Something They Forget to Mention in the Travel Guide

I just returned from a two-week long trip to Ethiopia for a seminar on language learning. It was a wonderful trip! We got to see the beauty and experience the cool weather of the green Ethiopian countryside, meet fellow teachers and language learning advisors and gain new tools and vision for helping others learn languages. About 60 of us attended the conference in a camp an hour outside the capital. It was beautiful! The camp is in a sort of garden with mountains, lakes, flowers, and fields of green grass surrounding it. We were also close to a small village that some of us went to visit during the free weekend. And hence one of the most unusual and embarrassing and funny stories of my career in Africa thus far!

One day, I along with two other teachers from our group went into the village by horse cart (see picture above), had lunch there and did a little shopping. I had noticed a couple shops selling these really fancy embroidered umbrellas. As soon as I saw them, I thought they would make a wonderful sun shade to carry around in Djibouti. Just as we were leaving, I ran into a shop to buy one. I took the umbrella up to the counter and handed it to the woman. She gave me sort of a puzzled glance and then asked "Are you a Christian?" I nodded but thought "What in the world does that have to do with buying an umbrella?" The only thing I could think of was that since we were in a mostly Muslim village, perhaps this umbrella had something to do with local Islamic practices, so I asked "Are you a Muslim?" Then she gave me an even stranger look. Perhaps then I should have realized this was not just any ordinary umbrella, but I ignored that nagging little voice and bought it anyway. I opened it up in the shop and showed the two guys I was with. The both exclaimed over its loveliness and I must admit, I was quite pleased with my little purchase. As it was a sunny day, I was eager to try it out, so I kept the umbrella open and walked under it as we strolled through the market looking for our cart driver. I noticed that more people than usual seemed to be eyeing us, making comments, laughing, staring, etc. In the last five months, I've gotten pretty used to these things as I am often the only white face in a crowd of people, but that day all the attention seemed a little more intense than usual. "Oh well," I rationalized. "It's a small village and the people here probably don't see too many foreigners. Nothing too unusual." Truth be told, I was too delighted with my new sun shade to be that concerned. As we were walking I kept twirling and spinning the umbrella, practically skipping along. It was so huge that when I accidentally tripped, I almost knocked a couple of villagers over with it. Oops! Eventually we made our way back to the camp and I showed off my new purchase to Suzanne, a fellow American and conference attendee who lives in Ethiopia. Our conversation went something like this:

"Hey Suzanne! What do you think of this umbrella I bought? Do you like it?"
[Suzanne stares at said umbrella with concern and doubt] "So are you planning to donate that as a gift to the Ethiopian Orthodox Church?"
"Umm, no. Why would I donate my new favorite sun shade to the Orthodox Church?"
"Because it's not a sun shade. It's a sacred ornament designated for use only by an Ethiopian Orthodox priest." [insert hilarious bursts of laughter from my companions here]
"Wait! What do you mean? What is this umbrella normally used for?"
"Well [fighting back laughter], the priest stands under it during the service to read scripture or pray. He only ever walks outside under it once or twice a year on the holiest festival days. Oh Hannah! Well, at least you didn't have it open it public."
"Umm, actually...."
"You didn't..."
"Yes I did. [Feeling a bit sheepish now] Not only did I have it open, but I paraded around the whole village while walking under it."
[At this point, Suzanne throws up her hands and starts cackling with laughter] "I swear I didn't know!! I wondered why everyone was staring and laughing at us so much...I just thought it was because I almost knocked a couple people over with it when I tripped." [Suzanne tries to get some more words out but can't because she is breathless and trembling with fits of laughter by this point].

A bit disappointed, I sheepishly hid the umbrella in my room only to find that half of the camp had heard about my little cultural misadventure by dinner time and wanted me to retell the story. Suzanne found a coffee table book about the Orthodox Church that had a picture of the exact umbrella I had bought and we learned some other purposes for it. Not only is it a sacred object of worship that only the priest stands under for prayer and reading scripture, but it also shields the churches' replica of the Ark of the Covenant when it goes out in public for special feast days. The priest himself only walks under it once a year on the church's holiest day. If a priest carries it upside down outside the church, it means he is collecting money offerings. It can also be used as a sort of thank-you gift to the church if a priest prays for you and the prayer is answered. That's why the woman at the shop asked if I was a Christian. Ethiopian friends at the conference said what she really meant by that question was "Are you a member of the Orthodox church and are you going to give this as a gift to a priest?" Ah hah...I wonder if the thought occurred to her to stop me when she saw me open the umbrella and walk out of the shop twirling and spinning it!

Within a short time, this story was told all around the camp and I'm sure you can imagine all the priest and umbrella jokes that ensued. All the Americans and Europeans thought it was pretty funny. The westerners who lived in Ethiopia thought it was really funny. But the Ethiopians themselves thought it was downright hilarious. I told them the story when they got back for the second week of the conference after visiting their families in the capital. They all cracked up as soon as I said "I saw these beautiful umbrellas hanging in one of the shops" because they knew exactly where this story was going. After dinner, they all wanted to see this infamous umbrella with their own eyes, so we went down to my cabin. As soon as I brought it out, they immediately started rolling with laughter and exclaimed "Oh Hannah! We've never even touched one of these before!" They each fell into fits of hysterical laughter as one by one, they touched and examined my holy umbrella. One of the women asked "We must see how you were walking down this street with this." So I opened it and demonstrated how I had happily and quite ignorantly twirled and spun it around. More hysterical laughter ensued. Then one of the women opened it up herself, looked at the inside fabric and stopped short: "Hannah! Do you see that? Did you see that writing there when you bought it?" I had seen some writing in Amharic when I bought it, but of course couldn't read it, so my friend obliged: "This says property of such-and-such a church. Not for sale. This umbrella is stolen!"

The plot thickened. We speculated that perhaps either an orthodox priest needed some money and had too many sacramental umbrellas, so he sold one or else someone broke into a church and has been fueling a black market trade in sacred orthodox priestly umbrellas. None of the Ethiopian teachers at this conference were Orthodox, but some of the cooks at the camp were. I contemplated giving the stolen umbrella to them to return to its rightful church, but then we noticed that it was a bit worn. And after touching and opening and closing it so much, the handle finally broke off. On top of that it was too big to fit in my suitcase. So, you may ask, what does one do with a broken, stolen, too-big-for-the-suitcase, priestly orthodox umbrella that is unusable and offensive anywhere there might be Ethiopian Orthodox Christians (including Djibouti)? I left it with my Ethiopian friends to use at their school as a lesson in "cultural sensitivity". In other words, what not to do. :)

In some ways, I feel fortunate that this little episode happened to me. There were many other westerners at the camp who had also seen these umbrellas and thought of buying one, but I was the first (and only) person to follow through with it. For about $8 USD, I purchased a very memorable little story that provided a lot of laughter, endeared me to our Ethiopian friends and has made me think of writing the travel guide people. There should be some kind of footnote in the guide book for Ethiopia that says "Dear traveler, should you go to the village in Ethiopia, make sure you stay away from the fancy umbrellas, as they are really not umbrellas at all, but sacremental ornaments in the Orthodox Church fit for use only by a priest on the holiest of days..."