Ethiopian Women – Bewitching Beauties! - Ethiopian Journey - Blog Post no - 68.

Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder. How true! We tend to measure beauty from the narrow lenses of our own culture. Fair skin is considered beautiful in most countries. But in Ethiopia, it is duskiness that is valued – the land of the sun burnt people.

The thing that struck me immediately was that most, if not all women in Ethiopia are quite thin, tall and have exquisite skin and have prominent features and excellent physique. Obviously women in Addis Ababa and Bahirdar use cosmetics to enhance their looks, but there is no denying their beauty!

A little research gave out startling results. Ethiopian women are among the most beautiful in Africa if not in the world. According to a website (https://www.providr.com/countries-with-beautiful-women/) Ethiopian women are the most beautiful in the world! (India comes in at no 5).

Liya Kebede

What makes Ethiopian women so beautiful? The women from Ethiopia are tall with sharp facial features (cheekbones and Jawlines specifically). Their dark eyes, hair and skin are radiant and beautiful. They are often well-known models in the fashion world too with the most famous example being Liya Kebede.   

Lucy's Skeleton in Addis Ababa 

Famous Ethiopian women: Of course the most famous Ethiopian woman is related to all of us! In fact she is our mother; she is the mother for all the inhabitants of mother earth. Yes, I am referring to ‘Lucy’. Lucy or Dinkinesh (which means “unique”) is a 3.2-million-year old skeleton of the Australopithecus afarensis, discovered in Ethiopia’s Afar region in 1974. Lucy was declared “the grandmother of humanity.”

Tharbis, Moses's Wife

According to the bible, one of Moses’s wives was an Ethiopian woman and she is referred to as a Cushite. Her name was Tharbis and she was an Ethiopian princess.

Queen Sheeba

The third most prominent and beautiful woman is queen Sheba. According to Kebra Nagast (The Glory of Kings) an important text of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, names the Queen of Sheba as the beautiful queen Makeda and identifies the land of Sheba as ancient Ethiopia.

According to Kebra Nagast, Queen Makeda travelled to Jerusalem and had a love affair with King Solomon.  Makeda  then returned and gave birth to a son, Menelik. Menelik is raised in Ethiopia, but when he turned 22, he travelled to Jerusalem to meet his father.

Reportedly King Solomon is delighted with his firstborn son and tried in vain to convince Menelik to remain in Israel and succeed him, as king. However, Menelik chose to return to the land of Sheba. Solomon sent the firstborn sons of Israel’s elders along with his son from Israel to Ethiopia, and the Ark of the Covenant travelled with them. 

To this day, many Ethiopians believe that the Ark of the Covenant resides within the Chapel of the Tablet next to the Church of Maryam Tsion in Aksum, Ethiopia

Ethiopians claim Queen of Sheeba as part of their heritage and through her union with King Solomon, claim a connection between their kings and the Davidic monarchy of Israel. Ethiopian Kings were seen as direct descendants of the house of David, rulers by divine right.

Tirunesh Dibaba: is an Ethiopian long distance track athlete and has many World and Olympic records to her credit. She is nicknamed the "Baby Faced Destroyer." She was raised in the high-altitude Arsi region of Ethiopia.

Dibaba is part of an athletic family, with older sister Ejegayehu Dibaba too has won many world and Olympic medals.  Her younger sister Genzebe Dibaba also holds world records in athletics. Tirunesh and Genzebe are the only siblings in the history to hold concurrent world records.   

From left Genzebe, Ejegayehu, Anna and Tirunesh Dibaba 

Derartu Tulu 

Their cousin Derartu Tulu also won medals in Olympics and in world championships. These four athletes from the same family have won 5 gold medals, 2 silver medals and 4 bronze medals in Olympics and 6 gold medals, 1 silver medal and 2 bronze medals in world championships. Out of this world, that on family can produce so many wold class athletes and so many world records and so many Olympic medals. It is a staggering tally. 

African and Arab blood mixing delightfully!

Thus it is not surprising with such history and genetic pool to match, Ethiopian women are so beautiful and awe inspiring. The reality might lie somewhere in between. Their geographic location at the horn of Africa and the proximity to the southern-most tip of the Arabian Peninsula must have meant that Ethiopian and the middle eastern Arabs must have married with Islam also being popular as a religion among the Ethiopians. This might have also added to their exotic looks and chiseled features.

I told young unmarried Indian teachers (albeit a small number, unfortunately) that they have literally arrived at Paradise. A country with zero pollution, pleasant weather, very low cost of living, with abundant and cheap non vegetarian food and surrounded by gorgeous and beautiful Ethiopian women! And Dashen beer available at Birr 1.50 (Rs 7.50) for a 330 ml can. Life can’t get any better.

Pretty Ethiopian College Girls 

Earnest as I was, it was a bridge too far to cross. Most Indians found the idea of wooing and getting hitched to an Ethiopian woman too much even to ponder. First it was the language and then the culture and the feeling “what would my family and friends back in India think?”.

One Indian lady faculty member did try to get married to an Ethiopian man but at the end it fizzled out. But the shining example of cross cultural assimilation was Alex Blokhin, a Russian born mathematics faculty from PEDA who married an Ethiopian woman and took her back to his country. They are very happy together and have a bubbly son!

Ethiopian women are very hard working. Hard work is part of their daily regime and they can work for many hours without complaining. They are used to hard labour and can pound coffee beans into fine coffee powder with their hands the old fashioned way!

Hand woven baskets 

Ethiopian women are very good at weaving and can weave beautiful hand made embroidered clothing. They can also weave very beautiful hand-made baskets and wall hangings. And yes they are quite adept at cooking and can make mouth-watering delicacies that will delight any foodie. 

Holding the bags - Ethiopian Journey - Blog post - No 48

The entire row of opposite houses had Ethiopian families living in them. Most Ethiopian men and women would only smile and nod their heads. It was very difficult to talk to them as they would not speak English and we could not speak Amharic.

But one of the houses had a bubbly Ethiopian English faculty member from BDU. He could speak very fluent clipped English. He told me that he did his masters in English from a university in United Kingdom. He stopped me one day and said in mock anger, “I have a complaint against your Indian community”. This was a common threat for all NRIs. Any stray incident by a person becomes an incident committed by the entire community.

“Guilty as charged!”, I smilingly answered. He slapped me on my back and roared in laughter “I Like you, I like you. You have accepted your crime so easily”. “But sir” I responded, “What did we do?”.

“The matter is very serious” he said solemnly, “You have rubbed our Ethiopian women on the wrong side”. It was my turn to be solemn now. Rubbing the Ethiopian women on the wrong side? I was clue less!

Seeing my question mark face, The English professor responded “Fine, Fine. I will reveal the crime. It has been observed that Indians go to the market, do all the shopping and it is the men who carry the bags and the women are sauntering behind them, enjoying the scenery. But in Ethiopia it is the women who carry all the load”.

He added with a twinkle in his eyes, “The men folk walk behind grandly, taking in the grandeur and chatting among themselves”. He looked at my astonished face and said in all seriousness, “Now our wives are demanding that we follow the Indian men and start carrying the bags. What a bother!”. He left in a huff and I was left holding the bag for all the Indian community. I felt so sorry for myself!

Ethiopian parenting was strict yet relaxed. Most Ethiopian children would call their parents by name and it was quite a shock to the traditional Indians. Ethiopians have three names. Their own name, their father’s name and the name of the grandfather. Most Ethiopians shorten their names to their own and their father’s like Addis Gedefaw, but in the official register, three names would be mentioned. It was quite a shock to be asked about your grandfather’s name.

There was trouble brewing for me. The administrative department of Bahirdar University made Malleboyina my name, Anil became my father’s name and Ramesh became my grandfather’s name. I patiently explained to them that Malleboyina was my family name and that Anil and Ramesh are my own names.

The administrative guy exploded “what is this family name, and how is that you have two names?”. So in Ethiopia, I became ANIL RAMESH OBAIAH. Strictly I should have become Malleboyina Anil Ramesh Chinna Anjaneyulu Obaiah. Even by Indian standards the name would be very long. The only people who would be delighted with such a long name would be the Ethiopian screen printer’s community.

One thing that struck me was Ethiopians way of dealing with Alcohol. In India it is very common to see people drink. But that is the strange thing! In India people drink to get sozzled. They drink, not only to get a high or a kick, but to do all the antics associated with binge drinking. Drinkers puke, roam on the roads, tease others and generally make a nuisance of themselves. They frankly are a menace to the civilized society.

But in Bahirdar things were very different. Most Bahirdar citizens drank for fun. It was mostly social drinking and beer was quite common and was even available in the Bahirdar University canteen! It was quite common to see both men and women students drink beer in the BDU canteen itself.

Beer was consumed almost like a soft-drink. It was available in a 330 ml bottle and costed a mere 3.50 birr, (Seventeen rupees and fifty paisa)! Quite cheap. Dashen beer was the most common brand consumed.

The only time I saw some sozzled Ethiopians, was immediately after the lent. During the Easter celebrations the hitherto strict Orthodox Christians would loosen their strict diet regime and ate and drank merrily. But drunk, sozzled, wavering and foul speaking drunkards were rare in Bahirdar, Ethiopia!