Bahirdar - Every market visit was an adventure in itself - Ethiopian Journey - Blog Post - 45

Selling hens, Bahirdar, Ethiopia 

Pranav found Ethiopian chicken dishes to be a big pain. Being an analyst and a great observer, he went up to his mother and said “Amma, there is something peculiar with Ethiopian hens. They seem to have only bones and do not seem to have much meat on them”. 

Poultry Broilers, 7 weeks old 

In a way he was correct. Pranav has been consuming Indian poultry broilers which are hardly four to seven weeks old. No wonder Indian chicken is so tender and the bones so soft and edible. 

Free Range Hens, Ethiopia 

But the Ethiopian hens were free range hens brought up the natural way. They most probably were layers and may be two to three year old before they are brought to the market. That is why the meat was tough and the meat lean. 

Ethiopia was a haven for non-vegetarians who liked meat products. Goats and sheep were available. They were costing around 250-300 birrs and would yield around 12–15 kgs meat. The same rule applied. We had to buy live goat or a sheep and take them home. Seeing the lengthy process of slaughtering and getting the meat, we never brought even one goat or sheep in the entire four year stay at Bahirdar. 

Mansoor and Azaz Ahmed bought them for religious purposes and got them slaughtered using the halal tradition. Even the skin of the dead animal fetched them around 20-30 birrs. So it costed 240 birrs for 12 kgs of meat and it was a great deal. It worked out to 20 birrs or 100 rupees a kg. That was definitely very cheap! 

Dressed Fish

Two kgs of fully dressed fish was also available for around 15-20 birrs. These were fish caught in Lake Tana and sold by the Lake Tana Cooperative Society. The fish was like Indian korrameenu. The fish was easy to prepare and tasty to eat. This was one meat product that we enjoyed, but there was a huge demand and the dressed fish was not readily available. 

The big attraction was freshly baked bread. Locally called Daboo, they were very tasty and incredibly cheap. In 2002, we could get 2-3 daboo for a birr!

Seeing that we had a garden, I was on the lookout for a garden bench. And one day I found out what I wanted in the market. The three seater bench that I found looked strong and sturdy. I was sure that it was expensive. But the bargain hunter in me took over. I slided up to the seller and whispered a conspirational yet tentative “sintenum” in his ears. 

The young boy gave me a strange look and said “Asira Amistiti (pronounced Asara Amist) birrs” or 15 birrs (75 Indian rupees). I almost fainted. Overcome by shock, I sat down heavily on the bench as if to test its strength. It was a throw away price. Those bamboo benches would retail at Rs 1000/- in 2002 and would not cost less than Rs 5000/- in today’s market. I bought two of them. 

I had a problem, how to take them home? Seeing the kids milling around me, I asked “sintenum?” One very thin boy said “Asira Amistiti santim”. This was the second shock. He was asking 75 paisa! He very solemnly walked the entire distance of more than one kilometre carrying both the bamboo benches on his spindle thin shoulders.

Anil in Kable - 7, garden, Bahirdar 

Impressed at his work ethic, I offered to carry one of them! He was horrified and almost started running with the benches. Finally I gave him one birr, a banana and two chapattis. His happiness in receiving them made my day and I wondered why there are so many inequalities between haves and have-nots. Here we have people asking for more and more and there in Bahirdar were small kids getting satisfied and beaming in delight at small mercies of life.