According to the Ethiopian calendar, today is the first day of 2002!
Nope, that's not a typo. The Ethiopian calendar, also called the Ge'ez calendar, is based on the Coptic calendar, which originated from the Egyptian calendar. The seven to eight year gap between the Ethiopian and Gregorian (the universal civil calendar--the one used by most Western countries) calendars results from alternate calculations of the Egyptians and the Roman Catholic Church in determining the date of the Annunciation of Jesus. The Ethiopian calendar is divided into 12 months of 30 days each and a 13th month of 5 days (6 days in leap year). Each Ethiopian year is dedicated to one of four Evangelists: St. Matthew, St. Mark, St. Luke and St. John. The year of St. Luke is Leap Year, and therefore always has the extra sixth day in the thirteenth month. (If you find all of this as fascinating as we do, click (here) for more great information).
New Year's Day in Ethiopia is known as Enkutatash (meaning the "gift of jewels"). Historically, it marks the return of the Queen of Sheba from her expensive jaunt to visit and thoroughly impress King Solomon in Jerusalem. When she returned to Ethiopia, her chiefs welcomed of her by replenishing her treasury with inku or jewels. Enkutatash also traditionally marks the end of the "rainy season".
We celebrated with dinner at our favorite Ethiopian Restaurant, the Queen of Sheba. We had our "usual"--lentil sambusas, doro wot and beef tibs (extra berbere, please!) and plenty of injera--finished off with some Ethiopian coffee, of course. YUM!
In true Times Square fashion, Miss M insisted on making her New Year's entrance in a tiara and sunglasses.
We were also thinking this would be a really cool day to get THE CALL! As of last week we were officially number 4 on the waiting list. We've moved up at least one spot since the Andersen family received their referral yesterday for precious 6-week old twin girls. I also heard through the grapevine that there may have been another baby girl referred to a family who doesn't have a blog or report to the listserv. Even though it turned out that today was not our day, we're hopeful that we will see our Diamond in September. Stay tuned...
Yay for being unofficially #3 on the list! We are now #3 on the boys!!! Hoping for calls for both of us very soon! Have fun celebrating the New Year!!!
ReplyDeleteCan you believe you're #2?!!
ReplyDeleteHello there! Congrats on moving up on the list. My husband just returned from ET and he saw a bunch of new babies come to HH while he was there. Your little one could have been in the bunch!!!
ReplyDeletehow fun soon it will be your turn, thanks for saying hi
ReplyDeletei am going crazy as well!!!! i imagine our baby being at HH already, but maybe not...who knows?...i cant stop thinking about our call and when it will be. i cant wait to see his little face for the first time! i imagine the wait after our referral will be much harder than the wait to find out who he is :) I know our calls will come soon! My birthday is the 28th of this month, so that would be a nice gift! yay about all the babies coming into HH...I wonder if our little ones are there? so much to wonder about...
ReplyDeleteOur babes are getting closer! Wonder if they know how crazy we are about them already. :)
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