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The EVE of Ethiopian Easter(Fasica)
During Easter, the most important holiday by the Ethiopian Orthodox Christians; the daily routines usually encountered across the country change into the happy and colorful ones for most people. The neighborhoods of Addis Ababa (the capital of Ethiopia) look extremely different than they usually do; people dress different, most in white cultural clothes but all to impress. Everyone, the young and old, the poor and rich, all look happy and celebrate the holiday spending as much as their wallet allows them. During the eve of Easter, it is a religious custom to spend the night in a church praying and learning the word of God until 3:00am, the time when people who fast break their fasting, celebrating the resurrection of Jesus. People from my neighborhood and other surrounding neighborhoods come to pray in a church called Ledeta, which is located close to where I lived in Ethiopia. Here in U.S. after the three years I have spent, I can still picture the images of the holiday as if I'm there. It is like I have a stamp on my heart for all of my childhood memories, which are unforgettable regardless of the time that has passed. The first thing that comes to my mind, when I think about Easter is the amazing eve people spend with their family and friends. During the eve of Easter, starting around 8:00 pm, people start walking to go to churches in big masses. One, two or even more families walk together. The elders, pressing up on their walkers on their right hand and most of the time holding a little kid with their belongings on their left, walk very slowly. Their back bent forward as if the gravity has a unique effect on their foreheads and also shaking their right hand on their walkers every time they push up on it, the elders move in an unstable mode like big piles of goods in a little shopping cart, which could fall to the side at any moment. Teenagers mostly with their friends than their family, walk on the streets, playing around, making noise, laughing and flirting with one another. Jerking their heads often to the back and to the sides, being cautious, so that they cannot be seen by their parents or someone who knows their parents, the girls wander around the church having fun. The kids, limited by their parents would most of the time carry something and follow their family group, holding their mom's dress, their dad's pants or either's hand. The vast crowd that builds up when getting close to the church, gives kids the fear of being lost and makes them stick tight to one of their family members, as leeches would to the skin. Ledeta is one of the largest, beautiful and glorious churches of Addis Ababa. For this special day, the eve of Easter, the church gets decorated in colorful lights, green, yellow and red, the colors that make up the flag of Ethiopia. Being the only source of light, other than the week street lights, the church is the only thing that defies the sky that looks like it has caused darkness by swallowing all the stars and most part of the moon. The church that usually looks like a fenced part of the forest with two buildings inside it, because of its extreme size, the singing of the birds that can be heard during every sunshine and sunset and the extensive number of trees in it, is filled with people from corner to corner. The church is so stuffed with people; "even a tossed dime could not land on the ground" (Ethiopians). Two buildings with high oval roofs and large oval windows, looking like castles, are placed on two focus points of the church. The images of God, Mary, angels and saints painted all over the interior walls and roofs of the buildings, gives the buildings the glory and respect they get from the Christians as the house of God. Besides the images, the first thing that steals the mind of the people from this world to the spiritual one is the heavy but pleasing odor, that is created by a certain kind of smoke priests spread around the church during everyday's ceremony. The interiors' of these buildings are very bright because of the white light that fills up the buildings, symbolizing heaven. The large doors of the buildings lighting the statues of God, Mary and different angels surrounding them, with the bright light that comes from inside, look like they are the path ways to heaven. Most elders spend the night in the buildings with the priests and others who serve the church, while the rest of the people stay out in the fenced area surrounding the buildings, looking toward them with the eyes that are watery because of the chill and listening to the sound that come out of them with their freezing ears. The sound of the preaching that comes out of the buildings accompanied by the bright white lights in addition with the sound of the whistling wind when it collides with the leafs and branches of trees, assures the people that they are far from the real world and safe in the house of God. The journey to home from the church by the pedestrians is the most amusing part of the eve. Almost all the Christians walking home light candles they bought from the sellers who have laid their candles in size gradient, from large to small, at the doors of the church as they walk; the scene of all Christians walking out of the bright church with their own light in hand makes it look like all the Christians were taking a handful of light from the church and are using it as a guidance to walk through the darkness. The combination of the lights from all the people walking out of the church gives the streets life and exaggerates the beauty of the streets in Addis Ababa. The beauty of mothers and sisters in their absolute white cultural dresses, which have shiny custom made designs at the very tip, is the most unforgettable picture that gets magnified by the light and their beautiful smile.
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