This afternoon I went back to the main group of churches to listen to part of the Good Friday celebration. To an outsider there didn’t seem to be a lot of formal organization to the event. The priests and deacons recited and chanted while occasionally some in the crowd joined in or responded. Much of the time people sat and listened, prayed, read, or even talked amongst themselves while the chanting echoed round the tunnels and rock walls of the churches.
As a faranji — or foreigner — one can’t simply blend in with the crowd on the street or in the church courtyard so my day was also filled with lots of questions about where I’m from, whether this was my first time in Ethiopia, what I do for a living, and so on.
I took a lot of photos and may be posting too many of them. Unfortunately the interiors of the churches were crowded and dimly lit with fluorescent bulbs so there aren’t many interior photos that came out. Hope you enjoy the ones that did.
