The Timket Festival, Baptism

 Gathering around the inner sanctum pool.

 Blessing the holy water.

 Then spraying it over the faithful.

 The pool after the melee.

 Another church group rehearsing their performance.

 A family off to the celebrations.

Young love.

Our dinner restaurant.

Friday, January 19^th.

John and I were up early for the included breakfast. We were down by seven and this time there was food. After we ate we headed back up to our 6^th floor room. I took the elevator and John ran up the stairs. The elevator stopped at every floor on the way up. Why? You probably figured it out, John pressed every floor on his run up. Gotta love a guy who hasn’t grown up yet.

I just remembered, I am back in the Northern Hemisphere. I crossed the equator on the flight from Perth to Dubai. Even though I am close to it, the weather here is temperature, in the low to mid-twenties and cooler in the evenings. This is because Addis Ababa lies at an altitude of 2,300 metres (7,500 ft) and is a grassland biome. We will be visited higher elevations in the mountains.

At eight we loaded up in the van and drove back to the same field as yesterday. The epiphany is a celebration of the baptism of Christ by John the Baptist. Again, our passes allowed us access to the inner sanctum and behind the stage to the sacred pool. Ethiopians believe in baptism and are baptized three times. Once early in life, once if they are sick and a third time at the Timket Festival. We watched as the Patriarch blessed the water and the people chanted in a call and response. As this was going on I was looking at the masses of thousands of people gathered around the perimeter of the fenced in pool, and wondered what they could see and if they resented the tourists having the inside scoop. But, after the blessing I learned why they were there. In all four directions their were raised platforms where young church officials stood with hoses and sprayed ‘holy’ water over the ecstatic crowd. It was incredible to watch the happy expressions on their faces as the water sprayed them. Some people got really soaked and others were trying to catch some of the water in plastic bottles. It was chaotic, joyous, noisy, and blissful. We stood and watched in awe for the better part of an hour as people struggled to get in the line of fire to be baptized, then Kaleb gathered us up and ushered us out before the thousands of people started to leave, although that didn’t look to be happening any time soon.

As we got back to the van, John realized that his phone was gone and he quickly surmised that he had been pickpocketed, and he even knew by who. As we were walking out a man had approached one of our group from behind and squeezed his bicep and said welcome to Timket. Our guy ran away, but when it happened to John he began to talk to the guy, who had a hold of his bicep while another man in front of him tried to sell him some tissues. While John was distracted by the seller and the painful pressure on his arm, he figures the squeezer pulled his phone out of his back pocket with his other hand. That quick and that easy. 

When John told Kaleb, he took John to a makeshift police tent to make a report for insurance purposes. As John and Kaleb related it later, the police made a report but refused to give John a copy and said he would have to go to the main police station later. They didn’t care when it was explained we were leaving the next day. They asked if they could take a photo of the report, but were denied. Then Kaleb got angry and started shouting. There was a yelling match, after which they decided to leave. But just then an undercover cop grabbed Kaleb as he was leaving the tent and dragged him back in by his shirt collar and made him sit on the floor with a group of very dirty, young, pickpockets and thieves that the police were trying to process. They waited a long time before the cops said that if they stopped asking for the report they could go; which they did as they saw it was useless.

Whilst this was all going on, the rest of us were waiting on the van and parked around the corner. A policeman came and told our driver to move as we were in the way of traffic. Our driver tried to explain why we were there, but he was ordered to move. There was another argument and then the police told him to get out of the truck. They argued in front of the van and the police appeared to be upset with something on our front bumper, the license plate or something. A crowd gathered around and some of them tried to calm our driver. Then the policeman took our driver away from the van and back towards where the police tent was. The rest of us were still sitting on a driverless van that was still running. Our driver came back about ten minutes later and with his limited English said he was alright. He moved the van about two hundred metres further down the road where we waited another twenty minutes before the other two returned and we were finally able to depart. Interesting experiences to say the least.

It was about noon when we got back to the hotel and we had the rest of the afternoon free. A group of us decided to head off to a restaurant for lunch that the hotel recommended. We couldn’t really go anywhere else as this is a religious holiday and everything, including the big market is closed. We had a good lunch, a couple of drinks and got to know each other better. John and I talked to Kay, a realtor from New Zealand, Mei from Melbourne and a young kidney doctor, Shasha, from San Diego.

After lunch we walked back to the hotel and then continued down the road where we caught up to the back of another parade of faith that was taking up the whole road. That is where I took the photo on the walking family and the young kissers.

When we returned to the hotel, John and I spent a couple of hours writing our blogs, sorting photos and backing them up. John also started the process of his insurance claim.

At 6:30 eight of us met in the lobby and Eduardo and Sasha found us a restaurant and got us two taxis and we headed off. The restaurant was really good, and had a buffet of Ethiopian foods and some excellent live entertainment with a four piece band on traditional instruments and an assortment of men and women singers and energetic dancers. For the price we bargained for the taxis they hung around until we were finished and then took us back. Great night.