Ethiopia BY DYLAN MCLOUGHLIN Facts about Ethiopia Ethiopia

Ethiopia BY: DYLAN MCLOUGHLIN

Facts about Ethiopia • Ethiopia is about 7. 5 years behind the United Kingdom. This is because Ethiopia is the only country in the world to have 13 months in a year. Ethiopians also celebrate New Year in September, meaning that they are currently only a couple of months into the year 2006, whilst we near the end of 2013. • There are over 80 different languages spoken in Ethiopia. The most widely spoken of these are Oromo and Amharic. Luckily foreign travelers, English and Arabic are also widely spoken. • Ethiopia is one of only two nations in the world never to have been occupied. This is despite the Italians twice trying and failing to take the country. In case you were wondering, Russia is the other country. • The oldest fossil skeleton of a human was discovered in Ethiopia. So too was coffee, making Ethiopia the home of mankind and mankind’s favourite wake-up drink. • Ethiopian Abebe Bikila was the first African to win gold in the Olympic Games. He finished the marathon in first place after running the whole race barefoot.

Ethiopian flag

History of Ethiopia In 1529, a conquest of Abyssinia(Futuh al-Habash) by the Muslim Adal Sultanate supported by the Ottoman Empire devastated the highlands, and was only deterred by a Portuguese intervention. With both Ethiopia and Adal greatly weakened by the war, the Galla people were able to migrate into the highlands, conquering the remains of the Adal Sultanate and pushing deep into Ethiopia. The Portuguese presence also increased, while the Ottomans began to push into what is now Eritrea, creating the Habesh Eyalat. The Portuguese brought modern weapons and baroque architecture to Ethiopia, and in 1622 converted the emperor Susenyos I to Catholicism, sparking a civil war which ended in his abdication and an expulsion of all Catholics from Ethiopia. A new capital was established at Gondar in 1632, and a period of peace and prosperity ensued until the country was split apart by warlords in the 18 th century during the Zemene.

Living the life of an Ethiopian • If you were an ordinary person in Ethiopia, what would life be like? Ethiopia has towns and even big cities, but most live in the country – and most are also Christian – so I take that point of view in what follows: • Work: Men farm, women cook, keep their children clean and looking nice, pound grain into flour and look for cow dung and wood for the family fire. Older girls look after children, older boys look after sheep. Most families have about a hectare of land (less than three acres). All water has to be carried back from the nearby well, something that falls to women or children. • Work hours: Men work 80 hours a week, women 126 hours. You are supposed to take Saturdays and Sundays off, but how many do? • Pay: $123 a year (in 1998. That comes to 3 crowns a month, which is just what shepherds made in Shakespeare’s time) • Housing: A small, two-room house. One room to store food, the other room for everything else. There is a fire that is always going. No electricity or running water. • Transport: Walking. The nearest market is one to three hours away on foot. • Food: Bread, maybe with egg and vegetables. Meat on special occasions. Everyone eats from the same dish with their fingers.

Passtimes for Ethiopians • Family life: Families are big. Ethiopian women have about seven children. As a child you grow up near your cousins, aunts and uncles. • Holidays: Christmas, the Baptism of Jesus, Good Friday, Easter and the Feast of the Cross. • Education: Only a fourth of all children regularly go to school. School is free, but schoolbooks, school supplies and school clothes are not! Early schooling is in your own language, but to go further you need to know Amharic or even English because that is what the books are written in! • Entertainment: Mainly visiting and storytelling. Most people cannot read and have no electricity. Men like to sit, drink coffee and talk.