Ethiopia's calendar, or the Ge'ez Calendar, sets itself seven years behind the Common Era/Gregorian/Julian Calendar.
Just a little bit more background of the calendar: "the Ge'ez calendar, is the principal calendar used in Ethiopia and also serves as the liturgical calendar for Christians in Eritrea belonging to the Eritrean Orthodox Church, Eastern Catholic Church and Lutheran Evangelical Church of Eritrea. It is based on the older Alexandrian orCoptic calendar, which in turn derives from the Egyptian calendar, but like the Julian calendar, it adds a leap day every four years without exception, and begins the year on August 29 or August 30 in the Julian calendar. A seven- to eight-year gap between the Ethiopian and Gregorian calendars results from alternate calculations in determining the date of the Annunciation of Jesus.
Like the Coptic calendar, the Ethiopian calendar has twelve months of 30 days each plus five or six epagomenal days, which comprise a thirteenth month. The Ethiopian months begin on the same days as those of the Coptic calendar, but their names are in Ge'ez. The sixth epagomenal day is added every four years without exception on August 29 of the Julian calendar, six months before the Julian leap day. Thus the first day of the Ethiopian year, 1 Mäskäräm, for years between 1901 and 2099 (inclusive), is usually September 11 (Gregorian), but falls on September 12 in years before the Gregorian leap year." This year was a leap year; therefore, the thirteenth month had the mentioned six days, making the new year fall on 12th September 2011 C.E. (Information gathered from here.)
So, how do Ethiopians welcome their new years? Well, since we were here for the occasion, we joined in some of the festivities. No celebration would be Ethiopian without coffee ceremonies, traditional clothes, food, music, shoulder dancing, and visits to churches and families. Of course we helped them celebrate...
The weekend began on Friday and lasted through New Year's Day - Monday. Richard and Delphine came down from the Village Cluster in Hawzien to join Sarah, Laura and I in Addis for the weekend before flying back to the north on Monday afternoon to accompany some of the MVP Cluster folks for their family gatherings.
On Friday, the five of us had dinner at a well-known restaurant in Addis called Top View. It is situated on the side of a mountain and has a great view of the city.
On Saturday, Laura and I decided to finally venture into the huge church that is rather close to our house to see the inside. We walk past it everyday and are blessed at home by the chanting coming from its very loud speakers at all hours of the night and day, especially in time surrounding feast days and during fasting times.
The name of the church is Bole Medhane Alem, or Holy Savior (Bole is the sub-city where it is located). It is the largest Christian church in Africa and one of the largest churches in the world (I'm not sure of the exact ranking in that category). It's seating capacity is 500; however, on any given afternoon when Mass is being offered, it is not uncommon to see hundreds more standing outside of the Church on its grounds participating. We would never see such a sight in the U.S. It's difficult enough, regrettably, to fill churches even on Christmas or on Ash Wednesday or on Easter, so the faith of the Ethiopian Christians always strikes me as very special as their entire culture revolves around it.
A few pictures of the Church are below, although I couldn't capture the staggering size of this building in a photo.
In the Evening, we took some advice from Birkti and went to a jazz club in the Piassa part of the city. Even though the music wasn't actually all jazz, we enjoyed hearing some eclectic versions of some American songs and had our dinner there that evening. Here are some of those pictures.
On Sunday the five of us gave our favorite Addis taxi driver some business and took a drive up the Entoto mountain.
Along the way, we encountered thousands of people swarming the streets and roadside shops of the Shiro Meda part of Addis Ababa. The people were buying traditional clothes, sheep, chickens, chat, and other miscellaneous goods for their upcoming new year's celebrations. It was crazy crowded. Cars were attempting to pass through, but were facing quite the trial making their ways through the ocean of people. After finally making it through, we chugged up the mountain and made it to the first of two churches that we visited.
The first church, St. Mary's Church, is the former dwelling of Emperor Minilk and Empress Titu who reigned from the mid to late 1800's (Gregorian Calendar). They later relocated the Palace and Capital to the lower land Addis Ababa city because the cold weather at the top of the mountain was a bit much for the Empress. The former palace and grounds have been preserved from their time as residents there. Photos of our short tour and of the church there are presented below.
The next church we visited had an old rockhewn church aside from the much larger and newer church that we spent most of our time in. While we were in the main church, there was a group of about ten priests and deacons in a small room connected to the nave of the church chanting some spiritual songs accompanied by drums and a tambourine-like instrument called a tsenatsen. There were also very beautiful paintings in the church that depicted mostly Biblical stories, but also martyrs commemorated by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. A few scenes are here:
After relaxing a bit Sunday afternoon, we met up with Birkti for some New Year's Eve festivities at the Yod Abyssinia Cultural Center, which is a quick walk from our house. This ended up being the first of multiple places we would visit that night. We began our celebration at 7PM. We ate some Ethiopian food and tasted some tej, or honey wine, and enjoyed the music and dancing entertainment provided on stage.
We then headed to another Cultural Center, Ethio Millennium, where it was a more laid-back atmosphere and the dancing was performed by everyone in the audience. It seemed to be about 100 degrees inside, but that did not stop any of us from joining the extremely crowded dance space. Some of Birkti's friends were there, so we met them and had a great time dancing and enjoying the scenes there.
And then again after that, we went to a non-traditional dance club where a DJ was playing a mixture of American and Amharic music. Again, it was very hot, but the cool outside air wasn't difficult to access after breaking a sweat in there. This was the foreigners' last stop that night, but it wasn't the end of the night for Birkti and her friends. They continued on to another traditional center close to the office where they found some of our co-workers. We went home. It's become rather apparent to me that the late nights that I was able to handle 4 or 5 years ago while still in college are becoming elements of only past times. The residents of our house were in bed by 2:30AM. That used to not seem so late to me, but it appears as though age is catching up slowly but surely, as sad as it is.
Here are some of the sights of that night.
Monday was the cap of a long and busy weekend in Addis Ababa. In the morning, we spent some more time with Birkti and had some lunch and a coffee ceremony at her house. The big foods in Ethiopia for this holiday are doro wat and miscellaneous lamb dishes that may include tibbs and firfir. Doro wat is a spicy lentil stew-like food that has chicken (doro) and is eaten with injera (what else?). This along with beef and lamb tibbs are my favorite Ethiopian foods, so I was a pretty happy girl on New Year's Day.
Coffee ceremonies are no joke here. They take a bit of time if they are done completely traditionally. The coffee beans are roasted over a fire before they are ground and made into the a paste that is then diluted and boiled in a clay coffee pot. It isn't until this whole process is complete that it is served in small cups. It's custom that one drinks three cups in one of these ceremonies. I knew that this wasn't our last stop nor our last coffee ceremony of the day, so I had to pass on the second and third cups this time. I know I would have been happy to hear that since only a few cups is gotten out of each round of the ceremony.
Our last stop of the weekend was at Hiwot's home where we were greeted by our favorite habesha (local) 4-year-old. Nathan was kind enough to submit to his mother's request to wear his traditional clothes for the ferengi that afternoon. More coffee was ceremoniously prepared and consumed and some playtime was enjoyed. We were essentially exhausted by the time that we arrived there that afternoon, so they found three slowly-moving white girls moseying into their home. I think it was a good thing that this place was our last stop of the weekend.
Something striking was the phenomenon of the sheep over the holiday weekend. For approximately a week leading up to the new year, the city was swarming with thousands and thousands of sheep to be bought by families to be slaughtered and prepared to eat at almost every home. Thankfully, I was not a witness to any of the killings, but I did see the heaps of lamb skins that were speckled along the roads of the city. Leather companies pay back for the skins. Those who bought the sheep were pleasantly surprised to receive an 85 birr repayment instead of the typical 30-40 birr that they had received in previous times. Each sheep costs about 1,000 birr, give or take. Holiday times bring much higher prices (up to 65% increase in price), so it would seem a good idea to buy one as early as possible and keep it at home as one of our colleagues had done.
One of the hundreds of herds of sheep was making its way through our neighborhood and is shown below.
As a final thought, this was the first time that I've ever celebrated the coming of a new year without needing a winter coat outside, while there were leaves on trees, and without snow on the ground. In case you were having any worries, they can be put to rest. I'll be home in January for our new year where surely I will be bundled in a peacoat and fighting snow and ice.
Happy New Year!
Just a little bit more background of the calendar: "the Ge'ez calendar, is the principal calendar used in Ethiopia and also serves as the liturgical calendar for Christians in Eritrea belonging to the Eritrean Orthodox Church, Eastern Catholic Church and Lutheran Evangelical Church of Eritrea. It is based on the older Alexandrian orCoptic calendar, which in turn derives from the Egyptian calendar, but like the Julian calendar, it adds a leap day every four years without exception, and begins the year on August 29 or August 30 in the Julian calendar. A seven- to eight-year gap between the Ethiopian and Gregorian calendars results from alternate calculations in determining the date of the Annunciation of Jesus.
Like the Coptic calendar, the Ethiopian calendar has twelve months of 30 days each plus five or six epagomenal days, which comprise a thirteenth month. The Ethiopian months begin on the same days as those of the Coptic calendar, but their names are in Ge'ez. The sixth epagomenal day is added every four years without exception on August 29 of the Julian calendar, six months before the Julian leap day. Thus the first day of the Ethiopian year, 1 Mäskäräm, for years between 1901 and 2099 (inclusive), is usually September 11 (Gregorian), but falls on September 12 in years before the Gregorian leap year." This year was a leap year; therefore, the thirteenth month had the mentioned six days, making the new year fall on 12th September 2011 C.E. (Information gathered from here.)
So, how do Ethiopians welcome their new years? Well, since we were here for the occasion, we joined in some of the festivities. No celebration would be Ethiopian without coffee ceremonies, traditional clothes, food, music, shoulder dancing, and visits to churches and families. Of course we helped them celebrate...
The weekend began on Friday and lasted through New Year's Day - Monday. Richard and Delphine came down from the Village Cluster in Hawzien to join Sarah, Laura and I in Addis for the weekend before flying back to the north on Monday afternoon to accompany some of the MVP Cluster folks for their family gatherings.
On Friday, the five of us had dinner at a well-known restaurant in Addis called Top View. It is situated on the side of a mountain and has a great view of the city.
On Saturday, Laura and I decided to finally venture into the huge church that is rather close to our house to see the inside. We walk past it everyday and are blessed at home by the chanting coming from its very loud speakers at all hours of the night and day, especially in time surrounding feast days and during fasting times.
The name of the church is Bole Medhane Alem, or Holy Savior (Bole is the sub-city where it is located). It is the largest Christian church in Africa and one of the largest churches in the world (I'm not sure of the exact ranking in that category). It's seating capacity is 500; however, on any given afternoon when Mass is being offered, it is not uncommon to see hundreds more standing outside of the Church on its grounds participating. We would never see such a sight in the U.S. It's difficult enough, regrettably, to fill churches even on Christmas or on Ash Wednesday or on Easter, so the faith of the Ethiopian Christians always strikes me as very special as their entire culture revolves around it.
A few pictures of the Church are below, although I couldn't capture the staggering size of this building in a photo.
In the Evening, we took some advice from Birkti and went to a jazz club in the Piassa part of the city. Even though the music wasn't actually all jazz, we enjoyed hearing some eclectic versions of some American songs and had our dinner there that evening. Here are some of those pictures.
On Sunday the five of us gave our favorite Addis taxi driver some business and took a drive up the Entoto mountain.
Along the way, we encountered thousands of people swarming the streets and roadside shops of the Shiro Meda part of Addis Ababa. The people were buying traditional clothes, sheep, chickens, chat, and other miscellaneous goods for their upcoming new year's celebrations. It was crazy crowded. Cars were attempting to pass through, but were facing quite the trial making their ways through the ocean of people. After finally making it through, we chugged up the mountain and made it to the first of two churches that we visited.
The first church, St. Mary's Church, is the former dwelling of Emperor Minilk and Empress Titu who reigned from the mid to late 1800's (Gregorian Calendar). They later relocated the Palace and Capital to the lower land Addis Ababa city because the cold weather at the top of the mountain was a bit much for the Empress. The former palace and grounds have been preserved from their time as residents there. Photos of our short tour and of the church there are presented below.
The next church we visited had an old rockhewn church aside from the much larger and newer church that we spent most of our time in. While we were in the main church, there was a group of about ten priests and deacons in a small room connected to the nave of the church chanting some spiritual songs accompanied by drums and a tambourine-like instrument called a tsenatsen. There were also very beautiful paintings in the church that depicted mostly Biblical stories, but also martyrs commemorated by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. A few scenes are here:
After relaxing a bit Sunday afternoon, we met up with Birkti for some New Year's Eve festivities at the Yod Abyssinia Cultural Center, which is a quick walk from our house. This ended up being the first of multiple places we would visit that night. We began our celebration at 7PM. We ate some Ethiopian food and tasted some tej, or honey wine, and enjoyed the music and dancing entertainment provided on stage.
We then headed to another Cultural Center, Ethio Millennium, where it was a more laid-back atmosphere and the dancing was performed by everyone in the audience. It seemed to be about 100 degrees inside, but that did not stop any of us from joining the extremely crowded dance space. Some of Birkti's friends were there, so we met them and had a great time dancing and enjoying the scenes there.
And then again after that, we went to a non-traditional dance club where a DJ was playing a mixture of American and Amharic music. Again, it was very hot, but the cool outside air wasn't difficult to access after breaking a sweat in there. This was the foreigners' last stop that night, but it wasn't the end of the night for Birkti and her friends. They continued on to another traditional center close to the office where they found some of our co-workers. We went home. It's become rather apparent to me that the late nights that I was able to handle 4 or 5 years ago while still in college are becoming elements of only past times. The residents of our house were in bed by 2:30AM. That used to not seem so late to me, but it appears as though age is catching up slowly but surely, as sad as it is.
Here are some of the sights of that night.
Monday was the cap of a long and busy weekend in Addis Ababa. In the morning, we spent some more time with Birkti and had some lunch and a coffee ceremony at her house. The big foods in Ethiopia for this holiday are doro wat and miscellaneous lamb dishes that may include tibbs and firfir. Doro wat is a spicy lentil stew-like food that has chicken (doro) and is eaten with injera (what else?). This along with beef and lamb tibbs are my favorite Ethiopian foods, so I was a pretty happy girl on New Year's Day.
Coffee ceremonies are no joke here. They take a bit of time if they are done completely traditionally. The coffee beans are roasted over a fire before they are ground and made into the a paste that is then diluted and boiled in a clay coffee pot. It isn't until this whole process is complete that it is served in small cups. It's custom that one drinks three cups in one of these ceremonies. I knew that this wasn't our last stop nor our last coffee ceremony of the day, so I had to pass on the second and third cups this time. I know I would have been happy to hear that since only a few cups is gotten out of each round of the ceremony.
Our last stop of the weekend was at Hiwot's home where we were greeted by our favorite habesha (local) 4-year-old. Nathan was kind enough to submit to his mother's request to wear his traditional clothes for the ferengi that afternoon. More coffee was ceremoniously prepared and consumed and some playtime was enjoyed. We were essentially exhausted by the time that we arrived there that afternoon, so they found three slowly-moving white girls moseying into their home. I think it was a good thing that this place was our last stop of the weekend.
Something striking was the phenomenon of the sheep over the holiday weekend. For approximately a week leading up to the new year, the city was swarming with thousands and thousands of sheep to be bought by families to be slaughtered and prepared to eat at almost every home. Thankfully, I was not a witness to any of the killings, but I did see the heaps of lamb skins that were speckled along the roads of the city. Leather companies pay back for the skins. Those who bought the sheep were pleasantly surprised to receive an 85 birr repayment instead of the typical 30-40 birr that they had received in previous times. Each sheep costs about 1,000 birr, give or take. Holiday times bring much higher prices (up to 65% increase in price), so it would seem a good idea to buy one as early as possible and keep it at home as one of our colleagues had done.
One of the hundreds of herds of sheep was making its way through our neighborhood and is shown below.
As a final thought, this was the first time that I've ever celebrated the coming of a new year without needing a winter coat outside, while there were leaves on trees, and without snow on the ground. In case you were having any worries, they can be put to rest. I'll be home in January for our new year where surely I will be bundled in a peacoat and fighting snow and ice.
Happy New Year!
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