to stand up for their rights and desires. Genuine concern for others and courtesy are noticeable personality traits of Ethiopians. Ethiopians are proud of the fact that they escaped colonization in the 19th century when much of the rest of the continent was held by Europeans.

Like most Semitic peoples, the Amhara place great emphasis on formal but very courteous greetings to both friends and strangers. Shaking hands with one or both hands, though more gently than the Western handshake, is common between members of the same sex. Friends often embrace each other formally but warmly. Members of opposite sex do not greet each other physically.

Pointing is generally considered rude. One never uses the left-hand to give or receive items; the right-hand or both hands are used. It is an insult to refer to a person as Galla, a name once used for the Oromo people. Trilling the tongue is a way of showing excitement.

The Amharic home is a highly private and personal domain. Visits are not made without invitation. If one is going to a home for the first time, a small gift is in order. Visitors are expected to accept any refreshments or food offered. Conversation should avoid highly personal topics and is best kept casual.

In larger cities, most people wear Western-style clothing under the traditional white shamma (toga). Men in some ethnic groups wear turbans. Women generally wear dresses. Full native dress is still worn by many, particularly on holidays. Conservative dress is a must for visitors.

The Ethiopian diet includes lamb, goat, and fowl. Ethiopians do not usually eat pork, turkey, or ham. Common foods include injera, a fermented bread made of teff flour, and wat, a spicy stew made with beef or chicken. Strict religious dietary and fasting customs, especially for Muslims, also affect the menu. For the many people who have limited access to food, a daily diet consists of grains and relief supplies.

Amhara hosts take pride in offering guests the best meal they are capable of providing, whether at a public restaurant or in the home. Visitors are often given more food than they are able to eat. Leaving some food on the plate is polite because it indicates the host’s ability to more than adequately provide for guests. As is the custom in the Semitic world, food is eaten with the fingers of the right hand (never the left).

The Ethiopian diet includes lamb, goat, and fowl. Ethiopians do not usually eat pork, turkey, or ham. Common foods include injera, a fermented bread made of teff flour, and wat, a spicy stew made with beef or chicken. Strict religious dietary and fasting customs, especially for Muslims, also affect the menu. For the many people who have limited access to food, a daily diet consists of grains and relief supplies.

The Amharic family is strongly patriarchal, a pattern typical throughout Ethiopia. Sons usually bring their brides to live with or near their father’s family, and three or more generations in the male line frequently live under one roof. Age is highly respected in Ethiopia, and the elderly are cared for by their children. Only a small percentage (6 percent) of the population is older than age 60. A woman’s duties and privileges are well-defined both within the home and elsewhere, and women often lead sheltered lives. Families are very private.

Dating and marriage customs in Ethiopia remain deeply rooted in tradition, though practices vary considerably across the country's many ethnic groups and between urban and rural communities. Because marriage is viewed as the union of two families rather than just two individuals, arranged or family-guided marriages are still common, particularly in rural areas. Parents and extended family members often play a central role in selecting suitable partners, with considerations such as family background, social standing, and ethnic or religious compatibility carrying significant weight. While younger generations in cities like Addis Ababa have greater exposure to Western-style courtship and may have more personal input in choosing a partner, most Ethiopians still honor family involvement to some degree. Religious affiliation also shapes marriage customs, as Ethiopia has large Orthodox Christian and Muslim populations, each with their own distinct traditions and ceremonies.

Bride wealth, known locally as tilosh or similar terms depending on the region, remains a practiced custom in many communities. Marriages are generally expected to be lifelong commitments, and although divorce rates have risen somewhat in urban areas in recent years, divorce still carries social stigma in many parts of the country and remains less common than in Western societies.

Ethiopians enjoy football (soccer) and it is the most popular sport. Long distance running is also popular. Traditional sports include stick fighting and wrestling. Women cheer the men and encourage them to be fierce. In the rural countryside children play with what ever they have making animals, dolls and balls of mud, sticks, tin cans and cloth. In the urban areas there are movie theaters and many bars and night clubs for dancing. A sport this is unique to the Tigray and Amhara is a cross-county field hockey.

Ethiopian children wake up early. Some because they have chores, others because the whole family sleeps in a shared room and the hustle and bustle of the adults going to work or starting the cooking fires wakes them up and still others because there is so little entertainment in the house they just want to get up and out of bed. It’s usually with a big smile that they greet the sun and call out to one another Indemin aderk/adersh? - an inquiry as to how one spent the night and the answer Egziabher yimesgen!’ or “Lord be Praised” is an Ethiopian good morning. Next it’s a breakfast of flat corn or maize pancake called kitta and a few sips of tea. If there are cattle that need to be tended to or let out to graze, the child would need to have his breakfast, to go. The daughters will usually get up and help with the house chores. They will help get the fires going, clean the house, fetch water, gather firewood and help with the cooking.

Getting to school is a trip that can take as long as two hours. While the city children get to school on public or school buses, taxis or family cars, the rural children have no other choice but to walk. If along the way there is a main road the lucky few may get rides half or all the way. But there is a risk involved in this mode of transport: The traffic on these routes consists mostly of trucks transporting goods to and from the cities. The children usually have to climb into the back of these trucks, which are sometimes over laden with goods. It is too often that news is heard of dozens of children killed in traffic accidents. If it is the rainy season, then even this might not be possible.

In Ethiopia the modern school system was introduced during the reign of Emperor Menelik II in 1908, with the opening of Ecole Imperiale Menelik II (known today as Menelik II Secondary School). The majority of school expansion was limited to the major cities or towns. The Ethiopian civil war ended in 1991 with the overthrow of the Marxist Dergue regime. The school and education systems were in shambles and the statistics painted a grim picture. But after a slow start and some blunders the new government has made progress on almost all fronts of the education system. There has been a constant growth in the number of schools, teachers and the school materials and supplies. The average age of the primary schools in the rural areas is around 5 to 7 years. The schools are blocks of houses built with the basic necessities needed to function. It may or not have a boundary marked by a barbed wire fence. The roof is corrugated iron and the walls are made of cement blocks. Behind the main blocks there are rows of taps for drinking water and at least two toilets. If lucky, and connected to the power grid, the school may have a library with donated books and a computer or two in the lab. It is encouraging to see that the number of plasma televisions, making their way into almost all the schools for the past 5 years, has introduced the remotest students to the modern lessons beamed via satellites. It has made them go from the outdated information in the old books to the 21st century with one great leap.

Like the Ethiopian New Year, the school year starts on September 11th of every year. It goes on for 10 of the thirteen months, yes, Ethiopia has thirteen, not twelve months. Primary school starts at 8:00 a.m. every day, when the bell is rung and the children line up in front of the flag pole for the singing of the national anthem and the raising of the Ethiopian flag. In schools where uniforms are mandatory, a general check is made to see if anyone stands out or has improper attire. With the new curriculum introduced in the late 1990’s children go to school from 8:00 a.m. till 3:00 or 4:00 p.m. in the cities. In rural areas, because of the acute shortage of teachers, and because the children mostly live far away from their schools and also because rural schools cannot provide lunches for the children, they have to go home after one shift has ended. In the classroom of a rural primary school each class is 40 minutes long and consists of 3 classes each, with a 30 minute break. Morning classes end at 12:30 PM. The afternoon shift starts at 1:00 p.m. and ends at 5:30 p.m. There are, on average, 50 to 60 students to a class. These students sit three or four to a bench. As the teacher walks into the classroom all students stand up and shout their greetings- ‘Good morning, teacher’ to which the teacher answers ‘Good morning, students. Please, sit down.’ and the students take their places. Attendance is recorded at the start of each class and then it’s on to the lessons. The subjects taught in Ethiopian schools are English, Amharic (or whatever the native tongue of the children is), mathematics, social studies, art, music and physical education. In Ethiopia corporal punishment in schools, though illegal, is still acceptable, and children may be punished with the swat of a switch or by being made to kneel in a corner for the duration of the class. However, teachers are revered in the rural areas, and headmasters are the absolute authoritarians, and there isn’t much need for punishment. The thirst for knowledge makes it a taboo to go against such persons or their institutions. It is in the cities with that respect for teachers is slowly being eroded due to the effects of ‘modernization’ and corruption of traditional cultures. Most primary school students do not go on to get a secondary or higher education. The first reason is the fact that secondary schools are much rarer than primary schools or inaccessibly far away and the second is that families do not encourage their daughters to go on to higher education because they think it is a waste since she is nearing , or in some areas already are of, marriageable age.

After school, children are expected go straight home and help with the chores and with the farming. The cattle are watered and fed and if it’s planting, weeding or harvesting time the children lend a hand. But on summer vacations, during the two months’ wet season, the children, especially the boys, are free to do whatever they want. In a soccer-mad country every Ethiopian boy, sometimes even girls, must own a ball or two. Homemade balls are made out of plastic bags rolled into a sock. The more complicated ones are made out of rolled up plastic bags, bound with a length of string and then stitched over with patches of cloth. These are works of art that every child learns early on. The girls prefer more subtler games like Pepsi where a small ball is thrown to hit an opponent who keeps dodging the missile as they build a small tower of soda bottle caps. Alternatively they skip rope, play hide and seek, hopscotch or play house with dolls made from corn husks.

The day ends when the sun goes down. In rural areas street lights are very rare, with it being almost non-existent if the village is not on a major road or highway. With no place to go the family usually gathers around the hearth by dusk. While parents unwind over traditional coffee ceremonies or home-brewed beers like tella’ and meads like tej’, children are expected to settle into another part of the home, even if it’s one-roomed, and not participate in the adult conversations. In their part of the house, children do their homework, tell Teret (stories) and Inkokilish (riddles) to one another and wait for dinner time. Dinner, usually consisting of Ethiopian flat bread called injera and a stew called wot, is served and the whole family gathers around one platter to eat. With dinner over it’s time to go to sleep and as the fires burn out the family tucks into bed calling out Dehnaider/ideri meaning ‘Good night.’

To the average rural family, education is an escape from poverty. Any family that can send children to school does. Getting any kind of schooling is seen as the most important thing a family can give a child. Some families even send their children away to cities to work, as domestic laborers, and live with a distant relative who in return will pay for their education.