As soon as Anne and I landed in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the fragrance of the city transported us. We could smell eucalyptus smoke in the air and something sweet and musty, which turns out to be frankincense. It was also Christmas Eve, so we heard songs and chants reverberating over the rooftops. Ethiopians practice one of the world’s oldest forms of Christianity, going all the way back to the 4th century, so it felt like we had stepped into a remarkable convergence of ancient tradition and bustling modernity.
We went to Ethiopia to attend a gathering of African humanities scholars and artists from all over the continent. Anne and I were there to listen and learn - and record interviews. We also went to churches and jazz clubs, sampled the local coffee and saw the Mercato, the largest open-air market in Africa, which is several square miles of controlled chaos. On our last day we visited the new Zoma Museum, tucked away in a corner of the city behind a maze of small streets. The curator, Meskerem Assegued, has used indigenous building techniques to create a visionary model of an urban future. The museum is unlike any museum we’ve ever seen, with terraced gardens, cows, even a kindergarten.
In partnership with CHCI, a global consortium of humanities centers and institutes, we’ll bring you a series of radio reports from our trip to Ethiopia, kicking off with a one-hour show, How Africans Are Building the Cities of the Future. We hope you’ll get a chance to listen!
–Steve