Two children play next to the Coca-Cola truck, parked in the street market of Harar.
The coca-cola truck drives off in a cloud of its own exhaust.
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Incongruous Coca-Cola advertising in Harar, a elsewhere in Ethiopia, is an ommnipresent aspect of the landscape. To see such a colorful and professional vehicle, among plain and run-down cars and trucks on the dusty walled streets of Harar, is quite strange.
All this week: Coca-Cola ads in Harar.
A busy street market stretches from outside of the the Jubol, the old walled city, inside, through one of Harar’s gates.
A typical small spice seller sets up alongside the street in Harar.
The people of Harar have traditionally had a special relationship with hyenas, which, in addition to their role as scavengers, are believed to be able to carry off evil spirits by passing near a person so affected. The feeding of hyenas is carried out at two sites currently; one, the more popular with tourists, is at a muslim shrine (the locals are Sufis) outside the walls, and the feeder is the man who keeps the shrine. In addition to putting on a show of how close he gets to the animals while handing them their strips of camel meat, he will also let visitors feed the hyenas, handing them a stick pre-laden with meat, which the guest can then hold out for the hyenas. I fed them a few times, but did not take any photos while doing so.
Women chat at a typical Harari shop, with a window to the street from inside the multi-family walled compound.
Women (and a goat) chat at a typical shop on the streets of Harar.
This goat is partaking of the leaves of chat (qat), the favorite past-time and narcotic of choice of the Harari people. Only the young soft leaves are chewed to gain the narcotic effects (followed by a period of stimulation), so the rest are thrown into the street for the goats, with predictable results in terms of alternatively sedated and stimulated goats.
Goat week!
