Bonfires & Rockets

Rockets were ignited; the sound deafening and chaos erupted in the streets of Dangila. There was a sigh of relief when I finally made it safely inside the gates of my compound as darkness fell around me.  I stared for a moment at my red-stained hands and reflected on the pandemonium the day held.

I went to bed last night after double-locking my door and comforting my dog who was scared as small explosions popped loudly near my front door.  Around 3am I awoke to silence and was thankful for the peace it brought me, but at 5am the noise was once again inescapable.  I peered out my window and saw that fires were raging in the street and smoke filled the air. Time to join the celebration, I finally conceded!

Today was my first Meskel holiday spent in Dangila and it quickly had turned into my favorite.  Ethiopia has a lot of obscure holidays, but most are celebrated in the same fashion: coffee ceremony, killing a sheep, eating injera.  But Meskel proved to be a unique and wonderful reprieve from the monotony of holidays here.

Although the holiday is officially today, Monday, September 27, 2010 (Gregorian calendar, because let’s not forget we just rang in the year 2003 in Ethiopia), Meskel celebrations began yesterday.  All over town cone-shaped bonfires were built and children anxiously ran amuck in the streets wanting to set fire to them.  But their parents' warnings halted their pyro-instincts.

I visited neighbors’ houses all day yesterday, which officially started the holiday and the process of being over-fed.  At one house, “the house of 5 girls” as I’ve labeled them, I came in just as the henna mixture was ready for application.  I accepted the fact that my hand was going to get the same treatment as theirs without a word and enjoyed my girl-time with this wonderful family.  As I sat there letting the henna dye my skin I thought about how majestic the henna dye looks on habesha hands, blending the natural golden brown skin on the back of the hand into a deep red palm.  Then I looked at my pale hand and realized I’d inevitably look like a kid who stuck their hand in Georgia clay or Kool-Aid, but what could I do about it now?

Hands stuffed in my jacket pockets, I continued to visit neighbors and enjoy the atmosphere.  I stopped to hangout with some children on my street for a while and they showed me their clever invention made from an old metal pipe and a nail all strung together with wire.  If you scrape off the head of a match and put it in the pocket formed by pipe and nail, and slam it against a rock, it creates a loud POP sound.  Some kids buy fifty sentim “rockets” which create a much louder effect, but using matches proved cheaper, so most kids opted for this method of being annoying.

The kids and I watched as parents built the bonfire tower out of wood and wrapped it in fresh evergreen branches which by the end resembled a Christmas tree by both sight and smell.  They told me the bonfire would be lit at nine o’clock, which would normally translate immediately in my head (there is a six-hour difference), except for some reason 3am seemed an unfathomable meeting time and instead 9pm stuck.  It wasn’t until 8pm, after I returned home from watching the Addis Ababa bonfire igniting on ETV and reminisced in my head about my Meskel spend there last year, that it clicked with me that the kids meant 3am!  I immediately wanted to double-check because I wasn’t going to be the fool who wakes up in the middle of the night for nothing, but at this point I was home, in my pajamas, and safe from the raucous in the street.  My final walk home just 30 minutes before was filled with dodging little boys running up with their fire-cracker invention and popping it at my feet; no way I was going back out.

I went to sleep cursing the children who kept throwing the rockets over my compound fence which would then explode in noise on my porch.  At 3am I awoke without an alarm from a loud but comforting noise, rain pounding on my roof.  The street itself was quiet though and I easily put my head back down to keep sleeping.

Around 5am was the next time I woke as children screamed with joy and rockets once again began their popping.  I threw on a jacket and hurried outside, unsure what to expect.  My neighbors happily greeted me and handed me a small bundle of sticks.  The streets where pitch black except for bonfires ablaze on each block.  My neighborhood’s bonfire was just about to be ignited and I joined in carrying the flame from an already burning fire to ours.  We chanted yohey, yohey, yoho, yoho lead by an elder and danced in a circle around the Christmas tree-like structure, then we lit it with our bundles of sticks.  The bonfire went up in a blaze and smoke from the green branches filled the air.

Bonfires eventually turned into ashes and darkness turned into a beautiful sunrise.  Corn was roasted on the remains of the fire and neighbors began their holiday celebration together in the street.  The rest of today has been spent bouncing back and forth between neighbors to accommodate all the bunna invitations; there have been quite a few coffee ceremonies.  Despite the number of cups of coffee I’ve had to drink today, the caffeine couldn’t overpower my four hours of sleep last night.  What a wonderful holiday; it will end the only way a good Ethiopian celebration can end: with a deep sleep!

Meskel Square

Last weekend I was all packed up and ready to leave for about a week to visit the northern part of Ethiopia, Tigray Region.  We left on an 11-hour bus trip to the capital city, Addis Ababa, to begin our journey and we were planning on flying out Sunday morning to Mekele, the capital of the Tigray Region.  I knew Sunday was the Meskel holiday, but I didn’t know that it was celebrated in Addis with a mass gathering in Meskel Square!  Since we were coincidentally there on Saturday afternoon, we decided to brave the crowd and experience Meskel the right way.

Three of us met up with our Ethiopian friend and started walking towards Meskel Square.  The main streets were blocked off and masses of Ethiopians were starting to gather.  It looked like downtown right before a baseball game.  We joined the flow of people and along the walk there was a glimpse of the normally bare Meskel Square that was now overflowing with people.  The Square is about the length of a football field; enclosed on one side by a half-oval of steps where people were crammed into, and open on the other side to the main road which was closed to traffic.  The square (which is actually not square, but a half-oval) and out into the street formed a stage filled with hundreds of performers and priest all dressed in white traditional clothes.

As with most mass-gatherings, it was a bit chaotic, and the only way in was now packed with people.  The crowd around us became more dense as we were being pushed towards the small opening in front of us.  Once through a security check and around a corner we realized that the only way to get into the raised section above us was to scale a 6-foot wall.  It seemed like this was the only option, so while clutching our bags and forming a chain we made our way to the wall and followed the Ethiopians in helping each other over.  At last there was no pushing.

We then followed a natural aisle through the masses of people and found a spot where we could peak over people to see the festivities down below.  Luckily in a crowd of Ethiopians I can actually see over most people!  There was a presentation from the Orthodox Pope, and performers dressed in red, yellow and green formed the shape of the Ethiopian flag.  After about an hour, around dusk, waxed rope used as candles was passed out among the crowd of people and the highlight of the Meskel holiday was about to take place: the bonfire!  In the middle of the square a huge pile of wood was being prepared for burning as the people started to pass their flame from candle-to-candle throughout the mass crowd.  The sky turned dark blue just as the candle light filled the square while groups of Ethiopians continued chanting and dancing.  Just as the whole crowd had received the passing flame, the bonfire was lit and fireworks were shot into the air.  The sky filled with smoke and the thousands of twinkling candles formed a sea of lights.  It was a truly majestic scene.  Not long after the fireworks stopped the crowd disseminated in what seemed like a much easier fashion than the initial wall-climbing fiasco.  It was such a great evening; one of my favorite days in Ethiopia.  I retract my former comment about all Ethiopian holidays seeming the same, because Meskel was different in many ways.  I loved celebrating in Addis, feeling like I was a part of something big and truly experiencing the Ethiopian culture in a new way.