It’s day 2 of our Amazing Race and we are still on the flight to Ethiopia!! It's a very long flight around 14 hours and 20 minutes, but that's with one stop. It was a pretty good flight. We slept a lot like around 7-8 hours. It was an interrupted sleep because of the stops, but we slept on both flights, so it was okay. When we landed in Addis Ababa the capital of Ethiopia it was around 3:20 pm. This means we had less than half a day to do what we wanted in Ethiopia. So we got our bags as soon as we landed which took us around 20 minutes and we were on our way to our first challenge. We went to learn how to cook injera, this is one of the foods that you can find in every Ethiopian dish because they love it so much!!! It took us 4 hours quite a long time, but it was worth it the injera had turned out amazing. We tried to save it and have a bit, but it was just so good we ate it all. We had left Addis Ababa, the CBD or central business district of Ethiopia to go to Sebeta. On the way we saw that Addis Ababa is beautiful, but it has more poverty than expected. As we drove through Addis Ababa we were able to see a lot of how the city’s cultural landscape looked like. We saw many women with a cover over their head, which led us to believe that they were mainly an Islamic country. We had also seen a lot of life and happiness when we saw some native Ethiopians playing their traditional instruments that we later looked up to see that they were playing kebaro drums and a single stringed maseko which is closely related to a fiddle. After the 45 minute drive to Sebeta we finally made it. We paid the driver around $23.58 USD and had gone to our next challenge. We were supposed to run around the streets of Sebeta within an hour and greet as many people as we could that were wearing an amazing race sign. The reason this challenge had been so difficult was 1) Sebeta is pretty big and 2) in Ethiopia there are specific rules on how to greet someone depending on their gender and more. To greet a woman when you're a male you talk, when a male greets a male you shake each other's hands and you do so with your right hand. Ethiopians find it disrespectful to use your left hand for anything other than your bathroom needs. We then walked from where we were in Sebeta and enjoyed a traditional Ethiopian meal with native Ethiopians in a restaurant called Yod Abyssinia. As we sat we picked up a few customs that the Ethiopians had in their culture. It was kind of uncomfortable at first because we weren’t expecting it, but we sat down and they have this custom where the eldest at the table gets to eat first. Obviously we were okay with that. It wasn't uncomfortable, it was actually very interesting. Then came the uncomfortable part. Another custom that they have is called gursa. This is when the host or a native takes a handful of food and feeds it to the guests or visitors. It was crazy as we watched these handfuls of food come closer to our faces and into our mouths, very funny actually!!! We ate and ate until we couldn’t anymore. It was delicious, but sadly we had to go and get back to Addis Ababa and catch our flight to Thailand!! So we said thank you tipped the waiter a lot for being so great and left. We had crammed in another cab and were on our 45 minute journey back to Addis Ababa. We paid the cab once again and into the airport we went. Checked in our bags, and we made it around 30 minutes before the flight left at 12:10 am. We had such a great day in Ethiopia with all the challenges we had to do, all the food, and all the culture and customs we had immersed ourselves into on our very short trip. Finally we got on the plane and were off to Thailand, very excited!!!!!
Research
Culture:
Culture:
- The religions in Ethiopia are Ethiopian Orthodox Church, Islam, and others.
- Religion controls almost everything in Ethiopia.
- Ethiopians are sociable people, they greet each other with three kisses on the cheeks, hand-holding between same-sex friends is a sign of affection, and more.
- Only the right hand is used for eating and passing things around the table, and the left hand is used for going to the bathroom and is thought of as dirty so therefore not used when eating.
- When they visit a monastery or a church women must be wearing a headscarf and also must be covering their arms and legs.
- Some monasteries and or churches only allow men.
- Amharic is the official language in Ethiopia. Even though there are 80 other languages spoken within the country.
- Family is very important in Ethiopia. Relatives and close friends are held close and are very important. Parents often live with their children in their older years. Family needs are usually put before any other matter.
- They rely on a food called teff. They eat many foods that are made from this like injera which is like bread or a cake. They also eat stews called wats which are made up of vegetables and many meats like chicken, pork, lamb, etc.
- Music and dance is important in Ethiopia. They use instruments like kebaro drums, single-stringed masenko which is like a fiddle, washint which is like a flute, and beganna which is like a harp.
- Ethiopians love to sing.
- Greetings in Ethiopia are important men exchange handshakes and talk about health. Women tend to not handshake but they speak loudly for greeting. With women and women they kiss cheeks three times.
- They find it disrespectful to use the left hand for anything other than bathroom needs, so better not to exchange money or pass food with that hand.
- It is customary for the oldest person present in a communal eating area to get the first handful of food.
- They have a custom called gursa which means the host or one of the people use their hands to place a handful of food in the mouth of the guests or visitors.
- When in churches or monasteries there are specific rules. If a woman is menstrating they don’t enter, if someone has had sex the night before or eaten before they should not enter. Women should wear clothing that covers but it is not a pressured rule anymore unlike how it used to be.
- Tipping is important because people have to tip specific people and are also discouraged to tip in other places and to other people.
Fact Sheet
Race Destination #: 2
Country Visited: Ethiopia
Country Shape Classification: Geometric been called the “horn of Africa”
Country Development Classification: Developing Country
Specific Places Within the Country Visited: Addis Ababa and Sebeta. We went to different restaurants as well
Country Capital City: Addis Ababa Capital City Population: 3,465,000
Country Government Type: Democracy, Parliamentary Republic, and Federal Republic
Current Leader(s) / Party(s): President = Sahle-Work Zewde, Prime Minister = Abiy Ahmed
Ethnicities (% breakdown): Oromo - 34.4%, Amhara - 27%, Somali - 6.2%, Tigray - 6.1%, Sidama - 4%, Gurage - 2.5%,
Welaita - 2.3%, Hadiya - 1.7%, Afar - 1.7%, Gamo - 1.5%, Gedeo - 1.3%, Silte - 1.3%, Kefficho - 1.2%, Other - 8.8%.
National Language(s): 83 different languages with up to 200 different dialects, Amharic is the official language.
Religion(s) practiced (% practiced): Ethiopian Orthodox - 43.5%, Muslim - 33.9%, Protestant - 18.5%, Traditional - 2.7%,
Catholic - 0.7%, Other - 0.6%.
Traditional Cuisine Descriptions: Injera - is sourdough flatbread, Doro Wat - Chicken Stew, Kitfo - Ethiopian beef tartare.
Traditional Dress Descriptions: Gabbi and Netella are the main clothing they wear and some women wear Kemis with the
Netella, and some other clothing is worn. They are dress-like clothing.
Famous sites of country: Simien Mountains, Rock-Hewn Churches of Lalibela, the Holy City of Harar, Gondar, Blue Nile Falls,
Addis Ababa, Aksum, Arba Minch, Danakil Depression, etc.
Country Population (most current available): 109,224,559 as of 2018
Country Population (in 1900): 18,434 is the population in the 1900’s of Ethiopia
Average Life Males: 64 years old as of 2017 Females: 67.78 years old as of 2017
National Unemployment Rate: as of 2019 the unemployment rate is 1.79%
Country Literacy Rate: as of 2017 the literacy rate is 51.8%
Country Murder Rate: the murder rate is 21
Crude Birth Rate: 32.78 per 1,000 population Crude Death Rate: 6.691 per 1,000 population
National Infant Mortality Rate: 39.1 per 1,000 population as of 2018
FLIGHT INFO
Tromsø, Norway to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia - 14 hours 20 minutes (2 stops): $1613.10 ($537 x 3)
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to Bangkok, Thailand - 9 house 15 minutes (nonstop): $2107.80 ($702.60 x 3)
TRANSPORTATION INFO
Addis Ababa to Sebeta: 45 minutes (20 kilometers): $23.58 USD
Sebeta to Addis Ababa: 45 minutes (20 kilometers): $23.58 USD
SLEEP
7 hours on flight to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
7 hours on flight to Bangkok, Thailand
CHALLENGES
Cooking Injera ($307.71)(4 hours)
Sebeta Greeting People ($0.00)(1 hour)
Authentic Ethiopian Dinner ($88.43)(1 hour)
ALL WEBSITES FOR COUNTRY
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