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I’ve been meaning all week to write a little about the Ethiopian Millennium celebration that was held this week in Ethiopia. It is now the year 2000 for Ethiopia. How could that be?
The Ethiopian calendar has twelve months of 30 days each plus either five or six extra days each year, which they call the thirteenth month. The six-day month happens every 4 years and makes 366 days for that year, functioning just like our leap year. This all means that the Ethiopian calendar runs about 7 year behind the standard Eastern calendar.
Just as with the millennium celebrated in the Western world, the Ethiopian millennium was a big deal to people. For months there have been building projects all over Addis. New hotels have been built. Some of the main roads in the city were cleaned up in preparation for the many expected visitors. Some sources say that in preparation for the millennium, many homeless people were moved out of the city.
There is an interesting series of posts on the Ferengi Addis blog describing just what happened as the holiday transpired, including this one about Millenium Eve and this one about the aftermath of the big party. I was amazed to read that during the celebration a sheep cost nearly $80.
In this article about the millennium, Ethiopian Millennium activist Professor Ephraim Isaac had this to say about the holiday:
“This is one chance in one thousand years. Ethiopia is known in the world today as a country where poverty, illiteracy, disease, HIV and so on, are prevalent. This is an unpleasant image of a country. Of course, we have to deal with these problems. Ethiopia is a country with a long history, very rich culture and wonderful climate and very spiritual people.”
The professor went on to encourage the Ethiopian people to use the millennium celebration as an inspiration to act in unity and work to change their country’s negative image.
Dear Mary,
If you would be so kind, I’m after some advice.
My husband and I are looking to adopt from Ethiopia, we are British expats now living in the UAE.
We are looking to adopt here in the UAE, however we are finding it difficult to find an agency that we can use.
Would you know of an agency we could contact?
Also thank you for sharing your experiences on the adoption blog. It is a fascinating read both on a factual and personal level. Keep it up!
Take care
Rozina.
Did you say happy new year to your girls?
Poor dh, I forgot about it. But he doesn’t care about that sort of thing anyway. We were interested to note that the Ethiopian millenium fell on Rosh Hashana this year.