New Sea in Ethiopia

Is a new sea forming in Ethiopia? Kind of...but it will take another million years or so for it to fully form.

"A Crack Opens in the Ethiopian Landscape, Preparing the Way for a New Sea"

From Discover

November 4th, 2009 11:07 AM

by Eliza Strickland

In 2005, the earth cracked open in Ethiopia. Two volcanic eruptions shook the desert, and a 35-mile-long rift opened in the land, measuring 20 feet wide in some places. Now a new study adds weight to the argument that the opening of this crack marks the first step in the formation of a new sea that may eventually separate East Africa from the rest of the continent. Says lead researcher Atalay Ayele: “The ocean’s formation is happening slowly, likely to take a few million years. It will stretch from the Afar depression (straddling Ethiopia, Eritrea and Djibouti) down to Mozambique” [ABC News].

The study, to be published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, explains that the seismic movements observed in Ethiopia are very similar to the changes wrought by faults and fissures on the seafloor, where the processes that move tectonic plates usually begin.

Seismic data from 2005 shows that the rift opened in a matter of days. Dabbahu, a volcano at the northern end of the rift, erupted first, then magma pushed up through the middle of the rift area and began “unzipping” the rift in both directions, the researchers explained in a statement today. “We know that seafloor ridges are created by a similar intrusion of magma into a rift, but we never knew that a huge length of the ridge could break open at once like this” [LiveScience], says study coauthor Cindy Ebinger.

The active volcanic region in Ethiopia’s Afar desert sits at the boundary of the African and Arabian tectonic plates, which have been gradually spreading apart for millions years; the new study shows that large-scale seismic events can speed up that process. The gradual separation has already formed the 186-mile Afar depression and the Red Sea. The thinking is that the Red Sea will eventually pour into the new sea in a million years or so [LiveScience].

News from Ethiopia: Ethiopia Coffee Exports May Rebound This Year, Exchange Says

Coffee exports from Ethiopia, Africa’s largest producer of the beans, are expected to rebound to about 171,000 metric tons this year after shipments fell to their lowest level in six years last year, an official with the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange said.

“Early assessments indicate a very good potential for a bumper harvest of coffee,” said Eleni Gabre-Madhin, chief executive officer of the Addis Ababa-based exchange, in an interview on Aug. 29. “We are expecting at least 2007/2008 tonnage.”

Shipments fell from 170,888 tons in 2007/2008 to 133,993 last year after a drought cut production and Japanese importers largely stopped buying Ethiopian coffee after finding high levels of pesticide residues in shipments.

Better rains this year in the main coffee-growing areas will lead to more production during the country’s October to December harvest. Ethiopian coffee trees will also produce more due to their cyclical nature, in which harvests peak every second year, she said.

Prices for premium Arabica beans, though heavily dependent on the world price of coffee, may be higher this year because of a new grading system in Ethiopia introduced in conjunction with the Specialty Coffee Association of America, she said. The system will bring Ethiopia’s grading methods in line with those used by the SCAA.

“Hopefully it will encourage farmers to produce more of these top quality grades,” she said.

The exchange will also begin providing a new direct-buying service for coffee roasters that seek specialty coffee from specific farmers, she said.

U.S.-based specialty coffee roasters complained last year that Ethiopia’s move to trading beans on a commodity exchange made it difficult to trace coffee to specific growers, a desirable marketing feature for specialty roasters.

Ethiopia, which claims to be the home of the coffee tree, has hundreds of native varieties of coffee.

News from Ethiopia: Not ruling out troops return to Somalia

I read up on Ethiopian news every day as

part of my morning routine. I have decided it would be interesting for everyone else to be able to read some news from that part of the world. So I will be posting a news article on the blog every so often (probably once a month). Hope you enjoy this new feature to our blog.

Ethiopia Not Ruling out troops return to Somalia

By Tsegaye Tadesse and Barry Malone (Editing by David Clarke)

ADDIS ABABA, June 25 (Reuters) - Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has not ruled out sending troops to Somalia if the situation there worsens, but said there are no plans to intervene for now.

Ethiopian troops invaded Somalia in 2006 to oust an Islamist movement from the capital in which new President Sheik Sharif Ahmed played a role. That sparked an Islamist insurgency which is still raging despite the withdrawal of the soldiers in January this year.

"We do not want to find ourselves in a situation where a so-called Ethiopian horse would be trying to take the chestnut out of the fire on behalf of everybody else," Meles told a news conference late on Wednesday.

"And this horse being whipped by every idiot and his grandmother."

Ahmed, a moderate Islamist, fled into exile after the Ethiopian intervention but joined a peace process last year and was elected in January. His government is now battling hardline insurgents who were once allies in the Islamist movement.

Addis Ababa has said it supports the new government, but is wary of the hardline Islamists, who are seen as a proxy for al Qaeda, because they control large areas of Somalia and have threatened to destabilise neighbouring Ethiopia and Kenya.

With reports of foreign jihadists streaming into Somalia, Western security services are worried al Qaeda may get a grip on the failed Horn of Africa state that has been without central government for 18 years.

"We want to wait and see how the international community as a whole responds and then see if there is any need to revisit our position on the matter," Meles said. "We believe the deployment of Ethiopian troops would be unwarranted because we are not convinced there is a clear and present danger to Ethiopia."

Violence from the Islamist-led insurgency worsened this month, with the killing of three officials. The government, which controls little but a few parts of the capital, has declared a state of emergency and appealed to neighbouring countries for military assistance.

The Ethiopian leader played down claims from the speaker of Somalia's parliament that the country's Transitional Federal Government (TFG) risked being overthrown without foreign help.

"Our reading of the situation in Somalia is slightly different from the one of the speaker of the parliament that if there is no foreign military intervention ... the transitional government will collapse," Meles said. "The TFG is facing a very difficult situation with al Shabaab and Hizbul Islam militias supported by hundreds of jihadists, but we don't believe they will be toppled."

Ethiopian Museums

So, I kind of have a new job.  I am now an intern at the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum and it is amazing...but this also means that I have less time for the adoption.  While it has been difficult not to focus on the adoption and all that goes with it, I know I have to get this internship out of the way before we bring our baby home.  So, I am an arts manager for the next 12-13 weeks.  In light of my current job I wanted to bring to your attention the following -- nothing very exciting but it is something to do with two things I love -- art and Ethiopia.  The online arts journal I read features a collection of news stories and blogs on art and culture.  The following link is a short blog about the loss of funds for Ethiopian museums due to budget cuts by other museums around the world...in this case Chicago's Field Museum.  www.artsjournal.com/culturegrrl/2009/01/skeletal_budget_cut_no_lucy_fo.html

Ethiopian Monolithic Churches

I was thinking this morning that Maggie and I have embarked ourselves upon a journey. The path upon which we're traveling is oriented toward the eventual adoption of our youngest child from Ethiopia. As a result, I thought a post about some of the sights in Ethiopia might be appropriate to describe. In this post, I'll highlight one of the (little known) wonders of the world.

I'd like to introduce you to Lalibela, a holy city of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and a pilgrimage site for centuries. It lies in the north of Ethiopia and the eleven churches there are regarded as one of the wonders of the world. They are all excavated -literally carved- right out of the bedrock. Carved into the solid rock, they are an immense maze of underground tunnels and passageways.

Ethiopian tradition says that they were carved in one night by angels. The legend goes that King Lalibela (the Ethiopian monarch in the late 12th to early 13th centuries A.D.) was carried off one night to the heavenly Jerusalem. There he was instructed to build the churches and that angels worked beside each men as they cut each one from the rock.

Some scholars, noting that the style of the Lalibela churches closely matches the architecture of ancient Aksum (the capital during Ethiopia's "golden years" of the 1st to 10th centuries) believe the churches are actually older than that- that some may in fact be converted palaces.
In any case, after King Lalibela's death, the city began to draw thousands of pilgrims coming to see the "new Jerusalem." The people of Ethiopia have a saying about Lalibela that goes like this: "If you do not wish to see Lalibela, you are like someone who has no desire to see the face of Christ."

The Orphan's Cry: "Abba, Father!"

When I was a youngster, I used to love to sit down at the piano and play and sing a song by Steve Fry called "Abba Father." (O.K., I still love to sit the song, but that's not germane to my point!) It's a song that takes up Jesus' cry of "Abba, Father" in the Garden of Gethsemane on the night of His betrayal. Over the last couple weeks as Maggie and I have been starting to pursue our hope of adopting a child from Ethiopia, I have been greatly encouraged by this Word of our Lord. When Jesus used it, when He addressed His Father (and our Father) on that terrible night, He was crying out for deliverance.

Yet, even though Jesus was clearly and understandably frightened and trembling at the prospect of being crucified for us, still I don't believe this was Jesus primarily crying out for Himself. It was not simply His humanity crying out for deliverance from suffering. Rather, I believe it was His cry of deliverance for you, for me, for all the orphans in this world needing adoption by the Father.

The key, for me, is the context in which Jesus prays this impassioned prayer, this impassioned cry for deliverance. "Abba, Father" is what Jesus cried out, as I said before, in the Garden of Gethsemane on the night He was betrayed. It was the beginning of that three-days work which would culminate with the cross and the empty tomb. Listen to how Mark tells us in His Gospel: "And going a little farther, [Jesus] fell on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. And he said, "Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. YET NOW WHAT I WILL, BUT WHAT YOU WILL" (Mark 14:35-36, emphasis mine).

Notice how Jesus is not primarily praying for Himself. Even though He was "sorrowful even unto death" (v.34)... even though Jesus WAS praying that God would determine a different way and obviate the need for His own terrible suffering and death... even still (and above all), Jesus was praying for US: He was praying for the removal of the cup of his Father's wrath against our sin. He was praying for our deliverance, that God would take pity on us poor unworthy orphans and adopt as His own sons, worthy of (and heirs of) eternal life. It's a truth we see confirmed by Jesus' humble submission to His Father's will when He drank every last drop in order to deliver us from what we justly deserved.

Good News for Us
"Abba, Father" is also a prayer that God the Father answered. Oh, He didn't answer it in maybe the way that we would have expected; but He answered it in the way that was the best for us. God HAS granted us deliverance. God the Father sent Jesus Christ to the cross in order to answer the cry of Jesus' heart- His desire that we be redeemed from our sin and damnation. The Father enabled His Son to humbly submit to the cross and that, in turn, has resulted in an indescribably good gift to us: the gift of sonship through adoption. St. Paul writes in Galatians 4 that "when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so THAT WE MIGHT RECEIVE ADOPTION AS SONS. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, "ABBA! FATHER!" (vv. 4-6, emphasis mine).

Jesus submitted to His Father's Will "for the joy that was set before him" (Heb. 12:2). And because Jesus did that, because Jesus went to the cross for us and earned us adoption into the Father's family... again, because we are now adopted as the Father's sons, we also now have the right to pray that same prayer Jesus prayed. We now have the right to address the Holy God of Hosts as Father, as "Abba, Father" knowing that, because of Christ, God is our true Father and we are His true children" (Martin Luther, Small Catechism, Lord's Prayer Introduction).

How Should We Respond to God's Great Gift?

There are many different ways and avenues through which God moves His people to respond to the Gospel. For Maggie and I, we believe that God is answering our cry of "Abba, Father!" by leading us to James 1: "Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction" (v.27a).

Some people are moved by the love of Christ to sing at nursing homes (as one dear departed friend of mine was moved to do for many years). Others are moved to volunteer at the local food pantry. Others are moved to provide a place of home and shelter for abused women. Finally, others are called to "visit orphans"; that is, to provide a home for those who have no home, to provide a family to those who have lost their family, to bring the adoptive love of God to someone needing the Father's love.

In sum, we believe that our family is missing someone- that God has given us a family full of love, love which is overflowing. As the Father has loved us, so He is calling us to love others: in particular, to love one little child who (perhaps not even born yet) has no father, who has no mother. How do we know this? I don't know; we just do; God works in mysterious ways (see John 13:7). He is calling us through the Word. We know that God has adopted us, and that when pray "Abba, Father!" that God is answering our cry. To God alone be glory, Amen.