The Ethiopian New Year was celebrated on September, 11th
(our calendar). It is now officially 2005 in Ethiopia.
The New Year is celebrated at the end of the 3 months of heavy
rains, symbolizing the beginning of a new year. We’re a bit suspicious that this isn’t
really the end of the long rains, as it is pouring rain as I type.
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| singing girls |
From what we could glean, there are several New Year’s
customs. On New Year’s Eve, leaves and
wood are bundled up into torches, and burned in front of people’s homes. On New Year’s Day everyone (with the
exception of us) dresses up. Girls go
door to door singing songs in exchange for money. Boys sell pictures they have drawn. We now have a lovely collection of New Year
drawings in our sitting room. |
| chickens for sale |
A large family meal is had. On the days before the New Year,
the streets were filled with chickens and goats for sale. On New Year’s Day they were conspicuously
absent from the streets. Our landlord
(who lives on the same property as us) slaughtered a sheep for his family
meal. Luckily for our weak western
stomachs, it was all done very discretely behind a tarp.
Our very kind and hospitable landlady invited us to
share their family meal; the sheep was excellent (and very fresh), as was the
doro wat. We ate enough to sustain us
for the next few days.
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| end of dinner |
Closing words from Aysha and Sunil: Fresh guava juice is very good. Ethiopian New Year was great/interesting/cool. Too bad our parents didn’t buy a live
chicken. Our landlady made delicious
injera and lots of other food, but we couldn’t eat the raw meat. We really liked the popcorn they served at
the coffee ceremony. I’m glad we got the
day off in the middle of the week for New Year’s.
It will be a while before our next post. We are shortly going to be cloistered away at
the Red Cross Training Centre for 10 long days in order to do our official
CUSO/VSO in country training.
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