Gap Year Destinations

Where to go

Africa: Ethiopia

A huge, mountainous country, home to the Great Rift Valley, over eighty different languages, and some of the world’s best sportsmen and women.

Environment

Ethiopia is a large country situated in the ‘horn’ of Africa, in the north-east of the continent. It borders Sudan, Kenya, Djibouti, Somalia and Eritrea, which used to be part of Ethiopia, but gained independence in 1993. It is a landlocked country, with diverse terrain: a huge complex of mountain and plateaus make up much of the landscape. The famous Great Rift Valley cuts into this high ground, and is surrounded by lowlands, steppes and semi-desert areas.

Climate

Due to the different elevations in the country, Ethiopia’s climate depends less on where you are than how high up you are! Above 2400m is pretty cold, with temperatures never reaching higher than about 16°C, between there and 1500m is the ‘temperate zone’, where it’s a more comfortable 16-30°C. Below that, it gets pretty hot, with a range of 27-50°C! Rainy season is from the middle of June to the middle of September with the remainder of the year mostly dry.

Demographics and Language

In the past 25 years, Ethiopia’s population has more than doubled, despite the life expectancy of men and women to be only 52 and 54 respectively. Eighty different ethnic groups speaking eighty-four indigenous languages can be found in the country. English is the most widely spoken foreign language, and it is used in secondary school to teach all topics. Ethiopia has its own alphabet and calendar.

Cuisine

Traditional Ethiopian food revolves around wat, a thick meat stew, served on injera, which are sourdough flatbreads. No pork or shellfish is eaten as Islam, Judaism and Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity all forbid it. Coffee plays a significant part in Ethiopian cuisine – there is a special ceremony which accompanies drinking it, and frankincense is often burned. Another popular drink is Tej, a honey wine which is quite similar to mead.

Religion

Christianity and Islam are the two main religions in Ethiopia, with roughly 40-50% of the population Christians and 40% Muslims. The rest of the people are either Jews – a small, ancient group called Beta Israel – or of various traditional faiths.

Economy and money

Ethiopia is very poor – in the 1980s and 90s, 500,000 people died in the famines that struck the country. Despite this, and largely due to Ethiopia’s growing population and ineffective government policies, youth unemployment is thought to be as high as 70% in some areas. Roughly 80% of the labour force is involved in agriculture, with coffee being one of biggest exports. Ethiopian currency is the Birr.

Culture and politics

The capital of Ethiopia is Addis Ababa (which means ‘new flower’), a fast growing city which is the seat of government, controlled by the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF). The EPRDF has been in power since the mid 90s, and has been subject to some criticism over election rigging and freedom of speech in the press. Lack of development is also an issue, with communications and media being particularly underdeveloped in Ethiopia compared to other African nations.

Ethiopia’s music scene is huge – a reflection of the large number of ethnic groups within the country. Each ethnicity has its own sound, using a modal, pentatonic (five note) system. Sport in Ethiopia is centered around running, with the country having some of the world’s best middle and long distance runners. Both women and men compete and dominate various distances at the highest levels of competition.