Antique Shopping in Addis Ababa

 The last day we were in Ethiopia was spent back in the capital, Addis Ababa. We were taken to an antique "mall" by the friend of a friend that lives in Addis. It was beyond astonishing. There was no sign and the Ethiopians that were accompanying us did not know about its existence. It was in a huge compound with what, I guess, were only a few word of mouth shoppers. This is a huge collection of thousands of antiques from all over the country. There were probably about 12 rooms filled from floor to ceiling.

Our American friend said that it is called "the dirty store" because everything is covered in a layer of dust and your hands are dirty after shopping. It was quite true. After deliberation, I only bought an old bowl and a coffee table, which is a small table used on the ground to serve coffee on. It is going to hold candles in the middle of my table and I plan to do a little research to see if it's possible to find out approximately now old it is. I was also gifted a little milk holder, like the one shown in the picture below sitting in the bowl on the chair. They are made from gourds covered in leather with small leather lids to transport water or milk during the day or on trips.

After leaving the big, "dirty" store, we shopped at a few shops along the main street that also carried antiques. The huge tables and chairs that were hand caved from single pieces of wood were amazing. We found that the clean antiques in the small shops along the road were 2-10 times more expensive. Those shops may be the "dirty" shops main customers. It was all very fascinating to me.

One of the clean shop displays for sale