Travelling through Ethiopia can be a stressful trip for many people that are not familiar with notions of true poverty and despair. Despite the poverty, however, it is a beautiful and breathtaking nation of grace and passion. The people of Ethiopia are blessings to the earth, living in often desolate conditions but still fairly joyful. Meeting the people is a big part of a typical journey through Ethiopia. Many people take the people for granted as they journey through Ethiopia and they try to turn the other way and turn from the poverty and the pain. Ethiopia is nothing, however, if not for its history and the land that has been left behind ravaged from war and famine.

Ethiopia is one of the oldest countries in the world. It is the oldest independent country in Africa, lending its colors to the flags of all of the other countries that have since gained independence in Africa. It is also the second oldest Christian nation in the world behind Armenia and a journey through Ethiopia reveals this rich heritage in its people and in the construction of the buildings with obvious influences from the Arab world. Ethiopia has long been a member of international organizations, which puts it above a lot of other African nations that are fairly isolated from the rest of the world in policy and government.

Moving Through The Land

Ethiopia became a member of the League of Nations and signed into the United Nations in 1942. It founded the UN Headquarters in Africa and was one of the founding members of the Organization of African Unity. A quick journey through Ethiopia finds that the people of this country are very worldly and know what is going on in the rest of Africa and how it relates to the world. The government of Ethiopia has long been interesting to people that study African government, with a situation that is fairly distinctive in the often primitive world of African government.

The government is a framework of federal parliamentary republic, meaning that the Prime Minister is the head of government in Ethiopia. Executive power is, therefore, executed by the government. Through a journey through Ethiopia, we find many people remain quite patriotic of their country and want to hold their government accountable for a lot of the problems of the country. There are often protests in Ethiopia about the mistreatment of some of its people. This represents a lively people in a society that has not given up hope just yet.

The music of Ethiopia is traditional and eclectic, infused with the variety of culture and religion in the land and created with creativity and energy. The people of Ethiopia love to sing the Ethiopia songs of celebration and protest, allowing them the chance to freely express their experiences and emotions to the fullest. This gives them opportunity to engage in a cultural dialogue, too, giving them the chance to explore the culture and share it with others that may not know. Learning Ethiopia songs is a great way to learn about the cultural mosaic of this African country.

Each of the country's 80 tribes is associated with at type of music. This makes for a lot of unique sounds in the country of Ethiopia. A lot of the forms of Ethiopia songs are influenced by the countryside folk musicians or Islamic music, but it also has an ancient element derived from Christianity that is related to the country's deep Christian heritage. The country of Ethiopia uses music as a form of therapy to recover from the serious history of the country, including the famine and the war with Eritrea. This recovery has been aided with Ethiopia songs that have spread throughout the land.

More About The Music

The majority of the music in Ethiopia is traditional or related to the tribal influences. There is, however, a small community of popular music that develops. Most of these musicians in the popular music field, however, sing and perform traditional Ethiopia songs. A longstanding tradition in Ethiopia of brass bands has become quite popular again in modern times, emanating from Jerusalem where the first official orchestra of Ethiopia came from. Large orchestras often accompany singers, creating a large group of European or American trained vocal and musical orchestras.

In the 1980s, when the Derg controlled Ethiopia, it became a lot more stringent to perform or play Ethiopia songs because of the harsh constrictions on the legal elements. Emigration became nearly impossible and the music of Ethiopia suffered as a result of that, creating a musically stagnant time that the country has since evolved out of. Music from Ethiopia in modern times is now becoming popular, with Los Angeles based singer Aster Aweke leading the pack with her tremendous crossover appeal. The music has expanded and is popular all over the world, especially in places like Italy where the scene is thriving.