Church Carved from Rock - Real Estate that Can't be Burned Down
Ethiopia seems to be best known for images of starvation on our TV screens, but the largest monolithic churches in the world, carved from stone, can be found in Lalibela Ethiopia. They are a fascinating combination of world travel, semi-permanent real estate and Christianity!
Kim and I traveled to Egypt and Ethiopia in November, 2008 with a group called Messengers of Mercy (M.O.M.). It is a Korean organization with a husband/wife doctor team from Chicago as its founders. They embark on medical and evangelical mission trips to 80 countries around the world, bringing medical supplies, providing doctors and nurses, performing medical examinations and providing prescription medications, performing eye examinations and providing prescription glasses and sunglasses and take portrait photos of the local participants and their families.
I will write more about our trip with MOM to China in 2007 and the Egypt portion of this same trip in a later post.
The trip to Ethiopia was called a “vision” trip versus the usual “mission” trip. The purpose of the trip is to explore the country and assess the need and opportunity for a future trip. In addition to our 2 days spent in the capital city of Addis Ababa and 1 hour visit to Axum (not a lot to see, except the obelisks), we spent part of 2 days in Lalibela, the second holiest city of Ethiopia.
My vision of Ethiopia before we went may have been a lot like yours. I’m picturing starving adults and children alongside the roadways, ribs showing, bellies bloated, dirty, and begging for help. To my surprise and pleasure, we never saw any of that.
Home in Lalibela, Ethiopia near rock churches
Granted, the houses in the mountain village of Lalibella were stone with thatched roof, cooking was over fires and farming was cattle and manual labor, but they didn’t look like the pictures on TV or other media and they seemed dressed comfortably. So, are they poor? Yes. Is the housing primitive? Yes. Starving and near death? Not the people we observed. But evidently, in other parts of Ethiopia they are (see this time Magazine article regarding the village, Kersa)
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1829996,00.html )
On our 30 minute journey by bus from the airport down in the flatland up to the village in the mountain, we saw hundreds of school children in their bright blue uniforms walking to or from school.
School Children in Lalibela, Ethiopia
And the schools and the homes were quite a distance apart for a lot of the kids we saw walking along the road.
The city (population, according to Wikepedia, is 14,668 …
Based on figures from the Central Statistical Agency in 2005) is most well-known for its 11 rock-hewn churches that were built between 1200 and 1300 AD under the direction of King Lalibela. The most significant of these churches is Bete Giorgis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_St._George,_Lalibela#cite_note-sacred-1 ).
You get to most of the churches by walking down a sloping walkway down into a trench carved from the stone. One you reach by walking through a totally darkened tunnel, where you feel your way along, while hunched over. The guide doesn’t turn on a flashlight, just for effect.
Inside are paintings of Christ, St. George, the Madonna, etc. There are priests who are meditating and praying and will display various crucifixes. Because of the constant flash photography, they will either pose with sunglasses on, and flashes are okay, or pose without and then you cannot use a flash.
Priest displaying one of the crosses in Lalibela rock church
You can take still pictures of everything, but you are not permitted to take your video camera on the tour of the churches, unless you pay a $30 fee to do so. I didn’t think it was worth it at the time, but now I wish I had. If you go, pay the $30 for a once in a lifetime video of truly unique structures of this world. You also will see some village life along the way and the video would have been useful then also.
Along the way, they were selling scarves...
We did end up buying (okay, I ended up buying) a hand woven scarf from a little girl, where an old man sat at a loom working (or at least he looked like he was working). I couldn’t resist getting the souvenir for only $2.
"Finally, someone bought a scarf. Now I can go home and rest."
According to our guide (and legend), the 11 churches in Lalibela (which was the capital of Ethiopia at one time) were built over a 29 year period. One of them, according to legend, was built in one 24 hour period at the request of King Lalibela for his wife, the Queen.
You have to wonder, what inspired this 12th century King in Africa to dedicate the time, effort, money and labor to build these churches which have survived the test of time. Was he impressing man or God with his semi-permanent creations? Very little is written about the inspiration and drive behind these churches carved from stone. If you find something, please post it as a comment. Although not as many people visit these churches as the Vatican and Sistine Chapel in Rome or the church of Notre Dame in Paris…and it didn’t take 400 years to build these like the Duomo in Milan, Italy, they are still standing as a testament to King Lalibela’s faith and commitment to Christian beliefs and for us to admire and “reflect” on….
We stayed overnight at the Hotel Jerusalem, which is in the middle of the village and sits overlooking the valley and distant mountain ranges.
What a peaceful sunset... looking at the mountains beyond Lalibela, Ethiopia
As we sat on our balcony, we immersed ourselves in the peace and quiet of their primitive and peaceful life. You could hear children laughing and playing, see and smell the fires cooking the evening meal, and an occasional dog bark or rooster crow. We watched the sun slip behind the mountain horizons as the village also became quieter and the only lights were from fires or lanterns of some kind. We couldn’t tell if there was running water or electricity from where we were. We would recommend the Hotel Jerusalem. The meals weren’t that great…the meats were tough, even though all of the American and Italian dishes sounded great, but it seems the chewy meat is typical of Ethiopia. The hotel was clean and the staff in their restaurant were friendly.
Coffee Ceremony- Hotel Jerusalem - Lalibella Ethiopia
The coffee ceremony was pretty cool…. (to be continued)
