Happy Engutatash Eve!!!
September 11th has a pretty bad association here in the U.S., but in Ethiopia, it's New Year's Eve today.
Tomorrow is the first day of the new millennium in Ethiopia - it will be the year 2000. Woo hoo!
The millennium celebrations planned in Addis Ababa incorporate both the western tradition of midnight and fireworks and the Ethiopian tradition of gift giving and feasting on Engutatash (New Year's Day). Here's a great article on the goings-on in Ethiopia today and tomorrow.
1999 was a leap year in Ethiopia so today (Sept 11th) is the 6th day of Pugami (the 13th month) in the Ethiopian calendar, the leap year extra day.
**Updated to add a link to a great video on Haze's blog!**
5 comments:
that is facinating!
so will sprout's legal birthdate be 1999 or 2000, or will they "adjust" it to align with the western calendar. i hope so, b/c she will be a very popular 14 year old who can legally buy beer for her friends!!
LOL
They will adjust her birthday.
But she'll always have her official Ethio date to fall back on when she reaches 40 -- I wish I could jump back 7 years, too!!
You know, both of my children have 1999 birthdates--one of them seems pretty immature compared to the other though.
Happy New Year!
wait, wouldn't that make her 47?
oh yeah!! DOH!
She'll only like having the alternative bday for that short period of time when older is cooler.
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