Photos of the day

It is the summer vacation for students in Addis Ababa where family-oriented indoor and outdoor special activities aren’t in abundance. But that doesn’t mean there are not things to do for the youngsters in the city. Here, brothers and sisters are shown playing billiards in a bar near the Shi Solomon Supermarket in front of the National Theatre, mostly reserved for grownups.

An Ethiopian Muslim bride wearing a white dress and veil smiles for the camera at the door steps of the Semen Hotel. Her bridesmaids were wearing sparkling bright dress. The event was an intimate gathering of family and friends in one of the oldest hotels in Addis.

A rain soaked afternoon in Addis Ababa.

A woman dressed in white full-skirted dress and loosely woven netela and carrying a decorated walking stick coming poses for a photo on her way back from church in Gofa area, Addis Ababa.

A monk dressed in bedspread, with yellow hat and carrying picture of Virgin Mary and baby Jesus on his shoulder asks young church goers to raise their hands in prayer in Gofa Gabriel church in Addis Ababa. You can see marks of old age whcih are etched all over his face.

Reggae star to fly high

Rising Ethiopian reggae star Jah Lude will perform at Addis Ababa’s Lafto mall next week, July 7. It will be his first show since he released his first album months ago that garnered him a wide appeal. Bringing a cosmopolitan, reggae approach to his Ethiopian musical roots, the 36-year-old Addis Ababa-born singer has won praise from various quarters. He has a unique way of articulating Amharic in an Oromo accent that sometimes finds him singing about peace, love, struggle, identity, healing and reconciliation.

Returning to Addis Ababa

Returning home for the first time in 25 years, author Dinaw Mengestu is struck by how closely the childhood home of his imagination resembles the real thing – though there were no lions on the runway, in an article first published on Guardian in its issue of January 30, 2011 under the title “Once upon a life.”

The first time I saw Ethiopia since I was two years old was while looking out the window of a British Airways flight as it headed into the capital’s new airport at 3am. When my family left Ethiopia in 1980 we headed straight for Peoria, Illinois, a modest-sized city in the heart of the country, and had always but never really looked back. Peoria then was not the first home I had, but it was the first home I can remember. The fact that it would take years before I would even begin to consider otherwise says something both about how thoroughly American we had become and how willing we were to try to leave the past behind.