Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Meskel Part #1

 Meskel is a fascinating holiday. Check out what Wikipedia has to say about it. It's a Ethiopian Orthodox religious celebration and it is well-celebrated.

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On the day of Meskel, all around the city, large bonfire structures are erected and then decorated in grass and flowers. The flag is just decoration during the day. Each fire has a cross on top. 

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The guard at the Swedish School (also one of our guards) decorated his house on campus for the day.

He also built the three families on the compound our own mini bonfire. He spent all afternoon cleaning up shrubbery, looking for enough sticks.

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Everyone apartment family gathers (besides Ernie who is in Ghana) before the fire is lit.

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The happy headlamp crew, thinking this was all quite fun. 

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And there it goes

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While everyone else stood around the fire, chatting and listening to a song, The Littles took this as an opportunity to chow down at the conveniently low food table.

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Then we took turns jumping over the fire. I refrained as there were two sets of very curious eyes on me, wondering if this behavior was okay...

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We then continued outside of the gate for a community celebration and dinner.  It was after 8:00 before we went, good thing The Littles stuffed their faces while I was distracted. 

To be continued...

2 comments:

Sheila said...

Looks like fun and very interesting!

Shari said...

Absolutely LOVE the picture of Jada and Adia enjoying the food table which conveniently, was just their size!