Video Of A Goat Riding A Man On A Bike In The Streets Of Ethiopia Explained

A few days ago, the video of a goat riding on the back of a man who is in turn pedaling on a bike went viral. The video which was filmed by tourists in Addis Ababa in Ethiopia amassed over a million views on YouTube in just a couple of days. And it's still counting. There's no surprise about that of course as weird videos like this tend to explode in popularity online.


However, majority of the people who have seen it and the media who have covered it seem to think that goat riding men in Ethiopia is not a common thing. They make the assumption that the onlookers on the streets were as surprised as they are. Well, it turns out that the practice of carrying a goat on your back while riding a bike is a common practice in Addis Ababa.

A person by the username of Janamora left a comment on a story on The Independent website explaining in detail the practice. Here's the comment in full: "It is without a doubt that the writer Lizzie Dearden has written this article without making a thorough research which fails to provide a complete explanation entailing the practice of ridding a bike while carrying a sheep/goat in the streets of Addis Ababa and some other major cities in Ethiopia as well as Eritrea.

Although these practice of carrying a goat/sheep while ridding a bike is fairly new -- I would say 7 to 12 years -- these men who are seen carrying goat or sheep in the streets of addis Ababa are referred in Amharic language, which is Ethiopia's national language, as "ፈጥኖ አራጅ," written in English "Feteno Araj, " and is pronounced as - " Fe-th-no Ah-ra-j". It literarily translates to English as " Express Slaughter or Express Butcher ."

The way these men operate is that once a client pays a visit to a livestock market and picks a choice of his goat or sheep, then he hires amongst the men who work as a "Feteno Araj" and who can easily be seen hustling potential shoppers in a bid to provide their "express service". The "Feteno Araj" then will carry the purchased goat or sheep on his back and ride off to the clients address and deliver it and finally he slaughters it.

In case you are wondering the possibility of theft, meaning if these guys who work as "Express Butchers" would fail to deliver the goat or sheep, the answer is these men work along side of the livestock owner; even sometimes the men are related to the livestock Owners.

During my many visit to Ethiopia, I personally have seen goats and sheep being carried on the back of a person and given a ride on the bike in the streets of Addis ababa -- I simply call it " THE FIRST AND LAST RIDE !""