Gondar--First Day and a Little History

My first day in Gondar was Sunday, so Nancy and I didn’t have any SCOPE-related project jobs to attend to. We spent the day wandering the city and getting annoyed at how much money (birr) we were charged by the bajaj drivers just because we are white. Aside from that, it was a lovely, warm, sunny day getting to know the streets of this city (with still a lot of dust in the air from the previous dust storm.) 

The Abyssinian Empire collapsed in the late 14^th century under the onslaught of the Muslim leader Ahmed Grogn and was further torn apart again when, under the influence of the Portuguese Jesuits, Emperor Susneyos converted to Catholicism. He imposed this new religion on his subjects, declared it the state religion and attempted to close down the entire institution of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. Several years of violent instability ensued during which 32,000 peasants were killed by the royal army. Susneyos abdicated the throne in favor of his son, Fasilidas who promptly re-instated the Orthodox Church and expelled the Portuguese from the empire. In 1635, Emperor Fasilidas established the small village of Gondar, situated on a strategic high plateau in the foothills of the Simien Mountains, as the permanent capital.

We walked up to Debre Birhan Selassie church. Built in 1690, it is best known for its ecclesiastical art. The ceiling alone is supposedly one of the most famous single example of this type of art in all of Ethiopia. The building is built of clay and straw (very much like adobe) and the interior walls were then overlaid with canvas, upon which the most amazing (and sometimes fearsome) interpretations of Biblical stories were painted. That cross with the round things on top is a depiction of seven ostrich eggs; the seven represents the seven days of creation, the ostrich eggs represent the power of the Holy Spirit (or, apparently, they also can represent the Trinity--shell, white and yolk . . . )

Much more from Gondar to come. Today (Monday) was including a very interesting meeting at the ‘headquarters’ of the North Gondar Diocese. Stay tuned!