countdown to 2006

It's New Years Eve in Ethiopia!

Ethiopia follows the Ge’ez calendar, based on the older Alexandrian or Coptic calendar which in turn was derived from the Egyptian calendar. The West’s Gregorian calendar was calculated around A.D. 525 by Dionysius Exeguus, a Roman monk-mathematician-astronomer who based his calculations for the birth of Christ on an erroneous date for the death of Herod the Great. In the East, an Alexandrian monk named Panodorus made some different calculations around A.D. 400 and is the basis for the Egyptian calendar. Next year, on September 12^th because it is a leap year, Ethiopia will celebrate its bi-millennial, or 2,000 years from the Annunciation of Christ.

But this year, we are ringing in 2006. And so for the last few days, my work in-box has been filling up with messages like this:

Ethiopian’s call New Year’s Enkutatash, which means ‘gift of jewls’ in Amharic. The story goes back almost 3,000 years. The Queen of Sheba of ancient Ethiopia and Yemen was returning from a trip to visit King Solomon of Israel in Jerusalem. She had brought King Soloman gifts of 120 talents of gold (4.5 tons) and a large amount of unique spices and jewels. When the Queen returned to Ethiopia, her chiefs welcomed her with enku or jewels to replenish her treasury. This tradition is carried on today with young children receiving gifts of money or bread. Girls gather flowers and sing, boys paint pictures of saints, and everybody goes to church.

I’ve been wondering how Ethiopian New Year will differ from what we celebrate at home. There’s been a buzz around the office all day, the happy anticipation of a day spent celebrating with family and friends. Combined with some sparkly gold cake and the exchange of well-wishes and blessings – the spirit of the holiday feels very much the same.

I’ve heard that there is no countdown, but still a lot of feasting and imbibing. In fact, many people are also taking Thursday as a holiday this year because New Year’s has fallen on a Wednesday, one of the Orthodox church fasting days (so no animal products are consumed). And consuming animals is a big part of the celebration. We received an email at lunch reminding people to pay extra attention on the roads because of traffic jams in areas where animals are sold (ie. most main intersections around town) and at lunch I watched as four sheep were loaded into the trunk of a taxi.  

September has always felt a bit like new years to me, probably from all those years of school starting in the fall. This time around, it also marks the almost half way mark of my time in Ethiopia. And while I’ve never been big on resolutions, a little bit of reflection is always nice. A friend recently posted this, and I liked it. I think I’ll try to keep it in mind over the next months and this new Ethiopian calendar year.