Contentment

It's a crisp Saturday night in Addis Ababa, I'm sitting across from my *Habesha in Avanti, a plush Italian restaurant near Bole Bridge, sipping on red wine and having just ordered dessert.  My tummy feels contentedness and my heart bursting at it's seams.

I look deep into my Habesha's beautiful big brown eyes, feeling stupidly happy and wonder-FULL and spontaneously blurt out for the first time in my 31 years of life "I feel content". 

My Habesha (Ethiopian)

Alongside the fact I was living in Ethiopia, a country that I love, I was lucky enough to keep up my passion of dance through - teaching Zumba, breakdancing (b-girling) and writing monthly dance articles for an Ethiopian magazine.  I had acquired my own humble abode in a quaint one-bedroom guesthouse adjoined to an Ethiopian family's house in their tiny compound in Gerji Subcity - a family I thoroughly enjoyed the company of and with whom I enjoyed the simplicities of everyday Ethiopian life such as drinking *buna 2-3 times daily, practising my amharic and even Eskista dancing! Also giving me immense pleasure was riding the blue public taxi-vans around Addis, meeting like-minded people everyday in beautiful serotonin-giving sunshine-filled days.  

I was not making near enough money in my Zumba work to make ends meet yet my heart and soul felt a deep profound peace I had never experienced before.  






Ethiopia has So. Much. Beauty.

I feel extremely blessed and fortunate to have found my spiritual home in Ethiopia and cultured a life that feeds my soul and nurtures my spirit.  

I wait in hungry anticipation of returning next year in 2016 to resume my Ethiopian journey.

What feeds your soul?   

*Habesha = the name given to Ethiopian locals in Amharic (the national Ethiopian language)
*buna = coffee in amharic

Living with Maza - my Ethiopian mother

Maza (my ethiopian 'mother'): A strong Ethiopian woman, the matriarch of her family of two daughters and husband.  

Short, staunch and always with a mischievous twinkle in her eye is how you will find her.  An endearing character who can talk your ears off (an ethiopian characteristic), infectious humour and laugh, smart (turned one part of her house into an adjoining guesthouse which gives the family decent consistent money to live off), an educated woman with good english.  I miss her wisdom, wit and charming character.  

I have so many fond memories of this woman!! 

Maza

"Keeeem!!"  The daily endearing cry of Maza calling out my name, usually to drink *buna with her.  

For nine months in 2012, I lived in a quaint guesthouse adjoined to Maza and her family's main house in their tiny compound containing a small front porch and outside kitchen in Gerji - a subcity in Addis Ababa (the capital city of Ethiopia). 

Maza and her family
top left-right: Seble and Twaris
bottom left-right: Jonny and Maza

A good way to fully embrace the culture and local people, in this case Ethiopians, is to live in close proximity to the people; to hear amharic, to ride the public transport, to witness their blessings and struggles, to immerse in the deep-imbedded social ways and to get a good understanding of a functioning family.  

• After Zumba some days I would buy meat from the butcher and Maza would cook us *tibs and we would gobble it up with freshly-made injera followed by buna.  I cherished those times with her.

Tibs and Injera
a traditional and delicious ethiopian meat dish

• I remember when I was pregnant in my first trimester suffering from extreme nausea and heightened smell and the strong smell of cooked onions and *berbere that Maza and the girls never failed to cook everyday was nauseating...not just once in a while but every. single. day.  2-3 times daily!!

Our engagement - hosted by Maza and her family, Nov 2013.
From left to right: Myself, Jonny, Yonas and Maza

• Our engagement at their house with Maza, Jonny, Twaris and Seble.  They graciously hosted us with traditional food and drinks.  Maza and the girls made this huge traditional round bread made for special occasions, appropriately named 'Diffo dabbo' meaning 'big bread' in amharic; all the traditional dishes for special occasions i.e doro wat (chicken stew), tibs (chunks of meat cooked in spices), vegetarian dishes and of course freshly homemade injera.  So much love went into this meal....Delicious!!!

Traditional Ethiopian food and drinks Maza and the girls prepared for our engagement

Video of me washing coffee beans with Maza and Twaris in the compound.

• Maza taught me how to prepare and serve an Ethiopian coffee ceremony for my 31st birthday, right from buying the green beans at our local shop, cleaning, roasting, grinding to serving.  I practised preparing and serving many times before I was happy and ready for my big coffee-making debut.  Even now, while I await my return to Ethiopia whilst living in New Zealand, I prepare and serve Ethiopian coffee the traditional way for my husband and I every Saturday and Sunday.  It's my way of keeping in touch with the country I miss so dearly.

Collection of moments from my 31st birthday at my place in Maza's compound
top left-right: Cake!; Maza providing me moral support during my birthday coffee ceremony (I was extremely nervous because I wanted to get it just right!)
bottom left-right: serving coffee; traditional dress

• Power would go out often and I would light a candle and have my dinner outside on the little concrete front porch that adjoined the main house and my place.  Sometimes the girls would join me and we would gossip and talk nonsense, under the moon and stars.

• Practising my zumba tracks and dancing Eskista with Maza and the girls.  Learning Amharic.  Seble would help me translate popular Ethiopian songs that I loved into english so I could understand what they were singing about.  I particularly loved Fiorina by Teddy Afro and Helen Berhe.  

Twaris clearing hail from the front porch of the compound.

The energy in Maza and her family's compound was lively, spirited and affectionate and they lived simply in contentedness and humble abundance.  What a blessed human experience I had spending nine intimate months with them.  

*buna = coffee in amharic
*tibs = a traditional and popular meat dish
*berbere = spicy Ethiopian spice

ESKISTA - The shoulder-shaking traditional Ethiopian dance

Eskista means “dancing shoulders” and is performed with head, neck, chest and shoulders shaking in specific ways.  Dancers are dressed in traditional attire from the indigenous tribes of the Northern parts of Ethiopia i.e. Amhara, Wollo, Gondar etc. Today Eskista is still performed and has also manifested itself in modern culture such as the Harlem Shake and in Beyonce's video 'Who run the world (girls)'.  Eskista is one of the more popular dances synonymous with Ethiopia.

I lost my eskista-watching virginity in 2007 in a traditional Ethiopian restaurant in Addis Ababa (the capital city of Ethiopia) on my first visit to Ethiopia. 

Watch Eskista

Not a stranger to dance, this style of dance was so different to anything I had ever seen; powerful, animalistic, raw, exciting, visually heart-pounding and not to mention extremely hard to do!  Furthermore, the accompanying music transfixed me and transported me to my happy place, somewhere out in Africa's tribal wilderness; in this case Ethiopia's Amhara region.  I had never witnessed anything so sensually extraordinary.  

Ethnic regions of Ethiopia, Amhara region in light green
the region in which eskista has it's roots

As a dancer, for me, when I watch such powerful and unique dances such as Eskista, it makes me wonder of the origins.  How did it come to be?  What is the intention behind the movements and what ideas is the dance trying to convey? Which qualities of cultural history e.g heritage, events, environment, ancient stories, customs and rituals, religious beliefs, ideas, emotions and thoughts; interweave to manifest a particular style of dance?   

Ethiopia is a widely diverse country with over 80 different rich ethnic, customs, cultural and linguistic groups and over 150 unique dance movements across her regions.  The music and dances are dating 3000 years back in the African history. To delve into Ethiopia's dance ancestral lineage and evolution piques my curiosity.


Some of Eskista's influences are (and not limited to):

• Orthodox Christian and Muslim motives play the role of shaping the culture and traditions of this ancient nation. 
• Typical body movements performed mainly with the head and shoulders to express certain emotions and impressions from life dating back to the people of Ethiopia's Amhara tribe.
• Relationships between genders, hence love songs; the variety of war songs, hunting songs, shepherd songs, and work songs all have a collective influence on Eskista's  movements.
• There is one theory of how Eskista was inspired by snakes.  Ethiopian people often observed the movements/"dances" of the snake, the way they would shake their neck.  Additionally, it is said that the sound the rattlesnake produces when it shakes it's tail had an influence on Ethiopian music and the style of singing.
• The music played during the dance is often produced with traditional Ethiopian instruments like krar, flute, drums and mesenko - which to some extent play an influence over the dance.

• The different areas in Amhara i.e. Wollo, Gondar or Gojjam shows some variations on the dance.
• Expressing religious rituals in the Ethiopian and Jewish deep cultural roots.

Eskista's manifestation in modern culture:

• Beyonce - Who run the world (girls) video clip

At the beginning of superstar Beyonce's 'Who run the World (girls)" video she makes an Eskista-like dance, hands on her hips and shaking her shoulders, which looks unbearingly similar to the shoulder shaking of the Eskista.  

Beyonce visited Ethiopia in 2007 and performed a concert to bring in Ethiopia's New Millennium.  Who knows...perhaps she was inspired by the Eskista on her visit!  
Check it out for yourself Beyonce's Eskista Inspiration

• The Harlem Shake

According to sources, the 'Harlem Shake' dance originating in 1981 in the streets of Harlem, New York, by a resident called "Al B" has it's foundation in the Eskista. Watch Harlem Shake

One of the best ways to experience the Eskista first-hand is at an Ethiopian wedding!  Everyone is in a celebratory mood, and everyone lets loose!!  Watch out as one-on-one spontaneous Eskista battles usually ensue and it's utterly enthralling.








Dance is a universal language and a wonderful medium of preserving heritage and culture that resonates with all generations.  The next time you get down for a boogie or participate in your weekly dance class, take a moment to think, what are the origins of this dance?

One will never fully apprehend the exact context to the evolution of the Eskista without the impossible realm of having paid witness to the ancient times to present.  One can hope to gain a firm grasp of Eskista's roots by visiting the Amhara region and talking to the people, elders in particular, and witnessing the culture firsthand; and/or by obtaining a deep understanding of the history and customs of the region.