Day at the Museums

After getting back to Addis Ababa Friday night, the next day we woke up early, ordered room service for breakfast, and then headed out to the Ethnological Museum at Addis Ababa University. I had visited it before, in May, and had put it on my list of places to take J when she came. So I was happy to have a chance to stroll through the university campus together on a day with blue skies when many students were out sitting on the campus lawns chatting or reading. We walked to the building at the end of the path, the building which which used to be the palace of Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie, but now houses the museum, although the Emperor and Empress' bedroom has been preserved for viewing by museum patrons. The ethnological exhibit itself is extremely well done, introducing traditions of the many different tribes in Southern Ethiopia starting with birth rituals, then childhood games and folklore, continuing on to adulthood and marriage, then information about tribal livelihoods, coffee and food traditions, medicine, even warfare and, finally, death rituals.
One museum is usually enough for one day, but it was still early and the National Museum was nearby, where the exhibit of Lucy, the 3.2 million year old fossilized hominid bones, is shown. The National Museum also has some impressive paintings by national artists and other cultural artifacts, but can all be seen in about 30 minutes to an hour.
In between the two museums, we were able to take a stroll about 1 kilometer through town and stop at the cafe next to the National Museum, aptly called Lucy Cafe. I had been there before and had their pizza and a beer, but J recommended that we try their Ethiopian dishes. We ordered marinated lamb tibbs and shiro, a pasty curry made from lentil beans, on injeera bread; I still had a beer--a special export Bedele brew--and J had a fizzy Pepsi. Overall, we had a great time and enjoyed our day at the museums.