Tuesday was the day for our second to last African country, Ethiopia. It was also Snowboarding Day for the Olympics.
Ethiopia is the oldest sovereign state in Africa, having successfully thwarted Italian armies from seeking colonization. Ethiopia was founded in 980 BC, but became an official country as it stands today in 1995.
Ethiopia is so old, you can trace the origin of humankind, and the 3.2 million year old bones of Lucy (the earliest hominid) to Ethiopia. The earliest human fossils dating back nearly 200,000 years were found in Ethiopia as well.
It's no wonder with such a history that Ethiopians embrace their ancient rituals associated with the 2,000 year old civilization.
Ornate, rock churches dating back to the first millennium are still active places of daily worship. Of all the cave churches in Ethiopia, we picked the Church of Saint George in Lalibela as our landmark. It's considered a wonder of the medieval world.
Of course, coffee is huge in Ethiopia. It's said the coffee bean originated here! Today they still perform the daily ritual known as the Coffee Ceremony. Occurring at breakfast, noon, and dinnertime, the ritual can take a few hours to perform with the coffee beans being roasted and then poured into ornate coffee pots. In Ethiopia, they say coffee is their bread. I say it was an excuse to have coffee three times in one day, you know, in honor of Ethiopia.
Ethopia is a little different than the rest of the world, in that it follows a 13 month long calendar. If you want to go back in time, Ethiopia is your place. They are about 7.5 years behind the rest of the world.
Ethiopia is not without its issues though.
In late 2016, the government declared a State of Emergency that included provisions allowing for the arrest of individuals without a court order for activities you may otherwise consider routine, such as communication, consumption of media, attending gatherings and violating curfew.
Though things had settled a bit since, and the US Department of State lists Ethiopia's travel warning at a level 2: Exercise Increased Caution. Although, I'm thinking that is about to increase, since the unexpected resignation of the Prime Minster just yesterday caused them to declare another state of emergency today.
The boys made their Ethiopia postcards.
Calib's featured long distance runners and lots of people with coffee.
Peyton's featured the 'bleeding heart baboons' (they have a little red patch on their chest) and the Church of St George.
And Hayden's also featured the Church of Saint George.
For Ethiopia day we had Ethiopian fruit salad, Atkilt (Ethiopian Cabbage and Potatoes), Berbere Spiced Chicken Breasts, and bread for no other reason than I had it left over from Fondue for Valentines Day.
This meal earned maybe a few spoons up.
It was not bad for an African meal, nothing we would run right out to make again, but it was fine. The potatoes I would eat again, for sure. Really flavorful and mixed with the carrots and cabbage you didn't feel like you were only having carbohydrates. The boys were happy with the fruit salad with the mixture of oranges, bananas, grapes and mango.
Of course, for our after dinner coffee we had to have some Ethiopian Coffee. Thanks to Sprouts!
Our Event was Snowboarding. I took some bug marshmallows for our 'snow', and some big craft sticks for our 'boards'. You have to transport 10 marshmallows from the bowl to your cup across the room by putting them on your board. If you dropped them, you had to go back to the beginning. (I did also draw a line on the board to let the boys know they had to hold behind the line to make a bit more challenging).
And they were off!
It was a nail biter, but Peyton narrowly beat out Hayden for first. It was Hayden's first silver medal he earned, so he was pretty excited about it.
Our Snowboarding medal ceremony.
The tally of medals for the day.
And the official medal count at the end of day 7.
Peyton colored Ethiopia is dark purple, to the east of yellow South Sudan, to the west of bright red Somalia, to the south of dark blue Eritrea, north of dark red Kenya.
We just have Zimbabwe left in Africa now!
That's 192 down, only FOUR to go!!
Next Up: Skeleton & Uruguay (finishing up the Western Hemisphere!)
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