Postcard from Addis Ababa

Walk into countless bars and hotels over the nation and you’ll be met with murals of Eden and a trinity of posters showing the same scenes over and over again: there’s the smiling shepherd boy –a youth from the Beja tribe I am told- priests in golden brocades shaking their cisterns at Lalibela, and a scantily dressed beauty from the south. What’s in an image?

These posters, churned out in their millions by the now defunct press of a bygone age, have embellished walls from Gambela to Dire Dawa, from Axum to Jinka, by way of Arat Kilo and the Mars Hotel in the Mercato, for generations of travelers and residents alike. They have come to be a bit more than just convenient wallpaper and are now copied gauchely onto walls by wandering artists.

People will remember arriving at the old airport in Bole and having their passports stamped under the gaze of the happy shepherd boy bathed in sunlight, as the rain pelted down on the tin roof. Ah, images and their reality: mirror, mirror on the wall, am I still the most beautiful of them all? These charming pictures have become icons of modern Ethiopia.

As to ‘13 Months of Sunshine,’ the fanciful slogan gracing many of these posters, I’ll tell you just what I think of it if I make it through the next three months of rain till Pagume, the fabled thirteenth month.

Read more about Ethiopia at Uthiopia.com.