1. ETHIOPIA
By: Joseph Koontz

2. If You Lived in Ethiopia…
 If Ethiopia were your home instead of
The United States you would...
 Have 12.9 times higher chance of dying in
infancy
 Be 3.5 times more likely to have HIV/AIDS
 Have 3.1 times more babies
 Die 22.44 years sooner
 Use 99.72% less electricity
 Consume 99.33% less oil
 Make 98.06% less money
 Spend 99.61% less money on health care
 Experience 33.33% less of a class divide

3. Appearance
 7th largest country
in Africa
 Ethiopia is as
large as Spain
and France
Combined and 5x
the size of the UK
ranging in 114
million square
kilometers

4. Land & Climate
 Loacated on the “Horn of Africa”
 Has high plateau and mountain ranges
 Climate is influenced by altitude with 4 distinct
ranges:
 Dega (cold to cool)
 Weina Dega (warm to cool)
 Kolla (warm to hot)
 Bereha (hot and arid)

5. Population
 Ethiopia being the largest country in
Africa, ended 2012 with a population of
91,728,849 people
 Makes it the 13 most populous country in the
world
 Has a density of 83 people per square Km
 The men consists of 50.02% with women
being at 49.98%

6. Language
 84 Indigenous Languages
 English is the most widely spoken foreign
language
 After fall of Derge regime in 1991, all groups
could speak their own language unlike the
previous Ethiopian governments.

7. Communication Style
 Speak in soft tones as loud voices are seen as
too aggressive
 Sensitive
 Ethiopians pride themselves on their articulate
speaking style and expect others to speak
clearly and use:
 Metaphors
 Allusions
 Witty innuendoes.

8. Government
 Ethiopia adopted a
new constitution
that established the
Federal Democratic
Republic of Ethiopia
Hailemariam Desalegn is the
prime minister and head of public

9. Economy
 Ethiopians have the
“Birr” as currency
 Equivalency to the U.S.
is declining over time
 The Ethiopian economy
is dominated by the
agriculture and services
sectors
 Each accounts for 45%
of GDP

10. Religion
 Christianity is the
dominant religion and is
facilitated with the
Ethiopian Orthodox
Church
 Islam is practiced
by about 1/3 of
Ethiopians.
Traditionally, the status
of Islam has been far
from equal with that of
Christianity.

11. Holidays Religious & Political
 January 7th Christmas Day
 January 11th Malad Un Nabi
 March 2nd Victory at Adwa Day
 May 5th Patriots Day
 September 11th New Years Day

12. Educational System
 Ethiopians are
desperate to attend
school and beyond
 School enrollment is
at seven, although
some start earlier.
 Age in the country is
often assessed by
height and teeth!
Schools in rural areas in Ethiopia

13. Educational System
 Government schools
are:
 Elementary
 Secondary
 By selection to pre-
university 11 & 12.
 Class size officially
is 50
 Adult literacy rate is
only 43%
Schools in urban areas in Ethiopia

14. Music
 Ethiopian music is extremely
diverse, with each of Ethiopia’s
ethnic groups being associated
with unique sounds.
 Some forms of traditional music
are strongly influenced by folk
music from elsewhere in the
Horn of Africa.
 However, Ethiopian religious
music also has an ancient Christian
element

15. Family
 A typical family consists
of the father, mother,
children, servants, and
extended family
members.
 The families are strong
and tend to be large,
ranging from 6-12 family
members
 The family typically lives
in a two bedroom
house…
 1 for the kitchen and
supplies
 1 for everything else
Typical 2 bedroom house

16. Family Responsibilities
 The father is the
authority figure and
the mother enforces
the rules for the
children.
 The family is
responsible for
teaching the children
cultural and religious
values and the skills
necessary to become
self-supporting adults.
An exemplary family

17. Greetings
 Before speaking both individuals will:
 Bow to each other
 Any head covering is to be removed during this time.
 Once the bow has been finished and the first
inquiries are made, about one to two minutes of
further formalized exchange is required. Each
individual is expected not only to ask after the
health of each other, but also after their:
 Family members
 Animals
 Harvest
 Business

18. General Attitudes & Values
 Ethiopians typically have a positive
attitude
 When they become mad, they tend to use
loud voices, various hand gestures and
get in the opposing views “personal
bubble”
 Family is the most valuable thing in an
Ethiopian life

19. Recreation
 Leisure time is generally spent at home.
Individual games of skill such as board games
and races are the most popular forms of
recreation.
 The 3 major sports:
 Long Distance Running
 Soccer
 Basketball

20. Health
 Life expectancy at birth is currently about 54 years
and is expected to decline to 46 years if the present
HIV infection rates are maintained.
 Hundreds of people fall ill and die daily as a
result of drinking contaminated water
 Little food is produced since the harvests are
entirely dependent on rainfall and livestock die
from diseases related to poor water quality.

21. Sanitation Problems
 Ethiopia's health care system is among
the least developed in Sub-Saharan Africa
and is not, at present, able to effectively
cope with the significant health problems
facing the country.
 Contributing factors include:
 Widespread poverty
 Poor nutritional status
 Low education levels
 Poor access to health services
Men digging for new source of
water

22. Dating, Courtship & Marriage
 Traditionally, marriages are arranged by
the bride and groom's families. It is
customary for the bride's family to give the
groom's family gifts at the time of
marriage.
 The appropriate age of marriage in
Ethiopia for men and women is 18.

23. Marriage
 Although it may
seem uncommon,
there is a
surprising number
of marriages by
as little as 7 or 8
years old. Tizalem uncovers her face, which is
covered by her traditional wedding
outfit, only long enough to sign the
marriage contract.

24. Life Style
 When they are getting
ready to be married,
women stretch their
lower lip with the help
of wooden or clay
plates called "sigaro".
 The bigger the lip, the
smoother the dowry
negotiations between
the two families.

25. Life Style Continued
 Ethiopians have one change of clothing,
maybe even ill-fitting, second-hand clothing at
that. If you go to school, you get a second
change.
□ The main form of
entertainment is visiting
and storytelling. Most
people cannot read and
have no electricity. Men
like to sit, drink coffee and
talk.

26. Eating
 The Ethiopian diet is mainly composed of:
 Cereals (maize, sorghum, teff)
 Tubers and root crops (ensete, potatoes, sweet
potatoes)
 Pulses and oil seeds.
 Despite a large livestock population, the food
supply of animal products is very limited
 For Ethiopians, the coffee ceremony is an
important social event that brings people of
the family or community together.

27. Food
 Ethiopia's staple food
is injera, a spongy
bread made of a
unique crop only
grown in Ethiopia
called "teff." Injera is
baked in a clay pan
and eaten with sauce
made of either meat,
ground grains, beans
or vegetables.
Common Ethiopian
Household Dinner

28. Work
 Men do the most physically taxing activities
outside the house, while women are in charge
of the domestic sphere.
 Young children, especially on farms, get
involved in household labor at an early age.
 Girls usually have a greater amount of work to
do than boys.

29. Social and Economic Levels
 There are four major social groups:
 At the top are high-ranking lineages
 Followed by low-ranking lineages
 Caste groups, which are endogamous, with group
membership attributed by birth and membership
associated with concepts of pollution
 Constitute the third social stratum
 Slaves and the descendants of slaves are the
lowest social group.

30.  There is no real functioning railroad system,
few people can afford to travel by air, and even
less can afford a car
 Most traveling is done by
bus or minibus which is
the only option for many.
 Bus rides in Ethiopia can
be very entertaining,
lively, social and good experiences, but they
can also be exhausting, frustrating and very
crammed.
Transportation Systems

31. Transportation Restrictions
 The main restrictions of
travel are within 100
Kilometers of the
surrounding borders
Ethiopia has.
 There is a high threat
from terrorism in Ethiopia
 There is also a high threat
of kidnapping, particularly in the eastern areas

32. Communication Systems
 The communication systems are currently
a monopoly in the control of the Ethiopian
Telecommunications Corporation (ETC).
 All telephone service and internet
access requires ETC to be involved.
 As of 2010:
 866,700 cellular phones
 725,000 main line phones were in use

33. Tourist Attractions
 The Blue Nile flows
from Ethiopia to meet
the White Nile in
Khartoum to form the
great river that gives
life to Egypt and the
Sudan.
 It has been said that
the Blue Nile
contributes up to 80%
of the Nile’s flow. The Blue Nile Falls (Tisisat Falls)

34. Tourist Attractions
 The “Eighth Wonder of the World”-
 Internationally-renowned for its rock-hewn churches
which are sometimes called the Physically prised
from the rock in which
they stand.
 These monolithic churches
were originally thought to
have been built in the 12th
century during the reign of
King Lalibela, but some
have been dated back to the 10th century. There are
eleven churches, assembled in three groupings