Kyselas A to Z: Jah bless this bathroom! God bless this fly-whisk!

One of the cool things about Ethiopia is that many different religions seem to coexist fairly harmoniously. This may be a disillusioned tourist farengi perspective, but neighboring mosques and churches are a nice thing to see, plus a little Rastafari presence for extra love. The orthodox church is definitely the official, state-sanctioned version of godliness, and I suppose the Falasha Jewish population (who basically all moved to Israel) may not feel so much "harmonious coexistence"? The evangelical church is pretty, well, evangelical in the south, and the traditional animist practices are fading fast... So, well, maybe it's not all so harmonious, but it is diverse.

We all loved the iconic orthodox art; just look at those angelic faces! The boys used their spending money to buy themselves ornate meskel (cross) necklaces -- and soccer jerseys. (Soccer is a religion of great fanaticism worthy of a separate blog post.) The city churches are surrounded by beggars and relic vendors: candles, robes, prayer books, crosses, iconic paintings, gum, bananas, pop music CDs, umbrellas... I secretly coveted a sparkly processional parasol, but since I don't attend many Christian pilgrimages, I refrained from that purchase.

For the Rastafaris:
Ras Tafari, as commander Haile Selassie, addressing a group of students.

ሸንቲ በት
The imperial shenti bet
(the palace is now part of the University)

The Holy Trinity Cathedral is pretty spectacular. Commissioned by Holy Trinity himself (Haile Selassie), the artwork is impressive. The church grounds include little museums full of relics and official gifts, including things like royal crowns, Olympic medals and fly-whisks. (Now that's a religious artifact I get! The damn flies probably deserve their own separate blog post, too.)

Sorry not to have a closer/better pic of the cool Holy Trinity mural above the altar,
but it is a functioning church and they were preparing the altar for services,
so it seemed a little gauche to run up with a flashing camera, no?

Gorgeous stained glass (if a little Euro-centric!)

Empress throne.

Kiddus Giyorgis slaying the dragon! This icon is famous more because of the omnipresent billboards for St. George Beer [ቅዱስ ጊዮርጊስ ቢራ], but still a favorite icon for the non-beer drinking family members.