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Published: September 16th 2007
Bonfire for the New Year
Tesfaye, our night guard, holding his sticks in the fire.Not only is there a different time system in Ethiopia (the day starts at 6am rather than midnight, so that 8am is 2 in the morning, local time), and a different annual calendar (New Year is in September and there are 13 months), but it is also a different year. So, this last week we were celebrating the New Millennium.
There was a lovely atmosphere in Addis and Millennium Fever had definitely hit by the start of the week, with flags and banners appearing on many buildings in town.
On New Year’s Eve (Tuesday 11th September GC) the Government announced that all government offices would be closed until Monday. What a bonus!
In the evening, our Landlady invited us to join the celebrations in the compound - a bonfire into which we all held a bundle of sticks for luck - followed by coffee. She also sprayed us with perfume, which is supposed to bring sweetness (I think!). Then, we went off to a party at another volunteer’s house, complete with fireworks, a traditional Ethiopian New Year song and a bad rendition of Auld Lang Syne at midnight.
Yohannes picked Mary up from the party and offered
Clare and I a lift home, via a drive around the streets of Addis. Many people were out in the street, standing facing the direction of the Royal Palace to watch the fireworks coming from there. Again, the atmosphere was great, with an almost tangible air of excitement. At the same time, I found it a bit sad that such fantastic fireworks were lighting up the skies of one of the poorest countries in the world.
On New Year’s Day, Clare and I had a late breakfast on our ‘terrace’ as the rains had temporarily stopped, then went out for lunch at Blue Tops Restaurant (expensive, but over-rated) to celebrate the first day of the Millennium.
On Thursday, Clare, Liza and I went for a walk in the Entoto hills overlooking Addis. One of the great things is that you can quickly get out of Addis, into countryside, just by walking. It was a peaceful walk, with only two children accompanying us for a short time. We walked up from Shola, and then came down into Kotobe. It just started to rain as we got into a line taxi to get back to Haya Hulet.
In the
afternoon, Abebe, the chief of the National Road Safety Coordination Office, invited me to his house. His wife, very kindly, cooked vegetarian food for me - it was even nicer as most people seemed to buy a sheep to eat on the Thursday (it having been a normal fasting day on New Year’s Day).
The celebrations continued on Saturday afternoon with a party at Patricia’s house. As well as some existing volunteers and non-VSO people, there were also quite a few ex-volunteers who had returned to Ethiopia for the Millennium.
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