THE COFFEE CEREMONY

Here in Ethiopia coffee is an important part of the social life. In every house and in every moment the items for the coffee ceremony are ready.

The coffee time is a time that people use to be together, to share the things of the daily life. In a neighbourhood people invite each other to have coffee and most of the days there is someone preparing bunna for the other neighbours. With this life style all the neighbours know each other and also they help each other when is necessary.

The coffee is part of the heart beat of Ethiopians. That is why it has been created the coffee ceremony. Everything has a way to be done and all the people know the different steps to prepare and drink the coffee in a traditional way.

I would like to make you smell and taste an Ethiopian bunna but to invite you to a coffee ceremony… online is a bit difficult!!

BUNNA'S WORDS

Coffee pot             Jebena
Coffe cup   Sini
The coffee table Mudae
Pay pay to blow the fire Kesel marragebiya
Fire place for the coffee Kesel mandeja
Sugar Sukwar
Coffee spoon Mankiya
Place for the resin to smoke Etan machesha
Pop corn Fandisha
Bread Dabbo
Green grass for the ground Ketema

TRANSPORT GUDDAY (The transport issue)

In Ethiopia there are the buses called Anbessa (lion) that are going everywhere in Addis Ababa and arround.
This Busses in certain hours are so incredibly full... may be because are the cheapest transport that one can find.

The company was a owned initially by Haile Selassie, may be that is why are called anbessa, the lion was the symbol of the dinasty of the Ethiopian Kings.

It happens a lot of stories in the buses, from love stories to any other thing you can imagine... There is an Ethiopian writter that have been collecting the stories of the anbessa buses and have published a book with them!!!

If I have time one day I would like to translate a pair for you.

A PART OF MY STORY

When I was born my mother was in trouble, and in addition to this I have a twin sister, that means it was not easy at all.

She was not able to grow up us and she went to mission and they accepted us because we were twins. In the mission we entered when we were about 3 years old. We were living with our mother and during the day we were staying in the mission getting from there food, clothes and other primary necessities. There we were a lot of children and we grew up together. We have had good time there and I have a lot of memories from the mission.  Now is not existing any more and somehow I miss the times I was there.

I’m not an adopted child. I know is not the same to grow up in a mission but even from the mission the smaller children were being adopted some times and I have asked myself what was happening in their lives.

Because of that I’m very happy to help the children to back to their roots. When I find the real story of a child I feel I have done a great thing, instead sometimes I can not get the truth and I feel sad about that.

GEBREHANA

Akeka Gash Gebrehana is a famous character of the stories that are explained in Ethiopia. He is a man about, we could say, fifty years old. He was a smart person and he was very able to speak and to tell the things with irony. The next time I will check about him and I will explain you more, today let me tell you a little story.

One day Akeka Gash Gebrehana was invited to a wedding. At the entrance there was someone that was checking that all the people that enter in the celebration place were wearing nice clothes. When Akeka Gash Gebrehana entered, that person stopped him and told him that he can not enter with the clothes he was wearing and told him to change it.  Akeka Gash Gebrehana went back home and changed his clothes. After that he was able to enter in the wedding place.

There was a lot of different food there and he started to put the food on his clothes. Someone asked him “Akeka Gash Gebrehana, what are you doing?” and he answered: “Is not me that was invited to the wedding but my clothes!”

I hope you enjoy it!