Ethiopia’s coffee is considered by many as the pinnacle of organic dark roast beans grown anywhere in the world. The Bhuna coffee ceremony is stitched in to Ethiopia’s fabric with the smell of freshly roasted beans permeating every corner of this jewel in Africa’s crown. China, however, see less coffee and more revenue as they carve their way through the once lush rainforest, cutting huge swathes of land to build much needed transport routes. Not everyone, however, is in support of this government-driven initiative.

Ethopia’s Sidama celebrate their annual new year, Fichee-chambalaalla, during a turbulent time in Ethiopia’s history. With no official autonomous geographic zone registered to the Sidama, a constitutional right for all peoples and nationalities of Ethiopia, demonstrations can and do flare up in and around their claimed capital city, Awassa.

Update – In late 2019, c.6 months after this image was shot, the Ethiopian government granted the Sidama administrative self-determination via a national referendum.

The connected world has been eagerly watching Ethiopia’s epic rise take shape, a rise as the powerhouse of Africa’s eastern horn. Yet who can really tell what’s going on behind Asian-powered data walls? Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed faces a potentially drawn-out conflict with Tigray as the TPLF bitterly defend their longstanding self-imposed dominance over the country. The breakup of the Oromo Liberation Front has seen the militarisation of OLA Shane – a weaponised and rebellious arm of what was once a peaceful OLF. The lauded release of thousands of political prisoners caged under the iron-fisted rule of the TPLF has perhaps been cooled by the imprisonment of socially active, and arguably volatile, self-styled Ethiopian celebrities. Radicalisation along the southern borders is played down for the benefit of social stability yet it exists and is at the very least an existential threat the country will have to face sooner rather than later. Even the divisive swelling of Ethiopia’s largest dam, a technological marvel that will bring not just water but much needed foreign coppers to the national banks, has been criticised endlessly by Ethiopia’s neighbouring nations, those whom know better yet align with the opposition. Understandably they will lose out, but at what cost to Ethiopia’s people and their future? These national topics were being debated long before our Nobel Laureate took centre stage, but with Ethiopian nationalism as fierce as ever and with divides deepening between independent ethnic groups, this nationalistic merging with ethnic politics could be a double-edged blade at the throat of Africa’s newest jewel on the Nile.