As for the festivals, there was Timkat which was the Orthodox celebration of epiphany. Lots of people gathered and they were all sprinkled with holy water and my Dad went to a country Timkat and had a whole bell full of water poured all over him, he ended up soaking wet. Timkat was the feast of the epiphany when Jesus was baptised by John the Baptist. This was celebrated in all Coptic churches when the replica of the arch of the covenant was taken out from all churches and was paraded outside the church with crowds of people attending it. It was a public holiday. St Michaels church was on the perimeter of Addis Ababa. The arch was taken out from the church with hundreds of people accompanying it, the roads around the church were crowded with hundreds of people all singing and chanting. It was an amazing sight. Thousands of people were trying to go round and round the church.
We used to go joining the crowds of people and also lots of sheep as the fatty lamb was about to be dispatched and everyone joined in the feasting and eating. The hole thing was so exciting and a bit scary as we were part of an enormous gathering but they were all so cheerful and would make sure we were not harmed or knocked over. Most of the Parish churches in Addis Ababa seemed to join in the fun so the crowds were overwhelming.
The other festival was Meskel which celebrated finding a piece of the true cross. Everyone lit a bonfire outside their house, and we did too. I seem to remember on Meskal night we counted over a hundred fires. Our two local churches were Mariam Gulbi and Gabriel. The priests would come down on their special days to get money from us. They were determined to be first on our lawn to ensure they would receive their whack of money. Once there was quite a row between the churches as one thought that the other had got ahead. Everyone had their own special Saint and they did not work on the day of their saint. This would mean that we practically never had anyone to work so we use to ration the days off to a day or two per month. Any other days they took they were counted as being absent and they didn’t get paid.
