Foreign Tourists Express Timket as ‘Blissful’ Festival

Addis Ababa January 19/2021( ENA) Foreign tourists, who attended Timket celebrations in Addis Ababa, expressed their enchantment to the unique experience of Ethiopian Epiphany.

The tourists expressed Timket (Ethiopian Epiphany) as a ‘blissful’ Holiday.

Timket is one of the largest outdoor Orthodox Christian celebrations and it marks the Baptism of Jesus Christ in the Jordan River by John the Baptist.  

In 2019, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) inscribed Timket (Ethiopian Epiphany) as one of the Intangible Cultural Heritages of Humanity.

The commemoration of Ethiopian Epiphany, which is religious and cultural festival, starts on Ketera, the eve of the main festival.

Timket, however, goes beyond symbolic religious virtue and embodies many cultural values and ethos of almost incredible cultural heritage.

Visitors who attended Ketera, Timket celebration in Addis Ababa praised over the distinctive and magnificent cultural and ritual festival views. 

The unique festivity is also attended by tourists including Reoberto Lukas, a Canadian tourist who is in Jan-Meda in Addis to experience this year’s Timket festival.

“I came with my Ethiopian friends in Canada to attend this festival and I think this is very beautiful culture and very rich. I find it very unique festival,” he said.

“My Ethiopian friends bought me Ethiopian traditional clothes. I think it is beautiful and fantastic,” he added.

He further said that Timket offered him a fascinating glimpse of the cultural and religious facet of Ethiopians.

“I think it is very beautiful to protect this value,” he said, alluding to the inscription of Timket on UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritages of Humanity.

“I will come next year to attend this festival with other friends,” he noted.

For a Spanish tourist, Anibal Bueno, it is his first time to attend the most fascinating Timket festival in Ethiopia. He is very thrilled to witness the emblematical Ethiopian Epiphany festival.

“This is my first time to attend the fantastic festival. It is very nice and a lot of people gathering with beautiful traditional clothes and singing of festive hymns,” he said.

“In Spain we have not this. We celebrate Christmas there, but the Epiphany is not so big. This is very nice and I am very proud to participate in this beautiful festival,” he added.

Bueno pledged to encourage and urge his friends and relatives in Spain to come and enjoy by the Ethiopia Epiphany festival in Addis Ababa, Gondar or Lalibela.

A French tourist, Farlice Sergenr, expressed his gratification to attend Timket festival for the first time in Ethiopia.

“A lot of people came by dressing beautiful white clothes with smile. It is very nice and I am so happy to be part of this festival,” he said.

Expressing the country’s rich tangible and intangible heritages, he is captivated to visit the historical places in Ethiopia.

Millions of Ethiopian Orthodox Christians today marvelously celebrated Timket festival (Epiphany) amid COVID-19 pandemic.