Timket Celebration Impressive, a “Must See Festivity,” Foreign Visitors

Addis Ababa January 20/2019 With its distinctive religious ritual festivity, Ethiopia’s Timket (Epiphany) is most fascinating cultural celebration where “everyone must see”, foreign visitors said.

On Saturday, hundreds of foreign visitors blended with millions of Ethiopian Orthodox Christians colorfully celebrated the annual Ethiopian Timket (Epiphany) throughout country.

The visitors, who were participating on the Timket festivity at Jan meda in Addis Ababa, said the feast of Timket (Epiphany) is among the largest and unique festival of the year in Ethiopia, which draws a lot of tourists to the country every year.

An Israeli young man, David Sudai, praised the Epiphany festivity in Ethiopia as “impressive in which people need to come and see it.”

“Very impressive, different, never see it in my life, people should come to get the correct impression. The number of people, the way they all dressed is an attracting one. I am not a Christian, am Jewish but I am very impressed by the overall Epiphany celebrations here,” David Sudai described it.

A Swedish Ulrika Hurden, who came to Ethiopia with her husband Klasse Sahlen for the first time, said the Timket festivity is “incredibly remarkable.”

“I am very impressed with everything I have seen here a lot of kind people and the traditional religious ceremony is interesting to see and all people doing the same thing,” she said, adding that “I dressed this (traditional Ethiopian dress) to be part of the celebration and it seems bright to wear.”

Large number of people with colorful cultural attires, songs and dances on the top of the religious rituals attract her attention, she said, adding that “come and experience such ceremonies and historical sites in Ethiopia,” signifying her friends to take part in the upcoming festivity of Timket.

Doris Johnson, a Swiss by national, has lived in Ethiopia for the last five years and celebrates the Timket festivity in Addis Ababa every year with her family.

“This is my favorite celebration in Ethiopia; people here are so kind, friendly and sociable. We gather in my husband’s house with family chat and even walk together to churches,” she added.

A German, Christoph Ruoppy, said on his part the ceremony is unique, impressive and called up on friends and others to see it next year.

“I enjoyed it as you can see it around the dressings; singings and the baptism are impressive. It is really unique, we do not have such a celebration in our country by far and the amount of people who come for this religious celebration is impressive. I recommend for everybody to come and at least see it once in Ethiopia,” he said.

He has also celebrated Timket in other part of Ethiopia ‘Merabete’ three years ago but he said “the number of people in Addis is enormous”.

More than15, 000 tourists, from different countries, have arrived in Ethiopia to celebrate this year’s Timket (Epiphany) festivities, it was learned.